In the belly of the earth

The rumbling sound of the approaching metro jolted me back to life after we have had a long walk through some streets of Paris . Walking up and down the metro station was an excruciating task for a tired soul, but I did not have a choice but muster enough strength to carry on.

“We have to hurry,” I managed to tell Nadine, my host, Mary, Toili, Farooque and Hammed, my friends. I don’t want us to miss that Metro just arriving.

“Don’t worry about that,” replied Nadine. Metro arrives every five minutes. There’s no need to hurry before we climb down the stairs another would have arrived.”

Climbing up and down the flight of stairs added to the tiredness, and I was left wondering how France was able to construct its metro numbering about three levels. Paris has one of the best metro systems in the world, as it is possible to go to any part of the city within 30 minutes with proper knowledge of the metro.

It could be really confusing for a first time tourist who may be at a loss on which route to take. To make things worse, all the information on the schedule boards were written in French. Almost everyone was holding a map, including some residents of Paris !


On a particular afternoon, Nadine, Mary and I almost missed our way, even with Nadine a resident, with us. After climbing several stairs, we realised we were taking the wrong exit to board the metro, and nothing could be more hurting to climb the flight of stairs again. On this wing, there were no elevators unlike what we had previously seen at other stops, as the number of minutes it took us to walk around the station was enough to get on the next metro.

Hence that evening, the somewhat long walk at the metro station, added to my tiredness. When we arrived at the foot of the metro, it was packed full. Yet we managed to secure a standing position in one of the coaches.

“This is Molue,” exclaimed Mary. “This is a re-enactment of what we have in Matatus in Kenya ,” added Toili.


We were all surprised at the possibility of having an overloaded metro in a city like Paris, a town in the heart of Europe . We thought that was only possible in Africa , a continent believed to be synonymous with every negative thing you can think of.

However, that was not the only negative thing we discover about Europe . Nadine had earlier warned us to be careful with our bags, as there were bag snatchers and pick-pockets, or call it pick-bags in Paris .

On a typical metro, like the Danfos and Molues in Nigeria , there were all kinds of people with different faces. There were beggars, as well as those who played musical instruments for money. On a particular day, we ran into a young boy with needle marks all over his arm, begging for money to eat.


According to him, he could not get money from government to feed himself and was unable to get a job too. His story was interesting to me because I felt he was still very young and should have been in school. Obviously, the needle marks on his arms showed he had been into drug. Nobody made any attempt to give him money, except an old woman who dropped a coin into his palm.


For me, Nigeria is not the only country where hawking or begging in buses is common, as the Paris example has shown.

With this scenario in a town termed the world’s most beautiful city, it is therefore not right for Western nations to keep labeling Nigeria , or even any African country, as bad. I saw some people who did not even have metro tickets jumping over the security bars.

To access the metro, you have to slot in your ticket through a hole. As soon as the machine reads it, the bar turns, giving you a right of passage. But there were commuters who blocked the bar with their stretched legs because they had no ticket, which is a criminal act.

Although, it is always possible to purchase metro-season ticket to travel, this is cheaper. The Paris metro tickets are available for full day, one week, 10 days, one month, and so on, but these people just refused buying.

Therefore, Nigeria is not the only country crime abound, it is everywhere.


Going underground in a metro took me into another world, a world different from what was happening above, in the open air.

I was able to see another side of Paris , the reality of what goes on in the belly of the earth.