for the record...

i am writing this blog post for the records and to peg the date for future reference. for the fifth time since i moved into my flat in february 2010, i had less than 2 hours of sleep on a weeknight. as always, i have come to work very grudgy and sleep deprived and it is one of the days when i have to be alert. i am caught between a rock and a hard place and hope that writing it out will aid me in finding a solution.

so last night, i went to bed early. i was very exhausted after a day that didn't appear to end. i had back to back meetings and had to send off quite a few terse emails and letters. i remember praying throughout the day that God should not let anything go wrong with any of the assignments i have been given, and in the car i asked martin to turn up the airconditioner as my head seemed to be hot. so, it was all i could do yesterday to sleep off as soon as my head hit the pillow at 8.30pm.

suddenly i woke up. my eyes flew wide open and all sleep instantly left. it was almost as if i was waking in reaction to something and i lay frozen on my bed listening for sounds to help me determine if it was safe to move or if i should keep pretending to be asleep. nothing. i then moved my head slightly to look out the windows (i live on the front ground flat and i am the first flat after coming in through the gate) to be sure noone was staring in at me hence the creepy feeling...nothing. but i couldn't go back to sleep. i forced my eyes shut until they hurt and i just let them lay open. and then 5 minutes later i heard really loud knocks on the gate. it was obviously only one set of hands knocking but it was so loud that the entire gate shook with each thump of the fist. at a point, i considered jumping off the bed and running to the room with direct view of the gate to enable me see who it was as soon as the security man opened the gate. or maybe to ask him to ignore the knock until he could ascertain who it was. but i didn't have the luxury of long thought as i heard a very familiar voice pierce through the very silent midnight air.

"STUPID!" he yelled at the top of his voice. "FUCKING IDIOTS!!! OPEN THIS MURRAFUCKIN GATE! IMBECILES. I HATE YOU! ALL OF YOU STUPID IDIOTS!" and he banged the gate some more. yes, that always heralds the arrival of my last neighbour, the neighbourhood drunk (i shall call him Olurin). of course the security man had no choice than to open the gate, upon recognizing the voice of one of his employers and as expected Olurin came in with the force of a tornado, he swung the gate wide open and slammed it against the wall, shaking the entire gate and making the loudest imaginable noise. he faced the mallam and asked him, "who da HELL are you???" his voice only raising to screaming pitch to emphasize a vulgar word or at the end of a sentence. i didn't hear the response of the mallam or if he was allowed to speak before Olurin added "are you Mohammed? (the mallam's name is mamodu) ARE YOU the STUPID good-for-nothing they...erm...erm...WHO DA HELL brought you sef?"...silence. followed by "go and KNOCK every damn door. go and know this so-called lawyers door - i dont KNOW his name...i NEED TO KNOW my NEIGHBOURS! but I cannot force them, i HATE ALL OF YOU. STUPID." and then as loudly as he came in, he opened the gate again with all the noise in the world, and stepped right back outside the compound slamming the gate behind him.

by this time i was wide awake. i contemplated going outside to accost this maniac but then i thought of the other time when the last security man tried to reason with him and walked him politely to his house, only to be unexpectedly hit with a plank as he turned around to leave. without warning. he got three stitches. i also considered how his younger brother was hospitalized for 3 days on one of his drunken seminars, after he came home and asked the brother to break the television and that one refused. to cut a sordid story short, he somehow hit his brother severally (with the young one defending himself by trying to fend him off - not hit him back - out of respect), and then smashed the damn television himself and trashed his entire house with his own hands. so i thought, if i get killed in the process, i bet everyone will wonder how the matter managed to concern me more than other neighbours.

he came back inside the gate with fanfare and called "MOHAMMED!!!" and the mallam answered him almost as loudly. silence. after what seemed like ages he goes "Do you KNOW who i AM?!!!" and Mamodu goes "No Sir". silence. "STUPID boy. I am a jolly jolly person. as you see me so, i like jolly jolly" and then in an apparent gripping of patriotic spirit, bursts into the national anthem. just. like. that.

in the ensuing silence, i heard my neighbour above chuckle. so apparently, i wasn't the only one awake. and clearly noone else could be bothered. you see, when i first came and witnessed this display of shame, i was completely enraged. i recall putting a call through to my closest friends who were lawyers asking them what legal steps i could take to end this circus. i was going to write a strongly worded letter to the landlord's association, write to report him to my landlord as a nuisance to the other tenants, and file a police complaint against him for disturbing the public peace. all that was before i spoke to the oldest tenant in the building who told me each instance when all that had been done in the past.

for context, this is a 43 year old man living in what is essentially the boys-quarters of my house. he works on a vessel as a life guard (goodness help any drowning folk) and gets paid a lot of money every 14 days - and i hear it is very good money. he has no wife, no children, no car, no tangible asset, no building he's putting up, nothing. when he is not drunk, there are prostitutes fighting in front of his house (twice i came home and met at least 5 girls in full fisticuffs with him and his friends over how they had been short-changed - estate security took care of that situation). he is essentially living the life.

he has been robbed over 5 times in that state and left in the gutter till morning three of those times. he has been caught by anti crime police, beaten and locked up without notice to his family, who then spent days searching for him all over before finding him behind a jail cell somewhere far away. estate security has come to arrest him countless times and tied him to their dog cage until other tenants complained that he should not treated inhumanely. nothing has worked.

and so, yesternight as i sat in the dark contemplating what to do to end this needless and forced insomnia, i heard him stagger by my window while speaking to himself in low tones "Olurin you're just stupid. you're just a fool, thats why people will always abuse you. see how you are." goodness me. he was chiding himself smack in the middle of his intoxicated drama. i must confess that it melted my heart. it occured to me that somewhere inside, he was fighting himself, quite like a mental patient. there was a part of him that didn't like what he had turned out to be but it was suppressed and most likely embarassed when he gets sober. i hate to think along purely religious lines but if i have ever witnessed anything close to dual personality or demonic possession, that was it.

so here i am at work, puffy eyed and grumpy but not angry. i cannot think of what to do, or how to help, but something must be done. if you have any suggestions peeps, please please let me know before i start looking for another house cos i kinda like my present location.

hope to hear from y'all soon (here, facebook, twitter, BB anywhere). thanks