Letter #2

Hello friends,

I’m starting to accept the fact that I’m here in Ife for at least four more weeks, but this has only resulted in giving me strange dreams. Last night, I dreamt that I had returned to my apartment in New Haven that very night and promptly went out for a night on the town with my sister and some friends. After a few bottles of wine and some caviar (this is where I should have realized that it was a dream, but I was too happy to notice), I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t taken the final exam for this program I’m in and started frantically trying to arrange for a flight back to Nigeria, hoping that the lecturers hadn’t noticed my two-day absence. Imagine my relief (and subsequent depression) when I opened my eyes and realized that I was only fast asleep under my mosquito net, and hundreds of miles away from even a teaspoonful of caviar. Life can be so cruel.

Nigerian news is pretty interesting. Since I got here, I have counted about fourteen aspirants to the presidential seat for the 2007 elections, and I hear about a new one almost every day. By my calculations, all that remains is for Bulus, the man who delivers our newspapers, to tell us that he will also be contesting the elections next year. The Northerners have all but vowed that the next president will come from Hausa/Muslim land, since they have been kind enough to allow a Christian Southerner to be president for the past 8 years. In their words, “it is time for control to return to the North; we have given the South their chance.” So we can all heave a collective sigh of relief, as we can see that democracy is thriving within Nigeria’s borders.

I’ve been watching a lot of Nigerian movies as well. My favorite one is titled “If I Had Known You Were A Witch, I Would Never Have Married You, Now You Have Come Into My House To Suck Me Dry and Destroy My Life, But Because of Juju (Voodoo), I Cannot Even See It So I Have Estranged My Entire Extended Family and Only THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST As Presented To Me By A Girl Who Is Younger and More Beautiful Than You Will Save Me From Your Evil Clutches!”--something like that. It’s great, sensational fun.

This past weekend, I visited the town of Abeokuta, which houses the great Olumo Rock. This rock is reported to have saved the Yoruba people of that area from annihilation during wars (I think) and so, from time immemorial, the people have worshipped the rock. The name “Abeokuta” actually means “under the rock”, which shows how important this bit of nature is to the people of that area. We climbed this rock—which is more like a rock formation, complete with caves and everything—and at the halfway point, we visited two shrines housed within it. One of the shrines was smeared with the blood of a black cow, which is responsible for the lack of deaths caused by falling from Olumo Rock. That was interesting. The other shrine was in the care of four barechested old ladies, who prayed for us for a token sum of money. I was more interested in what was left of their breasts than their actual prayers: their boobs looked like wet, wrinkled socks dangling from their chests to their hip bones. One of them had the audacity to wear a bra. It was using a hammock to buoy up a piece of string. I nearly slapped her for her impudence, but I was too busy mourning the future of my own breasts. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of them, and that’s probably a good thing; nobody needs to see that. I took pictures of the view from the highest point I was able to climb (I overcame a fear of heights to take these pictures that day, by the way), as well as pictures of the rocky passage we had to climb through to get to the highest point, and a cave that housed people during the war. It’s very low; you have to be doubled over in there, but they had grooves for grinding corn, pepper, etc, and 5 rooms that they built in there (though only one is left).

Oh, I nearly forgot! Yesterday, one of my lecturers fainted. This came just days after another lecturer got drunk and fell asleep in front of the class while one of my classmates was reading a composition he wrote in Yoruba. It was great! He slept for almost ten minutes and nothing we did could wake him up. We coughed, sneezed, clapped our hands, dropped our books on the floor, laughed...it was shocking, to say the least. I mean, I’ve been in school for almost twenty years and I’ve never seen anything like it! When he eventually woke up, he said, “Oh my goodness, I nodded off for a little while. Did you notice?” Uh, yeah! You better believe we noticed! Anyway, so today, my other lecturer just up and keeled over in class; if we hadn’t been able to catch her, she would have hit her head on the floor, like WHAM! Then she began to pray, calling upon all the angels of God to counter this spiritual attack of the devil against her—it was so weird, especially since her spell was more likely due to the fact that she’s anemic and was also suffering from dehydration.

Suffice it to say, this has been the most exciting three weeks of my entire educational career! From dancing and singing, to falling asleep and fainting, Ife lecturers have proven that they are the most entertaining lecturers in the world! They almost make up for the fact that I have to share my room with that overly bold gecko. Have I mentioned that he has now graduated from crawling all over my shoes to crawling all over my bed’s headboard? If I have to wake up to that thing on my forehead one day, nobody will hear the end of it o!

And finally, we went to the House of Assembly today (equivalent of the House of Reps) to watch the proceedings in Yoruba. It was supposed to be a learning experience that we would treasure, but I’m sad to say that it was anything but. I might have known it would be a downhill experience when we first asked to use the restroom and they said they would take us to “the good one” since we were their guests. “The good one” smelled like urine that hadn’t been flushed away for a thousand years. I’m still wondering if all the liquid I saw all over the floor was actually water or just more bodily fluid. I didn’t/couldn’t use the restroom. This was at 8:30 am. After waiting for 3 hours to watch the proceedings, which were supposed to start at 9am, we finally made our way to the assembly hall. Our guide was very proud to tell us that this was the first parliamentary building in all Nigeria, but I couldn’t really understand what there was to be proud of. All I’m saying is: if after 50 years, the hall still looks like this, they might have to rethink this pride of theirs. Yoruba people are so proud of their heritage; I think it blinds them to the lack of progress they’ve made since the 19th century.

Anyway, so we watched the proceedings and couldn’t understand anything. We fell asleep, our program directors fell asleep, the parliamentarians (they call themselves “honorables”) fell asleep in between their long speeches to one another. Finally, at 2pm, they adjourned the proceedings. Then we were informed that the Speaker of the House was going to treat us to lunch in the conference room. All the members of parliament joined us there; apparently, news of free food spreads quickly. But before we could eat, the Speaker had to give a speech. Then his deputy wanted to give a speech. Then our program director gave his speech. And then some other random guy that wanted to hold the mic also gave a speech. I don’t remember what anyone said; I was still in dire need of a bathroom that I couldn’t smell from around the corner. After the random guy spoke, the Speaker took the mic back because it was crucial that he have the last word lest people forget that he is the Speaker of the House. In this speech, he told us that we could help the House of Assembly in so many ways when we get back to the States. He told us that we could start by dispelling all the negative impressions that people have of Nigeria, now that we’ve seen. I wanted to ask him whether he had considered that we didn’t really have any positive impressions so far, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate. He said that he knows many people in America think that Nigerians have tails, but now that we have seen that Nigerians look just like Americans we could go and tell them so. He added that we could send books to their library about good governance, which would also be very helpful. Then he capped off the speech by saying that the most important thing we could do to help them at the House of Assembly would be to send them invitation letters so that when they went to the embassy to get their visas, they would look more credible to the visa officers. Shame no gree me laugh.[*] I thought he was joking at first, until other members of parliament started accosting various female members of our group and asking them for their personal information in the States so that they could contact/visit them if they ever got there.

When I had had enough, I went in search of another bathroom. You may be wondering why I attempted this. Aside from the fact that you could see how swollen my bladder was through my clothes, I just really didn’t think that any toilet in the world could be as bad as the first one that I smelled (since I didn’t really see that one). I was wrong. As I approached the second restroom, I bumped into a woman who asked me where I was going. I pointed. She pointed in the same direction and said, “That one?” I nodded my head, “Yes.” She shook her head morosely and looked at me with a great amount of pity, then she shrugged her shoulders and said, “OK.” Why I didn’t just turn around then and there, I’ll never understand. Instead, I took off the sweater I was wearing, folded it in five and tied it around my nose and mouth for protection. I thought I was thinking ahead. I took three steps into the toilet when my eyes started to water, then my ears started bleeding, and then the smell exploded through the fibers of my sweater and assaulted my nose so badly that I could taste all the fecal matter that must have caked every surface of all the toilets in that room. Frustration no gree me cry. I was so angry, I became happy again. I staggered out of the bathroom and went back to the conference room.

I don’t really remember anything that happened after that. Nothing matters, really. I’m home now, and I have showered and relieved myself of all that troubled me today. I have to say, though: I know that I’m giving a really bad impression of Nigeria in my emails, but hopefully you’re laughing as well, cuz at the end of it all, I laugh too. And this is just one part of Nigeria—in all the years that I spent here, I’ve never experienced anything like this, so we’re all learning together (even though I’m gaining much more practical experience than any of you). I continue to pray that things will improve over here, so that these stories can remain just humorous memories of the past. Peace and love, y’all.

kulutempa

[*] I was too ashamed to laugh.