Yankari

Yankari, Wikimedia

 The only place I remember baboons stealing things was at Yankari. We went there once on a special holiday. Yankari was special because of the swimming. Yankari wasn't a zoo, the animals were wild but in some kind or protected area. I see now it is called the country's "premier game reserve" and was established in 1956. I have a slight memory of some kind of tour to see wild animals but this memory pales in comparison to the swimming.

We were not allowed to swim anywhere in Nigeria apart from the Durbar pool and Yankari. That was because of bilharzia, a waterborne disease. Nigerians did swim in rivers, one would see the boys jumping and playing insouciantly into filthy rivers, but there was a lot of disease in Nigeria. We also weren't allowed to go barefoot anywhere, ever, boundaries we stuck to rigidly, through fear. The reason for this was hookworm, which would get in through your feet and do horrible things to you. Again, Nigerians went barefoot all the time, although most people had flip-flops. So Yankari was a liberation, at least in terms of the swimming.

The site was a huge vertical wall of rock which was heated by the sun. A warm spring emerged from under this rock. It was only like this for, I think, a hundred yards or so,because I have a vague memory that people washed clothes further down. But in that first stretch, we bathed as if we were in heaven, because Yankari seemed as like heaven as could be. We couldn't believe our good fortune, that there was such a place and that we were there. The feeling was a mixture of awe, delight and excitement: the eternal sunshine and the warm, safe, crystal clear water with a sandy bottom. It wasn't deep or or murky like the lakes we sometimes went to. There was no bilharzia, nor crocodiles nor dangerous fish. Everything was perfect. The picture above is recognisable, but not how I remember Yankari. It seems to have been much spoiled. I don't remember this concrete, though it might have been there. I remember a more sandy surface, which may be false, though again I don't have our photos to refer to. In some pictures I have seen online there is even an ugly low wall beside the water which definitely wasn't there. I don't recall grafitti on the rock at all. There were smallish trees lining the side of the spring where you see this barren concrete, because the baboons looked down at us from these. The water had a dappled effect, especially just below this pool, which was from the shade of the trees. I don't remember the water being bright blue like this. It was just clear.

The baboons, which we didn't see in Kaduna, added a microdose of reality and humour to this heaven. Once we got over the shock of their scandalous behinds we noticed they were very clever. They would sit in the trees above and wait for any opportunity to steal anything, especially food. I saw a baboon steal swimming trunks while another stole a Nigerian boy's long piece of sugarcane. People sometimes kept these to chew. They taunted him with it, holding it just out of his reach as he jumped up and down, squawking indignantly.

Each family stayed in a round, traditional round hut, except they were not made of mud, as in the villages, but some harder material. They had thatched roofs. The door had to be kept closed otherwise, the baboons or warthogs would enter and cause chaos, looking for food. Warthogs roamed freely but we gave them a wide berth. They were scary - like boar with huge, curly tusks. It's a wonder no-one was attacked - or maybe they were. But things were very different then.