This time last year, I was in Nigeria. My cousin (actually second cousin) had just finished her two day wedding celebration (they weren’t being extravagant; that’s the way it’s done) and we were probably chilling, or running around trying to get more traditional clothing made before leaving. This time last year, my sister and I may have been laying on our bed in the bedroom we shared with our mom, fanning ourselves and wishing there was electricity so that the fan over our heads would turn. I guess to be precise, this time last year it was nearly 6am so I was probably trying to stay asleep while all around us people were awake and facing the day with gusto. That’s one shocking thing about my time in Nigeria: I woke up before 7:30am nearly every day, sans alarm! Days start early and finish early (due, I suspect, to lack of constant electricity), so you sort of had to adapt. Besides, I had no internet to keep me up until the wee hours of the morning.

Since we’ve been back, I’ve been saying “the next time I go to Nigeria, I’ll do this or that or the other thing”, so I thought I’d share some of those quickly (it’s going on midnight and this post must go live before then).

The biggest challenge of going to Nigeria for me is my mom’s health. My mom needs to have access to a refrigerator to store her medication that that was very difficult. We found a freezer but the medication can’t be frozen so the intermittent electricity actually worked to our advantage: while we had electriciy, we’d stick the meds in teh freezer, then the power would go and we’d just leave the freezer shut and it would act as a sort of cooler. I’d like to think of a better solution for next time.

Also related to that is that my mom needs to have ready access to juice for when her blood sugar is low. We were quite fortunate last year, but there were some close calls. Juice was criminally expensive too, and we didn’t really get some right away so I think we should bring a few juice boxes next time, or at least a powder mix. Peanut butter works too for blood sugar woes, but we had to surrender our pb at the airport last year because it was in our carry on and not in our checked luggage – rookie mistake that won’t happen again!

I did well with disposable wipes, and I will bring even more next year. I’ll also bring alcohol-based sanitizers, and a million more plastic grocery bags for discarding garbage. I wish they made disposable underwear (please don’t recommend diapers!) because that would be so handy too (but wasteful, I know).

At the airport in Nigeria on our way back, our luggages were searched extensively, and due to some food items (Nigerian foodstuffs) contained therein, we ended up having to pay a bribe to get to bring our food back. This whole idea of having to pay when we didn’t have anything that was forbidden is nonsense, but it’s how many airport officials line their pockets. Well next year they won’t find so much as a grain of rice in our luggage because within a week of landing in Nigeria we’re going to purchase what we want to bring back to Canada and SHIP IT to Canada immediately. Then we won’t have to worry about any extensive searches of our luggage.

We paid through the teeth on the way TO Nigerian and back for having overloaded luggage. I know none of you are surprised that my suitcases were both oversized but that won’t be me next time! I’ll pack fewer clothing items. And a lot fewer pairs of shoes. And fewer gifts, since most people will be happy to receive cash.

I’ll save more money to buy souvenirs at the airport. And I’ll bargain better.

I wanted to send my friends a post card but we couldn’t find a place where we were staying that sold them. We even checked the post office. There are a lot of photography studios around though, so I figure I’ll either take some pictures upon arriving and take them to be developed or see if a photographer will do it for us, then turn the printed photos into post cards and send them.

Last year, I didn’t think I’d be able to visit again until 2011 but I’m going to try to go back in about a year’s time, so next year! I’m going to start a savings plan for the trip actually. Perhaps I should see if I can earn some money with the ads on my “Nigerian” blog to finance part of the trip!

Filed under: Adventure, NaBloPoMo by jummy