The Water Fall

In the summer I kept hearing the citizens of our lovely town talk about a waterfall, in a village far away. The journey to the waterfall was fairly arduous, Vince, one of our former finance people thought he was going to have a heart attack, so after he went there for the first time he started to work out a lot which made him a lot healthier and happier. Jordan, the Banner man, also said that it was a hard trek to the place.

Eventually, I decided to make time for a trip, the falls; from speaking to people I knew that we would need a four wheel drive vehicle, Mr Umar, the Transport Officer, said that I would assign me a driver who would take us there. I asked if I would have to speak to the driver but he said he would make those arrangements. To make it cheaper I invited about four people to come with me.



On the big day it turned when I called Umar about the truck and driver he told me to speak Mustapha. When I called Mustapha he told me it was his day off and he was going on a trip with his wife, and furthermore no one had told him about driving excursionists. When I heard this I complained to the TO about his broken promise which made him mad, since I did not want to get into a useless discussion of he said/he said I simply asked could me and Labaran pick up the truck? He agreed most readily to this so we picked up the truck and got the rest of our party. which consisted of;

• Your narrator
  
• Labaran the fixer
  
• Young Victor, the aspiring poet
  
• Charles "Indiana State of" Jones
  
• Jamal "X Shabazz"
  
• Melba the shrinker of heads.
  

After a long drive over dirt roads past villages, rice paddies, fields of 10 foot high millet, over streams we got to the village of the waterfall. The drive had reminded me of the time we drove my car through the Modoc National Forest so that we could get to the Rainbow Gathering. Just when I thought my lower back could not take it any more we arrived at Waterfall Village, this made me very happy since the truck was very crowded and uncomfortable in the back seat.


As usual whenever you go on excursions in Nigeria you will meet the villagers, spend some time with them, share kola, and give them a little something something. In return you will get a group of helpers who will carry your bag even if you don't want them to. going through all the protocols of Adamawa with the prominent elder we started the walk to our destination.



We walked past the flowering okra fields which Melba had never seen before and started to go up the highlands. The trip was okay for the first hour and then we came to the rough, steep part. Imagine if you will a path that is 1.5 metres from a sheer drop. At the end of this drop there is a rocky, rapid stream that has carved gullies in the valley. The path is overgrown with elephant grass, bushes, and other things, the path is also bisected by streams, in some sections its slippery because of the clays in the soil. and there can be a 40 degree incline in a few spots. While you are picturing all this imagine doing this on a humid day with temperature in the 40 centigrade range and you will have an idea of what the trip was like. Anyway, it was really hard for the 30 minutes it took to get over the hard part and my heart probably went up to 80 beats per minute during that half hour. But when I got done there was the waterfall in all its misty glory.

I took off my clothes stepped into the water and swam a little, let the water carry me down a couple of cataracts and had a great time. I even stepped under the waterfall and it was fucking cool. The force of the water wanted to push us away from the cataract, knock us down and carry us away. The only way me, Victor & Charles were able to stay under the fall was by holding on to each other..



After being there for an hour we all got dressed and went back. On the return I sat in the pickup's bed with Victor and it was a lot more comfortable though very un safe since there are no seatbelts there, though it was fun to watch the trees, roads and villages speeding away. It was also much cooler than the ride to the falls since the cool breeze made by the speeding vehicle was much more pleasant than the underpowered air-conditioner.