LSS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TERMINAL 1

WE ARE SHORT and invisible men. Oriental red. Iron-rail thin. Short for men in Senegal, which is six feet, or six feet three inches or more. Adding up all the years we remembered selling ‘Chinese’ in Dakar, we calculated four feet ten inches. We forget one detail after another, filling out the forms we’re asked to fill out. We’re being returned to Nigeria for holding both Chinese and Nigerian passports, and our police statements state we’re five feet six inches. In Senegal you can’t be sent to another country for trial without a height and a date of birth attached, though in Nigeria such information can be overlooked.