| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Only in this country.............. | |
| Posted by: | Ian Silver | |
| Date/Time: | 02/03/12 11:06:00 |
| I lived in Lagos in the early 80s in a "civilised" area near the Apapa Port. We had our water delivered by tanker to fill a large outdoor tank; the piped mains having broken down soon after the Brits left. This water was pumped up to a tank in the roof and came out of the taps a cloudy brown colour, so not for consumption! Drinking water had to be got separately and ideally then filtered even more through a good ceramic filter or reverse osmosis filter or some clever german plastic mobile device which I forget the name of but which was very efficient (and expensive). The other essential services all operated in a similar makeshift fashion; the electric supply was 3 phase and, working as an electrical engineer, I was horrified at the jumble of wires that constituted our fuseboard in a room which doubled as our workshop. The richer Nigerians and expats who made up the community increasingly needed more and more power for their air conditioners and the National Power company subsequently had to "juggle" the main fuses to provide power to those areas that paid the most, meaning that the majority of residents had to install generators at the back of their houses ready to kick in when the all to frequent power cuts came. They couldn't risk overloading the main supply lines or they might melt, then Lagos would be out of action. I worked in shanty towns mainly, notably a place called Ajegunle which translates as Jungle City, and though these places had illegal electricity supplies wired up to the NP company's poles, sometimes with crocodile clips, and open sewers running past the fronts of all the shacks built from VW packing cases (ah, home!!), you could always get a freezing cold bottle of Coca Cola! Hey, the perfect world. To be continued.... |