Nigeria, Feb. 22 -- The road into State X, Local Government Y, Community Z is not a road. It is a long, angry paragraph written in the handwriting of neglect. Every sentence is a pothole. Every comma is a gully. Every full stop is an erosion crater daring your shock absorbers to fear God. We did 10 kilometres in more than an hour, crawling like penitents on pilgrimage. At some point our vehicle began to ask philosophical questions about destiny: "What exactly did I do to deserve this combustion-engine wickedness?"



By the time we arrived, we were no longer human beings. We had turned into red-dust sculptures; our black car had converted to fire-brick brown. Even the Toyota logo on the grille seemed to whisper, "Now you understand why ...