Nigeria Trip // Day 4-Jos

Jos, the capital of Plateau State is named after the Jos Plateau which is located near the center of the country and is home to the ancient Nok culture. It is known for its wonderfully temperate climate, amazing landscape, great diversity and was once one of the most important tourist destinations in the country. Over the last decade or so, there has been a great decline in tourism, a mass exodus of its inhabitants and dwindling numbers in investments etc. due religious clashes that have caused tension and instilled fears in the people who remain.The sights were hard to take in, the roads were dusty and you could see the strife , you could read the hardship in the eyes of the people, still smiling but weary, still hopeful but tired. The streets were littered with small table setups selling various things, mostly potatoes and yams, there were also mobile (on foot..that is) vendors selling more vegetable but nothing like the selections in the streets of Lagos.  Things were obviously tough but even so, it is my home and I had to be there to really see this for myself. 

On the first night, we spent time trying to take in the house, settle in and feel comfortable in a place who's appearance had dramatically changed since I was last there. I felt an eerie calm but also remained quite uneasy with the space, so reminiscent of my childhood, my mind flashed between great memories and the present, emptiness, almost impersonal air of the time. It was hard to swallow, especially being there with my husband and kids (my mum and younger sister as well). We stayed up quite late and talked about the past and looked through old photos, eventually retiring into at daybreak. 

The next morning, we woke up to a nice day, we spent the morning exploring the compound, walking around reminiscing about the places I used to play and sit and spend time as a child, it was nice to reconcile my thoughts and feeling towards this house, it amazing how much the "place" which seemed so ordinary as a child is actually uniquely intertwined in the person I have become. My cousin and his two daughters drove in from Abuja that afternoon, as did my aunt and other cousin as we awaited the rest of the family to arrive. The kids immediately became best friends and started playing like we had when we were their size many years ago, it was like we had come full circle yet not much had changed but much had been lost.

 We ventured out into town to get lunch which turned out to be quite a challenge, we initially thought we'd go to Plateau hotel but when we got there and walked in it was deserted and dark! very disappointing as it used to be a pretty happening spot back then. We also tried to go to Hill Station hotel but there wasn't really anything going on there, we eventually got to a place called Avis which was supposed to be fairly decent serving traditional Nigerian food but as we all got out of the cars to walk in we were stopped by a guard who wanted us to leave all our personal belongings in a lock box before entering, certainly that did not sit well with any of us. We bypassed him eventually him and got in to eat. We also went shopping in town for some drinks and snacks for later.

That evening was a wonderful mix of celebration, meetings of family members new and old, conversation, laughter and it was like old times..almost. The anxiety faded and I was able to truly appreciate my home once again. We broke bread with a large group of extended family members who stopped in excitedly to visit us and had lots of suya and homemade massa. It was a really good night.

The next morning, we awoke bright and early, had breakfast and prepared to leave for Langtang.

Nigeria Trip //Day 1

I haven't been back home in many years for many very complicated reasons. Some reasons are very straight forward..time, money, work schedule..but I think behind all of this there was always a latent anxiety about returning to the place I grew up, the place I called home. My friends and colleagues here would always ask me if I still had family back there?..Yes..if I missed it?..Yes..If I could see myself moving there someday?...Yes..but why hadn't I returned in almost a decade. I consciously knew I was avoiding something and maybe even felt I would be out of place..too American to assimilate so I shied away. After getting married and now two children later, I wondered if I needed to show where I was from for my husband to really fully understand me. About a year and a half ago, when one of uncles pronounced that he would be throwing a big party for grandma's birthday and everyone was expected to attend, I laughed with nervous excitement but when January 2013 came around and I realized my grandmothers birthday was around the corner, it seemed to be the best time to actually, finally go home. 

We had spent weeks on end planning and trying to imagine what we would need to pack to make it through 12 days with two little ones and a husband who has never been to Nigeria. We needed everything from suitcases to pedialyte, I wasn't going to take any chances. We got every ones passports and visas and the day finally arrived when we were ready to leave. Our flight was at night out of JFK and we would be the first of my extended family ( the ex-pats at least) to arrive in Lagos. Here we go!

We got in to Lagos Murtala Mohammad Airport in the evening (one hour late) after a fairly good flight with a connection in London's Heathrow Airport. I had been a bit frazzled because we almost missed our connection in London because of Heathrow's hyper-stringent security measures (they took my Boudreaux's butt paste!) and I was a bit tired because I hadn't thought to reserve the gallery seat where we could have had a bassinet for Evalie in flight so I carried her throughout both flights. But the moment we stepped off the plane and breathed the air, the excitement swelled up inside. We walked briskly through the airport  hallways towards baggage claim amidst a mix of returning Nigerians and Ex-pats buzzing with comments about the heat and the non functioning escalators, I thought, this is normal, this feels like home!  That's just Nigeria.

When we emerged from the haste, it was onto a mezzanine in a room with a a line forming at a few tables set up with people in uniforms checking passports, immediately, an unidentified man came over and directed us to come off the line and step aside..my Nigerian-ness immediately kicked in, I became defensive and I said "No, why should we, we know where we are supposed to go!" I grabbed Arie's hand and moved towards the front of the line. A woman ( another passenger) told us sternly that I should just go tot he front since I had kids so I did and in a few minutes, I and the kids were through, my husband was on the American citizen line and was hassled a bit longer but eventually made it through. As we moved to the baggage claim, the heat and humidity increased and hit us. It took about an hour to finally get all out luggage but as one other passenger said, "it's not when you get it, its if you get it..!" We happily proceeded to the exit only to be intercepted by two men standing in the middle of the hall flagging people down, my initial instinct was to ignore them and walk around them..this turned out to be a bad idea as it really annoyed him. He wanted to see a yellow card, we didn't have one, he also only demanded it from Austin and not from me or the kids which I found strange. He demanded to see Austin's passport and then took it and began to walk away, we chased him and tried to get it back but he refused and became even more annoyed. After about 20 minutes of back and forth and a stern warning that I had needed to calm down and not be so rude, he let us go..I won't get into why he let us go but he claimed it was because he felt bad for the cute kids who needed rest. 

We emerged from the airport and were confronted by a sea of people just outside the airport doors, luckily two of those faces were the familiar, smiling ones of my cousin Ronke and her husband Femi. We loaded our stuff and hopped into an open air vehicle which began to drive against the traffic down a ramp, through crowds of pedestrians, weaving in and out of dense traffic to get us to the car park, it was wild! Arielle sat on Ronke's lap, Evalie on mine, it was like being on a safari, holding on tight to the metal frame of this vehicle, I laughed inside as I recalled how worried we had been about whether to bring their carseats! We're not in New York anymore Toto! This is Lagos.

Nigeria Trip // Lagos, Jos, Langtang

I literally just got back from a twelve day trip to my homeland with my family to celebrate my grandmothers 90th birthday and it was absolutely amazing. There will be a series on this starting tomorrow but I thought I'd say we're back and I took almost 2000 photographs. There was a lot to see and experience, we did and saw so much in a short time that I can't possibly cover it in one post. Stay tuned!