After my friends picked me up from the airport in Lagos, we went to their father’s house. First, we drove through the city, then across the bridge to the island. The area around the house had beautiful tree-lined streets that were kept relatively clean by mostly female street sweepers in orange jumpsuits. The home was in a gated community where hawkers waited outside the gates selling phone cards, gum, candy, etc. to residents and guests as they entered and exited. The house was behind another private gate with a guard who stayed in the guardhouse. The gate and guard seemed to be common for every house we visited throughout my stay. The house was big enough to comfortably accommodate all the guests (nearly 10 of us) without any fights over the bathrooms.
a house in Lagos
My room was located downstairs with a small attached bathroom. The first thing I wanted to do when I arrived at the house from the airport was wash all the travel dust off. Before stepping into the bathroom, I was warned not to drink the water from the tap and to brush my teeth only with filtered water. I filled an empty water bottle with water from the filter in the kitchen and poured it into a glass each day for brushing my teeth. The tap water reminded me of visiting my grandparents’ house in the country in northern Louisiana where they used well water. The water from the well left a red tint in the sink drains and had a distinct almost rust-like smell similar to Lagos’ water, but it was potable (at least that’s what they told us), unlike the Lagos water. I showered at least twice a day, because I always felt really dirty after being outside in the hot, humid weather (think Houston + Tallahassee in August, times 5), and I wanted to wash the dust out of my hair. There were a couple of days where the generator stopped working properly so my room was steamy when I stepped out of the shower. On those days, I sweated while brushing my teeth or picking out clothes for the day, and I ended up back in the shower a few minutes later to try to cool down again. We went to the mall to avoid the heat until the generator could be fixed.
Each morning I awoke to the sound of humming, and I went to sleep to that same sound. I’d heard that familiar sound in Houston back in the fall of 2008. It was the loud hum of the generator at the house next door. Apparently, the generator was located on the side of the house closest to my window. It seemed that all of the houses had a minimum of 2 generators also known as “Big Gen” and “Little Gen”. They were like extended members of the family, because their names were used so much on a daily basis - “Little Gen is not working, so we’re using Big Gen during the day.” “Big Gen needs to be serviced.” “Turn off the air conditioners because Little Gen is on now.” The reason that generators are so popular, in fact, necessary, is because “NEPA takes lights.” NEPA is the power company, but they don’t maintain a regular current to the homes and businesses. The people always have to be prepared for NEPA ("Never Enough Power Always") to stop working and for the generators to kick in and allow them to continue their daily lives. Running generators all day everyday is pretty expensive because of the cost of fuel and maintenance. (Side Note - If you can't fathom how a generator works and why they are constantly being repaired, imagine the wear and tear of running your car all the time in 90 degree plus weather.) The small generator was used to power the lights, fans, and small appliances during the day, while the big generator was used at night to power the energy guzzling A/C units in every room. The attendant in the guardhouse was also responsible for turning on the generators as soon as NEPA stopped working. In the middle of the night, he would hear an alarm alerting him that NEPA’s current was fading, and then he knew to turn on “Big Gen”.
The gate guard was not the only worker in the house. The house employed drivers that seemed to be on call as needed. There was also the cook/house help. In homes with children, the house help might also be the nanny. The cook/house help in our home made many great meals and tried to fill us up each day before we headed out to face the world. Much of the meals consisted of meat and carbohydrates like yam (boiled or pounded), semovita (semo), garry (looked like grits), rice, and pasta. He also made moin moin (spicy bean paste) that I actually liked even though I have never liked beans. One day we actually had moin moin twice because it was served at someone else’s home for lunch and at our home for dinner. Maybe I’m biased, but I think the best moin moin I tasted was when I tried it for the first time on Easter. Fresh vegetables and fruit were pretty rare and relatively expensive, which is also a common phenomenon in low-income neighborhoods in the US. We had cabbage salad with dinner a couple of nights though.
chicken with pasta
(top left to right) meat, fried rice, moin moin, jollof rice
It is not uncommon for families with modest incomes to have generators, house help, and other "luxuries" in Nigeria. However, there is also a large population that does not live like that. I did not observe the stark poverty that I saw in India while in Nigeria. Lagos was like a mix of India and Louisana (and not the mirage of Louisiana we see during Mardi Gras) as far as the the way things appeared to me on the streets. I saw poor people, yes, but I did not see people sleeping on the sidewalks at night and squatting on the side of the street to relieve themselves. I also didn't see many beggars. Maybe they were there, and I just wasn't exposed to them. My friends told me that there used to be a lot of beggars on the streets, but now they all seem to be selling something instead. They sold magazines, CDs, DVDs, jewelry, candy, gum, phone cards, drinks, chips, books, maps, etc. and we bought it all during stagnant traffic. You literally could avoid the supermarket by shopping from your car.
selling CDs on the street
We also exchanged money on the streets. The money exchange experience was hilarious to me. Before we left the house one day, I told my friends I needed to exchange USD for naira. They said we would do it on our way shopping because they needed to exchange their BP, and I assumed we were going to stop at a bank. The car started to slow down on the side of the road where there were no buildings just men lounging around, and I asked why we were stopping. Two or three men walked over to the car and asked what we needed. My friends asked the rate for dollars and pounds, told them it was too low and started to ease off the brakes like we were driving away. The guys went up a little on their exchange rate and we handed over our money for naira. As we drove away, I was astounded at what had just transpired. I was still mesmerized by the experience even when we did it a couple more times during my stay.
currency exchange
One of the things I found most interesting while in Lagos was the emphasis on religion. On the initial ride from the airport, we passed many overcrowded poverty-stricken areas with small lean-tos and tin roofs. Every other tin-roofed stall had a handpainted sign or banner indicating it was a church. There was also a great number of large "mushroom" (Pentecostal) churches, Catholic churches, and some Islamic mosques. We visited the compound of a Charismatic Catholic minister's home one day and I kept asking my friends if it was a church. They had images of "Jesus", crosses, virgins, disciples, stations of the cross, popes, etc. everywhere you turned - on the compound wall, inside every room, on the cars, everywhere. I was expecting to see a Jesus soap pump when I went to the bathroom. I am a Christian, but that was beyond weird to me.
the wall around the compound
Another thing that I noticed was how dramatically different it was to attend Catholic mass. The only experience I had with Catholicism before Lagos was attending mass with my cousin in Houston twice, which was different from what I was used to, but it wasn't bad. The Houston church had an African priest (Ironic, don't you think?) with a good choir that sang lively music and people stood up and clapped during the songs. The Lagos church was quiet most of the time and I still did not understand all the rituals. The heat inside was stifling with fans whirring above our heads but no central air; the windows and doors remained open and we felt a breeze every now and then. The choir sang softly in a loft above the congregation at the rear. While they sang, the congregation looked forward and kept still. I was grateful when we stood up or kneeled to pray because I could feel my sweat-soaked skin sticking to the wooden pew as I sat. The most fascinating thing to me about this church was the image on the tiled-wall above the baptism. I wish I could have taken a picture, but we left before the service ended. It was a scene showing men, women, and children with bronze (brown) skin and woolly hair in colorful traditional clothing looking skyward as a white man with long, stringy blonde hair and blue eyes ascended into Heaven. This church in Africa was probably the most "non-African" church I have ever attended. To top it off, I attended a church in Dallas the Sunday after I arrived back in the US, and it looked, sounded, and felt more African than what I experienced in Africa. I was dumbfounded.
church in Dallas
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