Conversation Problems

Original post written in 2006:

I recently moved to Abuja, Nigeria for a posting with USAID. I dont know how I got suckered into it, but I did. No point kicking myself now. Jen, my fiance, has finally joined me and is settling in to life in Abuja. Which is good for me for many reasons. At least one reason is that I don’t have to have long, stupid, repetitive conversations about her with my security guards. Every night, Id come home and have the same conversation:

“Well done“

“Thank you“

“You are welcome“

“Thank you“

“How you day?“

“Thank god“

“How ma sista?“

“You sista fine-o“

Translation:

“How is Jen?“

“Jen is fine.“

Not that I didn’t have plenty of time to play such games, but most of you know that I am way too serious and impatient to have that conversation and smile after the 2^nd time.

Over the past few months, I’ve learned a few things while being here (see photo). Unfortunately, speaking “Nigerian” isn’t one of them. It’s very frustrating living in a country where everyone speaks “English” yet nobody can understand me. This past weekend, we bought some plants and asked the guy to plant them for us. We discussed it 4 times just to make sure we understood each other. He planted all but 5 for some reason and then went home. I drove to find him, we talked again 3 times. He came back the next day and planted 2 more before going home, thinking again he had completed the job. This form of miscommunication is a daily occurrence. Just today, I called the Accountant General’s Office:

”Is this the Accountant General’s Office?”

“No.”

I looked back at the paper I was reading the number from.

“Is this the Accountant General’s Office?”

“Yes.”

I think a large part of the confusion is that my questions seem too obvious and people assume I really mean to ask a different question. But since I never get an answer to my question, I have a tendency to ask very simple, obvious questions. It isn’t doing much for my ability to make friends.

Jen and I recently drove to Kano for a weekend. Kano is the oldest city in West Africa and has one of the most expansive markets. It is also in the far North which is predominantly Muslim and only an hour or two south of Niger. So we were excited to see a part of Nigeria more authentic than Abuja. The ride up was long but pretty. The landscape became very barren with more cow herders and fewer farmers. We were able to check in to a decent hotel and then began exploring. That night, we jumped into a cab and said “Mosque”, trying to avoid the confusion by throwing in extra words like “go” or “to”. Being in a Muslim area of the country, you’d figure everyone would know this word. It would be like going to Idaho and saying potato or California and saying sunshine or DC and saying sucky weather. The guy started driving and a few minutes later looked back and said “which way?” Keep in mind, we are obvious tourists, toting a camera, gawking at everything we see from the window, wearing floral clothing, and the cab driver asks us which way. “Mosque” we say. He drives a bit then says “left?” This goes on for I don’t know how long (I may have blacked out at one point out of frustration”) before we finally arrive at the central mosque. We take pictures of the kids playing outside, walk around the mosque (as whities, we aren’t allowed in the Mosque), by a small Q’uranic school, and right into a wedding. Being the culturally sensitive couple we are, I start taking pictures of goofy-acting kids and Jen starts dancing with the wedding party. All in all it was quite exciting.

The best part of Kano was the food. We went to a Chinese restaurant the first night. We opened the menu and the second item was “strange tasting egg roll”. It sounded great but we opted for something else. The next morning we went for breakfast and I ordered “2 fried eggs”. Fried eggs in Nigerian means 5 eggs so I had inadvertently ordered 2 5 eggs (that’s a total of 10 eggs). The cook must have thought to himself “hey, that’s a lot of eggs. Mine as well throw in some shredded carrot”. So I get this huge platter of fried egg mass with a pile of shredded carrots on it (last weekend I ordered an omelet only to find out that omelets in Nigeria are made with carrot, cabbage, and mayo). Our last night there, we decided to eat at the up scale restaurant at the hotel. We opened up the menu and immediately started contemplating the “foul”. It didn’t come with any sides so I went for something more traditional instead. The next day, hungry and tired, we got back in the car and started driving home.

On the way back, we had arranged to pick up a puppy from a British lady living in the North. This was going to change our lives, our first investment, our first addition to our family. Driving out of Kano, we were thinking of names for the little tucker. A few puppies frolicked across the street ahead of us and we gushed with “awww”s and “cutie pie”s and “rururur”s. Only to watch the puppies dash right back into the street 20 feet ahead of us. The owner sat there watching as I got out of the car, walked over to the injured puppy, looked at him, looked at the owner, picked up the dog, looked around, slowly walked towards the car, stopped, looked at the owner, put the dog inside, and drove off. A Nigerian colleague told me later that had it been him he would have used it as a way to extort money out of the dog owner for damage to his car and compensation for his anger. Instead, we took his dog to the vet, feed him beef, and give him a huge house to live in. No wonder they cant understand us whities.

Other than that, things here are fine. The house is coming along, in a few months we will have grass, a garden, and hopefully some calm dogs – a perfect vacation for anyone looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. The door is always open and with 5 bedrooms, there is always a place to sleep.