Lagos, 1:30AM

Since bouts of insomnia/jet lag won’t allow me a solid’s night’s rest just yet, I thought it a grand time to let you know how life goes. . .

The big news of the year: electricity has been available for a full 24 hours – as a Christmas bonus, I suppose. Word has it that as much as a week can go by without a blink of light. Other word has it that two weeks is the max, but my father says that even though there is no ‘usual’ when it comes to NEPA (the ‘power’ company), what usually goes down is a few hours a day, at any given point during the day.

What else? . . . it’s hot. Borderline oppressively so at midday, but in the evenings we’ve been privy to a cool cool breeze. . . which serves me well after my evening bath. I guess you’d like to know about that too. Well, there’s a bucket with fresh water, a small bowl, the bathtub, my soap, my sponge and me. It’s actually quite efficient and makes you wonder what the hell we do in the shower for so long. . .

As another sort of FYI I’ve been nursing a power-phlegm upper respiratory infection for a week or so now, and add to that 13 hours of airplane travel and one of the more dusty, emissions-polluted environments in the world, and there you have it: me with a chest-racking cough that makes perfect strangers offer up their apologies when they hear it.

And there you’ll find the people: too used to the struggle. Happy and free, but almost too free for their own liking. I imagine that if two-thirds of the population were offered up some sort of stability (by way of employment, education, etc), they’d gladly trade in their afternoon siestas and midday market chats. But I think the same must be true for most other disadvantaged communities, no?

But nevertheless, I’ve already been handed the looking glass on several occasions, and I’m grateful. It’s not even as if the land is so strange or that I am such a stranger, but rather it’s this idea of the unknown being present in almost every moment. Without a barometer, I’m left at my most vulnerable, constantly trying to understand a new situation while existing within it as a required protagonist.

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I've started this as a reminder to self to stay connected with those who stay connected to me, regardless of geographic locations. If you like, check back in from time to time to see what I see and how I see it . . . in Nigeria, that is.

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