Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
My first day in Kano, 1973
First time out of Europe
For the younger me
Quite a revelation
So much life to see.
Six hour flight from London
And yet a world away
I’d often been a stranger
Lived a lot abroad
But Kano was quite different
To anywhere I’d been.
Getting off the aircraft
It was the heat hit me.
I wasn’t used to heat at night
It felt a little strange.
And then, to state the obvious
Well everyone was black.
They belonged, were all at home
And I the odd one out.
I was met there at the airport
By a British Council man
And drove with him
Through Kano streets
That first and memorable time.
It felt like 3D cinema
The picture on all sides
Bewildering, lively, colourful
Too vibrant to be real.
Handcarts, cars and bicycles
Motorcycles too
And of course pedestrians
With bundles on their heads.
There seemed no rhyme or reason
A bewildering busy throng.
The sights, the sounds,
the heat, the smells
Came at us from all sides.
Kano is spectacular
A city made of mud
Well baked in Saharan sun
It’s quite as good as bricks.
There’s modern buildings too of course
But none that looked like home.
I’m booked to stay that first night
in Kano’s Central Hotel
Unused to air conditioning
it is an awful row.
I don’t sleep well that awful noise
And strangely I’m too cold.
It may have been that evening
Or perhaps the following day
That I was persuaded to venture out
With other VSOs.
I’m never quite sure how it is
They mark you out as new.
Perhaps it is the pallid face
Or something in your walk
But every beggar in the town
Makes beeline straight for you.
I did not know the money
Certainly had no coins
But embarrassedly looking
Was enough to make it worse.
You must be surreptitious
Or just not give at all
For any hint that you might give
Will just make things much worse.
There were happier
more impressive sights:
The grace, the colourful clothes.
So many in traditional dress
Respecting who they were.
Two years of happy days spent there
But won’t forget my first.
Andrew Green's Poems 