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LAGOS | 7  a . m .

The Generator Man


Moky Makura

With or without electricity, my favourite city in the entire world is not


dissimilar to a series of quick, sharp slaps to the cheek. Once the initial
shock is over, it’s an experience you won’t forget in a hurry, and, although
you can’t argue that it is fun at the time, you have to admit that it is
probably unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.
And that’s Lagos. A city that’s as alive at 7 a.m. as it is at 7 p.m. A place
where a day seems to last longer than the usual twenty-four hours, where
at 7 a.m. you feel like you’re already halfway through it. The trick is to
find ways of avoiding the sharp slaps that you know are coming.

My first slap of the day comes at 7:01.


I wake up suddenly to the sound of a street fight brewing outside my
open bedroom window. I listen intently; the fog of sleep quickly lifts and
my mind and body are alert, ready for a day in Lagos.
One of the voices is that of my older sister, a usually calm, generally
good-natured and wonderfully energetic character packed into a petite
5´1˝ frame. She’s warming up to an argument with a man just outside
my window.
But this is not just any man. This is the man who has incorrectly
installed her generator – a machine on which all activities in her home,
and in the country for that matter, depend. He caused us to have No
Electricity last night, the night I arrived in Lagos from South Africa.
(A small note about electricity in Lagos: there isn’t any.)

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