Trifter

Normally when I tell people I am a foreign service officer, I have to brace myself. One of two things happens: first, people look at me like I must be a foreigner; after all Im in the foreign service. It takes a while to explain what it is I do. Then it takes even longer to explain to them what international development is. I try first by bringing up the Tsunami and all the work that had to be done to help people affected by it. When that doesn’t work, I explain that there are countries where the average income is less than a $1,000 a year and that these countries have lots of people who are really poor. Not just that they cant afford HBO, but they cant afford cable. Or TV. Or the car necessary to get to the store to buy the TV. Or pay for electricity. Or medicine. So we try to do stuff about it. Like fund health programs for these people. “Oh, like encouraging them to walk to work?” Conversation over.

Second, I get this look of envy. As if my house is beach front and I enjoy fruity cocktails poolside in the afternoon and attend fancy black tie events at night. Then I mention that I serve in Nigeria. The fruit is dangerous, I cant afford the cocktails, the beach is dangerous and half the country away, and I avoid dinners at the Hilton like the plague. Nigeria is not a tropical paradise, it is not a traveler’s dream, it is not a country of luxury. It’s difficult living. I want to tell people stories so they understand, but Im afraid of telling a story and hearing “how wonderful!” or “how exotic!”. So I don’t usually tell my stories. But oh do I have some.

It’s been three years in Nigeria. And every day I continue to learn new uses for English words. Deck, for example. Or the plural, decks. In the US we use this word as a label for an outdoor floor area attached to a house, normally made of wood. Not commonly used in the plural in our English. But in Nigeria I hear it often, mostly when I call my Nigerian colleagues and get their voice mail: “Hello, this is Innocent. I am away from my decks so please leave me a message”. Tax is another interesting word. One of my colleagues has nicknamed me the Tax Master. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. After a year, I asked him about it and he said “because you are always assigning taxes for people to do”. I asked him what he called it when he pays the government a portion of his salary. “Task. Why do you ax?” he replied.

Nigerians don’t understand my sense of humor. Last week I went to the mailroom to see if I had any packages of food. I was wearing a traditional shirt since it was Friday, a gesture many people in the office appreciate. The mailroom staff looked at me and said, “Mr. Nikhi, you look like a cow herder from the North!” and they all laughed. I quickly replied, “So I hope you have boxes of food for me so I can feed my cattle.” They were silent for a moment before one of them asked, “You have cattle?” On the other hand, sometimes it’s very easy to make people laugh. A few days ago I went to see my wife. On the way back, I grabbed a piece of cake that was sitting outside her office. A few of her colleagues saw me take the piece of cake and asked, “Are you hungry?” I replied, “yes”. They immediately began laughing and slapping their laps, yelling Mr. Nikhi, we will miss you when you go!

I’ve also found that I can be misunderstood even when not communicating. One night I heard a rat in the bathroom so the next morning I put out a live trap with some food in it. When I returned in the afternoon, I found the rat trapped in the little cage running back and forth. I proudly (I’m not sure why I was so proud) picked up the cage, walked outside, and headed out our gate to release it into the bushes. One of our security guards saw me walking proudly with a rat in a very fine cage and said, “Okayyyyyyy!!! You want to train it!” My first thought was that this man was a moron. But then I thought a bit more. We had found a puppy on the road, taken him home, and spoiled him to death. We then found a half dead kitten on the road, took it home, and woke up twice a night to spoon feed it for two weeks. And now here I was with another dirty Nigerian animal. In that context, it all seemed logical.

I recently went on a trip North to the ancient city of Kano. We decided to fly up and drive back. On the flight to Kano, I noticed a curious sign:

By opening the latch, apparently, you could access the emergency megaphone. My best guess was that this was there in case we felt the need to hold a protest. “What do we want?” “Better plane food” “When do we want it?” “Before the movie”. I was looking at the picture for some time, trying to figure out why the sign was there. I finally gave up, turned to the guy next to me, and asked him why we had an emergency megaphone on board. He replied, “Dat no megaphone, oh. Dat an ask.”

A bit later, the guy opened up his newspaper, and I couldn’t help but read over his shoulder. The front page had an article with the title “Man tells wife he is tired of her. I still love you – wife.” How that made the newspaper at all I’m just not sure. But it made the front page! Earlier that week I had seen a newspaper with two articles on the front page; the first was “ThisDay Begins Newspaper in the UK to Counter Negative Impressions of Africa”. The second article was “Corruption Commission Close to Finding Culprits. Commission Chairman Fired”. If only I could find a model of good journalism to present to Nigerian newspapers; something to provide a standard of excellence. The BBC for example. I recalled a news story on BBC radio in which the correspondent reported that “Hoohoo the panda gave birth to the first baby panda in captivity since the May earthquake!” Now that’s quality news, information we all need in order to be more productive citizens of the world.

We arrived in Kano late. By the time we arrived in the hotel it had been over 5 hours (it only takes 4 hours to drive). I got my key, went to my room, and unpacked. The next morning I woke up and went to take a quick shower. The bathroom was clean and spacious. The shower, however, had an interesting configuration:

Shower head #1 (the one to the right in the picture above) was in the anticipated position centered along the short wall at the end of the tub facing down. But shower head #2 was oddly situated along the longer wall of the bathroom. Even odder was that it was stuck facing up. Curious as to what would happen, I turned the water on full blast for shower head #2. A blast of water came out of the shower head, shot over the shower curtain, and landed around the sink. How clever, I thought. This way two people could shower at once: one in the shower, the other in the sink. Or just in case you wanted to wash your hands while you showered. It was the attention to detail which made my stay in this hotel particularly comfortable.

I took a shower, reached into my toiletry bag for my tube of fancy shower gel, and started to lather up. Only the gel didn’t really lather up. In fact, it didn’t lather up at all. I thought it was unusual but figured it was because of the water. A few moments later, my skin started burning. I started hopping around vigilantly washing off the gel. After the worst of it was over, I looked down at the gel: “After Shave”.

That day, I went out to visit some sites. I jumped out of the car next to a kid who had a shirt that said “doohrehtorb”. The lady who was taking us around was leading a sanitation project which was trying to convince people to wash their hands after you use the bathroom and not allow latrines to be open. She described one of the lessons she gives to the people in the community. “I ask, if I rub my hair in shit and then rub my hair in your food, would you eat?” This was to make people understand that when latrines are open, flies can land in them and then fly into your food. “We have to stop eating each other’s shit!” she exclaimed. The conversation then moved to other important technical issues. “You see, women shit more than men.” “Are you sure?” replied her colleague. “I think men shit more than women.”

As we were walking away, my body got all tingly. I started to say something and then decided not to.

The rest of the trip was a blur. Safe in Abuja with a shower that works and a wife that I can understand, we decided to go out to dinner at a new fancy restaurant. I opened the menu, and like most fancy restaurants saw a number of things that I didn’t recognize. “Hairy Prawns”, “Gourmet Burger Surprise”, and “Horny Garlic Fish” stood out. I ordered the gourmet burger surprise and it was pretty much what I expected from a meat dish with the word surprise in it. We stayed in the rest of the weekend and didn’t talk to anyone.

But I cant tell these stories to people. People laugh as though it’s all a bunch of fun. They haven’t tried showering in the middle of the bathroom or holding a straight face when discussing the need not to eat shit. Or how frustrating it is to live in a country where everyone speaks English and yet you don’t understand anything people are saying. Maybe one day I will look back at this all and laugh myself. Then I’ll be ready to tell people my stories. Until then, I just pretend that I drink Mai Tais on my private beach while encouraging poor people to take up Tai Chi and aqua-aerobics. That way, the next time one of those Tsunamis comes around, everyone will be ready.