Nigerian Wedding

Woke up extra early on Saturday for a trip to Lagos. Attended my first wedding, Nigerian or otherwise. My boss hired a driver and car for the day as we went with her daughter and niece. Plus the other thing about the wedding was I got to wear my traditional Yoruba (Nigerian) outfit for the first time. I have a photo of me in it so as soon as I can find a scanner you can see me wearing it.

Unfortunately we were a bit late so we arrived halfway through the wedding ceremony. This was okay as it seemed people were coming throughout. My first impression is that it really was a religious affair. No less than six ministers were in a tag team operation to get the wedding through to completion. This was complete with much singing and dancing (often by the ministers) as well as countless hallelujahs and amens.

From there it was a quick trip to the reception. Quite a large affair as one might imagine. For example if some random person like me could just turn up to a wedding of two people I've never met, you can imagine how many distant relatives and friends of friends managed to come for a good time and a free feed! It was very enjoyable.

Now I don't have much (ok, any) wedding experience in Australia, but I am aware that it is often a custom these days for a momento or small gift to be left for the guests at the tables. This custom is continued here, but with a truly Nigerian touch. The momentos for the guests included buckets, plates and pens, all stamped with the names of the couple and the parents.

The trip was exhausting despite the fact I spent most of the day on my arse. And the trip home included a few close scrapes on the road (some pedestrians have a death wish).

Apparently it's party time because someone died!

Ok that might sound a bit odd. But the way it works over here (this is what I have been told) is that if a person dies when they are quite old there is no point mourning, so you should all be celebrating the fact that they lived so long.

What this usually means is that the parents of the deceased get together and save up enough money to host a big party. However, this often means a delay between when someone dies and their burial such as at the one I visited on the weekend where the burial was 3 months after the person’s death (definitely no open coffins here).

Okay you don't actually see the burial but there is a huge party afterwards. Now I told you the wedding was big but the burial is much, much bigger. I can't be sure but there must have been a couple thousand people at the burial I went to in – a stadium! Again it's a kind of friends of friends of friends can go sort of event. And again its free food, alcohol/drinks and entertainment as well this time. So one can have quite an enjoyable day out at someone else's expense with the only concession being you should dress well (life's hard sometimes isn't it).

I had a good time, and got way too much attention again. The only bad thing was the availability of free stuff, including some rich people just handing out cash to the crowd resulted in some ugly fights. There were many beggars and street kids there who went around asking for money or doing things like fanning you (you need it sometimes, its hot here remember) for money.

Once someone had obviously grabbed some cash and tried to run. So half the people at the place, many of whom obviously would have had no idea what was going on, rushed to join in. This of course included some people who went and fetch a glass bottle or two to hurl before joining the fray. Luckily it didn't develop very far but it was not nice to see people joining in violence just for the sake of it.

I took a walk around the place which generated a little too much attention for my liking. But it was ok and something funny did happen. One man sitting down called me over and told me he wants to chat. He said he was a prince and that his father was very famous and everyone gives him a lot of respect (pointing to the group of guys he was with). Now he seemed very friendly and all and in fact wanted to meet up with me later in the week. Gave me his contact details and asked for mine. It was only when he suggested that one day I might be able to take some gold back to Australia with me and then bring mining equipment back I suspected he wasn’t telling the entire truth. I don't think I'll be contacting my 'princely' friend anytime soon but if he's that well connected, maybe he'll find me.

Anyways the burial was fun overall. I guess I just have to witness a Nigerian naming ceremony, a traditional engagement and I will have done the whole ceremony experience (well those that I've heard of so far anyway).

Language

Yes, they speak English in Nigeria, for it was once an English colony. So why would I have trouble understanding anyone. Well, if the average person is chatting in English I often have not much idea what they are saying. I think the accent is even harder to decipher than the one I encountered in India. Its only when people speak more clearly/slowly/directly to me that I can understand everything.

The worst is when boys get together. They almost always drift into Pidgin (broken) English, which is a mix of English and Nigerian words and one funky accent (don't forget the elaborate gestures). I think this is what I really need to learn, as apparently village people who can't speak English very well can speak pidgin.

Now Nigeria has many other languages since they have many tribes. But there are three main languages. Hausa is spoken in the northern regions, Igbo, in the south-eastern areas, and Yoruba, where I am, in the south-western states. So I am trying to learn Yoruba. It's actually strange, but I've seen it compared to learning Chinese. Because it's all about tone. i.e. many words are spelled the same, but the tone on the vowel sounds changes the meaning of the word. For example eyin could mean teeth, back or egg depending on how you say it. There are of course many instances where the wrong tone could get one in a bit of trouble.

More examples later.

Nick

Ile-Ife. A student town.

Took a hair-raising, shared taxi trip to my home for this traineeship – Ife. Ok the trip wasn't that hair raising. Sure there were big ditches and holes in the road, police checkpoints to pass, and some crazy drivers out there, but our driver seemed to know when to swerve/slow for the holes, knew when/who to bribe, and was more reckless than half the other motorists. But hey I arrived in one piece.

Ife is a quiet town. Especially so when there are no students. For it is also partly a student town. One that swells to life when school is on. Which is what is happening now. After beating up their vice-chancellor and other such mischief (ah kids these days), the students of Ife's university (Obafemi Awolowo University) were punished with a 3 month strike/ban. For now they have agreed to open the uni, but not resolved the matter.

There are constantly these long-running disputes between students, teachers and the administration. They always cause long delays. One such delay/strike lasted 11 months. Which is why the students here commonly describe how long there degree here by saying it is 4 plus x. The x factor being the extra number of years one must attend due to strikes and clashes. The University of Lagos is also closed at the moment after some students "torched" 15 cars or so and attacked their VC. Though I think most of the time, uni is not running because of strikes, not violence. NEWSFLASH! My boss's son has just returned home from his college of technology after students from his school beat up their Dean of something-or-other and his wife etc. etc.


So anyway it's a small town. So much so that I kind of already know my way around it (basically) after two weeks. Mind you the university grounds are almost bigger than the town. There is no strolling to campus here. It's a 20-30 min walk from the front gate to the first building. Also, whenever I seem to walk anywhere with some of the AIESECers around town, we have to stop every 10 metres or so to say hi to somebody. If anyone is late its often because they had to stop and chat to too many people.

Student Life

I am told that students here are very serious about their studies. And from what I can tell they certainly are. In this week before university started, both my roommates have spent much of their time sitting around the room studying. I think they have spent more time studying in the past week than I did in the past two years.

But they like to hang out too. I was at Femi's hostel room and throughout a four hour stretch there must have been 30 people hanging out in the room at one time or another. Mostly boys though. So there was a lot of communal feeding. If someone brings in a pot of food there is soon 8 people eating out of it.

Most of the students here live in hostels, either on or off campus. Campus has massive numbers of hostels for students to live in. Also, all the lecturing staff live on campus. They have houses and apartments reserved for them. Each lecturer also has some "boys quarters" separate from the main house which is let out to students. That is what I will be soon moving into.

NEPA!

Cries of NEPA can be heard in any Nigerian household on any given day. Why? Because NEPA stands for National Electricity Power Authority. A fact of life here is that power is not constant. In Lagos one can reasonably expect power to go down about 5 times a day. In Ife we are much more privileged. The power might only go out once or twice a day (depending where you live).

I have thought this a touch inconvenient, but it really becomes annoying when
a) The fan that is keeping the malaria-carrying mosquitoes from biting you stops in the middle of the night because the power has gone out (happened every night in Lagos)
b) You are watching a movie on TV only to miss the last 10 mins because NEPA has struck (which incidentally has left you in the dark in a strange house stumbling over furniture to get back to your room)
c) The only thing you have to cook is a two-plate electric stove (just about everyone, especially the students rely on these things to cook)
d) When it goes out during champions league time (remembering of course Nigerians are football mad). I'm surprised there wasn't a riot.

The locals actually prefer to say NEPA has taken the light (rather than the power is out). And having one’s relative working for NEPA is almost as much embarrassment as having them work for the police (generally police are not well-like around here).

But the funniest thing about this whole scenario is that NEPA has been renamed. It is not referred to as National Electricity Power Authority any more, but is called (and you can find this in a Nigerian Pidgin English dictionary)…

Never Expect Power Always

Atkins Beware!

When travelling to any new place, food always seems to be a big topic of conversation.

I have made some effort to try some of the different Nigerian foods so far, and am handling it ok (i.e. my internal workings are still working). As the title suggests, the meals are not for those adverse to carbohydrates. In a typical Nigerian dish one can expect to find a big plate of carbs, so far its been rice, pasta, cassava yam (or some concoction derived from yam). In fact it seems that Nigerians have gone for the concept that the more food on your plate the better it is (at the same time forgetting that meat and vegetables taste better and have more nutrients). This will then be accompanied by a single small piece of meat (usually goat or beef) and the Nigerian staple – pepper sauce. This sauce is made from tomatoes, onion and red peppers. They are shredded and then cooked for hours till the sauce is quite thick. This sauce is hot. But I’m getting used to it. The thing is Nigerians love to put pepper (you can get the powdered form) on everything. I managed to eat the only dish I'd heard about before I arrived. That being pepper soup. Any kind of meat (I had catfish) in a fiery pepper sauce.

The other night I tried something that definitely tops my weird food list (there's not that many things on the list yet, but I'm trying). I had an Ibo dish imaginatively titled and literally translating as "head goat". From what I could gather, they get a goats head and roughly chop the whole thing up, mix it with spices, cook it, put it in a calabash and serve it up. It was actually one of the better things I've tried so far. The sauce was made of secret spices, potash and palm oil (I am told) and wasn't too spicy for once. What’s more the meat was of decent quality and tender. Though the eyeball that I ate was a touch on the rubbery side.

Otherwise I seem to be eating a lot of goat. A typical roadside snack is goat meat (more emphasis on the skin and fat, than meat) heavily peppered and barbequed. Things they eat that we don’t include yam (lots and lots of yam, it's a bit like potato), cassava and plaintain (tastes like a cross between banana and pumpkin, but looks exactly like one of our bananas). Yam comes in all sorts. Yam flour, a kind of drink made from yam, yam paste, or just whole and boiled.

I anticipate much more to add for this section.

Lagos

Lagos is affectionately described in my guide book as "every traveller's worst nightmare" so I was wondering what it could have done to deserve such a reputation. Ok, I was with AIESECers and probably shielded a little from the average traveller's experience but I didn't find it THAT bad.

Sure its kind of hot and humid - always. The traffic is the worst I have ever experienced - I'm quite sure each driving hour here takes about 4 off your total lifespan. This of course equates to years considering how long some people stay in traffic. Indeed the economy of Lagos seems to be centred around the roads. For instance one can buy anything on the road. In a two minute stretch I noted guys selling - phone cards, sausage rolls, dart boards, boxer shorts, hair cutting sets, drinking glasses, drinks, artworks, sunglasses, oranges and books.

The Nigerian road sellers are perfectly adapted to the classic image you may have seen of goods carried on heads. Both guys and girls of all ages seem to have this skill. The best I saw way one bloke carrying a dozen or so cement bags on this wooden board.

Nigeria has a big reputation for violence. I didn't see much of it on the streets, the only exception being the arguements whenever someone appears to have been hit by a car/motorcyle/bus.

Anyways more later,

Nick

Getting Here

Ok let's start from the beginning.

Getting to Nigeria from Australia. Yeah its real far. I haven't calculated but I'm sure there aren't to many places further from one another. 24 hours to London, 6 hour wait, then a 7 hour flight to Lagos = a day and half odd uncomfortable sleeping. But who cares, I made it didn't I.

I am 95% sure that the chick sitting diagonally opposite me on the flight from Sydney to London was the red-headed woman from CSI. I had this internal battle waging in my head all they way "why would a top tv actress travel in economy class, yet.... she looks soooo like her".

Other than that my flights were uneventful. But got the chance to chat to a great guy on the way to Lagos. Most of the people on the flight were Nigerians that live in london returning home to visit relatives like Austin next to me. He had some interesting business ideas on how Nigeria should stop worshipping oil and try other things, like coal, which he was in to.

Going through immigration I got a bit shafted. They only stamped my visa for one month so I'm going to have to do a bit of work to fix that. Incidentally for all you hashers out there, the woman in from of me in the queue had a Lagos HHH badge on her bag. So looks like that great expat culture is thriving here too.

About half a dozen or so AIESECers met me at the airport. The boys escorted me through the carpark and helped me avoid the extra attention of a few Nigerian police. Drove through Lagos to Femi's house where I would be to stay for a week until I moved to Ife where my traineeship is located.

All in all, an incident free trip,

Nick

The Details

Ok folks I've set up this blog and know basically how to use it.

However since I've already been in Nigeria 3 weeks, I have lots to say and tell you all but its all going to be coming out in the wrong order. So if i tell you stuff about what's happening now, and then tell about my arrival don't concern yourself. Its just because I just finished setting up the blog.

Ok so here I go.

Nick

Introduction

Hello all,

Just testing this out to see if I've figured this out. To those who don't know me I'm from Sydney, Australia and am on an AIESEC traineeship in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

More on the intro later once I check if this works.

cya,

Nick

Hello again,

The good folk hosting this blog ask that I introduce myself so here’s a proper intro this time.

So I’ve come from Sydney, the University of Sydney to be specific, and am on an AIESEC traineeship in Ile-Ife (most people just say Ife) in south-west Nigeria. I’m working for an NGO called Family Health and Development Initiatives (FAHEDI). Basically they run all sorts of projects centred around community health, and getting health education messages out to the public any way they can. I’ll of course be commenting on my work as I go.

So yeah I’ve just finished my degree (B Science Adv.) and just completed my honours in November 2004. I’m 22 as of today and born on 13/071982 (so now you have no excuses for forgetting my birthday).

I’m not sure how often I’ll be updating this as internet access is ok but quite slow (I’ve been spoilt by too much broadband at home). I’m not sure if you will like my style but if I could describe it, I would say I am quite observational, descriptive and not overtly opinionated in my writing. I’ll try to be entertaining and humorous if possible but I’m not comedian so don’t get your hopes up! But feel free to add comments, give suggestions or send me an email (use nicholas.wolf@aiesec.net for quickest reply).

So that’s all for now, I’ll start posting soon,

Nicholas