One Saturday, Mom tells Lisa and me that we're going downtown to the market to buy cloth to make us each a Nigerian outfit. We have to put on long skirts and sneakers, she says, because we'll be doing a lot of walking.
"Are we walking all the way downtown?" I ask, my eyes wide. Mom smiles and shakes her head.
"No," she says, "Aunt Janne is going to show us how to get a taxi." I have never ridden in a taxi before and start to skip around the house, putting a long skirt on over my shorts and tying on a pair of sneakers. I hate skirts, but I must wear one whenever I leave the compound—except when we go to school. The sneakers are still mostly new, and I wonder if they will need to last me for the next four years until we return to the U.S.
Aunt Janne knocks on the screen door, and we grab umbrellas and start down the dirt road toward the compound gate. Aunt Janne isn't my aunt; she is our Australian neighbour, Shelley's mum. But here, the children call all adults except teachers "aunt" and "uncle." Shelley and Kimmie are going downtown with us, too. It's a 10-minute walk to the gate, skirting potholes and puddles, and I am hot by the time we greet the guards in Hausa and move onto the road that passes by the hospital compound where we live.
We turn left, and my senses are assailed from all sides. Horns honk from passing cars and trucks. Reggae music blares from a shop across the street. (The electricity must have come back on since we left our house.) Exhaust clouds around us as we walk along the muddy shoulder toward the roundabout where our road meets the road that runs south into town. Cars here don't have to do emissions tests, apparently, and I cough on the fumes. There is colour everywhere: grass greener than I ever saw in California, brilliant azure sky, and vivid—even garish—patterns in women's clothing.We veer left at the roundabout, and I see a gaggle of green cars parked in a grassy area, each with a wide yellow stripe painted horizontally all the way around the car below the door handle. I'm reminded of making a similar stripe while dyeing Easter eggs by putting a rubber band around the egg before dipping it. Aunt Janne tells us that taxis from different states have different colour patterns. Taxis from Kano, for example, are blue with a white stripe.
Aunt Janne walks up to a parked taxi, an old Peugeot 504 station wagon, and negotiates with the driver. I hear her say, "Terminus" but am not sure if that's a place or a price. The taxi looks a lot like the station wagon we used to own in California, except it's more beat-up. The paint is scratched in numerous places, and I see dents along the passenger side. The back bumper is twisted and rusty. Aunt Janne gives the driver a few notes of currency—naira—and we clamber in. There is a row of seats behind the bench seat that I would normally call "the back seat." One of the back seats pushes forward with the lifting of a little handle, and Shelley and I climb in the way back. Aunt Janne sits in the front seat, and Mom, Lisa, and Kimmie sit in the middle seat. Aunt Janne explains that normally the taxi driver would stop along the way to pick up more clients, but she has paid up-front for a direct ride to the centre of town, Terminus.
The taxi looks older on the inside than it does on the outside. The seat cushions beneath us are torn in several places, and I can see the springs inside. The windows are cracked—the windshield looks almost shattered over in the lower right corner. The doors are missing panels to cover their innards, leaving metal rods and gears exposed. The driver's side back door has no handle on the inside at all. The upholstery smells odd. Kimmie scrunches up her nose and tells me it's a goat smell. Aunt Janne shushes her as the driver shifts gears and we leave the car park.
It isn't a long ride, but I have never been this direction in town before. Most of the women we pass—even the young girls my age or smaller—wear a head-covering that covers all but the face. In other parts of town where I've been, the women cover their hair with an elaborately tied piece of colourful cloth. Here, however, the women's heads and shoulders are completely covered by a single draped solid-colour cloth—grey or white. It reminds me of pictures I've seen of girls in Saudi Arabia, except the girls' faces are visible. I wonder about this but am too shy to ask. We pass a man pushing a wheelbarrow that is full to nearly overflowing with huge white sacks. Another man pulls a two-wheeled cart filled with 10-gallon plastic water jugs. At an intersection we are passed by a motorcycle carrying a man and two children—one in front of him and one behind. None of them are wearing helmets. I can't believe how many people are on the streets. I'm sure there are more people on foot than there are in cars.
And then we are at the roundabout they call Terminus. It's jam-packed with vehicles—taxis like ours, vans big and small, bicycles, big trucks, motorcycles, and private vehicles. The driver pulls over, blocking two other cars, and Aunt Janne gets out and opens the back door. We clamber out, and she hands the driver another note.
"Mun gode," she says, nodding her head, and we move back from the taxi.
"That's Main Market over there," Aunt Janne tells us, gesturing with her chin towards a huge multi-story building to our left. "Stay together." We start walking in that direction, Shelley, Kimmie, and I linking arms as we follow our moms and Lisa through the crowds. There are just so many people—men, women, children, old people, young people, all shifting and cutting each other off. I've lived in Los Angeles, but I've never been downtown, and this is new to me.
We walk a short way and then turn to cross the intersection diagonally, first to the roundabout and then to the market building corner. There is no traffic light, no crosswalk, no policeman to direct traffic. It is a free-for-all, every-man-for-himself fight against traffic. Fortunately, Aunt Janne is a pro and makes sure we all cross safely amid the tide of people and push of cars. The traffic is actually an advantage, as it's easier to pick our way between cars going only 5 miles an hour than dashing between speeding cars. Still, I'm relieved when we reach the opposite corner without injury.
This is where the fun really begins.
November 08, 2017
November 03, 2017
Dear Jenny - September 28, 1991
September 28, 1991
Dear Jenny,
How are you? Did you get my last letter? We haven't gotten any mail yet, but Mom says it may be weeks before we get letters. I hope one is from you!
Ruth, Shelley, and Jessica took me exploring around the compound today. Our houses are all pretty close together. There isn't a street like in the States. It's just a dirt road all the way from the front gate back into where the houses are. Right now the road is awful because of the rainy season making potholes, but Jessica says it's not so bad in the dry season.
So first they took me around all the houses, which we've done before. But, like, I never knew the Truxtons had a little pool! It's like a cement wading pool. I wonder if the kids used to play in it when they were little. They're all too big now. Ryan is the youngest, and he's in 6th grade. They have a lot of pine trees in their yard, which is huge. We've played hide-and-seek in there a couple times. But we have to make sure not to trample the flowers. All the other houses have yards, too, but no one has fences. There's a wall around the whole compound, but that's it. That wall is weird because it has broken glass on the top of it--I guess to keep people from jumping over. But the girls showed me where there's no glass. They said sometime when there's a polo game, maybe we can climb up and watch. (I don't know what polo is, but one wall of our compound is up against the polo field.) There's a mango tree on this side and another one on the other side, and they said sometimes they climb over that way.
Some of the neighbors have chickens. We didn't get close, but I could hear them clucking. The girls told me that the other people who live in our row of apartments are Nigerian doctors or other medical people who work at the hospital. I'm sure I've met them but don't remember any of their names except someone named Mary.
You have to cross a tennis court (or go around it) to get to our new house from the others' houses. It's a duplex like our last apartment in L.A., but the houses are side-by-side instead of one on top of the other. Our neighbors are the Yohannas, and they're Nigerian. The dad is a doctor, and the mom is a nurse. Their little boy is a nightmare. He's a bit younger than us girls and teases us all the time. I don't know many of the other neighbors. Their kids don't play with us, and they don't go to Hillcrest. One of them has a dog named Bingo, like in the song. His ears are always bloody and chewed up, and there's flies around him all the time.
There's a big field away from all the houses, and on the other side is where the wrecked car is. It was a white VW bug, and it's all squashed up in the front. It's just sitting there, and weeds are growing around it and stuff. Shelley says the lady driving it was killed, and she was pregnant, and they have her baby in a jar in the lab in the hospital. Yuck. She said she'll take me to see it sometime, but I don't think I want to see it.
Near the wrecked car are a couple buildings that are like ghost buildings. There isn't any roof, just walls and empty windows. There's broken bits of wall and stuff on the ground, no furniture or anything. But it's quiet. And there's plants growing inside the buildings. It was super creepy.
Then we walked down to the hospital, but we didn't go into any buildings. It smells funny down there anyway.
We had to run home because it started to rain while we were at the hospital. Man, the rain here is really hard! One time it even hailed! There were little balls of ice on the grass, and the pounding on the roof was even louder than usual. I'd never seen hail before!
Mom is calling me to go set the table. Write back soon!
Love,
Sara
P.S. Dad says I can't go play in the field anymore or go down to the abandoned building. He says there could be snakes. The grass in the field is really tall, like past my knees. I don't want to get bitten by a snake, that's for sure.
Dear Jenny,
How are you? Did you get my last letter? We haven't gotten any mail yet, but Mom says it may be weeks before we get letters. I hope one is from you!
Ruth, Shelley, and Jessica took me exploring around the compound today. Our houses are all pretty close together. There isn't a street like in the States. It's just a dirt road all the way from the front gate back into where the houses are. Right now the road is awful because of the rainy season making potholes, but Jessica says it's not so bad in the dry season.
So first they took me around all the houses, which we've done before. But, like, I never knew the Truxtons had a little pool! It's like a cement wading pool. I wonder if the kids used to play in it when they were little. They're all too big now. Ryan is the youngest, and he's in 6th grade. They have a lot of pine trees in their yard, which is huge. We've played hide-and-seek in there a couple times. But we have to make sure not to trample the flowers. All the other houses have yards, too, but no one has fences. There's a wall around the whole compound, but that's it. That wall is weird because it has broken glass on the top of it--I guess to keep people from jumping over. But the girls showed me where there's no glass. They said sometime when there's a polo game, maybe we can climb up and watch. (I don't know what polo is, but one wall of our compound is up against the polo field.) There's a mango tree on this side and another one on the other side, and they said sometimes they climb over that way.
Some of the neighbors have chickens. We didn't get close, but I could hear them clucking. The girls told me that the other people who live in our row of apartments are Nigerian doctors or other medical people who work at the hospital. I'm sure I've met them but don't remember any of their names except someone named Mary.
You have to cross a tennis court (or go around it) to get to our new house from the others' houses. It's a duplex like our last apartment in L.A., but the houses are side-by-side instead of one on top of the other. Our neighbors are the Yohannas, and they're Nigerian. The dad is a doctor, and the mom is a nurse. Their little boy is a nightmare. He's a bit younger than us girls and teases us all the time. I don't know many of the other neighbors. Their kids don't play with us, and they don't go to Hillcrest. One of them has a dog named Bingo, like in the song. His ears are always bloody and chewed up, and there's flies around him all the time.
There's a big field away from all the houses, and on the other side is where the wrecked car is. It was a white VW bug, and it's all squashed up in the front. It's just sitting there, and weeds are growing around it and stuff. Shelley says the lady driving it was killed, and she was pregnant, and they have her baby in a jar in the lab in the hospital. Yuck. She said she'll take me to see it sometime, but I don't think I want to see it.
Near the wrecked car are a couple buildings that are like ghost buildings. There isn't any roof, just walls and empty windows. There's broken bits of wall and stuff on the ground, no furniture or anything. But it's quiet. And there's plants growing inside the buildings. It was super creepy.
Then we walked down to the hospital, but we didn't go into any buildings. It smells funny down there anyway.
We had to run home because it started to rain while we were at the hospital. Man, the rain here is really hard! One time it even hailed! There were little balls of ice on the grass, and the pounding on the roof was even louder than usual. I'd never seen hail before!
Mom is calling me to go set the table. Write back soon!
Love,
Sara
P.S. Dad says I can't go play in the field anymore or go down to the abandoned building. He says there could be snakes. The grass in the field is really tall, like past my knees. I don't want to get bitten by a snake, that's for sure.
November 02, 2017
April
It's the middle of the afternoon, but I sit in a darkness that has moved in, creeping like a spider in the shadows. The brilliant sunlight from earlier has dissipated, dimmed, diminished, and the darkness is here. I sit as still as possible, holding my breath. The teacher lectures on, writing on the chalkboard, explaining the lesson, but we are all still, waiting. An all-too-familiar aroma wafts in through the open windows and door. It is the aroma of expectation, of hope. The teacher pauses, breathes it in, and smiles. He walks to the open door and peers out. In two more steps, he is at the edge of the cement veranda. I cannot see his face, but I expect it looks a great deal like mine, like all of our faces.
The sheer curtains start to dance, feather-light, to the exotic melody we can only hear with our eyes. Goosebumps rise on my arms. A pile of quizzes on the teacher's desk begin to flutter at the edges. He steps back inside and moves a book on top of the pile just as the top quiz begins to blow across the desk. He returns to the black board and places the chalk back in the board gutter. As he begins speaking again, we hear the subtle difference in his voice: a hesitancy, a faltering. A waiting.
Then we hear the single tap over our heads. Just one tap. Then another and another, slowly at first, then tapping a rhythm above us. The teacher stops talking, and his smile becomes more pronounced. We are not listening to him anymore. Some of us look out the windows and door; others just look up. I let out my breath and intake a fresh, deep breath.
"Go on then," the teacher says. We leave our seats in a jumble, crashing into each other and spilling out of the open door. Some stand tentatively on the edge of the veranda, holding their hands out to where the roof edge overhangs several inches. Their eyes light up as their hands become splashed with random drops. I jump off the veranda onto the grass and raise my face to the sky. I remove my splattered glasses and open my mouth, stick out my tongue. One drop, two, three. I close my mouth, satisfied.
From the doorway, our teacher calls us back inside. The tap-tap on the roof is becoming louder as we file back in, laughing and chatting. Within seconds of our taking our seats, the teacher can barely be heard over the pounding on the roof. He turns on the overhead lights and loudly asks us to read an assignment in our textbooks.
Ten minutes later, the pounding has ceased. There is no longer even a steady tap-tap. As the bell rings, we gather our belongings and file outside. Small puddles have formed on the sidewalks, and the grass is wet and sparkles in the breaking sunlight. But the parched soil still remains parched, waiting to receive its libation in coming months.
It could be days or even weeks before another rain, and probably two months or so before daily thunderstorms. But we smile and inhale deeply, as though a curse has been lifted. The first rain signals soccer season, the last quarter of the school year, and upcoming summer vacation. But it also signals a season of green and growing things, mangoes and roasted corn, new life. And we all feel just a bit more alive today.
The sheer curtains start to dance, feather-light, to the exotic melody we can only hear with our eyes. Goosebumps rise on my arms. A pile of quizzes on the teacher's desk begin to flutter at the edges. He steps back inside and moves a book on top of the pile just as the top quiz begins to blow across the desk. He returns to the black board and places the chalk back in the board gutter. As he begins speaking again, we hear the subtle difference in his voice: a hesitancy, a faltering. A waiting.
Then we hear the single tap over our heads. Just one tap. Then another and another, slowly at first, then tapping a rhythm above us. The teacher stops talking, and his smile becomes more pronounced. We are not listening to him anymore. Some of us look out the windows and door; others just look up. I let out my breath and intake a fresh, deep breath.
"Go on then," the teacher says. We leave our seats in a jumble, crashing into each other and spilling out of the open door. Some stand tentatively on the edge of the veranda, holding their hands out to where the roof edge overhangs several inches. Their eyes light up as their hands become splashed with random drops. I jump off the veranda onto the grass and raise my face to the sky. I remove my splattered glasses and open my mouth, stick out my tongue. One drop, two, three. I close my mouth, satisfied.
From the doorway, our teacher calls us back inside. The tap-tap on the roof is becoming louder as we file back in, laughing and chatting. Within seconds of our taking our seats, the teacher can barely be heard over the pounding on the roof. He turns on the overhead lights and loudly asks us to read an assignment in our textbooks.
Ten minutes later, the pounding has ceased. There is no longer even a steady tap-tap. As the bell rings, we gather our belongings and file outside. Small puddles have formed on the sidewalks, and the grass is wet and sparkles in the breaking sunlight. But the parched soil still remains parched, waiting to receive its libation in coming months.
It could be days or even weeks before another rain, and probably two months or so before daily thunderstorms. But we smile and inhale deeply, as though a curse has been lifted. The first rain signals soccer season, the last quarter of the school year, and upcoming summer vacation. But it also signals a season of green and growing things, mangoes and roasted corn, new life. And we all feel just a bit more alive today.
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