The Real Homecoming

Dear friends,


I sincerely apologize for my long hiatus from writing you stories of my “Return to Naija Experience” but I had been caught up in the politics of not wanting to paint a gloomy picture to you, which may in turn scare you away from making the decision I made two years ago. I have decided that what I promised you was my experiences and that I will go back to delivering on that promise with honest description of various stories that highlight my experience both good and bad and leave you to make your decisions. I am also available by phone, e-mail, facebook message or twitter to answer any questions you may have or gist about my experience so far. So please enjoy my first story in a very long time.....





The palm trees are symbolic of the tropical rain forests which lined the entire Niger Delta region and most of South Eastern Nigeria. Sometimes they stood very tall, towering above all the other trees and vegetation in the forest, sometimes the vegetation were so densely populated by palm trees, it looked like they were the only type of trees in the area. Occasionally you would see other trees like Bananas, Plantains, and only a handful of palm trees scattered around the forest. For a while, I took my mind of the bumpy road and went into a day dream of how nice it would be to take the kids on a road trip in Nigeria and point out the differences in the vegetation by the road side here as compared to what we see on our frequent road trips across the United States. The driver missed an attempt to dodge a major pot hole and that jolted me quickly out of my day dreams and reminded me why a road trip around Nigeria with the boys may not be happening any time soon.



I started to ask myself why I was going on this trip. I am saving up to pay for an apartment which is no easy feat in Lagos, and I can’t really afford to spend money on a trip to the village. For a while now, I have been thinking of visiting my step grandma, who is the only old person left in my village that I had any personal affiliation to. Then, I found myself in Warri on course with one weekend in between and started toying with the idea of making the trip even though I had been told by a lot of people that the roads where really bad since it was now rainy season. When a friend offered to give me a car and a driver and threw in a mobile police man in the mix, I decided to embark on the journey home. That is one of the good things about being in Nigeria, mighty generous friends.



I haven’t been to my village in almost 6 years, and for an Igbo person, that is a long time. I use to love going to my village when my paternal grandparents where alive because I was always happy to see them and they were even more happy to see me. The last time I went to the village, was the first time I went there while they were both gone and it just was not the same. I don’t know if it’s just me but I have found going to the village quite depressing lately. Everyone seems to be doing poorly and no one actually meets you to welcome you happily. They just get right into all their problems and seem to believe that you should have been solving them like yesterday. Funny enough, I did not get to see my step grandmother as it turned out she went to an “August Meeting”! Apparently that was way more important than my visit, but the good thing is that it showed she was still full of life so that is great.

I did see a few aging family members and got a chance to visit and talk a little. I also got a chance to see my grandparent’s graves and told them I missed coming home to see them. I also met another favourite aunty who I had given my widow’s mite to when she started her trading business and she was genuinely happy to see me and showed me her shop with a very big smile. That warmed my heart. The best part of my trip to the village though was meeting my favourite aunty’s baby. She had adopted a baby girl earlier this year after being unable to have kids biologically and that made me very proud of her because we all know the way the average Nigerian view adoption. She was so super cute and her smiling face was worth every bump I had to endure!



Aunty Chidiebere and her pretty daughter



Overall, I am glad I went to the village even though the roads were as bad as people said they were, so bad that the coconuts my aunty gave me broke in the car! No wonder I felt all beat up when I got back to Warri the next day. I wondered out loud how our President could possibly go through these bumpy roads every time he wanted to come to his home state of Bayelsa. You see we had to pass Bayelsa to go from Delta State to Imo State and I knew that there was no airport in Bayelsa. The driver and the mobile police promptly let me know that the president lands in Portharcourt and gets home by helicopter. So just incase you were naively wondering like me, now you know!



Holding Aunty's pretty blessing

Cheers 









Ist Annual Birthday Charity Dinner

Happy New Year guys!!! January went by so quickly for me. I was stuck in the US for Christmas due to multiple cancellations caused by bad weather. I was happy to spend Christmas with my parents and siblings but since my sons were in Nigeria because I had planned to be back in Nigeria to spend Christmas with them, I couldn’t be completely happy. Thanks to the internet and Skype we were able to have the boys celebrate with us during the traditional Christmas morning gift opening. They at least got to see their Christmas gifts and be a little excited…

The real excitement came when I got home and they were able to actually get their gifts. Uche kept raving at how he was the luckiest kid on earth to get a Wii at 7 when he wasn’t expecting to get it until he was 10! I was especially glad that there were no mishaps with my luggage this time. I got back to Nigeria just before New Year and spent the first few days of the year making it up to the boys. By the time I realized my birthday was around the corner it was too late to plan a party that would take place on my Birthday so I started planning my birthday party to happen on January 22nd, which is one week after my birthday. Everyone knows I take the opportunity accorded by my birthday to have a party every year, I told myself that being in Nigeria will not stop that tradition. In fact since Nigerians love to party, I planned a bigger party than I had thrown in years.

This year I wanted to take to merge two things that I love to do, partying and giving back the society so I tagged my birthday party Judith’s 1st Annual Birthday Charity Dinner. This was an idea I had for a while but haven’t had the guts to actualize. I was quite worried since I always believed that giving back and charity was more of an American thing than a Nigerian thing, but I told myself that the worst that can happen is that I raise no money, which is exactly what I would raise if I did not try. I started inviting the few friends I had made since I got here. I talked to some friends before hand about the charity aspect of my Birthday party and I was amazed at the support I got even for the party itself. One awesome friend, paid for the DJ and donated $500 towards drinks, another provided a dozen bottles of Moet to make the event even classier! Someone donated cartons of Chicken and turkey and a total stranger agreed to cut it up in his meat shop for free! To say that I was shocked was an understatement! With all these and my fantastic cooking {wink}, needless to say we had an awesome party!!!

I cannot do the fun we had at this party justice without giving a BIG shout out to everyone who made it to party and especially those who traveled to Warri; a not so exotic destination to show their love and support and have a good old time! Thanks guys and gals!

On the fundraising proper, I introduced my charity project with a speech, which was well received. In a nutshell I have a dream of helping HIGH ABILITY students from under privileged families afford high quality education so that they can break the cycle of poverty. In my speech I asked for donations in form of time, skills, and money to register and run a non profit organization which will initially give scholarship to such students to enable them afford better quality schools and ultimately build non profit schools which will offer free education to such students. At the party I also introduced a silent auction where a few items were auctioned and the profit was donated to the charity fund. I was also surprised at the response got on this idea since it was something new to my entire crowd. All in all the fundraising effort raised N146, 800 to kick start the charity with another N100, 000 pledged.

This is enough money to register and kick start the charity organization but I am still struggling to get the donation of time and skills which is critical to the success of any non profit organization so please take time to read some of the attachments on this post and if you think education-empowers is a project you are interested in, contact me @ Judith.udeke@education-empowers.org .
Thanks for reading my blog and Have a very awesome day!

Thank You all!!!

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Let's Talk

Hey guys,

Sorry I have not posted anything for about 6 weeks now. I have literarilly been mourning Nigeria, and have been too overcome with emotions to even write about any one thing. I keep wandering how things got so bad... I ask myself how can it be fixed? Can it even be fixed? For those of you who think that it is not that bad, please take time to look at the website below. Wander how a country who havent fought a war in 3 decades is ranked as being so unstable?

Lets talk about it. Is Nigeria doomed as a failed state? How can anyone bring about positive changes in Nigeria?


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/2010_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings

Lets talk!

My "OLD" passport

A lot of people have been asking me what it is like, to live in Nigeria after being away for so long. My usual response is usually that living in Nigeria has its negatives and its positives and I am learning to appreciate both the good and the bad. I also remind them that living in America also has the good and the bad sides, and that overall where you would prefer to live will depend on what is most important to you at a particular time. Personally, I love living in Nigeria as much as I love living in America because I love living :) but thats not to say that I can't nag about the bad things.

So some of us know that some stressors that are associated with living abroad are traffic tickets, really high rents, high taxes, how difficult it is to save, etc. In Nigeria the biggest stressor is lack of good lawmaking and law enforcement and believe me when I say it could be as frustrating as it is scary, depending on where and how you encounter either one. I had my first encounter with poor law making almost as soon as I reported for work in Nigeria. I was scheduled to take a course in Europe even before I reported to work in Nigeria. Looking back, I wish I had been proactive enough to get my Schengen visa before leaving the US. By the time I got around to it, I didn't have 3 weeks to wait for a visa.

So I arrived in Nigeria about 6 weeks before the start of my course in Europe, thinking I have a lot of time to get my visa. My first shocker came when I found out that I couldn't apply for a visa through the company until I got a series of approval to go for a course which has already been paid for by the US end of the company. Oh well, that is not a big deal I thought, I already informed my boss about the course during my assignment preview trip so I should be able to get it approved really fast. It wasn't as easy as I thought to get my trip approved because of people chasing and IT issues, but that is not the heart of my story so I will save you the details and say it ended up taking me about 3 weeks!!!!

When I finally got my approvals and started the visa application process, I was informed that I had the "OLD" Nigerian passport and that I need to obtain a new passport before I could apply for a visa. I politely told the guy in the travel team that my passport is valid until September 2014 and I had no intention of getting a new passport before then. Never in my American thinking mind did I think that a Government who issued an international passport and said it was valid until 2014 could turn around and say the passport was no longer valid. I even educated him that my two children have two versions of the US passport and that the fact that the US decided to change the passport before my older son's passport expired doesn't make his passport invalid. After failing to convince me, the guy took my passport and submitted the application because I insisted.

When I discussed this with other colleagues, they told me to go ahead and apply for a new International passport as they were sure that my passport will be returned as embassies are no longer issuing visa on the "OLD" passport. I really just felt they were somewhat ignorant because, I had submitted my passport to the Dutch embassy in Houston just a few weeks earlier and they didn't have a problem with issuing a visa on my so called "OLD" passport. The only reason I didn't get the visa then, was because they needed three weeks to process the visa and I had less than one week in the US before I had to resume for my assignment in Nigeria. Some colleagues even offered tips and advice on how to get a new passport fast, one person introduced me to a woman who worked for immigration and who asked me to pay more than three times the official passport cost for a quick new passport!

I didn't really do anything about applying for a new passport and a few days later I wish I had. With only a little over 2 weeks left to my trip, I was informed by our travel person in Abuja that my passport was rejected and that I would have to send a new passport to Abuja to get my visa. A colleague who missed a training course because of the same thing told me how we went about getting his new passport, and believe me when I say there was a Million and one steps to it. First you applied online, then you get a print out, next you go to some specific banks to pay, and then to your local Government to get a letter of something, next you go to the court to get something else, after which you get someone to sign a guarantor's form for you, and then you go to either Benin or Asaba where my nearest immigration offices were, to take a picture and fingerprint, and most likely return there the next day or some days later, to pick up the new passport. The process took me over a week!

Now I had a week left! Thankfully I got the visa just in time to attend the course. Like I said living in Nigeria comes with the good and the bad, and for this trip the good part of living in Nigeria was that since there was no company credit cards in Nigeria, I was given cash for my hotel and meals and I was able to save enough to go shopping :)

Anyways for those of you who live outside Nigeria and do not have the luxury of passing the Muritala airport in Lagos where you will see an A4 paper posted in an inconspicuous place saying that the Federal Govt. have said that the old passport will be invalid for travel after December 31st 2010, please get a new international passport before attempting to travel in or out of Nigeria after that time...

Cheers.

Nigeria @ 50

I woke up on Friday Oct. 1st 2010 in Warri, Nigeria not feeling particularly excited. It was Nigerian's 50th Independent day and I really didn't feel like celebrating anything. It was a public holiday and I would have been happy to sleep in but my company had planned a children's party for Independent day and I had promised to take the kids. If you know Warri, you would know that there is no fun place for kids here, no movie theatres, no chuckee cheeses or similar places so for my boys it had been one kinda boring month so I couldn't find it in my heart to deny them this promise of fun..... little did I know what we were in for!

We finally got out of the house around noon and started heading to my office, which was the venue of the party. The party was supposed to start at 10am but like I said it was a public holiday, plus I usually take my time waking up when I don't have to go to work. As I drove along airport road, I saw a number of people walking around wearing green and white which are the Nigerian colors, some were carrying the Nigerian flag and some were crowded in cars and vans, with some people sitting on the cars. There were people giving out what looked like flyers and leaflets of some sorts. I took this all in and kept driving, I guess this is the way Independent day is celebrated in Nigeria, its been a while for me.

When I got close the entrance gate to my office there was a lot of cars parked around the entrance so I knew driving into the premises was not an option. There were also rows of cars parked on the road beside the entrance. I considered parking across the road, but the thought of taking my two little kids across the busy road with no cross walk and the kind of drivers we had in Nigeria felt too unsafe, so I drove to the second entrance gate to my office premises. On getting there, I noticed there were not a lot of cars around so I drove to the gate to see if it was open. I saw a small foot gate open and some people on the inside on foot so I went ahead and parked my car close to the gate. After I got my kids out in the heat and walked to the gate, I saw it was now shut and some police and military people by the gate asked me to go to the other gate as this gate was now locked. I asked why, and all they said was "use the other gate". I shook my head, and said to myself that this is why Nigeria is one of the hardest country to live in. Anyone with a little power could decide to do whatever is in their power to make people miserable.


We got back in the car and drove towards the main gate. We had to park on the road about 5 blocks from the gate because that was the only place where parking was available. We also had to walk on the road along sides moving cars and bikes, terrifying as it was. I had already asked my older son twice if he still wanted to go to the party and he said yes, so we braced everything and kept going. We passed the entrance gate and walked another 3 blocks or so the arena where the party was going on. On getting there, things were quite chaotic. There were people everywhere and the only points of attraction for kids were 2 bouncy houses and one train and there were a lot of kids waiting to for a chance to get in. The kids were standing in long lines in the heat. My older kid wanted to get into the spider man bouncy house so I put him on the line and handed him a cup of cold water which I had the good sense to bring along. My younger son fell asleep in his stroller while we were walking so I found a seat in the shaded area for my nanny to sit with him.

After my kid had been on the line for about 30 mins in the heat, we heard an announcement telling everyone to go and sit down and like a bad dream, the bouncy houses were deflated. I took my son and got him a sit beside his sleeping brother and the nanny. I went in search of our prepaid party snacks for the second time and met a huge line of angry people trying to get their snacks and coordinators doing nothing to make the process faster so that people could get the drinks and food which was included in the cost of the party tickets. I went to the makeshift market place and bought some ice cream and went back to were the kids were sitting and we all had ice cream. Believe it or not that was the highlight and the only thing nice about our outing that day. I must say that it wasn't that nice since we had 4 liters of the same brand of ice cream sitting in our freezer and we could have just enjoyed some of it in the comfort of our home.

Anyway after we had our ice cream, we chatted with a few people sitting around us, and one woman was surprised that my older son answered NO, when she asked if he enjoyed the party. I was quite appalled at her surprise, we all partook in what I would have to tag the most horrible children's party I had ever witnessed and here was someone, surprised that a child said he had no fun. I started to think about how Nigerian that was, everyday we witness more atrocity happen in a country filled with God given natural and human resources, and we see how bad our country is, yet we cringe and when people say horrible things about Nigeria. I am Nigerian, but Nigeria is one of the saddest country I know because we are too blessed to be in such a horrible condition.

And coming back to my children's party, believe it or not even when it was obvious the party was over and I went to attempt again to claim my prepaid party snacks, I met some people who were on the line for hours and still didn't get any food, who told me that some of the organizers came and took all the remaining food away and told them to go home since they could not stand quietly in line. When I asked one of the organizers about my food, she told me that it was finished and that they suspected that people stole some already used tickets and collected snacks multiple times and this was probably why they were short. I didn't believe her at all, I believe that someone had decided right from the very beginning of this party to take home most of the party food and this was why the snacks were not distributed from multiple points so as to ensure that people did not wait for an unnecessarily long time for food that they already paid for.

I will definitely send an e-mail feedback to organizers of this failed party when I get in the office tomorrow, and ask for them to kindly reimburse my money. I will let you all know what response I get. I will put my money in the fact that I will get a "not so good" response. That is if I get any at all! Oh well, I did know that not all my Naija Xperiences would be good. I just wished I spared my kids this mess of a children's party.

To be contd.....

“Ain’t No Party like a Lagos Party….”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiSX5pagz8s

I am sure some of you have heard Banky W’s “Lagos Party”. I love that song! Maybe because it reminds me of all the awesome parties I have had the opportunity to attend in Lagos. Lagos people sure know how to party; however, since I discovered Abuja, I think Lagos has some serious competition there. I have spent most of my weekends so far in either Lagos or Abuja, trying to get my partying on before the boys get here. For those of you who have never been to a party in Nigeria, what makes most Nigerian parties awesome is that whether it’s a party in someone’s home, a party hall, or a restaurant you can count on lots and lots of good food and unlimited drinks, and the best part is that you never have to pay a dime! Those of us who have lived in the western world know what I mean….

If you are into clubbing like I am, then there is an additional bonus which is that if you are with the right crowd, when you go clubbing, it’s VIP all the way with lots of bottles on d table so you never have to go to the bar to get a drink! What I don’t like though is the fact that people still smoke in the clubs in Nigeria, for me that is a downer because I have enjoyed smoke free clubbing in the US for years.
So far I have had the most fun in Abuja, my first night there, I went to PLAY in Wuse II. The club had a fairly young crowd and the interior was alright, nothing spectacular, one bar, one VIP section, some tables, and an adequate floor space. The best part for me @ club PLAY that night was the music….. I felt like the DJ was my bodyguard that nite. Looking out for me all night long! The music was so good that although the plan was to spend only an hour there and head to club Blue in Sheraton; I never made it out of there. I will say that the DJ at PLAY that night has the best handle on mixing Nigerian, African, American, and Caribbean music I had ever experienced, so for me that was clubbing heaven! It also helped that I had an awesome dance partner {wink}. The result was that I danced for 3 hours straight that night.
The next day, I did make it to Club blue which was quite impressive. The interior would give top clubs in NY and LA a run for their money. I particularly loved the huge club space and the fact that it had lots of sectioned VIP booths. For some of you the fact that they had dancers entertaining until about 3 a.m. may be appreciated as well. The crowd was the best part for me because it was a very diverse crowd, lots of tourists and visitors of various nationalities and locals of various age brackets. The DJ did an awesome job as well.

I only got to spend one day in Lagos because the weekend I was to go to Lagos, I had to travel to Abuja on Friday to take care of my “Old Passport” (title of my next blog post). I arrived in Lagos on a Saturday which happened to be the last Saturday of the month hence an “Environmental Sanitation day”. Incase you are wandering, Yes! They still do that stuff in Nigeria. For those who do not know what “Environmental Sanitation day” is; In Nigeria, every last Saturday of the month, there is a curfew from 7am to 10am because this time is set aside for people to clean up their environment. In some states, the roads are cleaned by people hired by the Government, everyone is expected to come out of their homes and clean up their neighborhood. Law enforcement officers patrol the roads and cars are pulled over and fines are handed out to those who broke the curfew. For me, this meant that on that Saturday, I had to get to the airport in Abuja before 7am, and when I arrived in Lagos at 8:30am, I had to sit in the airport until 10am.

That Saturday was my friend’s Nikah (muslim wedding). My sister and I were bridesmaids and the bride wanted us to wear a hijab. I had fun wearing a Hijab that day, but I am very glad I don’t have to wear it all the time! They had a lavish reception at Sheraton Hotel in Ikeja. The bride was very beautiful in a long flowing ivory and gold dress. The groom was not looking bad himself in a robe made out of the same fabric. The reception hall was very beautifully set up; I wish I had remembered to pictures. They had a very extensive buffet with well over a dozen dishes, an assortment of salads, and about a dozen different deserts. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, so much that I forgot to take a picture of the buffet to make your mouth water.

That night my sister and I were pretty tired, so we were not up to serious clubbing, but we checked out two Lagos night spots. First, we went to Swe Bar on the Island. They had some musicians performing that night (or maybe just hanging out). We saw Timaya, then MI entertaining on an elevated platform in the club’s VIP section. We left when some other musician, unknown to us came on stage. If you are into meeting the music industry celebs, that may be a good spot. It is located just inside Victoria Island (VI) in “City Mall”. I am not big on celebs, but I did take a picture of Timaya and my sister, he seemed a little ticked off when I didn’t ask to have my picture take with him….

Next we hit Soul Lounge which is located at “The Palms” in Lekki. For me it was a good place to relax, have a drink, and hang out with friends. The play a lot of old school music, everything from all your favorite MJ hits, to Will Smith’s songs¸ I remember hearing most of the songs we stepped danced to in high school that night. If you are into old school music definitely checks it out when you are in Lagos. Auto lounge which is in VI is the club I would recommend for the best mix of new hits in Lagos, I have been there a couple of times and the DJ is pretty good. The Grotto also in VI is not a bad spot either. Anyways Lagos is filled with lots of awesome hang out spots, and there are some great magazines that have compiled the hangouts that Lagos has to offer.

Warri does not have much to offer when it comes to entertainment, but I did take up my colleague when he offered to take my sister and I to “Lady’s night” at Revolution night club. Let’s just say that I would rather stay home while in Warri, until I make enough friend’s to start getting invited to house parties and such. If you ever have to go clubbing in Warri, do burn a cd with all your favorite party songs and take it with you. I say this because when I wasn't having fun at the club because I was tired of hearing the same old American songs and unfamiliar Nigerian songs played over and over again, my colleague offered the DJ a tip to play some recent songs. The DJ graciously told him that he had no other songs, but will be happy to play our CD if we had one!

That concludes this post, until next time, cheers.