Poor old Toby dog was unable to put his weight on one of his front legs this morning. As there was no obvious cause I decided to take him on the 40 minute, pothole laden journey to Howard the Australian vet.
All went smoothly (apart from some alarming clanking as I drove over drastic speed bumps) and Howard diagnosed a probable sprained ligament. Rest and time were prescribed and we set off home.
A short way down the road stood an armed man near a truck belonging to the "safety on the highways" branch of Nigerian security. Several ideas about how to improve safety on the highways sprang to mind: fill in the road craters, remove lunatic drivers and unsafe vehicles, don't have armed men standing in the middle of the road but I decided to keep my suggestions to myself. He asked to see my particulars and directed me to the side of the road where his two colleagues waited with their automatic rifles.
"Where is my happy new year?" asked the first, code for give me some money but we don't mention that. I wished him a happy new year and the ability to do his job with honesty and integrity. Then he spotted Toby. "You should give me your dog." (Some tribes on the Plateau see dogmeat as a delicacy.)
"You're not going to eat my dog," I replied.
"God wants us to give things," he answered.
"Not our dogs to be eaten."
We went good humouredly back and forth on the same subject for a while before he waved me on. I wasn't a lucrative target and other cars were passing by so Toby escaped becoming dinner. And people wonder why sometimes we just don't want to leave the compound.
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| Dinner? |
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