.
Is that they are DEVELOPING! The weird mix of realities is dizzying and disorienting and takes a lot of energy to process.
There are such stark contrasts and incomprehensible ironies. One minute you see progress, the next minute one feels how are they ever going to get this all together? Like, I can blog using the internet in a campsite with no flushing toilet, refrigeration or hot water.
Or see this big a__ satellite disc sitting on top of a shack that can barely bear its weight?
(This is supposedly the boat of the richest guy in Nigeria.)
You see wealth sitting amidst extreme poverty. Or modern bridges and barely passable roads within a half mile of each other. Banks and ATMS existing along side the money changer system.
MONEY CHANGERS
Let me explain the money changer thing in Nigeria: if you’ve got dollars and you need naira, you don’t go to the ATM or the Bank on the foreign exchanges in the airport or the hotel. NO, you go in a car behind the hotel or wherever the money changers are known to be in that part of town (and everyone knows where this is).
Most of the money changers are just outside hanging on the corners waiting for you to come, but some also have offices that you drive up to. Ok, so you drive up and immediately a bunch of guys run up and surround your car; you roll down your window and ask for the exchange rate (you might negotiate a bit if you have a Nigerian doing the talking); then you say how much you want to exchange; one of the guys runs off somewhere and comes back within minutes with a wad of cash; you sit there and count it, and then you ride off like basically you just did a little drive thru banking. CRAZY!!
This system is accepted by everyone. It is run exclusively by the Hausa ethnic group. They have best rates and no one seems to get hurt in the process. But I got to tell you, it looks so shady that I felt like I was on some corner in Baltimore transacting drug business like an episode from the “WIRE.” Oh and Nigeria is all about cash. Folks don't take plastic except the big hotels. I have never walked around with so much cash on me or so many huge bills. [If you change $500 U.S. dollars, that's 75,000 naira. If you ask and can get 1000 notes, that means 75 bills; if you get 500 notes, that's 150 pieces of cash! You have this huge stack of bills on you- everyone laughed at me because I never figured out the right way to hold the bills so I could count my money.]
Because there is so much corruption in Nigeria, there is also the phenomenon of the vacant building. Everywhere there seems to be projects that got started but never finished- like the contractor ran off with the money. It costs too much to tear these things down, so they just kind of remain for years.
Nigeria is really tough too because you know that there is all this oil money moving through lots of hands but not getting distributed to those who need it most- although people are trying. I definitely think the standard of living among the working poor is higher than in India; I think I heard $50 month for a family of 4; I think some people in India are making $90 annually. And still we visited people living in a small 2 room (small ante room and bedroom) concrete structure with 6 people living in one room. They did have a refrigerator and air unit, but not wired lights. Strangely, they had a huge shirtless R.Kelly poster on the wall, which i was really confused by but did not ask about.
Still, we came out of there at night, no street lights at all so you can't see much, but as we drove down the almost impassable road, everywhere we could see these little stores/shacks with oil lamps or little kerosene stoves, selling things, people hanging and laughing, playing cards; I even saw a woman braiding hair with a head lamp on her head. As they say,"neccesity is the mother of invention." People are doing what they can to make it.
Two weeks went by so quickly. I have such a limited perspective. I was trying to pick up what I could, hanging out with Pam and hearing her friends talk about policies, politics, and their own lives. There were no tour guides this trip (except in Badagry), but I got to hang out with and meet the cook, the driver, the government lodge staff, the governor,
the minister of that and the permanent secretary of this, the super talented seamstress who made me 3 dresses in one day (who was the sister of the catering manager of the lodge;he is also an enginer), Pammy’s friends from Abuja and Port Hartcourt
And of course I got to meet the youth of Nigeria who are its future.
I GOT TO REMEMBER AGAIN, HOW BLESSED I AM AND HOW MUCH I HAVE TO LEARN AND WANT TO GIVE.
Peace and Prosperity to my Motherland
Peace and Prosperity to the Diaspora
Peace and Prosperity to ALL.
V.
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