I came to Nigeria after a two-day workshop in Ethiopia, so I had an easy flight from Addis Ababa and for once the visa process at the airport was straightforward (mostly). Two black ladies were in line behind me and I had just assumed they were local Nigerians – but turns out they live in Atlanta and one looked a little shell-shocked as it was her first time in the country. Her friend, who had been there before, was trying to tell her to be patient and everything takes a long time in Nigeria. I turned around and told them I agreed! At any rate, I got out of the airport within an hour (a record!) found my driver in a big white truck, and off we went.
It takes about three hours to get from the Lagos airport to the research campus (in a town called Ibadan) – not because it’s terribly far, but the road/traffic is bad. Also, people drive so crazy! There are huge trucks moving a various unsafe speeds (sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow) and no one stays in their lanes; they just all honk at each other. Garbage and mud line the street in many places and the abject poverty in Nigeria is on fully display. A peaceful/scenic ride it is not, but I put in my headphones and try to mentally go elsewhere.
Once inside the walls of the research campus however, all is calm. Literally it’s like a different world. IITA (International Institute for Tropical Ag) was established a while back, and thus it is like a university campus – if people who worked at the campus also lived on campus in houses with leafy streets and beautifully manicured tropical gardens. My feeling is that IITA has to be a beautiful place; otherwise they might have a harder time attracting international scientists to live and work in Nigeria. There is also a golf course, swimming pool, outdoor café, and tennis court. It is a little slice of utopia.
So I was happy to arrive after a long day of travel, and I dropped my bags at my intern Bri’s apartment. There is a large hotel on campus also, but to save the project money, and also because Bri says she doesn’t mind, I crash on her couch during my visits. This also allows me access to a kitchen and laundry, and I love that. Her apartment is straight outta the ‘70s, but it is surrounded by greenery and birds, with a small view of the lake on campus. Our project manager lives across the hallway, and we joke that he is Bri’s grandpa (he is 68 years old and toughing it out in Nigeria – his permanent home is the UK) and we all get along great.
This visit was to plan a series of interviews with urban and rural communities to find out how people feel about aquacultured fish versus other fish (our aim is to suggest to our funder some investments for improving the aquaculture sector – and how it can address poverty and hunger among the poor in Nigeria). So we held a two days training on how the interviews were to be conducted. It was a lot of fun – all of our Nigerian staff are really smart and hardworking, so it makes our job easy.
On Monday two of our staff took Bri and I to a household to practice the interview – it was pretty close to the research campus but it took us a while on a dirty, dusty, bumpy road. Women came from all over the surrounding neighborhoods with babies strapped to their backs with blankets. Blankets! In the heat and humidity! As the women sat down in the house, I asked if they wanted me to move the fan closer to them – they essentially said no way! They didn’t want the fan on the babies for some reason, even though the babies and toddlers were sweating profusely. I didn’t get this at all, but they all strongly held this belief.
Once everyone had arrived we had an interesting conversation lasting about an hour on their favorite foods and favorite fish and fish products. After the interview was done, and all of our participants dispersed, our staff took us for lunch at a place called ‘Ola Mummy’ and we had delicious local Nigerian dishes. I opted for the jollof rice and plantains (a dish I know I like) but our staff were disappointed I didn’t want to try the pounded yam. I guess pounded yam is a dish of pride for that part of Nigeria. I also had the goat meat which was quite delicious.
Luckily, since I’m staying at Bri’s, we can cook most nights (the food at the café on campus is good – but it can get repetitive and nine times out of ten they get the order wrong – it’s crazy). One of our colleagues gifted Bri a huge (and I mean huge as in the size of a small infant) yam. It sat on the counter for a few days until I was like ‘let’s try to cook that.’ It seemed intimidating as it still had a lot of dirt from the farm on it, but I was determined. At least until I picked it up and a few small cockroaches crawled out. I’m not kidding! But after the initial squeals of disgust and rinsing them down the drain we had our yam ready to prep. I peeled the thing with a knife, chopped it into bits and dropped it into salted water. A little while later – presto – we had a delicious tuber for dinner. It was sweeter than a regular potato, but milder than a sweet potato. At any rate, it was delicious! Boiled yams, pounded yams – I vaguely remember them as being important from Things Fall Apart, but now I’ve seen their cultural gravity firsthand.
Cockroaches aside, it was a wonderful, productive trip, and I even got a tennis lesson in. And a few jumps off of the diving board. So my Nigeria week was more or less complete…until next time when the visa process and journey begin again…
A Byrd's Eye View 