This is a continuation of a series of interesting conversations about my dear homeland I had in the summer of 2016. Each draws a different emotion from me from joy, hope, pride and even disappointment. But each one ended with a voice in my innermost saying “do your part and God will do His own”.
There is hope and I’ll continue to do my bit and encourage those in my circle of influence to have faith, to do the right thing always (we can’t sow oranges and reap strawberries), to trust God and most of all to hold onto the biblical account in 2kings 6 & 7 where God turned the captivity of Samaria around overnight in amazing circumstances – God is still in that business.
Link to the Introduction and Part 1: https://elozino.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/interesting-conversations-about-nigeria-part-1/
On to Part2- Bob and Joan
I had noticed the elderly couple at breakfast the day before, they had the same plan as us; come down about 15 minutes before the breakfast buffet was cleared, select their breakfast choices and then relax and enjoy an unhurried breakfast in a restaurant free of the hustle and bustle of tourists rushing to catch the days activity. They had smiled at us as I scolded my 9year old for something (probably stuffing his mouth with food) and we smiled back.
The next morning, they restaurant was unusually full and they had set up seats in an overflow area, the only table available was right next to this same couple and we said our good mornings and proceeded to pile up our table with items from the buffet before breakfast time was up. As the restaurant cleared, it remained just 4 of us. I noticed them smiling as I chided my young travel partner that he had a waffle too many on his plate. The lady broke the ice “how old is he?”
Me: he is nine
Lady: he reminds me of my grandson. Give him a break, they have large appetites at this age and he is on holiday.
Man: we noticed you are not in a hurry to get out every morning, do you live around here?
Me: no (smiling) from a loooong way away (dragging my long)
Man: really, we too. We came in from Victoria to visit family. How far have you come , Toronto ?
Note: Victoria is about 3 hour drive from Vancouver where this conversation was happening
Me: Nigeria (really smiling now), do you know where that is?
Man: wow! That’s some traveling. I’m not sure I can pick it on a map but I know it’s in Africa …. Do you have family here?.
Lady: ( Excited), I know where it is. It’s south of Niger, I looked it up recently because we sponsor some children in Niger and I needed to know where it is.
Man: I hope you are not offended and do excuse my ignorance But you speak very good english, is that usual for a Nigerian?
I accepted his upfront admission of ignorance and proceeded with the Nigerian-starter-pack-series. Large population, different language spoken in nearly every 2 hours driven, surrounded by Francophone nations, English is the lingua Franca; language of education, business and governance is english.
The man was looking quite ready to look for a pencil to take notes but I had finished the free lecture. At this point, they introduced themselves to us; Bob and Joan (probably in their 80’s). I introduced my team; Elo and Kiitan.
Bob: nice short name, kinda like Bob. Is it a nickname or a short form?
Me: It’s a short form of Elozino.
Bob and Joan voted to call me Elozino, much nicer they said. They asked after Kiitan’s own full name, and I gladly told them it was Olaoluwakiitan, they voted to call him Kiitan :).
They asked Kiitan’s after school, what grade he was in…. That took us into another chapter of the Nigerian-starter-pack-series… We call them classes, we call them primary and secondary schools. Bob wanted to know if our mode of study was like theirs, before I could answer he apologised again and said something profound “Elozino, all we get from the press on Africa is bad news, it’s refreshing to be able to sit and talk to someone who really knows. I hope we are not being nosey or holding you up from starting your day”. I responded that it was equally refreshing to speak to people that had no preconceived notion about Nigeria or Nigerians.
And so we sat, sipping our teas and coffees, Kiitan having a field day with his stack of waffles. They told me how beautiful Victoria is and how they come out to Vancouver occasionally to visit family. I told them my children study at the university and I visit when I could squeeze it into the budget. Joan said I didn’t look old enough to have children in university, I showed her my sprouting grey hairs and we all laughed. Bob wanted to know more about Nigeria; what is the economy like, how is the social life, what kind of cities do we have, what kind of jobs do people do?. I told him that by definition, Nigeria was like any country in the west, we have rural areas vs urban areas, we have industries we have farmlands, seaPorts, we have most of the multinational corporate organizations in-country, we have a huge number of university graduates in the job market for corporate jobs and we also have a huge amount of artisans and business men contributing their quota to nation building. I told him about power plants, airports in nearly every major city, universities in every state. I told them Nigeria has been a mono-economy relying on oil revenue for decades but now was a time of sober reflection for us all as the low price of oil was severely affecting our revenue and amplifying the effect of years of corruption. But that’s by definition as the country has changed from the time I was a teenager, the structures still remain but efficiency and effectiveness are now the challenge.
Bob asked what I do back home. I told him I’m an Engineer. He asked if I studied in Canada as well, to this I said no, I studied all through to University in a great Nigeria. He asked about my husband, I told him he is also an engineer, I explained to him how things have changed over the years due to corruption and we had opted to give our children an education like we had – at international standards. Bob listening intently said “so there are regular people in Nigeria” as if a light bulb just went off in his head. He shared with me that the only recollection of Nigeria he has are mentions in the news and social media of terrorists and corrupt politicians, those were the 2 limits of his knowledge. I was glad to have filled in the gap.
Later that evening when my older son came to visit, we bumped into Bob and Joan in the lobby. I introduced them and they chatted for a while about school and life in Vancouver. Like a grandma and grandpa, they adviced him to focus on his studies and excel because his parents must have sacrificed a lot to send him here, they told him that he was part of a generation sent out to bring back new ideas and skills to fix and restore Nigeria, they said they were glad to meet “regular” people working hard to keep the Nation going and they hoped the image of Nigeria in the media would change for good while they were still around…. And to that I said Amen.
We, the Nigerians seem to have lost hope, the things we say, the jokes we share the comments we post on Social media. But, Bob and Joan had an encounter with 1 ‘regular’ Nigerian family and their limited knowledge of despair evolved into a hope and a prayer for a bright future. Many people walk away from media/social media holding on to what they’ve read as gospel truth; are you willing to change that perception by speaking positively about the Nigeria we need to restore? Are you ready to feed the world the truth about us? Yes, there are terrorists, yes, there are corrupt politicians but what percentage of the 160+ million Nigerians do they account for? The majority of us are hardworking ‘regular’ Nigerians trying to make an honest living and contribute our quota to nation building. We need that to start representing these facts in how we ‘turn up’ in the media. Turn up positively!
Inspirations by Elozino 