the blog at planet-roz

Spent Christmas and the New Year in Nigeria, where at the beginning of the year this new crash helmet law went into effect for okada (motorbike taxis) riders and their passengers. For starters, I hardly saw any real crash helmets — mainly plastic hard hats, which are probably great on a plastic construction site, but maybe not so much on a motorbike, but correct me if I’m wrong.

Anyway, it was just such a strange and comical sight to see women wearing their head ties, which are quite elaborate at times, and span the height of between 1 and 2 crash helmets to start with, and then at the top you see this tiny little plastic yellow helmet perched on top of the head tie, precariously held in place by the passenger’s hand. Come any sort of collision and throw from that bike, that helmet will be the first thing to go flying, which defeats the whole purpose.

I had heard that some okada passengers were apprehensive about wearing the helmets because they thought juju (voodoo, black magic) could have been placed there, and others were thinking of catching head lice from other passengers. I had to take the okada to get around, so I first wore a head scarf and then the helmet. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of either the comical ladies with their way high head gear or me with my little scarf under the hard hat.

Tried to join Pyramid Video yesterday. The conversation, between myself and an English-sounding woman for goodness sake, went something like this:

Pyramid Video: “Are you a foreigner?”.

Me: “Yes.”

PV: “Then you’ll need to show ID and a credit card”.

Me: “I don’t have a credit card.”

PV: “Sorry then.”

Me: “So you mean I can’t join because I don’t have a credit card?”

PV: “Yes.”

Me: “But I joined a video club just down the street and I didn’t have to produce a credit card. Can’t I just pay cash?”

PV: “Either you produce a credit card or pay a R1000 deposit on each DVD you take out. Foreigners have left the country and gone off with our films in the past.”

Me: “That’s ridiculous. You don’t even have DVDs worth taking out for that amount.” (Or words to that effect)

Ridiculous. Compared to Netflix, Pyramid Video is a rinky dink backwater joint. It’s got more films than Mr Video which is why I wanted to join, but obviously I can’t. I am not the DVD buying type, preferring to rent, so this is a big inconvenience for me. Ugh!