Nigeria for beginners #006… Everybody leaves.
Nigerian ‘summers’ are a time when the islands empty and people set off for sunnier, more user-friendly spaces. Traffic flow becomes ‘normal’ with only the occasional hold-up and the air becomes cooler. Seven day rain spells and flooding can make life seem bleak but there’s an opportunity in this season to review and remix one’s existance more than in the hectic harmattan ( dusty season of Christmas and weddings), more than the run-up to rainy season which tends to be full of all those events people want to stuff into the social calendar before rainy season begins.
And everybody leaves. They go off to resorts and family homes abroad, to far flung cities and villages. They sit on beaches and against trees, practise different languages in outdoor cafes and pretend to be people they have imagined from movies and books. Nigeria doesn’t work. This is the sort of complaint you hear often. The power is unreliable, non-existent in some parts, the gen is noisy and everything stinks of diesel. Too many people are stressed out and uneducated, the roads are bad, there isn’t enough to do or enough places to go and so people look forward to escaping to a place that works.
They want Starbucks and perfectly made mini patisseries topped with fresh cream, McDonalds and mass transit that is safe and cheap. They want parks and boulevards to promenade along, lights that are always on, temperate weather, stylish clothes and exhibitions, plays and glamourous restaurants.
Everybody leaves and some don’t come back. They want security, better schools and healthcare, a bigger world, a faster pace, answers to their problems, better paying jobs, independence from their families and freedom from the stagnant binds of culture.
They leave but some come back weary of wearing the colour of their skin like a cow bell, wearing of endless shopping and stuffing of suitcase, living in illogically tight-fitting western clothes that don’t allow for hanging tummies and thighs that beat against each other like drums all day. The chill is now in their bones, giving rise to the increasing urgency of flight.
They long to feel the sun on their shoulders, a warm, humid hug of air, for the comfort of flip flops, the wide-legged seated position a bubu affords, welcome greetings, the taste of bitter leaf soup and the smell of palm oil frying. To have the househelp calmly take their bags and bring cool water while they catch breath on the sofa under the AC breeze They long to be the son or daughter again, to stride around giving orders and to set the family name on their head as a crown They want to feel at home and rooted in their idea of who and wear they are. They want the kids to be happy and learn their heritage and it all starts again.
