LESSONS FROM ENUGU (be nice to those who cook/handle your food)

From the moment I got the mail informing me of a one week training in Enugu, all I could think of was how superb it would to be off work. It was going to be my pre-leave, after all we now have pre everything abi? From pre-wedding pictures to pre-birthday pictures to even pre-sex pictures *smh

I really didn’t care for the course content, all I needed was the time away from the office. The only thing I had to contend with was packing. I hate packing. Worse, I hate unpacking after a trip. I didn’t want to pack too much but yet I couldn’t seem to know just exactly how much to pack for a one week trip neither did I want to be the one with the biggest bag.

Sometimes I wish work was like school days, where you go on breaks in between semesters, like we have first term, second term and third term with a month’s break in between (this is the point I envy teachers). I mean, working month after month from January to December is kind of killing. The one month leave is really not enough. Maybe if it were the standard 8:00am to 5:00pm kind of job it would have been much easier, but 7:30am till God knows when with some work filled weekends can be quite the kill.

This post isn’t about me whining about my unending work hours. It’s about my beautiful trip to the Coal City, though it was almost marred when Franklin and I broke the golden rule - don’t offend the person that cooks your food.

Before going to a new city, it’s normal to have expectations or opinions, based on what we have heard or read. Two things surprised me about Enugu –

-       The city has very good roads, and it was quite impressive. The neatness of the roads is also worthy of mention.(yet in Benin City we say Oshiomhole is working, correction, worked during his first tenure)

-      One thing that really got me surprised, was the music played by the radio stations. The plan was to go with my headphone but when Elvis saw the picture of the beats by Dre pro on instagram, he said it wouldn’t follow me back to Benin. That was the point I decided it would be a no music trip. I’ll keep my ears buds free to enjoy the natural sounds. I totally ruled out enjoying any form of music from the stereo as I expected it will be kparakpor all the way, with OAPs trademarked by their deep Ibo accent.

I was totally impressed with the jams the radio stations played, right from Anambra to Enugu State. It was like the stations stole my playlist. Both recent and old jams were played. It was all hits, back to back!

At a filling station where we stopped to buy gas I heard Troye Sivan’s Wild playing from the speakers of the station. I couldn’t hold it anymore. I had to let it out and express my amazement at the quality of music the radio stations had been playing, I never experredit! Even stations in Benin hardly play Troye Sivan!

At the training venue, the first thing we saw after we had settled down was a slide show. The first slide had some questions against a black background, first questions was – why are you here?

I laughed.

Next thing that popped on the screen – because HR asked you to?

Followed by – You needed time off work?

Hehehe…Whoever prepared the slides read my mind.

On Tuesday evening, Franklin and I went down to the hotel’s restaurant to order our dinner. The person on duty that evening was different from the guy who had been there since our arrival that Sunday. The new guy got our billing wrong. Franklin got really pissed and insisted the boy speaks to his Manager. He left us and came back few minutes later saying he hadn’t been briefed by the person who handed over to him about the concession for us.

Franklin was having none it and asked to see the Manager himself. Well, I tried to persuade him that it wasn’t necessary but Franklin insisted. Off we went. The guy followed us.

Franklin hadn’t finished making his complaints when the Manager turned to the guy and gave him a total dress down. He practically tore him apart with harsh words right there at the lobby in front of everyone. Gosh! I felt so bad, but what could I do? Some people and their awful disciplinary skills though. Well, I know that’s what most pissed-off customers want to see - an erring sales person being properly chided by their boss. But common, you can reprimand in a civil way without taking away their dignity.

The Manager apologized to us and finished the boy off with a promise to sanction him appropriately. We placed our orders and after a while the same boy brought our meals to our individual rooms. Around 4:00am I woke up with a sharp stomach pain…the pain was so terrible, at first I thought it was PUD again but after a while I knew this was something else. That was the end of sleep, at some point I had to rest on the toilet floor. It was that bad.

I felt a bit better at the break of dawn. I wasn’t myself, then I saw Franklin, he too wasn’t looking good. We began asking people if they too had stomach upset, maybe it was the food, but everyone who ate same thing were all fine. That day was horrid for both of us. We spent a better part of the training period lying down outside.

At a point I had to say what was on my mind. I asked Franklin if he wasn’t sure the guy we reported hadn’t poisoned us out of anger, because it seemed too much of a coincidence that it was just both of us having the pain meanwhile other people that ate same thing were all okay. To top it all, our food was brought by the same guy!

Franklin said we had to pally the guy immediately we got to the hotel that evening. I quickly agreed o, I didn’t go to Enugu to get killed ni.

The moment we got to the hotel, we headed straight for the restaurant hoping to see our ‘dear friend’. Thankfully he was on duty. Maybe we were giving the warning dose, we had to make amends before he gave us the final dose and that would have been it for us.

We exchanged pleasantries, made small talk with him before chipping in that we didn’t expect his Manager would react that way and hope he didn’t punish him as he had threatened. The conversation went well. We sat for a while and discussed football with the guy for about ten more minutes before leaving.

Honestly, I was scared of ordering food or eating again in that hotel. But it was already late, I couldn’t go out to get food. The pain had subsided and it seemed the guy had forgiven us. I had no choice, I needed to eat because I barely had anything to eat all day due to the pain. I went for something totally different from what I had been eating since my arrival.

That’s when I stumbled into t it – fried goat meat.

I’m not really the beef eating kind of guy.  I hate anything beef. I tried eating ram one time, it didn’t go well with my system so basically I wrote off meat including goat meat. All I’ve been eating for years now is poultry products and snail (as far as I didn’t see the bird alive or I didn’t partake in its killing).

Staring at me were three pieces of goat meat. The first bite got me regretting all the times I had goat meat in my food but gave it out. Now I’m officially hunting fried goat meat, well for someone who hardly goes out that’s going to be one hell of a hunt.

FRIED GOAT MEAT.