Nigeria Trip // Day 5-Langtang continued..

Within minutes of our arrival and exchanging pleasantries, my uncle proudly took us on a tour through the house because he had spent quite a bit of time and money renovating it so it was livable, we all know that an empty home deteriorates at a pretty rapid pace..and its been empty for a decade. As we walked through each room, I became more and more relaxed and relieved to be there. I looked forward to the night, the kids began to relax, we all started to put our things into various rooms and settle in. We felt a strong breeze from a window in the stairwell and looked outside just in time to catch an enormous storm about to hit us. we quickly closed all the windows and the rain began. The folks there told us that it hadn't rained in months so it was very strange that a heavy rain/hail storm began within minutes of our arrival. My husband believes in signs and I often laugh at the connections he draws but this time, I felt something too.

at about 4:00pm

at about 4:30pm ( look in the background..storm coming)

The storm was furious, the sound of the raindrops on the roof were so loud it was like being inside of an instrument. Surrounded by people who I recognized (by face) but couldn't really name to save my life, we talked and laughed cautiously. It was a kind of uncomfortable gathering, everyone looked pretty serious and even though this was our home it didn't feel completely so anymore. They eventually served us dinner which was prepared by my aunt (who lived with us for many years when I was you  and practically raised my brother and sister) but even she was a bit cold. It was as if they were thinking that we had abandoned them for a better life in the United States and now, when we thought we wanted to recreate the past , the had to cater to us for the few of days we were there. It was weird, we were very gracious though. The kids must have been starving because as the platters of food (some of which they aren't even accustomed to eating) came out one after the other, they crowded around the table. There was roasted meat and pepper, masa, fish stew, spaghetti, tuwo shinkafa and green leaf soup. 

After everyone ate (and I mean everyone..) the evening got to be pretty interesting and hot..hotter..humid, people started to maybe go a bit stir crazy. There wasn't any cable TV or really anything to distract anyone. No IPad, Ipods. Iphones..etc. it was bizarre..we had to talk to each other.. and about what?
I started to panic as I often do when things start to get silent and I feel compelled to keep the tempo up at an even pace at the least. We had brought some wine, Absolut and beers from Jos with us but of course like everywhere else in Nigeria thus far somehow only the beer was ice cold while everything else was warm. All i wanted was a cold drink. This was all going against my norms! I love ice! and I felt compelled to google something..anything!

It was extremely humid and considering the was an AC unit on in every room in the house, it should have been freezing but for some reason the units weren't able to combat the heat. 

My cousin did have his digital tools so he was able to zone out while fiddling on Facebook while the rest of the guys took refuge outside in a gathering with the extended family because it was cooler.. ( so they said..!) As I peeked out the door to get some cool breeze, the scene was pretty crazy and I saw what was really going on, they were drinking brukutu! bad idea guys!..we had warned them to beware of what they ate and drank but they didn't listen and now they were out there drinking the locally brewed (fermented) alcoholic drink right from the calabash! I also noticed that the same stoic faced aunt from earlier that evening who had also been giving us a hard time over marrying Americans and had to be banished from the living room for being to rowdy was ...wait for it...yep...doing push-up in the corner? Why you ask..I have no idea..blame on the..?..this was really nuts..

On the inside, the three little girls kept themselves occupied with imaginary games and eating carrots my mom had bought from a street vendor on the way in. Evalie on the other hand was getting progressively more and more irritable and  impatient, she was hot and tired but had become a bit clingy over the last few days because people kept trying to take her from me and she had slept in many different beds over a span of a few days..we tried to keep her entertained and cool.

Evalie eventually fell asleep dripping in sweat with grandma fanning her. My cousin put on some music, we sorted pictures and talked about the past. Around midnight. Evalie woke up uncomfortable so we decided to give her a bath in a blow up duck tub. That was helpful and cooled her off although her cousin (my sisters baby) was not happy when it was his turn. Over the next few hours people started to give into the heat and turn in, I took a cold shower and put the kids to bed. Austin and I sat in bed (two separate full sized beds..) for a while just wondering if we would actually ever go to sleep.

Nigeria Trip // Day 5-Langtang

Jos was relatively hot and dry (as opposed to oppressively humid like Lagos had been a few days earlier), it was a nice sunny day in the middle of the week and these were the scenes from our drive. We left around noon from our house in a convoy of three led by my uncles arm guarded Hummer, after a quick fill-up at his gas station we hit the road. The ride was absolutely beautiful, just as I remember, the landscape is almost surreal at times, complex rock formations and vegetation littered by small huts and 1 story buildings mainly constructed form the locally available materials. 

Langtang is located about 180 kilometers south-east of Jos, which is the capital of Plateau State and is the home of the Taroh people (which I am as well..). It's primarily a farming village populated by mainly christian people within a fairly close knit community. I feel like I may be related to more than half the village..ha..ha. In Langtang,  it always felt like time stood still, there was land and we spent our days exploring it, climbing things, walking around, picking things off trees. It was probably the best times I had as a child. It was truly leisurely, something I have never been to do again since then. I remember my dad retreating to Langtang when he could and longing to be there under the itilum tree while we were anywhere else. Maybe its the air, but it really ( at least for me) feels like the only place to relax. 

My memories of the place are fond, our home shares demising wall with our cousins so we always had a great time there on the holidays when our families would return "home" for several weeks. It really always felt like home somehow, everyone always seemed to reside in a really mellow state when we were there, my father was for once able to forget about work (which at the time could have been something fairly critical). We would go hiking, we'd go to our farm (Taka-Lafia), we'd go to visit Wase rock, we'd sit outside for hours on end eating itulum from the very tree providing us shade from the hot sun. At night we'd have roasted meat (usually from an animal that had been walking around earlier that day) and we'd play games, play squash..There was absolutely nothing on the agenda just leisure and it was fantastic.

As we drove through town after town, it seemed like we drove straight on the road for about 1.5 hours then turned left and about 30 minutes later I started to recognize the surroundings. I knew e were close to my home. At the moment we drove by St. Augustines church ( a Catholic church my father constructed here so we could have somewhere to celebrate mass on Sundays) I knew we were minutes from this place which held so much joy and tension for me all at once.

We made the left and approached the gate, as it opened images of my childhood walking up and down this very driveway over and over came rushing back..letting out fireworks at New Years with my cousins right at this very spot. We drove in and a weight was lifted, I finally made it back. Its been ten years and even so my previous visit ( 10 years ago) had really been quite tough on me so this held a lot for me. We made it home. We were greeted by various members of the extended family, drinks food..a lot of people going "wuwe..wuwe" (Taroh version of "oh shoot"..."kangkang.roh?" (Taroh version of hello, how are you?) and holding their hands over their mouths in disbelief. This was all understandable for many reasons. We (the kids) have grown up quite a bit since they last saw us, we have also multiplied (5 new kids) and we came escorted by several Americans (our husbands). As the evening festivities continued, this all became controversial. But for now..everyone in..fast..looks like a storm is brewing! to be continued..

Nigeria Trip // Day 3-Jos

On Monday morning, additional members of my family arrived. My mother, two sisters, their husbands and the kids arrived from New York. We were at the hotel when they arrived and went straight to my Aunts house so we checked out of the hotel and squeezed all our luggage and the four of us into a car to get over there. It was hot, really hot..the air conditioners can't even combat the heat in Lagos. We had fun looking at all the things you could purchase on the road in Lagos and my husband was quite fascinated by the variety of items people carry unsupported on their heads. Its a pretty quick drive from Ikoyi to Yaba when there isn't any traffic so we got in fairly quickly. We spent sometime at my aunts home, had lunch and got ready to head to the airport to catch a flight to Jos. 

Even though my mother had just gotten in from New York that morning, she had planned to come with us to Jos because she didn't want us going alone. The rest of the family would join us the next day, there is only a single flight daily between Lagos and Jos. The ride to the airport was a real drag because it was so hot and the traffic was dense.  It took much longer than it should have and I had two little girls melting sleeping on me. 

During the drive, I noticed my mom looked rather cool in the other car  ( my brother in laws) so we timed it close enough so that I could jump out and run across to the other lane and jump in the cooler vehicle! I risked my life for air conditioning! As we pulled up to airport, we scurried out, grabbed our bags  got a guy with a trolley to help us move our luggage into the airport, we were immediately approached by an "expediter"..he's not really one but these are people that for a small fee can get you through any line..get anything done quicker than if you were to go the normal route. He collected our  passports and cut the line and basically checked us into the flight in minutes. We went through a security checkpoint, got some snacks and drinks and within minutes it was time to board the flight. We took a shuttle to the turmac, got off, identified our luggage and boarded the flight.

When we landed in the Jos airport after a short hour flight, we were relieved! It was slightly cooler but I was also kind of surprised that the airport was really a makeshift shack. We walked right off the plane onto the runway and into this small cmu building and we were met by my uncle and some others.

Jos has been in the news ( abroad at least) as the site of numerous religious clashes so it wasn't surprising that as we approached the cars there was an armed guard holding the door open! 

The landscape in Jos is very different from Lagos, its more rural and arid. It looked very familiar to me even after so many years but it also seemed deserted. In the last decade its really transformed from a vibrant town to a ghost town. There seemed to be at least half of the population who have migrated elsewhere, the businesses are few and not many a thriving.  The town has gone from what seemed like an up and coming town to a struggling one in a short time. As we drove through, I saw the school compound where I spent six years of my life in a boarding school, it is no longer called Air Force Girls Military School but the memories of the time I spent there were still very vivid as we drove by it. any one who knows me well would understand what went on here..it was unreal. 

By the time we got to our house, the anxiety was so high, I didn't know what to expect, I hadn't been back in so long and I had held onto my childhood memories for so long that I wasn't sure how I would feel to finally be there. The gate opened up and there it was, my home, where I grew up. I was overwhelmed, shocked and really glad that I had finally been able to bring my husband and children back here. I had talked about my life growing up for so long that now it felt surreal that he was finally standing on the soil. Certainly, everything felt a lot smaller to me now and also strangely familiar yet very foreign. This was Jos. the beginning. 

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.