When something serious happens in Nigeria, like bombings or a presidential election, I often don’t talk about them (on my blog or elsewhere) because they’re usually related to politics and I’m politically apathetic (I do vote though!). I’m not interested in Canadian, American, Nigerian, or any politics. I care about people, their struggles and how their lives are affected by politics.

Because I’m out of touch with politics, it’s hard to share a strong opinion when I’m not in Nigeria experiencing the event. So, that means I base my opinion on information culled from twitter, Wikipedia, and other online sources. Phone is my main mode of communication with our family in Nigeria, but when we talk, it’s more to make sure everyone’s alive and healthy than to have in-depth discussions; it’s just too expensive.

Though I lived in Nigeria between the ages of 3 and 6, I didn’t get to experience the (political, social) “system” because I was too young. If you’ve gone through Nigeria’s secondary school system, or post-secondary education, you have a better idea of the Nigerian system, how things work or don’t work. It’s not just that you have a better idea, you’ve actually lived it, and you may have even been a victim of the system (sadly there are many). So when you hear something like this fuel subsidy removal, even if you’re in diaspora and have been for decades, you’re more stirred to respond I think. If you spent at least some of your teenage years in Nigeria, I think it gives you a deeper connection to Nigeria’s political and social issues than I will probably ever have.

In the past, I’ve let that stop me from posting about various topics. I often think the opinion of someone who barely lived in the country really does not matter. I know for a fact that I have a naive view about Nigeria and what is needed to shape the country up but what’s the harm in sharing my opinion? Maybe I’ll accidentally share information that’s wrong, but that’s what the community of readers is for. If you ever see anything that isn’t quite right, or if you feel like educating me, please do! It’s how I’ll learn.

Speaking of naivete, a few days ago I was telling my friend about the difficulty my mom, sister, and I had returning to Canada after our visit to Nigeria in 2008. I was recounting the bribes we were asked to paid, increased, no doubt, the moment they heard my sister and I speak, and how they went through all our suitcases by hand. I told my friend that next time I’ll travel with an oyinbo person because surely they wouldn’t dare open the suitcases of an oyinbo and riffle through their belongings, or ask them for bribes. Wouldn’t they be afraid of how they’d be perceived on an international level? My friend just laughed and said our countrymen will try even more with a Caucasian, thinking they have more money than the average Nigerian. A sobering thought!

So back to the fuel subsidy removal. I learned about twelve hours ago that there will be an Occupy Nigeria protest in front of the Nigerian embassy in my city on Monday. I was about to share this information on the Facebook page of the Nigerian association that I’m the interim communications person for, when someone (God) told me to check with the president and vice-president of the association first. In the end, I was asked to wait before sharing the information, and that didn’t surprise me because while waiting for the president and vice president to reply to my email, the answer came to me. The current high commissioner who runs the embassy has been very supportive of the work of our association. Even though the protest is not against the embassy (though God knows it could be!), the embassy might take the protest personally, because we’d be asking them to speak up and do something about what is going on in Nigeria. I’m wondering if it’s ok for me to go and protest. As long as I don’t say anything about belonging to the association or imply that the association endorses my actions, I should be fine.

There are people who will never protest because “things never change” (others may choose not to protest because the cause doesn’t mean anything to them; that’s fine). Well maybe things don’t change (quickly anyway!), and maybe they won’t change, but at least you can say that you did something and stood up for what you believed in in 2012. You didn’t just sit there complaining. Like they say here all the time when it comes to voting in politics, If you didn’t vote, you can’t complain!

If you live in the Nation’s Capital (that’s Canada’s capital) and you’d like some details about what’s happening on Monday, please let me know!

In Canada, customer service is a big deal: businesses invest time and money to train their staff to address customer issues and make them happy. Businesses take their reputation very seriously and they know the value of word of mouth advertising.

I have plenty of customer service/retail experience: I worked in a grocery store for five years, a clothing store for 11 years and an office supply store for a year or so (these opportunities overlapped). In each job we were taught the importance of making the customer happy, even if it sometimes meant bending the rules a bit. For example, the clothing store I worked had a 30-day policy for returns or exchanges. If you bought a clothing item and wanted to bring it back, it had to be returned unworn, with the sales tags on it. In addition, you had to have the original receipt and if you didn’t pay with cash, you had to have the method of payment with you so that a refund could be processed in the same manner it was purchased.

However, we were told to accept returns even if the 30 days had passed. We could even accept clothing that was being returned worn or without tags if the reason for the return seemed reasonable (like an article of clothing falling apart in the wash). If we could get the customer to leave our store with the intention to return as a customer in the future, then our work was done.

This is not the same in the city I spend most of my time when I’m in Nigeria, especially in the market. Vendors don’t do much to build customer loyalty; they’re more concerned with making today’s sale and they don’t mind starting from scratch tomorrow, instead of taking the extra time to build a relationship. It breaks my heart because if they invested just a bit more time in making the experience pleasant for the customer they could build a lasting relationship.

If I was ever invited to consult on customer service, here’s the advice I’d give:

1. Make your shop user-friendly. A shop with logical placement of products will increase the shopping experience immensely. Junky looking places are a turn off. If your business provides services rather than goods, make sure that samples of your work can be easily seen and evaluated.
2. Post prices clearly and visbly. I know bargaining is a huge part of the culture so the prices may not reflect the amount you expect to receive but still it’s nice for the customer to know where the bargaining will start from, and it makes the customer think the business owner is not just pulling prices out of his or her butt!
3. When someone enters your shop, make eye contact and greet them. Treat your business place as your home and be welcoming.
4. Check on people in your shop after a few minutes if they are browsing. If you have any items that you’re featuring, let the potential customer know. Also let them know they can ask you questions if they have any. Make yourself available to potential customers.
5. Once you begin processing a transaction, give the customer your full attention. If another (rude) customer comes in and demands your attention, excuse yourself from your current customer before going to help this new person or better yet, tell the interrupter that it’ll just be a minute before you deal with them (politely of course). They will hopefully appreciate your undivided attention when their turn comes.
6. Where possible during the closing of the sale, give the customer some incentive to return to you: offer a savings on their next purchase, throw in something for free, give them a coupon. These things are worth far more the investment required.
7. I’m a big believer that the little things often make a big difference. Having a customized bag to put purchases in gives things a very polished look. Even just enclosing a business card in the purchase can make the difference (and help people find you next time!).
8. Deliver what you say you will deliver, when you say you’ll deliver it. Be a person of your word: if you’re going to be late delivering something, make sure the customer is informed and offer to compensate him or her for the inconvenience. It doesn’t take much to placate most customers (see previous point).
9. If you must make a substitute, make sure it is for a higher quality. If you must make a lower quality substitution, make sure you get the customer’s approval first, and offer to refund some of the money as a result.
10. Offer money back guarantees for at least a period of time. That was the hardest thing for me to get used to about business where I was in Nigeria. There should be a period of time where someone who changes his or her mind or who does not get what he or she was promised can bring the item back. I’m told if you try it now the person will just look at you as if they’ve never seen you before. I know some might abuse this but if you give people the benefit of the doubt you may see the good in people and realize most won’t take advantage…but maybe I’m wrong

These are all extremely commonsense pieces of information to me but I see business owners that operate without regard for any of these rules. Lack of good customer service in my opinion keeps many from reaching the heights they could reach with their business. From business owners who sit there looking disinterestedly at you when you enter their store to the ones who argue with you when you’re trying to tell them what you want, to those who don’t leave you to browse before they’re trying to force you to buy something, to the ones who try to cheat you out of what you paid for…enough I say!

Have you had any good or bad customer service experiences in Nigeria?

Two days ago I tweeted

and I was struck by how thankful I am that I had the option of working officially part time, from the age of 14 onwards, to earn some spending money. I say “officially” because from the age of 11 or 12 I was working “under the table” so to speak: babysitting for neighbours and getting paid a few dollars per hour (and before that I was babysitting my siblings but we all know my parents weren’t paying clients!).

In high school and beyond, some of my peers looked down on working in the fast food industry or in retail but as long as I was getting paid at least the minimum wage and the hours were compatible with my school and extra curricular interests, I didn’t have a problem working and I relished the freedom of being able to do what I wanted with my earnings. Contrast that to the average Nigerian university graduate who has difficulty finding a job, talk less finding a part time work as a secondary school student! My friend in Ondo state told me the opening of a new Mr. Biggs resulted in over three thousand applicants, many of them university degree holders, and it’s not uncommon to see well-educated people pumping gas. You see that in North America too, but many places here don’t want to invest time and money to hire somebody who is “overqualified”, who will constantly be looking for a more appropriate job. If you are a university graduate here, and you’re willing to do any job, even those that don’t require your level of education, you will be able to find two or three such jobs in North America that you can be doing. From my observations, this does not seem to be the case in Nigeria.

When my grandmother came to visit in 2004, she was surprised that all of her grandchildren, from my youngest brother who was 16 years old at the time to me, were going to school and working; she had thought that we’d be free to hang out with her all day, the way that some of our cousins do in Nigeria. We took time off from work of course, but it wasn’t like having us around every day during the six months that she stayed with us. But when we could bring home little treats for her, I know she appreciated it.

But back to jobs for university graduates: I know a few people in Nigeria in their 20s and 30s who come from very modest homes (example: the mother of one of them sells plastics and other housewares in a roadside job while the father is a retired teacher who is having difficulty collecting his pension; another’s mother is widowed and sell yams in the market). My friends are bright people who for lack of connections or opportunity may not get into the area of work they studied in university, where they can shine and make a difference to their family’s economic situation. In one particular case my friend’s foray into entrepreneurship plateaued when he and his business partner were unable to move things to the next level because they didn’t have enough money to buy any of their equipment and were instead renting them (and losing most of their profits because of that).

I learned last year that when it comes to getting an entry level job in a bank in Nigeria, it is in your best interest to be no older than 25, or you will not be hired. As a result people are lying about their age, and everyone knows this is part of the game (contrast that to Canada, where people in their teens lie about their age so they can get into bars and clubs with an age restriction, so they can enjoy themselves). People are shaving five or more years off their biological age so they can earn what is in fact a very modest wage.

It’s sad, and I wish I had the right connections to be of assistance. My family tree on my mom’s side has a wealthy abi healthy branch, but these are not the kind of people who would help out a blood relative, talk less the friend of a relative. So instead I intend to reach out to friends in Nigeria who seem to be doing well, find out their secrets of success and see if they can share it with me so that I can pass them on. Maybe some can help my other friends and family. It’s a bad situation when you live somewhere that you can’t even find work that you’re “overqualified” for, and even if you find such a job, you have to hope your employer will pay you wages: one of my cousins and one of my friends were in a situation where they were showing up for work, week after week and their employer wasn’t paying them. My cousin started operating a buying and selling (of shoes and clothing) business from the accounting firm where she worked, and her employer, knowing he wasn’t paying her, didn’t bother complaining that she was doing other work at his business because he was just glad that she was still coming in. She eventually left and thankfully found other work. My friend eventually had to leave his employer who wasn’t paying him.

And what about secondary school kids in Nigeria? It would be great if they had something to do to earn some spending money. One of my cousins and his pals are extremely talented dancers and they are getting very small gigs earning small naira, enough to buy credit for their phones when divided up. If they had part time jobs where they were earning a fair wage and they didn’t see their older siblings struggling to find jobs as college and university graduates, I bet they’d feel more excited about their future and be more encouraged to consider striving to get the marks needed for higher education. As it is now, getting my cousin to attend school is a family issue. You can tell that he is bored with life and not really so hopeful about the future. I’m not saying that having a part time job will magically make him want to attend school or even excel, but I think feeling like your efforts are paying off, and feeling that if you had even more education, your efforts would pay off in an even bigger way, could work.

I’m not at all conversant on the political situation, so maybe a lot of my complaints are in the midst of being addressed by the government. But then again, I’m pretty naive.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would welcome hearing them. Let’s see how we can help one another.

My decision to try my online meeting experiment again?

An upcoming giveaway?

A review of a cd that was sent to me?

An engagement ring I’ve been dying to show off?

Perhaps I’ve finally found a way to blog full time and get paid for it?

Although those would all be great things to share; that’s not the purpose of this entry…maybe in 2011!

Instead I want to talk about how much I love Nigerian bath sponges, or as we call them in Yorubaland, kan kan.

We have used kan kans for as long as I can remember, and back in our early days in Canada when my mom used to bathe me, I remember being vigorously (do Nigerian parents bathe their kids any other way?) scrubbed with a kan kan. Since then I have counted on them to clean my body like no pouf can. I mean please: one is soft and fluffy, while the other could be used to scour a pan or remove glue that has been stuck to a wall for ages.

To be fair, they do come in different textures: the one I’m currently using could be used (if minimal pressure is applied) to scrub a baby’s bottom, while the one we used while at my grandma’s would remove a layer of skin if you applied even the slightest pressure. I like the length of our kan kans too: it makes it easy to scrub your back without having to rely on a spouse to do the deed (which is particularly useful for those of us who don’t have a spouse!).

So every time we go to Nigeria, my list of things to buy includes a new kan kan though it’s not like the one I’m using wears out since those things are made to last. this time I brought back a bright blue one that will work wonders if I ever get dipped in honey, rolled in dry oatmeal and left out to dry for a few days.

Hey: it could happen!

Water

We stayed with my grandmother and she does not have running water, or flushing toilets, so the well became the one thing we were very familiar with. You know the drill: every time you need to do something that would require the use of water, you had to fetch your water first. I didn’t mind that part. I also didn’t mind bathing in cold water every day because it’s so hot that you really don’t want anything remotely warm touching your body anyway. What I did not enjoy was using the bathroom for purposes other than bathing (if you catch my drift). And as you can imagine, one of the two functions you do in the bathroom was more labour intensive than the other, but what can I say: I survived and I would do it again in a heartbeat (and I’ll have to anyway the next time I’m home, so I might as well not complain).

The only truly traumatic part of the whole business had to do with the fact that I hate bugs. I don’t care where these bugs live — Canada, Nigeria — I just hate them. One bug I hate more than any other is cockroaches (ayinyun? someone please spell it for me!) and I hate them even more now, ever since my cousin (who was so amused by my fear) told me that they can FLY. And guess what would happen to me every evening when I felt the urge to go? I’d open up the bathroom, peer in while waving my flashlight around wildly, and see a cockroach. Immediately my urge to go would vanish.

My grandmother is not into babying grown adults when it comes to things like this. I think she would have been more compassionate to the younger me but at 29, I’m expected to be a big girl (imagine!). She would just laugh when I returned to the house and ask me if I had seen a cockroach again (since I returned so quickly). Although I know she’s right, and they won’t hurt me, I am just too scared that with my luck, a fearless flying cockroach would try to molest my nether regions. I know: baby.

Electricity

NEPA (I didn’t even know their name had changed to PHCN) sucks! I just have to say that. I would like to know why a system whereby all of Nigeria that is on the power grid has access to electricity 24 hours a day is so difficult to implement. Now, I’m probably naive and uninformed, so it’s very possible that you all know why this is, and will tell me in the comments, but I honestly don’t know and I didn’t ask while I was in Nigeria so that’s why I’m asking you now.

Living without power wasn’t a big deal, mostly since I was too busy dealing with the fact that I wasn’t going to have any internet access*. What use did I have for electricity when I didn’t have a computer and internet to use it to power, right? :) The only time I was really annoyed to lose power was the night before we left, when I needed light to be able to pack my bags and make sure I didn’t forget anything. The rest of the time it was a manageable inconvenience, nothing flashlights and lanterns couldn’t handle most of the time. There was a huge storm on November 11, and we didn’t get power back until November 15 or 16, and when it did come back, it was just for a short while.

My grandmother does have a generator, but she’s rather thrifty and really only used it when it was necessary (if she or someone in the house was in the middle of doing something — other than simply watching tv — requiring electricity) and we didn’t want her to alter her life just because we were there so we pretty much just lived the way she did. I did miss reading at night though.

Roads

Wow. Everyone we talked to asked us how we liked the roads. There were some good paved roads but in many of the neighbourhoods we visited and stayed in, there were some really awful roads, with potholes big enough to lose vehicles in, and roads that cars had to traverse in a zig zag fashion, turning sharply to avoid getting their car stuck in a hole. One time I witnessed a stranger to my grandmother’s street driving down the right side of the road as if the road was paved and becoming stuck very soon afterward. Driving these roads requires a special set of skills, for sure, and I’m sure i would have damaged a car instantly if I tried to drive on some of those roads.

So, these are my main complaints about Nigeria. Stay tuned for my adventures photographing Nigerians.

*A note: there is internet in Nigeria of course. It’s just that the power outages and the hours of operation of the internet cafe near my grandmother’s house did not make access to the internet feasible

• The men I never dated – Jealous sister edition
• The men I never dated – “Pride goes before a fall” edition
• The men I never dated – Life is just not fair edition)

When I mentioned that I’d be going to Nigeria, a few friends asked me if I thought I was going to meet a dashing Nigerian man who would sweep me off my feet. I told them that this was unlikely to happen and even if it did, living over 8500 kilometres apart, a distance that includes two small bodies of water (also known as the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea), would tend to put a wrench in our plans of you know, going on dates.

I’m sure I said this in a very matter of fact and practical way, but deep down I did hope that I’d come back with a tale of romance to tell.

Well I didn’t, but my sister has a tale. Now why would I be sharing the story of my sister’s romance? Because it happens to be a new installment to one of my favourite features of this blog, The Men I Never Dated (tmind). If you have some time on your hands, you should go and read those entries. But here’s today’s story:

Seven years ago, when my sister was last in Nigeria, she and our second cousin, Biola (who is one year older than my sis and one year younger than I) made a sort of pact that they would meet again for one of their weddings. Well Biola chose 2008 for her wedding and that was one of the reasons we went to Nigeria when we did (the other reason was to celebrate with my grandmother, as explained here).

A few days into our stay, Biola, her fiancé and her brother took my sis and I out for suya and drinks at a cool patio. While drinking our Smirnoff Ices and waiting for the suya to be ready, the groom to be, Michael, told us he was going to call his friend who wanted to “meet us”. We spoke to him and he seemed very cool: just a normal guy who seemed to have a good sense of humour and was generally easy going.

When we got home that evening, my sister and I compared notes on him: we thought he sounded like he was a big guy, which might be funny to some of you but since my sister and I do not seem to have inherited the familial gene that makes us less than 5’4 and quite slender, we tend to go for guys who are tall and who have some meat on their bones rather than the skinny fellows. I guess we based our conclusion solely on his voice and the way his laugh seemed to come from deep down within him.

Anyway, this guy, let’s call him Tunde, somehow got the number of the cell phone we were using in Nigeria, and would call us pretty much daily, just asking us how we were enjoying the city and our time in Nigeria generally. This went on for about a week and a half, until we met him in person. I was in charge of the phone, so I’d usually talk to him first, then he’d speak to my sister and often my mom as well. While hanging out with my cousin Biola one evening, I told her that I thought Tunde appeared interested in my sister, but she said as far as she was aware, he wasn’t sure who he was interested in, and we’d see how things went when we met him at her wedding. When I combined this information with the fact that he and I seemed to click on the phone, and had good conversations, I thought that Tunde might be a really interesting fellow to get to know.

We didn’t see him until the wedding, and I can’t remember now who introduced us finally, but both of us met him and thought he was cool in person. We didn’t really get a chance to talk to him much during the wedding reception, but the groom’s parents were planning an after party, so Tunde literally begged us to please come, as he was leaving the next day. Anyhow, I got the vibe that it was my sister who appealed more to him so I pretty much did my part to throw them together and stand back.

But the thing is, I had sort of started to fancy him. I wanted him to like me too, but I was so sure that if given the choice between my sister and I, the average guy would pick my sister that I totally acted like I was a matchmaking mother and worked on giving them as much time together as possible. When we arrived at the after party, Tunde took us out for suya and drinks, so we could get to know each other better without so many others around. I made sure my sister was sitting beside him in the backseat, while I sat in front with the cousin who was driving us. And at the suya place, I made sure they were sitting together (although in my opinion, he would have made sure that happened anyway).

But I won’t lie: while a matchmaking mother would not have felt any jealousy and envy, or felt her self esteem plummet as she was completely ignored, I did. And that led to some uncomfortable moments between my sister and I later, because she couldn’t understand why I was upset (especially when I was encouraging them to get to know each other), and I didn’t want to talk about how my pride was hurt because I wasn’t “picked”. It seemed so unfair: I was the one with a genuine interest in Nigeria (language, culture, slang, etc), who was interested in marrying a Nigerian guy, while my sister was less particular about the nationality of the guy she’d date.

The after party was one of the longest nights of my life: many of the party goers I knew and could have talked to, other than my sister and Tunde, had been in the wedding party and were exhausted, and were sleeping anywhere they could. The other friends were outside dancing the night away (the music was awesome), but I didn’t know them. Nevertheless, as Tunde sat beside my sister trying to get her know her better, I tried to amuse myself with strangers, and generally stay out of their way. When I got sick of dancing outside, I returned inside to where they were cozily chatting, and sat a bit apart from them to give them privacy and tried not to look bored out of my mind. It was an all night party and finally when our cousin woke up at around 5 in the morning, we were able to get a drive home.

All my life I’ve always said that I don’t want someone who doesn’t want me, but knowing and believing that is not a guarantee that you won’t feel like crap. I fully wallowed in that feeling. There were quite a number of tense and awkward moments between my sister and I. I no longer felt comfortable talking to Tunde, and it was always clear that when I picked up the phone he wanted to talk to my sister (though he was still the same nice, teasing and jovial person with me). So very soon after our cousin’s wedding, my sister became in charge of handling the cell phone. And Tunde called her constantly, or she’d be calling him. And they would be sending text messages. And with every ring of the phone or buzz to indicate the receipt of a text message, I felt worse. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, once they knew which sister he was interested in, family members were constantly asking my sister if she had talked to him that day, and how things were going and what she thought of him. They had totally set the two of them up, it seems, from the first time we talked to Tunde. Our great aunt was only too happy to give my mom details about his family and assure her that this guy was a great guy. Our cousin Biola also told us how he’s the best guy they could have ever asked to be her husband’s best man. I can’t lie and pretend I was totally cool with everything and worthy of the prize of world’s best sister during this time, because I really, really wasn’t.

Tunde is currently working about eight hours away from where we were staying, so we only saw him that one time. However, he was working close to Abuja, and we had planned to go to Abuja to see the capital city, so there was a chance that we could meet him while we were there. A number of us were supposed to go, but the others ended up deciding not to go. Tunde begged my sister and I to still come on our own, but I just couldn’t do it: the thought of being the third wheel for a weekend while Tunde and my sister tried to pretend they were glad that I was encroaching on their only time together was too much for me to deal with, and I told my sister this. Also, our family was not keen about the idea of the two of us, completely unfamiliar with any of the area we’d be traveling through, getting into a public transportation vehicle for five or six hours, and I don’t blame them. So that meant we never saw him again, but he totally understood.

So now we’re back in North America, and things are pretty much the same between my sister and Tunde as they were in Nigeria. They talk nearly every day, and send emails to each other too. When she didn’t hear from him one day recently, she was worried that he may have come to some harm (especially since he’s in the North). She likes him. They’re taking things slowly, and are not officially dating (though I know he wants to). We’ll see if things change soon.

And what about me? I’m happy for them, and I want things to work out in the best way possible for them both. He seems like a fantastic guy, and they seem compatible from what I saw, and seeing my sister who isn’t big on talking on the phone having a reason to use the phone almost daily makes me think there may be something special going on between them.

We’ll see what happens! In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for some frogs to kiss.

u hate nigeria

She then asked me to list three good things that had happened to me in Nigeria and three bad things.

I was surprised by the first question, and my only response was to give a rhetorical “I do?” in response.

The next day, I asked her to clarify her reasons for asking the question, and the answers only made me feel more uncomfortable. She said that I never say anything nice about the country or my experiences there. I told her her words had triggered a blog entry: she definitely got me thinking.

It was never my intention to portray Nigeria or Nigerians as something I didn’t like. In fact, the whole reason I started this blog when I had another blog already was to become closer to other Nigerians, share my experiences as an immigrant born to Nigerian parents, who feels neither fully Nigerian nor North American, and learn more about Nigeria. I met this particular friend through one of my earlier networking attempts a few years back, so I think that’s why her words were still on my mind the day after I spoke with her.

My life in Nigeria can be broken up like so:

• I lived there between the ages of three and six. I remember having good times there, though the memories of what I actually did are not particularly clear.
• I lived there for six weeks when I was 14, when my entire family went to visit after being abroad for almost eight years. It was a whirlwind of visiting family and our parents’ friends.

A couple of years after the latter trip, I found a curious thing had happened: I wasn’t able to fully separate which memories were from 23 years ago, and which were from 14 years ago. I know which of my stints in Nigeria the big events happened in, of course, but the smaller, every day things I can’t quite recall during which of my times in Nigeria they happened. I’ve been meaning to jot down these small snippets of memory so I don’t forget any more.

Of course, if my friend thinks I complain about Nigeria a lot, and never say anything nice about the country or people, I have to look at what she could be basing that on, and it had to be the blog, since she said she had read my blog and since I don’t think I bash Nigeria when I talk to her. So I had a look and discovered some things.

I have written about why I want to marry a Nigerian man (here too), and expressed pride in my Nigerian heritage. However, I’ve also written about why I don’t like the idea of Nigerian men in Nigeria seeking love with Nigerian women who are exclusively abroad, because I think there are plenty of good women in Nigeria, and there is no need to look so far and wide unless you’re looking for something else too. I’ve complained about how Nigerian events that I have attended and helped at are disorganized and start late (Nigerian time right?), and how Nigerians are cheap and are always looking for volunteers to help out at formal events, but I have also commended Nigerians on their sense of community. I have complained that my relatives, in particular my cousins, are greedy and don’t make me feel welcome in Nigeria, but perhaps if they were asked they’d have some things to say about me too. I have commented on the tactlessness of some Nigerians, while recognizing at the end of the same entry that not all the tactless comments are meant to be mean. You agreed when I warned a reader that her Nigerian “boyfriend” was likely a scammer.

(The above is not an exhaustive list of all I have written negatively or positively about Nigeria and Nigerians.)

You have been there to correct my misguided words too. When I told you some things that I had never heard a Nigerian man say, you came back in the comments and told me I don’t know enough Nigerians, clearly, which is true! You set me straight on Nigerian reunions and corrected some of my Pidgin. You told me where to go for information so I’m not such a dummy on the topic of Nigeria. You explained that some of the things I considered superstitions are not that at all. You encouraged me to get more comfortable sharing my culture.

Writing this blog and reading your comments have enriched my life and my understanding of Nigeria and Nigerians enormously, and that is why I was affected by my friend’s comments. Hopefully those of you who were feeling similarly to my friend now know where I stand: I love Nigeria, I love Nigerians, but like all things, there are good and bad aspects. And because it’s human nature, perhaps I focused more on the bad. And like I say in my disclaimer, I’m always only talking about my experience, or some Nigerians, and not all are guilty of whatever I am complaining about.

Thanks for sparking an entry, B. To spread love about Nigeria and Nigerians, I’d like you to leave in the comments one thing you love about Nigeria and/or Nigerians. We’ll resume bashing the country tomorrow ;)

(Kidding!)

(Maybe.)

And the thing that I love about Nigeria is the richness of the cultures represented in the country (or is it considered collectively one culture?), which highlights how little I know about the country and specifically my (Yoruba) culture.

A guide to the country of Nigeria for dummies (you know those Dummies books, right?). I’m not just talking about geography; I want to know more about all aspects of the country. I guess this book would be called The Dundi United’s Guide to Nigeria or something similar. Unless you are a political and history buff, or have parents who are, many who were born and raised abroad are likely not well versed in what’s going on in Nigeria politically, and it’s not for lack of trying in some cases (although in other cases Nigerians who have been abroad all along just don’t care so much about it). I haven’t really tried to be aware of what is going on but don’t hate me just yet: I blame it on the fact that politics bore me.

I am not at all politically inclined, and even though I have lived in Canada for almost 23 years, I still don’t know the ins and outs of the politics of the country. When the time to vote comes, I make an “informed choice” based on those lovely summaries that newspapers put out in the months leading to the election, so I could vote Conservative one year, then Liberal the next. It’s sort of like studying for a test from somebody else’s study notes—while it isn’t ideal to study from someone else’s notes, it can be a time saver as you don’t have to do the work of writing your own notes.

I would like to be able to converse about what is going on in Nigeria with people one day, not to the point where I’m having deep political discussions every day (yawn) but to the point where someone can mention a political party, or a contentious issue, and I can scrape together a few intelligent sentences that show that I have a brain and I know what’s going on, albeit vaguely.

So, in order to become a semi-informed Nigerian, where should one start? Reading a (brief) history of the country would be helpful, just a bare bones history of how the states came to be and why and how the different tribes/groups settled where they did. We own a couple of old books on the subject but I have to admit I’ve never enjoyed reading history books that don’t have some romance thrown in. And also, them history books are so thick! Don’t ask me why I can read a historical romance book twice as thick in a few days sha yet can’t read a history book. I haven’t even looked at any of those books in years (and I certainly never finished reading more than a few pages of any of them!). I know very little about the significant events in the history of Nigeria, which is a shame, so the first step would be to find out how Nigeria ended up being the country it is today, and learn more about what we’re known for (besides oil and 419).

(Clap for me: at least I know we gained independence on October 1, 1960.)

If you ever go on an online forum for Nigerians, you will likely see a topic or section devoted to how the country is doing politically, economically and socially. There are always calls for change, the airing of opinions on the validity of this politician or that politician, and opinions on whether this or that initiative will work in the Nigeria of today. Everyone seems to have an opinion too on what exactly Nigeria needs. I always peek into those discussions, read the names of politicians I don’t know anything about, then bow out, embarrassed that I haven’t yet looked up anything on the current president, and that I don’t have a concrete idea of what would help Nigeria. An end to the corruption would be great but that is such a Miss America response, and so vague: it’s like asking for world peace for Christmas.

Someone hurry up and write that Dummies book sha…remember it’s for those of us who didn’t grow up in the system so it has to be short and to the point so as not to overwhelm us. ;)