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.