The season of harmatton is here and my friends say it smells like Christmas. This time last year there was a fuel shortage. Fifty years ago Nigerians still returned to their villages by foot to mark important occasions. Now the economy and the movement of people is completely reliant on oil, so it was no surprise to me to learn that last Christmas came and went with many not noticing it had happened. Perhaps this is also because the omnipresent evangelical churches are always in the mood to sing, dance and collect ‘thanksgiving’ donations from the faithful; I don’t expect a big change in religious ‘business as usual’ come the end of the month. I sip beer with members of the older generation as they reminisce about the good old days of all-night Christmas parties decked with beautiful dancing women from all over the West African region. The level of poverty in the country now means that the majority of people just don’t have the cash or time or energy to exchange gifts, to celebrate on that scale anymore.
But this year, or so I’m told, there is a definite cheer in the air. Small plastic Christmas trees and white baby dolls (apparently black dolls would be considered juju implements and the work of Satan) have appeared in the markets, and a few of the banks have strung up Christmas lights. The government has warned of a fuel price hike, but that hasn’t happened yet. A de facto civil war rages on in the oil-rich Niger Delta, but by all accounts people are optimistic about a political leadership that, though ‘elected’ through unprecedented rigging and political violence, at least appears to be sincere, intelligent and, for once, not stained with a military mentality. Time will tell…
For my part I feel I have a great deal to celebrate this year. Returning to Nigeria has, in many ways, been a homecoming for me. A homecoming that has gotten me eating meat and growing my hair long :) and also left me feeling sweetly homesick for friends and family in other parts of the world… Above all I have been nourished and refreshed by a sense of open invitation to begin to participate in the kinds of strong extended families and communities that I have admired and, in a sense, longed for without quite knowing how to construct them. Feeling welcomed – no construction necessary – has been quite an extraordinary experience. It has radically deepened my appreciation for the caring, diverse group of family and friends carrying on with their lives out there in the wide world, and along with that a desire to get back in touch with mates I lost contact with over the years. I am experiencing sensations of growing…outwards. I am surrounded by people who love to interact with one another, who will shout abuses while negotiating the price of purchases only to smile and part as friends once the deal is done. Because it’s funner that way. The majority of people in Nigeria cope with conditions of material poverty -- by the usual standards of measuring such things – but while frustration remains high at the inability of the oil economy to deliver on its extremely rich promise, at the inability of the hospitals or the universities to deliver functioning services, at the state of the roads and the rate of inflation, folks play out their daily lives with an impressive level of cheerfulness and happiness. Happiness is a state of being that is extremely valued. So many people have told me: It is so important that you be happy. That is what life is for. This kind of positive collective energy is not just for Christmas.
No doubt there is a huge amount of dodgy, white-American-middle-class romanticisation in my stereotyped representations. I am here to do research on violence on Nigerian campuses, after all, and it has indeed proved a very rich topic. For sure there are a lot of signs that many people are leading lives of quiet desperation perhaps concealed by a resilient optimism. People here, like everywhere, do of course suffer from depression and other (relatively) ‘hidden’ illnesses in the face of the harsh realities they have to negotiate. But the attitude towards these experiences is what has really impressed me, again. As one friend told me, when he feels defeated and confused and depressed he knows that he can turn to his family and his friends to talk about it. He knows how to keep smiling and laughing and ‘jisting’ (shooting the breeze, gossiping, blethering) alongside the suffering. One of my best friends here is from Sierra Leone. He was in Freetown during the encroachment of the civil war into the capital city. He clearly still struggles with his memories of the atrocities he witnessed. At the same time, he expressed pride to me that, even at the time, victims of that conflict were able to relate to their experiences with a genuine sense of humour. He gave the example of the trademark form of mutilation used by the rebel soldiers – hacking off the arms of civilian adults and children. He says that even then people were able to make a joke about the situation, to talk about whether you got ‘long sleeves’ (amputated at the elbow) or ‘short sleeves’ (amputated at the shoulder). Now, Sierra Leone ranks last on the global development index, but according to my friend (who is excited to be returning home for the holidays), the people have demonstrated an impressive ability to move on from the war without deep resentments and divisions. He says it is a very nice place to visit. Folks are friendly and relaxed. Probably a great place to learn about how to recover from the effects of violent trauma.
As far as I know, anti-depressants haven’t flooded Nigeria’s wide open market (yet – or if they have, most people can’t afford them, although bottles of Nigeria’s own cheap lager – Star – for use after another extremely hard day’s work, may serve the same purpose). The perception, at least among my friends here, is that whatever their situations Nigerian (civilians) aren’t going to open fire on shopping malls or primary schools. In fact, such acts seem extremely bizarre and inexplicable (perhaps just as incidents of violence in Nigeria seem to indicate ‘underdevelopment’ and, to this day, ‘barbarism’ to folks back in the ‘West’). I don’t have the official statistics, and so there could be some serious denial (or alternative explanations for death) at play, but folks I talk to insist that people don’t generally commit suicide here – it’s just not done. That’s not, according to those I’ve asked, because they are extremely religious and fear judgement; it is because, at the end of the day, they really value the experience of being alive.
These observations are no doubt deeply flawed, but I suppose I’m letting myself make them anyway in order to provide some context for my own (re)discovery of the primacy of happiness and cheerfulness in my own life. I feel like a novice in so many ways here, but I am surrounded by people who are somehow teaching me things I really need to learn. My friends tell me that they are quite used to cynical vegetarian oyinbos coming here and making loads of friends and reluctantly leaving at the end of their stays with a smile on their faces and some goat meat in their bellies. Maybe that particular stereotype has some truth in it. A great deal of my own cynicism has certainly been shed in the last three months, and I feel myself learning to confront the challenging and wonderful paradoxes of life with a sense of humour as well as a renewed zeal for action – the kind of action that involves working with others to sew and nurture seeds, excitedly anticipating the harvest while also remembering that the crops may fail… and if they fail you grieve and smile and carry on. The weather is a bit crazy this year and the people I’m working with are definitely talking climate change. But although it will be primarily poor people in this part of the world who will truly suffer from the environmental changes created largely by a global corporate elite with bank accounts in ‘the West’, the sense of frantic apocalyptic fear and anger is refreshingly absent from conversations about the situation. On a very personal level, this exposure to daily performances of strength, resilience, and positivity has helped to sharpen my own perspective on what’s important to me.
A huge part of this story for me – a major factor feeding my sense of celebration – involves an unexpected experience of tripping into a well that you might call love. The picture is of myself and Eze, one of the finest people I have ever met. He grew up in Ibadan and speaks excellent Yoruba although his family is Igbo and hails from eastern Nigeria. (A bit of trivia, his name means ‘King’ in Igbo). He is currently getting his masters degree in geography at the University of Ibadan – Nigeria’s oldest and (arguably) finest universities and one of the principal sites of my fieldwork. He is very interested in environmental science and has worked in agricultural labs, and at the same time his passion is black and white photography. I actually first met Eze six years ago when I was in Ibadan for two months conducting fieldwork for the first time. We were friends but we didn’t have the time to become close and we never stayed in touch. We met again when I got back in touch with a mutual friend, and we both felt some kind of strange, inexplicable and magical connection. We come from very different backgrounds, but rather than create difficulties that has been a big source of creativity and excitement for us so far. There are so many adjectives I could use to describe Eze: strong, happy, kind, brave, generous, funny, loyal, talented, open, wise… But hopefully many of you will get to meet him in the not-so-far future. We are working on getting him a visa to visit the US this summer to meet family and friends and have the chance to experience our relationship more ‘on my turf.’ I have told him so much about all of you and he’s very excited at the prospect of meeting you and experiencing some of what I’ve had more than my fair share of – travel!
In the meantime, Eze and I are excited about the holidays this year. Today his uncle is throwing a party for the staff of the publishing house where Eze lives and works. We will be spending Christmas Day with Eze’s family – the siblings having traveled here from all over the country – and New Year’s Eve at a barbecue hosted by our wonderful mutual friend in Abeokuta. I have drawn up a gift list to thank all the people here who have been so generous and welcoming to me, a process that reminds me of living in Lagos as a kid and participating in the Christmas parties my parents used to throw for our Nigerian friends. A dear friend from Scotland arrives in January for a two-month stay and there are plans for travel North and East combined with fieldwork in other sites. If you are reading this then chances are I know you and I miss you. I’ll try to keep the ole blog updated. For now, to sum it all up: as 2007 winds itself down I am feeling well; I’m learning and growing; I’m happy.
