(Pop) Culture

When I was researching Lagos before we moved here, I came across the following quote by George H.T. Kimble and it has really stuck with me:

"The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it." 

While here, I really hope to learn more about the continent, because I feel like we didn't cover it much in grade-school history class. We learned a lot about the slave trade, maybe a little about colonialism, and then concluded the African section with apartheid in South Africa. Or maybe I just didn't think it related much to my then life in the states and I didn't absorb any of the information. That very well could have happened, but I'm here now and I should know more. I'm still struggling to wrap my brain around how big this continent is (see map above), I mean, Nigeria alone is bigger than Texas. That's pretty darn big. So while we are somewhat concerned about the recent happenings in the Northern part of Nigeria, it's pretty far away from where we are. It would be like worrying about a murder in Dallas when you live in Corpus Christi. Concerning and upsetting, yes, but not exactly pertinent to your current wellbeing. That's not to say we aren't vigilant, we hear and think about safety precautions daily, and there are lots of protocols in place to keep us secure here. Sorry! It seem to have veered off on a bit of a tangent here. But following the news of 7 expats being kidnapped near the northern city of  Kano yesterday, I felt like I needed to reiterate the distance and differences between here and there. 

Anyway, Africa is huge and I know almost nothing about any of it. But I'm trying to rectify that and absorb as much as possible in my time here. Some of what I'm trying to learn is actual history, and the rest of it is cultural in an attempt to better understand this oh-so-foreign-to-me place I now reside.

I'm currently reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I'm only about 1/3 through but it's very good and offers a lot of insight/explanation into Nigerian culture and attitudes. I definitely recommend it even if you aren't currently living here. Like I mentioned before, I don't remember learning about this stuff at all in world history, so any historical fiction about Africa is an enjoyable refresher for me.  Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost has also been recommended to me, but I haven't started it yet. I'm thinking I should have started with it first since it covers the carving up of Africa into European colonies in the 19th century and the other takes place right after British rule ended here in Nigeria. Too late now.

I keep hearing about a few nice museums in Lagos to check out. We haven't made it to one yet but this morning I heard about this online collection of Nigerian art:

Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art

I thought it would be nice to share for anyone interested. If you visit the site, click on 'Artists' to select and browse an individual's work.

Now for some less intellectual, popular culture:

In my spare time, I don't listen to too much Nigerian music, but in the car the driver often has the radio on and we've heard a few good songs. Our favorite right now is a song called 'Chop My Money' and it's played EVERYWHERE: Sunday brunch, shopping malls, around the hotel, and all 3 bars we've visited.  We prefer some of the covers over the original version but you can hear it here:

Spoiler alert: it's rap. We haven't tried out that sweet dance move featured in the video yet.

Below is a slower song called 'I Luv U Nigeria' by VECTOR. We heard it in the car and thought it had a nice message. Nigerians are very proud of their country.

Nigeria television broadcasts a lot of soap operas during the day here. There are whole channels devoted to these programs. They all seem very dramatic and some of them involve tribes and chiefs and that whole business.  But usually I can't follow them very well since they speak one of the tribal languages or pidgin English. The dramatic acting does help me to figure out what's probably going on, but I don't really enjoy watching. They were filming a reality tv show at our hotel for a few weeks that will eventually air on EbonyLife TV, a station that doesn't exist yet. I have no idea what the plot for this show was but sometimes one of the characters would put on lip-synching performances while we were trying to enjoy cocktails at the bar. Ryan once tripped in front of the cameras (but didn't fall) while they were filming so we're confident that he will at least make the blooper reel.

Our favorite television shows here are on National Geographic and Animal Planet. The African lineup for these channels is definitely more exotic than back in the states. For instance, Animal Planet is less 'Animal Cops: Houston' and more salt water crocodiles or almost being eaten by lions in your backyard. Understandably, these shows are a lot more exciting than 'It's Me or The Dog' given the abundant natural wildlife people here deal with. (Except in Nigeria, we only have cool lizards because the other exotic animals have all been eaten. Not a joke.)

The best on Animal Planet is a show called 'Baboons with Bill Bailey' that follows a few South African baboon tribes as they steal things from people and wreck havoc on everything in their path. They even have people whose entire job description is keeping the baboons out of trouble, they're called Baboon Wranglers. Our other favorite show is called 'Air Crash Investigation' on National Geographic. It details why actual planes crashes occurred and comes on at the nightmare-inducing time of 10:45pm. We've made our selves stop watching it though in preparation for our upcoming flights home!

Just An Update

In case you missed it on facebook, Ryan and I will be making a somewhat unexpected trip home next week. We have to head back to the US to deal with some visa issues, which is a pain, but we're happy for the break from Lagos life. While home we'll be able to attend the wedding of some dear friends that we thought we were going to miss, so, the timing is absolutely perfect and it's amazing that we didn't even plan it that way. The trip will come right at our 3-month mark here, and we're looking forward to stocking up on a few things that we forgot to bring (need more sunscreen!), and of course, getting a break from the hotel. I'm planning to spend 4 weeks in the US, and hopefully by the time I get back we'll be very close to moving into an apartment. Hopefully.

Our lives here have been sort of busy lately. This past weekend we joined the Lagos Wine Club, which was a lot of fun and actually a great bargain. The cost is 7,000N per couple (or, about $45.00) for a year's membership which includes 4-5 events. This past Saturday's event was sponsored by Nederburg, a South African winery, and they brought about 10 wines to sample and all were quite good. I was expecting the samples to just be tasters, but they kept filling our glasses all the way up, so we definitely got our money's worth. The event worked out really well because we weren't familiar with any African wines, and now we have a go-to brand. (I just realized I keep telling people the name of the wine was Nuremberg, but that's clearly not right. This wine was delicious and had nothing to do with Germany or war crimes, so I'm trying to get Nederburg stuck in my head instead.)

All in all, it was a great night and I recommend the wine society to all expats looking to meet other expats in Lagos. It's hard to imagine how many of us there are here when I keep seeing the same 30+ people on a regular basis. But there were a few hundred people at the wine event, most of which I had never seen/met before.

Not a very good picture from my phone at the wine tasting Saturday night. Nobody fell in the pool this night but we heard it had happened before :)

I now have an established Thursday activity to go along with the stitching group on Mondays. Thursday mornings we go to a Motherless Babies Home located nearby to help out with the babies. Really, the babies just need people to hold them so that they're properly socialized rather than being stuck in a crib all day. Babies aren't really my thing, but I couldn't very well say no to babies in need... so I've started going with some other women every Thursday. There are about 30 or so kids under the age of 4 that we visit with and even more living there go to school during the day. A group of ladies has been going to the home for quite some time now and have a very impressive routine worked out that all the kids follow. When it's time to leave, the kids help put all the toys away, sit down quietly, and then receive an animal cracker. The hour and a half preceding this routine is borderline chaos (hitting, toy stealing, screaming, crying, pushing, pinching, runny noses, ball throwing, etc.), so it's amazing to see the kids be so calm for a few minutes.

Located in Lekki about 10-30 minutes away depending on traffic.

The ladies that have been going for a while bring their own toys for the kids to play with and take them with them when they leave. The sad truth is that any toys that get donated end up disappearing, probably going home with the workers for their kids to play with, so there aren't many toys to be seen other than what they bring. There are lots of donated clothes, diapers, formula, baby wipes, and baby blankets on hand so the employees are doing a good job of providing the essentials. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but a few weeks ago the contract was finally signed! We had been waiting on it since October 1, but others know that it was supposed to have been signed way back in July! Glad we didn't get here any earlier than we did! We were very excited about the signing for a few days because we thought that the proverbial ball had started rolling, but alas, we are now waiting for other things to be signed, so we probably have another month or so in the hotel. I just have to keep reminding myself that patience is a virtue. 

Africa Cup of Nations

This will be the only time I ever write about soccer, ever.

Super Eagles! This was obviously the best picture I found when searching for a team logo.
Thank you to the forums of Nairaland.com

The Nigerian national soccer team is playing in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals tonight. The team has done unexpectedly well in the tournament after years of mediocrity. This year’s success comes as such a surprise that Nigerian tv stations didn’t even bother to buy the rights to tonight’s game! Consequently, the only way to watch the game tonight is through a satellite provider. How crazy is that! Officials are still trying to work up a last minute deal to get it on the local stations, so let’s hope they figure something out.

Before the tournament started, we had asked one of the company’s drivers about Nigeria’s chances, and he didn’t exactly speak very highly of the team since they failed to even qualify for AFCON last year. The last time they won the tournament was 1994.  Nigeria does have one major international soccer star, Yakubu, but he makes the big bucks on a Chinese team and didn’t even bother to come back for the tournament. What a jerk! So the team is winning without their biggest star and still managing to defeat the really good countries that have had their international players active!

Despite my personal loathing for all things footie, we are planning to cheer on our adoptive country and watch the game with other fans down by the pool this evening. Ryan and I both made a conscious effort to wear green today to show our support for the team, but when we went down to lunch we found that we were the only people who had thought to do so. Good thing I decided to forego the face paint.

Side Note: The team they are playing tonight is Burkina Faso, a country that I had never heard of before last week. Over lunch with friends, we voiced the idea that maybe it was a new country that had formerly been part of Mali or Ghana or something. WRONG. Burkina Faso has been around since 1984 (says Wikipedia), and before then it was named the Republic of Upper Volta. Whoops!