i prefer broken stereotypes, but sometimes they just don't break

 

One of my favorite Lagos experiences: volunteering with
my friend at this Vacation Bible School.
(Note that this post's photos don't go with this story,
except that photos and story are all set in Nigeria. :-) )

So let's just start this post with the text message I sent my Lagos host after I finally boarded the flight to leave her city a couple days ago:

"Adventures! Am at the gate now. Through all security, etc. But when I arrived, there was no counter for my flight. I asked around. Was told the counter closed completely 2 hours before the flight leaves!!! Don't know how anyone is supposed to know that. Went to the Alitalia office. They finally told the closed counter to accept me after looking at me blankly for several seconds as though I would have to stay in Nigeria forever. Had to check my bag because it was too heavy to carry on. Really hope it makes it! Then had to show my passport to two other guys at the desk. And they took a photo of the info page with their iPhone. I was like what are you doing? They said they normally have to scan them but because I was late they were able to do it this way. Not sure I believe them. Then some guy guided me toward the next line. And helpfully helped me fill out the immigration form. Then started telling me that my flight was already boarding and I might not make it unless I took the fast track line. Then the phrase I was expecting by that point: what can you pay us? Thankfully I could honestly say I only had 200 naira. He asked about euros. I lied and said I had none. Then he filled in my occupation in the form. When I told him "writer" and that I don't make a lot of money, he seemed a smidge sympathetic. From there everything went fairly straight forwardly. Except the gate didn't have the flight listed and the first guy I asked said he was in the line for Frankfort not Rome. I think he was in the wrong line and I think I'm about to board the right flight now. :-) I figured this story is worth the 27 centimes it will cost me to send it. :-) thanks again for a lovely visit! Sleep well tonight!"

Moses and the Israelites!

Now here's the back story:
Unusual for me, I was really ready to leave Nigeria when the big day arrived, like counting-down-the-days ready. I didn't like feeling that way, but that didn't change feeling it. My first trip to the continent seven years ago was great. I loved it. I loved Africa, as much of it as I experienced anyway, though Uganda was my favorite. This time though, while I loved everyone I met in Togo and Nigeria and it was super great to see my friends, these places just didn't grab my heart. Maybe that's just because it was gray, rainy season the whole time. Maybe it's because my heart was elsewhere. Who knows.

But I was ready to leave.

What's VBS without music?!

The night of my flight, as my friend and I inched ahead in her car in the arrivals line that was made slower by recent security changes, my hostess assured me we were arriving at the Lagos airport in plenty of time for my flight. So when I couldn't find any counter for my flight and then was told that the counter had closed completely two hours before the flight--I arrived about 1.5 hours before--I didn't know what to do. Finally, a helpful worker told me to go to the Alitalia ticket office. I walked town a dark corridor, and expecting a ticket counter set-up behind the closed door, I opened it without knocking. And walked into what appeared to be either a meeting or a bunch of good ol' boys standing around chewing the fat in a sparse office room with only a desk or two. After they all stared at me for several seconds and then I finally blurted out my problem, the man behind the desk who seemed to have the authority--and I had learned during the preceding week that authority and proper respect for it are a big deal in Nigeria--asked what time it was. I wasn't 100% sure and said, "7:45 pm." "No," he said, "it's nearly 8 pm. The desk closed at 7:15." And then they stared at me again. Offering no solutions. By now, I was in an internal panic that I might not really get to leave Nigeria that night. 

And I was so ready to leave. 

Finally, he told me to go back to the front desk. "But they told me to come here," I said. "Go to the desk," he repeated. And then I realized maybe he was going to tell them to let me on anyway. 

Which is what happened. But then there was that bit about the guys in airport uniforms laughing as they used an iPhone to take a photo of the info page of my passport. Um, have you ever received any email scam messages from Nigeria asking for your bank account numbers in order to deposit that inheritance from that complete stranger? Yeah, me too. But there was nothing I could really do to stop them at that point, so I had to move on, while hoping my identity wasn't going be stolen before I touched down in Europe again.

Fresh off of maybe-there-will-soon-be-another-Kami-Rice-who-looks-nothing-like-me-gate, this "helpful" man came up to whisk me through immigration. I thought he was with the airline and the counter people had alerted him. But that was wishful thinking. Still, this was the first bribe I was asked for during two-weeks in West Africa, so maybe that does break stereotypes after all? 

So, anyway, I was very relieved to get on that plane. And I hate it that I was so relieved. But I was.


VBS games!!

And apparently, my body affirmed my relief by breaking out in hives by the time the plane landed to pick up more passengers in Accra, Ghana. Hives - triggered by stress. The antihistamines I took, along with arriving back in Europe, made the hives short-lived. But alas, it's now an indelible memory that trying to get out of Nigeria was so stressful it made my skin break out in red, itchy patches.

But, you know, I still might go back one day because aside from the airport-that-gave-me-hives, I met some really great people in Nigeria.