Day One in Nigeria
I stepped off the escalator, where a sign stood before me. An arrow directed “Nigerian passports” to the left; so I took my place in the weaving line on the right. As I stood there, a familiar smell seeped from outside through the fridge-sized air conditioner near the wall. It was something I couldn’t seem to pinpoint – a fresh mix of mud and leaves with a hint of must as well. Though I couldn’t quite describe it, I found myself placing it. It was a scent that had filled my nostrils some ten years before when I was a small boy, travelling with family for the first time to visit our relatives in Nigeria. And it was the same scent that escaped my grandmother’s suitcase each time she would visit us in the U.S.
I looked at the line before me. A swath of Nigerians from the diaspora gripped blue and red passports, as a handful of white nuns and missionaries were spread between us. My eyes wandered across the center aisle, where the same sight was mirrored, save green booklets instead, and sans missionaries and nuns. My gaze was suddenly cut short as the entire room went pitch black. A loud cry of disappointment was released from the crowd at the left, while a delirious laugh of surprise erupted from the right. (I may have been the instigator…) A quilt of mobile backlights soon appeared, fading in and out of the darkness, illuminating disgruntled faces all around.
After a few minutes, the back-up generators kicked in, re-powering the immigration process. I looked again toward the left, where flatscreen monitors sat atop stainless steel kiosks, herding the crowd into rows instead of registering their re-entry into the country. I began to wonder why the more modern stalls had been substituted by the aging wooden desks just beyond them. I snicker at my short memory.
I made my way to the desk, where two officers typed my information into a different set of computers. “Welcome, my brother,” said the second officer, handing me my passport.
“Uh, thanks,” I responded, caught a bit off guard. I contemplated the gesture. Was it because I’m “pseudo-Nigerian” that he chose to welcome me; or was it because I’m “pseudo-Nigerian” that I was so surprised?
After grabbing my luggage, I walked through a militia of taxi-hawkers and stood outside. I scanned the crowd, as my eyes locked-in on two gentlemen holding a cardboard sign with bright-orange bands, dangling from their wrists. My ride was there. As we walked toward the van, we passed about four different men, each dressed in sleek, traditional attire, waving large decks of Naira, asking if I wanted to exchange money. I’d heard of micro-finance, but micro-trading? Really?
We journeyed on toward the New World Hotel at Okota, slowly dipping in and crawling out of several cow-sized potholes. As we passed stationary eighteen-wheelers and fought through yellow taxi-jams, I found myself pondering…everything. I wanted to know “what”. I wanted to understand “why”. I wanted to see “how”. I wasn’t quite sure what my questions were, but I certainly hoped that landing on Nigerian soil was the first step toward figuring it out.
NJNious
