(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!