I’ve been back a few months now and I just wanna go over some of my key learnings from 8 months in rural Nigeria:
- Eating the tiniest piece of bony goat a few times a week becomes normal and when you get home and get 10 big pieces of chicken in your korma, it hits you that we’re a bit ridiculous
- Condom demonstrations are just as childishly hilarious in Nigeria as they are in the UK
- Being keen to talk openly about your bowel movements with all your colleagues and friends is somewhat liberating
- Having a mental breakdown in a foreign country is just as terrifying as it sounds, but it’s possible to come through the other side and then exclaim that you had the time of your life
- Not having constant electricity is liberating and frustrating at the same time – you are free from your phone as it’s always either dead or you need to conserve battery at all costs, but having to walk 30 minutes in 35 degree heat to tell your colleague something you could have just texted is pretty wank
- You will get used to the heat (a bit) but it’ll still be really bloody hot. And no, the Nigerians aren’t used to it either and are just as sweaty as you; the human body just isn’t designed to do anything but take a bucket shower in that kind of heat
- Bucket showers are the best, but also the worst. Yes you can shower using just 10 litres of water in 2 minutes, but having that first shower will be more pleasurable than any other sensation ever
- Your mouth gets used to spicy food, however, your butt does not
- British people really do know fuck all about our colonial history (me included)
- Nigerian men don’t give a crap about hairy ladies (I can only assume) as I’ve seen more marriage proposals than the Eiffel Tower and I have leg and armpit hair that I can brush
- On the same note – marriage proposals were frequent – I assume it’s because I’m a white girl and this might be most people’s first and potentially last chance to bag a British wife and passport
- Washing your own clothes is half therapeutic and half hell on earth – yes you get to chill out for a few hours and sing Beyonce in the courtyard, but it also makes your hands hurt and nothing ever seems to be clean (plus, your host family will definitely laugh at you every time you do it for the whole 8 months)
- White people don’t need to save “third world countries” – I’d like to point out that I did already understand this, but whilst on the programme I realised how damaging this idea really is. Check out @barbiesavour on Instagram – just don’t be that person
- “Third world countries” aren’t actually a thing. It’s a construct. I mean what the fuck is a first, second, or third world country and who chooses who gets to be which?
- There are loads of spoilt, rich kids with iPhones and nice cars from daddy in Nigeria just as there are loads of children living in poverty in the UK with little education whose parents can’t afford to buy food – stereotypes are bad for everyone
- Many Nigerian ladies go to great lengths for their hair, but still tell me every day they want white people’s hair. GURLLLL I promise you don’t want my thin, greying straw when you can have luscious curly locks like yours (however everybody wants what they can’t have right? Us British spent our free time trying to get as dark skinned as humanly possible for pasty white people, where as skin bleaching is popular in Nigeria and lighter skin tones are considered more beautiful in MSM)
- It’s super sexy to be fat in Nigeria (I’VE FOUND MY HOME) – there are even fat camps where women go before their wedding day to put on some weight to look more beautiful
- You can’t eat in public – I found this out after unashamedly stuffing my face with chicken and spicy rice in my first few weeks and getting some horrified stares
- African people don’t want your stinky tshirts – seriously. Everyone is either wearing their own jeans and t-shirts, the more traditional Ankara outfits, or a mixture of both and they look DOPE
- Everyone might seem holy but the rules, like “no sex before marriage”, are definitely not adhered to even if everyone pretends like they are (randy buggers)
Well, I hope that was at least mildly entertaining and that you’ve taken something away from this.
Speak soon x
