Memoirs Ilu-Oyinbo

Living in a new city can be daunting. Even for someone who spent a considerable part of his early adulthood in medical school in Port Harcourt, which at the time seemed as far from Lagos as Mars was from Earth. I didn't think it would be so hard to just get up and go given the nomadic nature of my tertiary education. I experienced many things those days. From sleeping seated upright overnight in a luxurious bus in a forest somewhere in Orlu, Imo State -because of armed highway bandits, to sleeping on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway because a group of Christians had gathered for monthly worship and fervent prayers. I had seen it all; or so I assumed anyway.

 Last year I had to leave my beloved Lagos to study in London and the culture shock I experienced was quite 'challenging'. Looking back now as my time here winds down, I could not resist sharing some of the things responsible for my seeming 'distress' in the Queen's land.

Well-groomed animals - This country messes with your psyche. Especially if you are originally from a land where there is perennial darkness, dysfunctional danfos and LASTMA goons hounding you on the road. When you are from a country where being human is hazardous, the grooming and attention given to animals in this country, dogs especially, will test your faith in God. The Bible says God made all the birds of the air and animals of the ground before he made man and then rested. The dichotomy between the two lands makes you wonder if truly Nigerians were not made during the night between the second and third day of creation.

They have beauty parlors for the dogs here. There's an organization called the RSPCA and every waking morning young men and women dress up and drive out to rescue dogs, cats and all such animals in distress. They have veterinary hospitals for these dogs that make General Hospitals in Lagos look like Agege abattoirs. There are even dedicated functional ambulances waiting to transport any such animal that may be distressed to other 'specialist' centers for more intensive care. If as a 'common' Nigerian who has experienced real suffering, you see all these and you do not occasionally find yourself practicing how to bark when you are alone in the bathroom then you're the kind of man who can fry dodo without putting a piece in your mouth till you finish frying. Your contentment has to be legendary!

The funny thing is they have several shows on prime-time British television where they are either looking for a home for a lost or abandoned dog or the are performing surgery on a sparrow that fractured its wing. Interestingly, during the commercial breaks, the first advert aired is one from Save-The-Children showing a marasmic African child and they beg you to 'text Child to 333 to donate £1 a month'. This is just after they had sedated a sparrow with anaesthetic gas o!I watched one sometime ago, it featured a troubled dog and to relax it, they invited a specialist in aromatherapy to use different scents to relax the canine as part of behavioral treatment. I know it's their money after all but maybe they should just not bother showing African children drinking water from murky streams in need of aid and REAL help. Based on the quality of life of animals here, a simple extrapolation shows clearly that the life expectancy of dogs greatly surpasses that of adult men in Africa.

They don't stop there. Every other week at bus-stops, these great people put up 'Have you seen my cat?' and 'Lost Puppy' signs with contact numbers. Orisirisi. My final project supervisor told of how Caucasian students dedicated their dissertations to their dogs and he had trouble understanding why (He's of African extraction originally by the way). We may never understand it but here, dogs are important. Two things will happen if you live here long enough. Either you become a dog lover yourself or you return home everyday asking God why you're not a tetraped.

Artificial Female Precocity - This I like to term the 'Young ''Old'' Schoolgirl' phenomenon. Adam Johnson, the English Sunderland FC footballer was recently charged for engaging in sexual relations with a minor - a 16-year old. Hold that thought. One morning, I was on my way to the town centre and a young white female was walking towards me. Tall with full and flowing blonde mane, all made up and hung a very expensive-looking leather bag on her arm. She had an iPhone in one hand while a stick of cigarette was nestled between the fingers of the other hand. I thought she looked pretty good even if it was a tad too early to be smoking but I was even more impressed when she walked past me. She wore a rather enchanting fragrance. I had walked a few yards further and had actually forgotten about this female till a group of three or four females walked past me again and then I noticed they all had on the same checked skirt as the first girl I passed. She couldn't be a student I thought. Impossible! 

Like play, more and more schoolgirls walked past. They were all enrolled in the local secondary school and that footpath was the usual route to get to school. My mind keeps going back to Adam Johnson. You see how the devil works? If I had guessed twenty times, 'student' would never have come to my mind if I had place what the first girl was. I'm sorry but I was used to secondary school girls wearing kito and cortina with a beret on their heads. Beneath the beret, usually their hair was plaited and they usually carried backpacks and not leather handbags! Make-up and perfume? In which secondary school in Lagos? Any young man who randomly chats up seemingly good-looking females on the road will go to jail very quickly in this country. Better ask for a birth certificate first before you collect number. E go be like film. Ask Adam Johnson.

Congenital Gluteal Agensis - I will put it simply for those who do not speak medical. It is 'lack of nyash'. You keep hearing you never really know what you have till you lose it. You don't need to even lose it totally, just take a break from it and you will appreciate it. Nigerian women are beautiful. Take it from me. In this land, 'bottom' as the British refer to it is quite rare. You sometimes wonder if there is a ritual where all British females must be dropped hard on their backsides on concrete floors at birth. You are not quite sure if the flatness is from those toast bread machines or from electric irons. It can be quite distressing for an African who is accustomed to posteriorly aggrandized females. 

Please do not misunderstand me. It is not an absolute finding as with every human population, there will always be outliers. The implication of this for me is that, if you are a black lady living here and a 'straight' white lady topples your government and snatches your black spouse or boyfriend, then you really need to check yourself. Either you have a really repugnant character or your man has an error of refraction like astigmatism where 'straight' lines appear blurry.

Smoking - I understand that one must not underestimate the capacity of the human mind to self-destruct but certainly never to the level I have seen in this land. Every day, they run campaigns all over shouting about the deleterious effects of smoking but these British folks are a different breed. Figures suggest that over 20% of people in London were active smokers as at 2013. Every corner, every minute, in front of every other building, you would find an adult lighting one up. With the level of exposure and access to information, one wonders if it simply isn't a case of an over-indulged populace with death-wishes. A white lady I met at work was telling me about her brother who she has to care for because he had lung cancer and while I was trying to encourage her to keep doing her best for him, she whipped out a cigarette from her pocket and swiftly lit it. My mouth dried instantly.

But I don't really blame the people here. The government tries to tax tobacco companies heavily and regulate marketing and packaging but I doubt this has had any significant effect in deterring anyone. Here, you can get seriously ill and there's good health care waiting unlike Nigeria where it is 'person wey get load go carry him thing'. Maybe that is what they need here. A system that locks you out of any social welfare once you have taken up the habit of smoking. I certainly won't miss the tremendous passive smoking they have exposed me to.

Home Training - Yesterday, I was on a street and I noticed a tall black man walking briskly on the opposite side of the road. Two young boys shuffled behind him just as quickly and I could tell he was their father. Behind him. This is a distinguishing feature when compared to white families where usually, the parent is shouting at the child who is far ahead of the pack. It may not seem like much to you but I picked that 'order' of things with the black man and his sons. You could tell they were well disciplined.

There's a particular bus I get one on some afternoons that is on a school route so many young kids get on also. Being kids, they are naturally loud and playful which I understand really. What baffles me is the frequency with which these very young children swear. The 'F' word rolls off their tongues just as easily as Nigerians say 'ehen'. I find it worrying because these kids from my estimation should probably be aged between 10 and 13. They are a tad ahead of themselves in my opinion.

Kalo kalo - The British people can bet! My goodness. It is a way of life for them apparently. They take bets on everything from the 'fight of the century' to the name of the new Princess of Cambridge. Alas, betting companies in this land are such sure ventures guaranteed to deliver sound returns on investment. Gambling, like smoking, is ingrained into the DNA of the British. Only a handful are born devoid of these vices and no amount of marketing regulation can stop them. 

So you see, I really hadn't seen everything. I suspect very strongly that I will still see much more before I eventually take my leave. They have many things here but they do not have cold Orijin with grilled Crocker fish and a live-band crooning Ebenezer Obey's timeless classics. 

Eko ile!