Nigeria!

So right now my co-author is sitting across the table from me, and we are having a blace.  What the heck is a blace?  Answer #1: some random thing I just made up.  Answer #2: when one and one's co-author (henceforth "two") write posts for the same blog concurrently.  The first one to finish wins, but I haven't decided what yet.  I'll pick that when I win.

Anyway, MY post is about Nigeria.  Or, as I enjoy calling it, 9ja.  Because that's how the cool, hip kids spell it.  And while I'm not really cool, or a kid, I do have two hips, so....yeah.  And now, dear reader, tremble in fear, for you are about to receive an illustrated telling of assorted anecdotes from my increasingly-less-recent sojourn to Nigeria, land of languages, diversity, intrigue, and also credit fraud.
It's pretty – lush, and verdant, and a unique mix of first-world novelty, third-world apparent-ruin, and a sublime cultural charm found nowhere else on this Earth that I have been. 

The credit fraud part of Nigeria's reputation maybe turns out to be no joke.  I mean, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but no sooner had I landed in Lagos than I got urgent and alarmist emails about fraudulent charges to my credit card.  Not being a frequent traveller to Atlanta, I assumed it was the book I bought in the airport during my layover. 
Not so!  There were, instead, some number of $1.00 charges by "Payroll", then a bunch at the itunes store, and then wmvsomething.com, and – the coup d'grace – real.com. 
Realplayer, for those of you who missed the mid '90's, is a terrible media player program that plays...well, almost nothing.  It's almost as bad as standard quicktime, saved only by the fact that it doesn't think it can play things.  Low aspirations are sometimes appreciated.  At least for software.  Not for people.  Shoot for the sky. 
Honesty break: if you haven't worked it out by now, two and one are on their 2nd bottle of South African wine, rejoicing in post-braai splendor.  First time braai-ing with wood!  But I digress, and into my competitor's territory no less.
Long story abridged, I had to borrow dear and tremendously-respected colleague Amanda's phone to make an international call and have them cancel my card.  But after that, problem solved.

Back to topic: I took like a million pictures.  I'm not going to subject ye to all of them here, but check out my flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/96953185@N07/sets
It will, I hope, not disappoint.

For now, I'll stick to a few highlights.  Here, for instance, is a crowd of us being tourists, all taking the same picture of a magnificent vista of Ibadan, the largest city in Africa.

 It just stretches and stretches, far farther than you can see. 

I was particularly delighted by this sign at the zoological gardens of the University of Ibadan, across town from Lead City where the ALS school was:

Please consider donating an animal. Awesome.

So, I took a lot of pictures at the zoo.  In many case, I had a joke in mind to go in the caption.  Like this, for instance:

 Get it?

Here's another one: what's black and white and red all over?
An ostrich with a sunburn.

What do you call a grey parrot you meet in Nigeria?

...An African Grey Parrot.

Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

(There was no gorilla in the gorilla exhibit, incidentally.)
But zoos are zoos. And as unusual as it is to see a sneaky camel or someone really close to a lion, it gets old quick.

So while I've been picking selected photos to share, two has been beating me handily in the blace.  I will take, as a consolation prize, my time in showing you what Abeokuta looks like.
The first thing I heard about Abeokuta was that it's the hometown of Fela Kuti, an individual of great significance in my musical life.  Meaning he's awesome and if your internet is faster than mine you should go and right now google 'fela kuti teacher don't teach me nonsense' on youtube.  Or 'zombie'.  That's a catchier tune, but also probably won't come up until page 24 of the search results. 

Anyway.  Abeokuta is Yoruba for 'under the rock'.  The rock is this thing:

And the under refers to this room, the last of a few where people took refuge during slaving wars of the 1830s.

The modern-looking tower is new, of course.  The older modern way up looks like this:

That's Doug, who is a cool guy and a smart linguist, and also a rock climber.  His sure-footedness does not adequately portray how slippery the stairs seemed in the rain.  It's like climbing up through a really narrow fissure. 

The angry-looking chap was not actually angry, of course - he was our friendly security expert.  He just looks perturbed by my shameful photography skills. 

The view from the top of the rock was pretty epic, though.  'Hectic' [hektək], as they say here.

There was even linguistic data at the top!

All in all though, the trip went by like this:

Colourful, but too quick to appreciate in full.


P.S. the dude in the picture from the first set – the gentleman drinking Guinness Foreign Extra – is Deji, who was the conference centre big-in-charge-guy at Lead City.  He was an outstanding drinking companion, a true gentleman, and also he sent me home in style.

Just look at that dopey grin. 
<3 9ja.

-Will goes to bed.