Dreams of Lemons and Goat's Cheese

So sorry for the long absence!! o have just been soooo busy :(

I moved back to Nigeria 7 months ago and in that time I have come to realise that the Nigeria I left is very different from the one I came back to; or perhaps I am just older and a little more observant. I moved back with a head full of ideas and optimism residing firmly within my heart. I had so much stuff I wanted to ‘do’; after all Nigeria is the land of opportunity! Yes, the primary reason for my Big Move was to get the ghastly NYSC out of the way, but who cared? I could still fulfil my every dream on the side.

After taxiing down that familiar bumpy runway and emerging from a hot airport into an even hotter night, I inhaled the scents (pollution) of my country and thought ‘I am home’.

The next couple of weeks did little to bring me down from the cloud on which I was cruising along at full speed. I had a myriad of events to keep my occupied while never forgetting that this was the beginning of my life, my success and my many, many pairs of Louboutins. A few weeks into the revelry, I remembered that I had to sort out the registration for my NYSC so I got on a plane headed for Abuja to fill in the necessary paperwork.

Sadly, this little excursion brought about the abrupt end of my I Heart Nigeria campaign. Upon arriving at the NYSC secretariat in Abuja I was made to wait 2 hours by the gate because the offices did not open until ten (in an official building?). When the gates finally opened a stream of people, seemingly materializing out of thin air, shoved past me and into a door at the side of the building. When I finally made it into the stuffy little room where registration for foreign students was being held, the first thing I noticed was one of the officials eating a hearty breakfast of Yam and Sardine Stew shouting with a full mouth that we should ‘shift, shift!’ so her driver could squeeze past with a bottle of Maltina...and so it began.

The government of Nigeria asserts that before you can begin to serve yourself, you must serve your country, and so, my dreams of coming to home and instantly striking the proverbial gold were dashed by those four letters that relegate you to the role of ‘minion’ for a whole year in any corporation or organisation. And not only are you minion, you are underpaid, overworked, regularly abused minion, that is to say Dirt Beneath the Manager’s Shoe. I feel especially sorry for the bankers who work 12-18 hour days only to spend four hours in traffic getting home. So when do they sleep?

Ah, traffic. Another Nigerian affliction most people cannot avoid. With a city as overpopulated as Lagos, traffic is inevitable but when people spend the same amount of time on the road that I spent travelling across the Atlantic to get here from England, well, that’s ridiculous.

Of course, it varies depending on where one lives; those who live on the island are lucky, or should I say luckier than others because believe me you can spend two out of the four hours getting from one end of Ajose Adeogun to the other. People like me who live in VGC (or Ogun State as my friend affectionately calls it) have to adhere to a strict bed time of 9pm if we wish to wake up at 5am to get to work before 8am and still be fully functional at work. This brings me to the issue of driving. I can’t speak for everyone but the minute I got back I started lobbying for a car based on the rationale that I would need to get from A to B. Of course at the time I hadn’t factored in all the possible obstacles I might encounter getting from said A to B. One thing to have at the forefront of your mind is that in Nigeria is there is not such thing as a simple A→B. These obstacles may take the form of a driver in the next lane who thinks that by cutting in front of you he will get home quicker, which indeed he will but only by about 3 seconds. Or it may take the form of an ‘okada’ zooming past you window out of nowhere leaving you the wonderful gift of a scratched side view mirror or, if they are feeling especially solicitous, a dented door.

Then when you have finally had enough and decide to hire a driver, you remember you can’t! Why? Because the average driver earns more than you make (as a minion).

One day last week, while stuck in traffic, I was daydreaming about all the things I missed most about England. I missed the Tube, I Missed the shops, I missed the food....oh glorious food. Gone are the days when I could stroll down to Tesco and buy anything that took my fancy. In that moment I would have killed (or at least maimed) someone for a goat’s cheese salad...I felt a bump one the side of the car, opened my eyes and say the retreating figure of...a goat! Perched somewhat uncomfortably on the back of an okada.

What cruelty is this, universe?

Another thing I wasn’t quite prepared for was the wonderful non-services rendered to us by PHCN. I always knew what the electricity situation was like in Nigeria, but when I’m on holiday, I’m living in a kind of dream world, oblivious to the hardships occurring around me only seeking out the next party. I spent one weekend in my grandmothers house in Yaba (PHCN is especially attentive to the mainland) drenched in sweat fervently praying to God that he show some mercy on his humble servant in the form of electricity. For the first time in my life I did not sleep a single wink through out the night. The air was completely still; not the faintest whisper of a breeze to be found. And when I thought the situation had become akin to hell on earth, an ear-splitting chant penetrated the turgid air surrounding me and jumped straight into my brain. It was 5 am on a Friday. Prayer time at the mosque.

I mean, people have gotten so used to the lack of power that in the rare instances that we have power for more than 12 hours straight we start getting our businesses in order for the imminent end of the world.

Services in this country seem to be rendered in two flavours..painfully slow snail’s pace or highly inefficient bordering on ignorant. I can’t even begin to recount the experiences I have had. I’ll just tell you of one.

I was in an ‘Italian’ restaurant with my boyfriend the other day and I wanted bread with my pasta. I asked the waitress if she could bring some bread to the table. About 20 minutes later, I called her over and asked her if she forgot about the bread. She didn’t know I meant before the main meal. So another 10 minutes go by and the waitress arrives at our table with 4 slices of sliced bread, toasted and buttered for us. I looked down at my plate and thought it was some sort of mistake, or a joke at the very least?

I told her usually when someone asks for bread (in an Italian restaurant they claim!) it comes in the form of a roll. An unbuttered roll.
Silence

‘ok should I roll the bread?’

Since moving back, i've gained about 6 kilos (14 pounds). This is despicable. i reckon it has something to so with the fact that i eat the same amount (or possibly more) and walk absolutely nowhere! Coming from a place where you had to walk almost everywhere, it's no surprise I am now the size of a small house.

And trust me, heat and extra weight do not go hand in hand. so my friend introduced me to the 'master cleanse', Beyonce's so called 'miracle' diet where she ate no solid food but drank a mixture of lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for two weeks and lost 20 pounds for her role on Dreamgirls. The good thing about this cleanse is that it acts as a detox too, this is necessary for people living in Nigeria...I mean the amount of shit we put in our body (sorry!). The palm oil, the starchy carbs, the unwashed greens, the red meat, the poorly filtered water etc.

So i had my maple syrup, and my cayenne pepper, so all I needed were Lemons! I went to the market and bought about 12. Got home, squeezed them and....nothing! my Stewardess informed me that 'local lemons' have very little juice. So I went to Shoprite (Nigeria's Tesco :)) and to my shock and horror, lemons there were N2000/pound, thats like N2000 for 4 lemons! did I mention I was a minion? And considering the fact that 6 lemons are needed for one day's mixture...well i was screwed. It's a good thing Lent is coming up...I am fasting! (cheap and effective :))

So as you can see...


Frustration is my constant companion, with anger as his sometimes lover.


But I have to admit, despite all this, I'm still very very happy to be back!


:)

Be back soon!