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!

8 Months Old

 At eight months old, you have a mind of your own. You are determined and daring, you get what you want somehow either by crawling very quickly to it or making sounds that let us know what you're thinking. You are very funny and enjoy laughing with your sister (and getting into everything she's doing). You eat most things now and are able to feed yourself little pieces of food. Since you already have two front teeth, you even chew croissants! You are desperate to walk, its actually very funny to see you stand and then let go and then look around to see if we are watching you..you really seem proud of yourself when you do that..although it scares us since its usually right next to living room table. You keep us on our toes at all times. You recognize who we are and when we come and go, you express such joy when daddy, Arielle or I return from a day at work or school.

You have adjusted nicely to the nanny, your no longer cry when I leave but I think its made you a bit more clingy at night, you are refusing to sleep in your crib so for the last few nights you have been sleeping in our bed..its a habit I'd rather not encourage but you're so cute..And I'm so tired.

I sometimes refer to you as my bussy bee but you really are kind of a little goat..you are really into chewing on paper..fuzz..plastic wrappers...anything thats supposed to be in the trash. Its kind of funny and I can't keep up with you.. (right now you are chewing on an unopened pack of baby mum-mum!).

My dear little girl, you can light up any room with those bright brown eyes, I love to see you wake up with your afro and you open your eyes so wide and smile so big when I say good morning. 

Although you are still in the in the 90th percentile, your growth has slowed a bit, you now weigh in at 19.2 lbs and are probably 27 inches tall by now. You are still bringing us much joys and surprise everyday. We love you.

What does Ann Arbor MI have to offer?

When I arrived, although optimistic, I couldn't see past how really cold and snowy it was in mid March. I had left New York at 7:20am ( I left for the airport at 4:30am and arrived in Detroit at 11:30am. Getting out of the airport was simple and there wasn't any waiting really. I emerged at baggage claim/ground transportation to a group of people holding signs and one of them said my name (on an iPad, no less). He grabbed my little bag and we walked briskly towards his car. Once we left the airport, I was very excited to see what all the talk was about Detroit but to my surprise, there was nothing..nothing..nothing at all to see. We drove about 30 minutes West and entered into Ann Arbor which was also a bit lack luster, it reminded me a bit of Buffalo, New York. The grey blustery weather, people walking really quickly bundled up. Because of this, by midday I had not really been able to look around so the view from my room was all I could see of the place. Room service from the Victor's at Dahlmann Campus Inn was normal (mediocre) except for these surprise superior Beer battered onion rings..so so far Ann Arbor has good onion rings! Hope this gets better soon.

Buttermilk Battered Onion Rings (excellent!)

Classic Caesar Salad (with a few onion rings on the side)

As the day went on my anxiety levels rose and my level of concentration reduced drastically, I was tired and nervous about the dense schedule I had upcoming, all the new people I had to meet in the next 48 hours or so and my ability to confidently present my work to a crowd of harsh critics (we all know how architects can be when in the presence of their peers). I decided to try to run through my presentation and outline what exactly how I wanted to frame the work. I took a moment to call home and speak to my kids which turned out to be a bad idea because it got me completely wound up so I just decided to just take a nap. On a side note, I remember I had CNN on and fell asleep to the sound of Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo trying to maintain a conversation while they uncomfortably waited for the smoke to reveal whether or not a Pope had been chosen. I ended up waking up to ringing bells both on TV and in Ann Arbor, I thought I was dreaming but sure enough the headline said "Habemus papam"..

I got up to take a shower and get my self together both physically and mentally for the dinner date I had with two members of the faculty. I was nervous and really wanted to get out and get some air but also got the feeling I often get, the feeling of flight! I felt compelled to flee, but not from there from my current life, its a larger commentary on my life and the way I have made some decisions in my adult life, the idea of leaving a place, the new clean slate...its a curious thought since we never really have a tabula rasa. But as I headed down to the lobby, I thought about how life could be truly different, moving to a town where I knew no one, starting anew, teaching at an enormous institution. I love collegiality, I miss that from Graduate school. I walked and breathed the cool air, it had stopped  snowing, people were out walking and I  looked down the street at the vast see of brick buildings. 
Dinner was great and I even got an evening tour of a very lively night scene in this little town. I would have snapped some shots but didn't want to seem like an uncool tourist type so I just made sure I was able to keep the conversation going and not make a strange joke that only me and my husband might find funny.  I arrived back at the hotel and thought I would procrastinate even further by sitting at the hotel bar and having a martini while I made some calls. The martini was great! 

The next morning, I was met by an extremely punctual gentle man from the faculty for breakfast, it was a good start to the day because he was extremely kind and forthcoming, quirky and smart. He was easy to talk to and very helpful. We talked about about his work and his seven sons, I told him a bit about my life and what I hoped to do. He helped me to his extremely small car to put my suitcase down and we took a walk. A campus tour. It was brisk but sunny and we walked across campus to the "Diag" which is a diagonal path the traverses the entire central campus and the location of the brass "M". As we stood over it, he told me about the tradition which says that anyone who steps there will be destined to stay. I stepped on it and we laughed, I would now tell the folks I had an interview with in a hour or so that I had stepped on it..case closed!  We ended the tour by walking the outside edge of campus and back to the car and off to the North campus.

The North campus was smaller, quaint from what I could tell, located about 2 miles maybe from the central campus. We entered the Architecture building and it looked a bit morbid but Architecture schools often do for some reason. Anyway, we looked around and then walked back out to see the rest of the campus which really was nice. There were a few notable buildings, nice in between spaces (outdoors) and this great bell tower at the middle. The library was really nice as well, I also notices the have numerous cafes in each building which is great because access to good coffee is important.

By the end of the walk, I stopped looking at this like a visitor and began imagining myself here everyday, this would be my place, where would I sit and have coffee? I was also able to enjoy the day a bit without feeling completely overwhelmed by the meetings coming up. Suddenly, time seemed to speed up and the next few hours were really intense going from one activity to the next, I gave my presentation, answered questions, met a lot of people had lunch, met with the Chair of the department and even having some downtime which wasn't so great because I began to meltdown, I was unoccupied and getting eager to go home. I found my way back to one of the cafes I had seen, grabbed a coffee and back to the faculty lounge (which was really cool too). I sat and just relaxed.

I think if I were single, I would be already packing to go, I don't mind change and have never allowed myself to become attached to places. And unexpectedly, Ann Arbor seems to have the thing I was looking for but which I couldn't seem to explain, its small, quaint and active with good schools and a short commute to work. It would provide the income and flexibility I desire, so why am I trying to sabotage opportunity, I thought? I didn't want to admit it but I knew in my heart that I was doing this to avoid disappointment, not from being denied the position but for having to once again turn down an opportunity because I don't want to be responsible for my husband having to look for a new job in a new place. It been a real bone of contention in the past. I understand the anxiety he may feel over having to find something new, he doesn't want to take that risk and I don't want to be responsible for anything that may go wrong. I now am feeling like its inevitable that we will have to live like I did growing up, which was the kids with mom in a place (which changed every so often until college) and the dad flying in every few months to see them. I grew up only seeing my father a few times a year for varying periods of time from a few weeks at a time to several months. The semesters are 16 weeks long and 4 months off in the summer, we'd move to New York in the summer..suddenly, I realize its time to be a guest critic so I spring up and head to the gallery space. The students were unprepared but we ended up having a good conversation and after a quick bathroom break, I was whisked out the backdoor to my metrocar and within twenty minutes I was  back at DTW airport.  

My flight was at 8:30pm so I had to wait 2 hours ( I was too early..which never happens to me) then flew to Philadelphia, waited another hours to fly to Newark. We landed at 11:55pm and by the time I found my car and headed off I was relieved. I got home at 1:30am and couldn't resist waking up the family..complained about how messy the kitchen was and how the husband hadn't made lunch for my daughter for the next day and all was back to normal...