Femke Van Zeijl

It’s time to leave the stage. The past year I kept you posted on the process of becoming Funke, about my experiences in this country. I told you about my love for Nigerian cuisine in general and moinmoin in particular; my baptism in Lagos traffic; the undeserved privileges I get for being white and how they make me feel; and about my heartwarming encounters with Nigerians, the reason I moved here in the first place. And the reason I am here to stay. But the outsider’s surprise at everyday (Lagosian) reality has worn off to be replaced by an attitude of survival in a place where a tinge of crazy seems to be integrated into every aspect of life. This last piece will avoid the many exciting Lagos issues and focus instead on some of the people who made me feel at home here. A boring topic, I know—except maybe for the big question on everyone’s mind. And so, to use a popular speaker’s phrase, without further ado . . .

To the readers of this column, first and foremost, I dedicate this piece. To the ones who granted me the privilege of shining a light on their country that I described as ‘very loveable, but not easy to love.’ I never minced my words and sometimes my analyses were harsh, but I think those readers understood that this came from an honest attempt to fully understand a place I care about. I also dedicate this piece to the readers who called me an ‘idiot oyinbo woman,’ who accused me of being a closet case Yoruba tribalist or denied me the right to discuss anything Nigerian on account of being a foreigner.  (A confession: I had never really understood the meaning of ‘interactive’ until I started writing for Nigerian internet platforms, and I have since spent many hours reading the often interesting discussions sparked by my pieces.)

To Oka, who even when my plan to move to Nigeria was in its embryonic stage never dismissed the idea as bonkers. In countless drinking sessions on UI campus we analysed the differences in our societies, always coming to the same conclusion: that most of these differences can be bridged by communication (and some cold beers). I owe Oka for taking me seriously when I did not even dare believe in my own seriousness.

To my landlady: that goodhearted bully who insists on speaking Yoruba to me. She seems to think I will learn the language by osmosis and vows that I will speak it fluently within three months. She has been vowing this since last year September. She ignores my confusion when she explains in Yoruba why the water tank needs to be cleaned or where she wants me to hang my laundry, but eventually takes pity on me and downshifts into a mixture of English and Pidgin. She tries o. She even sang in Yoruba while beating the talking drum when my mother came on a visit to Lagos.

To those of my neighbours who do not call me oyinbo anymore. Whenever I walk around my Mainland neighbourhood and hear ‘oyinbo’ directed at me, I walk up to the speaker and say, ‘My name is not oyinbo. It’s Funke.’ Then I move on, leaving them with troubled looks on their faces. Now strangers in my area call me ‘Sisi Funke.’ They probably heard from the vulcaniser who heard from the lady who sells phone credit under the green-and-yellow umbrella who heard from the woman handling the copy machine across the street about this white woman with a Yoruba name. And I am grateful. I detest being defined strictly by my colour—just imagine a Nigerian walking down the streets of Amsterdam and being called ‘black’ at every corner. To be known by your name (or at least a derivative of it) is what makes a place your own.

To the lady selling moinmoin at the junction. She was on to my addiction pretty quickly, and every time I arrive home she waves an enthusiastic welcome. Whenever I visit her stall late at night and she has run out of moinmoin, she does not hesitate to reprimand me, shaking her head in disapproval. She always dashes me one extra piece of moinmoin when I buy many to store in the freezer. I feel bad for her though. Lately, my craving for moinmoin seems to have lessened: these days I don’t eat it more than twice a week. I guess I suffer from the ‘too much of a good thing’ phenomenon. Then again, getting used to the perfection of moinmoin with ice cold Ijebu garri might be a sign of true integration.

To Doris, a girlfriend in the true sense of the word, who taught me how to apply mascara and lip gloss at this late age and devoted herself to ‘babing me up’ but also taught me a thing or two about how to survive in the Lagos social jungle; to Yemisi, my self-appointed coach in all things career-related and with whom I hope to share many more Stars; to Sola, my guide through the turbulent process of finding a house in Lagos; and to Phemmy, the brilliant salsa partner with whom I dance off all the week’s wahala on Sunday night.

To Thessa, my one close Dutch friend in Lagos. I’ve come to realise that settling in a new place for good is not the same as paying a long visit. I used to look at expats with slight disdain, seeing how they flocked together and celebrated their own national holidays. But now I understand how being away from your birthplace makes you crave the things you used to take for granted. I am not going to become more Dutch than I was in The Netherlands, but it is priceless to have a friend here who understands my longing for Old Amsterdam cheese and whose cultural framework matches mine. As much as I want to integrate in Nigerian society, total assimilation has never been the goal. I will never become Funke entirely. There will remain parts of me many Nigerians will find hard to understand, like the fact that I do not believe in any god nor see homosexuality as a problem in any way.

And to Igoni. As it turns out, Nigeria is and will always be my home. Because it is where you are.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

I used to think corruption was Nigeria’s biggest problem, but I’m starting to doubt that. Every time I probe into one of the many issues this country is encountering, at the core I find the same phenomenon: the widespread celebration of mediocrity. Unrebuked underachievement seems to be the rule in all facets of society. A governor building a single road during his entire tenure is revered like the next Messiah; an averagely talented author who writes a colourless book gets sponsored to represent Nigerian literature overseas; and a young woman with no secretarial skills to speak of gets promoted to the oga’s office faster than any of her properly trained colleagues.

Needless to say the politician is probably hailed by those awaiting part of the loot he is stealing; the writer might have got his sponsorship from buddies he has been sucking up to in hagiographies paid for by the subjects; and the young woman’s promotion is likely to be an exchange for sex or the expectancy of it. So some form of corruption plays a role in all of these examples.

But corruption per se does not necessarily stand in the way of development. Otherwise a country like Indonesia—number 118 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, not that far removed from Nigeria’s 139—would never have made it to the G-20 group of major economies. An even more serious obstacle to development is the lack of repercussions for underachievement. Who in Nigeria is ever held accountable for substandard performance?

Since I came here, I have been on a futile search for a stable internet connection that does what it promises. I started with an MTN FastLink modem (I consider the name a cruel joke), and then I moved on to an Etisalat MiFi connection (I regularly had to keep myself from throwing the bloody thing against the wall), and now I am trying out Cobranet’s U-Go. I shouldn’t have bothered: equally crap. And everyone knows this. They groan and mutter and tweet about it. But still, to my surprise, no one calls for a class-action suit against those deceitful providers.

A one-day conference I attended last year left me equally puzzled. Organisation, attendance and outcome left a lot to be desired, if you ask me. But over cocktails, after the closing ceremony, everyone congratulated each other over the wonderful conference—that started two hours late, of which the most animated part was undeniably lunch, and in which not a single tangible decision had been made. This left me wondering whether we had attended the same event.

I thought these issues to be unrelated at first, but gradually I came to see the connection. Nigeria is the opposite of a meritocracy: you do not earn by achieving. You get to be who and where you are by knowing the right people. Whether you work in an office, for an enterprise or an NGO, at a construction site or in government, your abilities hardly ever are the reason you got there. Performing well, let alone with excellence, is not a requirement, in fact, it is discouraged. It would be too threatening: showing you’re more intelligent, capable or competent than the ‘oga at the top’ (who, as a rule, is not an overachiever either) is career suicide.

It is an attitude that trickles down from the very top, its symptoms eventually showing up in all of society, from bad governance to bad service to bad craftsmanship.

Where excellence meets no gratification, what remains to be celebrated is underachievement. That is why it is not uncommon to find Nigerians congratulating each other with substandard results. It is safer to cuddle up comfortably in shared mediocrity than to question it, since the latter might also expose your own less than exceptional performance. Add to this the taboo of criticising anyone senior or higher up and it explains why so many join in the admiration of the emperor’s new clothes.

I have been writing this column for the last year, and after ten months I realised my angles were getting more predictable and my pieces less edgy. I figured newcomers do not remain newcomers forever and therefore decided to round up the ‘Femke Becomes Funke’ series this month, a year after it started. Ever since I announced the ending, tweeps have been asking me to change my mind and in comments on the columns and through my website I get songs of praise that make me feel my analyses of Nigerian society are indispensable. If I had no sense of self-criticism, I might be tempted to reconsider my decision to discontinue the series and start producing second-rate articles. Who would point this out to me if I did?

The hardest thing to do in Nigeria is to continue to realise there is honour in achievement and pride in perfection. I imagine the frustration of the many Nigerians who do care for their work, who take pride in their outcomes and who feel the award is in a job well done. When you know beforehand that excellence will not be rewarded, you are bound to do the economically sane thing and limit your investments to accomplishing the bare minimum. This makes Nigeria a pretty cumbersome place for anyone striving for perfection.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Next week: the very last episode of Femke becomes Funke

Femke Van Zeijl

‘Don’t stay alone o. It’s not good to be on your own,’ said my 80-year-plus Yoruba landlady. She came to talk to me two weeks after I moved into my Mainland apartment. ‘Fúnke,’ she said—unlike most Nigerians she emphasises the first syllable, thus combining the Yoruba version of my name with the Dutch—‘I am talking to you as a woman: a woman needs a man.’ I smiled at her advice and told her love was the last thing on my mind after just moving to a new country and coming out of a relationship of 19 years. She shook her head and gently reminded me I was not getting any younger. ‘There is no time o. Fúnke, you must find a man.’

My landlady is not the only one concerned about my being single. Ever since I came to Nigeria my relationship status seems to be the main subject on people’s minds. Strangers spend a polite twenty seconds listening to my response to their inquiry about what I came to Nigeria to do. Yeah yeah, journalist, blah blah, writer, sure, correspondent, whatever . . . Then they ask me the big question on their minds: ‘Would you marry a Nigerian man?’ From the Assistant Director at the Ministry of Information in Abuja (who immediately set herself up as a matchmaker between me and any of her Lagos-based male cousins) to the security officer who searched my bag at the Immigration Service—‘Are you a Naija wife?’ he asked; and the costumer who walked into the shop where I was photocopying the light bill I had just paid; or the Igbo market woman who explained to me how to cook ogbono soup; virtually every Nigerian passenger I ever sat next to on any national flight; and the FRSC officer who fined me for not having a fire extinguisher in the car: they all wanted to know if I would marry a Nigerian.

I have inquired with white men in Nigeria if they are also routinely asked whether they would marry a Nigerian. Turns out they do get the question once in a while, but not as a rule from every passing acquaintance, and certainly not in a working environment. That I do—even in the middle of an interview on Lagos State policy on urban development—tells a lot about a woman’s value in Nigerian society. She might be a groundbreaking journalist, she might have several PhD’s in her pocket, she might be on her way to finding a cure for cancer, but in the end her true life’s task is to get married and produce babies.

My parents never gave me the feeling they expected anything from me in the marriage or child-bearing department. All they wanted for me was to be happy. I never felt that I would be incomplete as a woman if I did not tie the knot or procreate; in fact, partly due to my parent’s influence, I became a feminist advocating the rights of women as individuals of equal value as men. Now I wonder if I would ever have been able to think so independently had the marriage mantra been impressed upon me all my life.

Some of my single Nigerian girlfriends seem obsessed with matrimony. With every new boyfriend, with every date, the main question on their minds is ‘marriage material or not?’ I vividly imagine how men must fear those women who start thinking guest lists, white lacy dresses and wedding venues after a first kiss, and yet I would argue this mindset is the result of a society stressing a single purpose in life as a woman. Men are just as guilty of supporting this mindset—and this is borne out by the disrespect with which I have heard some men speak of single women.

All this comes to mind every time I hear those five words: ‘Would you marry a Nigerian?’ Needless to say, I never reply with a feministic deconstruction of Nigerian society. Rather I try to wiggle my way out of the question, responding with an enigmatic ‘Who knows?’ or a more direct ‘If I find a Nigerian man I can trust entirely.’ (The latter answer invariably gets me knowing winks that tread a middle ground between ‘Clever girl’ and ‘Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.’)

To be brutally honest, I was not terribly eager to get involved with a Nigerian. I had grown suspicious of the ulterior motives of their approaches. Some men barely made an effort to hide the fact it was not ‘me’ they were after, but what I represented as an oyinbo woman, be it a ticket to the West or the money I was supposed to have. You will forgive me for not complying with this proposition sent to me earlier this year by text message: ‘Hello, I am sorry if what I will say will make you angry!! I just have to say it out. I like you, and I will like to have a relationship with you pls. What do you think?’ Signed, the driver I met the day before when I was doing a report and with whom I had exchanged not more than three sentences.

Apart from my doubt if it was always true love on their minds, there was a more important reason I did not see myself with a Nigerian partner: I hardly expected to encounter a man with whom I would be compatible. Which Nigerian would possibly put up with a stubborn, Dutch, non-religious feminist with anarchist tendencies like me?

I was proven wrong on all counts.

They say you are most likely to find things when you are not looking for them. If you ask me the big question on everyone’s mind these days, my response might surprise you. It even surprises me.

P.S. Yes, I know . . . you all want to know my new answer to the big question. Keep following this column, of which there are only two more to go. By the end you might get your answer.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

She was having a cold Star the first time we met. Since then, Yemisi and I have shared many a beer together. This middle-aged manager and well respected wife of a military officer—and also a Lagosian to the core—has appointed herself my mentor in this city and every once in a while we go out for drinks to catch up. Never have I noticed any eyebrows being raised around us over two women having lager in public.

Which is why I am startled by the reaction I get one evening in a Victoria Island nightclub from the woman sitting next to me in her electric blue tube dress. She acts like she is used to having an audience. All her gestures and outcries seem to be playing to the gallery: she exaggerates slight surprise into a near heart attack. When the waiter puts a napkin in front of me and places a bottle of Star on it, she literally falls off her chair. ‘You drink beer? Out of the bottle?’

‘What’s so strange about that?’ I ask her.

‘My darling’, she replies, sipping her Smirnoff Ice, making the ice cubes in her glass tinkle. ‘Women don’t drink beer. It’s not our culture.’

Years earlier. I am in Ibadan researching the effect of urbanisation on culture and tradition. A gray-haired baale is showing me around his family palace in Bere. The murals of crowns and of warriors guarding the oba have almost been erased by years of filth covering the walls, and the sun shines through the cracked roof under which the area’s notables once convened. No, the baale does not live on the family compound–he built himself a villa in Bodjia. He boasts about his other house in Lekki and his apartment in London’s Notting Hill. All the while I was with him I felt there was a question he wanted to ask me, but he doesn’t raise it until he drops me off at Mokola roundabout where I’ll board a danfo to UI.

Can’t I help his family find funding to renovate the palace? Surely there must be some European organisation willing to invest in such indispensable cultural heritage.

In the packed minibus I wonder how the chief expects strangers to value his culture when he himself does not seem to be prepared to invest a kobo in it. It is such a contrast with the passionate graduate I meet at the UI Institute of African Studies, who confesses to me that his parents would have preferred him to read Law or Medicine. His future salary might have been better, he admits, but he is keeping a promise to his grandfather:

‘I used to hate going to the village, until my granddad started telling me stories. I listened to his tales for hours, and promised him I would not forget them. I chose this study because I want my children to understand where they are coming from.’

Not much later, still in Ibadan, a young man called Ifa Seyi tells me he is thinking of changing his name. He recently graduated top of his class from Ibadan Polytechnic–the first in his family to finish tertiary education. I met him in front of UI gate, where he sells padlocks. His father is an Ifa priest, all his family are worshippers of the Yoruba religion, and he and his siblings bear a name with ‘Ifa’ in it, referring to their traditional belief. Ifa Seyi has sent out hundreds of job applications, but while his classmates are getting hired, he’s never heard back from any of the companies he’s applied to. With the boldness that results from despair he finally goes to one of the companies to ask what was wrong with his application and an assistant in the human resources department gives him an uncharacteristically straightforward answer. It isn’t his diploma, he is told. The problem is his name.

‘Change your name to Joshua, Mohammed, or Olumide. Nobody will take you seriously when you keep using that your backward name.’

In the Netherlands, some people of Moroccan descent do not use their given names on applications because their obvious North African background seems to be obstructing their job hunt–a phenomenon I am ashamed of. That an indigenous Nigerian, one of the custodians of traditional culture and belief, feels he has to do the same thing in his own country . . . this baffles me.

Culture is a patient concept. In the Nigerian context, I have heard the word used to explain the flowery way people speak at official occasions and to justify why one does not eat moinmoin with amala, to condemn homosexuality, to defend polygamy, to defend monogamy, to make clear why bathing suits should not show a woman’s belly, to denounce hip-wriggling dances and to clarify one’s position on subjects as varied as the proper colour to paint one’s house to how the boss should be addressed by the staff (who incidentally have not received wages for months). The speaker might be referring to a religious belief, his forefather’s traditions, the accepted norm in middle-class society, or something his mother whispered in his ears as a child.

Culture is not a static given. It does not mean the same to everyone in every perspective at all times. Too often, ‘culture’ is brought into the equation when it suits personal convictions, and is just as easily discarded when it does not. Moreover, the culture card tends to be played when other arguments have run out: it is used as a way to silence the conversation partner.

But the excuse of culture cannot be the end of an argument. At most, it is the beginning of a conversation.

NOTE: Femke Becomes Funke coming to an end with three  more explosive articles. Don’t miss out on them; Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

The phone rings. Who the hell calls at 3 AM? Something terrible must have happened. Unknown number. Even worse. An unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line. Who is this? The question has to be repeated three times before an answer comes: ‘Which of your friends or relatives abroad would call you at this hour?’

419. No need to continue the nocturnal conversation.

Let me come out and say it. Nigerians have disappointed me.

Before coming to this country for the very first time, I religiously studied all known strategies of fraud and deceit. Nigeria is the kingdom of deception, I had been told. Fearful Europeans recounted the conniving ways in which Nigerians are known to swindle the rest of the world’s population, the most common being the sending of e-mails impersonating the desperate heirs to a late father’s/husband’s/uncle’s billions in need of a temporary European bank account. Imagine setting foot in that country of scam artists! Before you know it they’ll have their hands on your money or you’ll find yourself signing contracts transferring your fortune—and that of your family and the three generations after—to a Cayman Island postal box company.

Determined not to get scammed, I prepared myself for the worst. I was not going to be one of those gullible oyinbos. Intent not to trust a single Nigerian soul, I was ready for the confrontation.

How disappointed I was once I arrived in Nigeria!

I met strangers in Ibadan who spent nights by my hospital bed when I was taken ill with severe food poisoning. I befriended Lagosians whom I now trust with my extra set of house keys (as I have a tendency to misplace keys). A girlfriend offered me the use of her Nigerian bank account when I couldn’t yet open my own, and not a single kobo of mine ever went missing. In Sango market, after I bought tomatoes and didn’t realise I’d paid too much, a saleswoman ran after me with my 100 naira change, ‘Madam, I can’t take your money o.’ And I found a two-bedroom Mainland apartment with a landlord who insisted on a tenancy law-abiding contract—even though I still had to pay the two-year rent outlawed in the Lagos tenancy law.

Meanwhile, not a single 419’er has made any believable effort to scam me.

The few times people have tried to pull tricks on me, I saw them coming from miles away. The eyes of the taxi driver clearly read, ‘Would she fall for it?’ when he initially asked for 5,000 naira to take me from Abuja airport to Immigration. The waiter at the hotel bar where I was waiting for a contact dabbled with my change just a little too long for me not to notice he was handing me only half of what he owed. And the stranger’s late night phone call was another example of underwhelming scamming talent. I mean, seriously. What did he hope the victim’s reaction of such a con attempt would be?

‘Yes o, Uncle Henry in America! How you dey? You wan’ send me money? Thank you o, this na be my account number. I need to send you money first? Abeg, tell me quick-quick for where I go do the transfer!’

Really?

I came to realise 419 was a pretty unsuccessful business model when I was staying on UI campus in 2009. To check my email, I used to frequent a cybercafé on the ground floor of Agbowo Shopping Complex, across from UI campus. The place was filled with young men sending thousands of messages to what they hoped would be ‘scammable’ white folk in the West. They spent all day sending emails. Every day of the week. Realising this was not the only place in Nigeria where such massive attempts at deception were taking place, I concluded the swindling tactics couldn’t be very effective. If they were, much greater numbers of people would fall for them.

I am on to you, Nigerians. Of course, as with any people, there are crooks among you. One could even argue that because there are so many Nigerians, the number of crooks might be considerable. But that doesn’t change the fact that the large majority of Nigerians do not fall into the scammer category. And that I have met more of you whom I’d trust with my house keys than those who have tried to rip me off.

The biggest scam you have managed to pull is leading the world to believe that you are such big scam artists.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

Let me be honest. I don’t give a toss about football. The religiousness with which some people adore a simple ball game is wasted on me, and, in my opinion, the astronomic amounts of money involved make a strong case that any news about football should be featured in the papers’ financial section rather than the sports pages. I just don’t see the point of watching 22 millionaires running after a leather ball. Needless to say the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) initially did not have me glued to the TV. Until all of a sudden I found myself learning the names of the Super Eagles’ players by heart, reading up on pre-game analyses and googling the history of Nigerian football.

Had the football bug finally bitten me? Had I been engorged by a wave of patriotism for my new home and become an instant Eagles fan? Not really. My interest was professional: I had suggested an item about the AFCON and the growing success of the Nigerian team for Dutch public radio. On Sunday evening, right after the final game, I would be live on air. This is why I researched the topic I know least about. And I did so gleefully. For once the Dutch would hear news with a positive angle coming from Nigeria.

‘Are you finally going to write something positive about Nigeria?’ This is a question I often get from Nigerians when they hear I am a journalist. My answer might disappoint them: setting out to report just positive stories would be just as unfair to reality as doing only negative ones. Good journalism should strike a balance. Having said that, I do believe the news in the West about Nigeria tends to have very limited perspectives: if it is not the Niger Delta than it is Boko Haram or corruption. And all too often the reports seem to have been taken straight out of Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical piece ‘How to Write About Africa.’

When I decided to settle in Nigeria as a freelance correspondent for Dutch media, I wanted to do things differently. I was not going to get up and perform every time a bomb exploded or a westerner got kidnapped. At least, I would try and add another kind of story, one that paints a broader, more human picture of society. My reports, I told myself, would not be blind to the problems this country is encountering, but would be aware of the richness and diversity of everyday life as well.

That was also my idea about my Super Eagles item. Of course I was not going to embark upon any post-game analysis, but I would use the African football tournament as a tool to speak of Nigeria. I was going to explain how eager Nigerians are for good news. How they are used to disappointment up to a level that even during the finals right up till the last minute many of the fans in my local bar did not dare predict a victory for their Super Eagles. And how Lagosians had been queuing for fuel that day to make sure they could watch the historical match on their TV sets even when light was taken. I would be telling a lot more about Nigeria than just the tale of 22 men running after a ball.

Sunday evening, a few minutes after seven, the game had just started, my phone rang. A Dutch number appeared in the screen. The editor of the late night radio show calling.

‘We decided to drop the item about the Africa Cup,’ he informed me. ‘We are going with news from the US. But should there be riots, then we would like to call you anyway.’

‘Ok,’ I said. Nothing more. I was afraid my anger would make me say things I would regret. My anger wasn’t about my missed gig or my hurt journalist’s ego but about the continuous violation of the rights of a people to be represented fairly in media. The radio’s decision to go for a story from the grossly over-reported USA as well as its readiness to report about Nigerians only when they start behaving like ‘proper’ Africans and rampage through the streets did more than just irritate me. At that moment I almost felt ashamed of my profession.

The morning after the game, Dutch radio called again. A young editor—I think she was an intern—thought it a pity that Nigeria’s victory had not made it into the show, and wanted to suggest it as an item again. I agreed, knowing fully well that nothing would come of it. Yesterday’s news is no news. But I appreciated her trying, and in the evening I even called in to mention the controversy about Eagles coach Stephen Keshi’s resignation. Giving in to the radio’s preference for the spectacular, I reckoned a royal drama like Nigeria’s hero stepping down would at least spark some Dutch attention.

In a way I was relieved when I got just a polite ‘Thanks for the update, but I don’t expect we will use it’ from the other end of the line. I had just experienced how easy it is to become part of the journalistic system that feeds the media beast, ever hungry for bad news.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

I thought I had outsmarted them. When my first light bill came, I asked my friend Sola to go to the PHCN office to pay. If I and my white face showed up, the amount on my PHCN invoices would rise mysteriously, so I had been told. The first electricity bill for my doll’s house was very reasonable: 500 naira only. I reckoned two fans, a laptop and some energy saver bulbs could hardly guzzle up more than 500 naira worth of energy, and so I congratulated myself that my cunning strategy to avoid crazy bills had worked, and thereafter travelled off to the Netherlands with a sense of relief. What an utter fool I was.

When I returned to Lagos a new light bill was waiting for me. For the month of October, of which I had spent three and a half weeks abroad, I was charged 8,000 naira. Sixteen times more than the month before.

Assuming the secret was out anyway that an oyinbo woman had moved into the block, this time I went to the PHCN office myself. Me and my passport with the visa stamps to prove my absence for most of the month. Such overwhelming evidence would even make the marketer of the power company see my point and lower my bill, I assured myself. Another foolishness of mine.

I fumed, I begged, I pleaded and I pouted, I reasoned and I raised my voice. All in all I spent a good hour at the desk of the stoic admin official. He did ask me for my phone number and wanted to know if I was married. Strictly for the evaluation of my electricity consumption needs, he added. And he more or less admitted the amount I owed was based on the vivid imagination of a power company employee, since not a single person had come over to check my meter. He assured me that the next month a NEPA official (yes, he categorically called it NEPA, as still do the majority of Nigerians) would come and note down how many kWhs I had actually used. But the standing 8,000 naira bill remained as it was. Feeling defeated, I dragged myself to the cashier’s window to pay up, hoping next month would be better. I was an idiot.

My next bill arrived just before Christmas. It was a handwritten one, and there wasn’t much more on it than my address and the amount due. There it was, this month’s NEPA verdict in hardly legible scrawls: 6,000 naira.

Again no one had come to check my meter.

After the 8k disaster I had spent some time doing research. I found a brilliant electricity tariff calculator online; I inquired after light bills of neighbours with similar households; I added up the total wattage of my doll’s house electrical apparatus. Even if I would go overboard and leave all lights and appliances on 24/7, my electricity use would still not run up to 3,000 naira per month.

So on December 24 I visited NEPA again.

‘I’m holding you hostage till after Christmas if you don’t solve this issue,’ I told the marketer, only half mocking. He looked up from his laptop with amusement. But I was still there an hour later, and he no longer looked amused. I argued I did not mind paying, but that all I wanted was a transparent bill for the electricity I actually used, not some concocted one. He eventually agreed to accompany me to my compound to check the meter.

The tacky jazz CD he put into his car stereo should have forewarned me about his intentions. When we reached my compound, he checked the meter and then hinted that my bill would be considerably reduced if he could come visit me over Christmas. I politely declined, but took his offer as an indication there was some bargaining space, and so kept insisting there was no way I was going to pay the original bill.

I don’t know if it was the thought of missing his wife’s jollof rice or seeing his Christmas spoiled by a stubborn tantrum-throwing Dutch woman, but finally, right in front of me, he tore up the old bill and wrote me a new one of half the amount, 3,000 naira. I am not so foolish to believe my relationship with PHCN has changed for the better. I might have won this battle, but come next month I fear the power company will still win the war.

The words of President Goodluck Jonathan—in his recent CNN interview—have only heightened my anxiety. When Christiane Amanpour put to him that 60 percent of Nigerians lack regular power, President Goodluck Jonathan promised that ‘power will be reasonably stable in Nigeria before the end of the year.’ NEPA takes light in my area every evening between 6.30 and 7, like clockwork, and during the day, as a rule, electricity is on stammer mode. At least these power cuts keep my energy consumption down. What if PHCN, as the president has promised, manages to provide Nigerians with stable power? Given the way NEPA has been billing me, I suspect I cannot afford constant electricity.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

Femke Van Zeijl

‘She’s eating!’ Though I was not the only one having piping hot amala in the local Ebute Metta joint, I did not have to look up from my plate to know the lady’s exclamation was about me. Since my stay in Agege last year I have gotten used to being stared at when I eat Nigerian food. It is the very reason I stopped having draw soup in public:  till a certain level I have become immune to attention, but looking up with slimy ogbono threads running down my mouth to be confronted with six curious pairs of eyes upon me still makes me uncomfortable.

This time I was not going to let myself be distracted. I ignored the outcry of the woman who had just entered the busy joint and concentrated on kneading the smooth lumpless amala into a chew sized ball and dipping it in the peppery stew I’d mixed with my efo. When I felt a tap on my right shoulder, I realised this lady was not going to leave me alone. Reluctantly I let go of my perfect amala ball and turned to the lady who had stopped at my table. Her eyelids painted metallic orange and pale blue blinked theatrically as she pointed down at my food in front of me.

‘Can you eat that?’ she inquired. I looked at my food and then back at her.

‘Of course I can. I have a stomach, just like you.’

She laughed and I continued my meal.

‘You eat amala?’ is a very common question I get in Nigeria, second only to ‘Would you marry a Nigerian?’ Few things make Nigerians happier than my response that, yes, I do eat amala, preferably with efo riro or edikaikong. Food is an all-round ice breaker here. Tell people you eat amala, and they take an instant liking to you. Tell them you prepare your own moinmoin, and they become your lifelong friend. A Yoruba taxi driver who took me from MM2 to my place phoned his brother and his wife driving 90 kilometres an hour on the expressway to tell them he had an oyinbo costumer in his car who claimed she knew how to cook moinmoin.

Now appreciating the local food is a universal way to people’s hearts. If you ever get to the Netherlands and you manage to gobble up a raw herring with onions at one of the street stalls, you will gain popularity among all Dutch witnessing the occasion. And the Eastern Congolese in the Kivus rejoice when they see a foreign visitor devouring a good plate of foufou with sombe – pounded cassava leaves with palm oil and ground peanuts. But the Nigerian culinary pride comes across as even more intense and deep felt than elsewhere.

Admittedly: I have also fallen in love with Naija food. Every day I discover new treasures of the Nigerian cuisine. Only recently I was introduced to the sourishly fresh joy of ijebu-garri mixed with ice cold water on a hot day. (‘She dey chop garri?’ a saleswoman asked my companion when I purchased this grated cassava at my local market.) The simplicity of pepper soup that makes it fit to combine with any thinkable ingredient from snails till fish and cow’s tail (I am planning to travel east to have yam pepper soup some time soon), ranks it second on my list of Nigerian delicacies that should become worldwide export products. After steamed bean cake, obviously. My moinmoin love affair can hardly have escaped the attention of regular readers. And just last week a Northern friend shared some of his dambun nama with me, another mind blowing culinary invention, like delicate spun sugar in savoury meat form.

Cooking is a hobby of mine and I am trying out all my favourite Nigerian recipes in my doll’s house kitchen. I also love to experiment. By doing so I unknowingly break the unwritten rules of Naija cuisine. This is where the Nigerian appreciation of my food caprioles usually ends. My unconventional combinations or preparations make the average Nigerian cringe. People are still talking about the day I had moinmoin with my amala (in my defence: there was some vegetable soup involved) as if blasphemy was committed. Most of my Lagos friends shake their heads in disbelief about the way I cook yam, pretending it is potato and using the tuber in every potato dish I can think of, from German potato salad to Spanish tortilla omelette. I hardly dare to mention how one day I am planning to use ijebu-garri to make fried tuna fish cookies… When it comes to their food, often even the most progressive Nigerian thinkers turn out to be ultra orthodox.

I have often wondered how a country that invented such adventurous dishes has become so conservative in its cuisine. Imagine the consequences if  the woman who woke up one fine morning and thought ‘Hmmm, I wonder what happens if I grind these beans into a pulp with pepper and onions’ had been told off to do so by her neighbours. The world would never have been blessed with moinmoin!

This afternoon I was driving through a little street in Mushin with a friend who was born and raised in the area. The pool sized potholes slowed my car down to a bare footpace. My friend reminisced how well paved the street used to be in the eighties, a story I have heard in many tones from many Nigerians about many aspects of society. Their love for Nigeria often translates into melancholy, because the here and now does not give them a lot to be proud of. This country is very loveable, but not easy to love.

Maybe that is why the appreciation of Nigerian food runs so deep. NEPA/PHCN will screw up, politicians will steal with impunity, services will deteriorate and buildings will collapse, but you can always count on finding a proper amala joint around the corner with vegetable soup that only your mama could have prepared better.

It might also be the reason why meddling with the traditional menu or recipe is not widely appreciated. The last decades in the Nigerian context change has hardly ever been for the better. I imagine how people wish for at least the food to stay the same: something every Nigerian can be proud of without reservation.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl

‘Salsa tonight?’ The voice on the other end of the line made it sound more like a statement than a question. Which is understandable: since I moved to Lagos last year I have never passed over an opportunity for dancing salsa. It is my way of unwinding after a day of urban excitement, a healthy workout at that. This time though I had to decline the invitation, because I had just returned from hospital after my first malaria. I explained this to my salsa acquaintance, a sweet guy who dresses like a biker, who jokingly replied he would not forgive me if I did not show up that evening. I insisted I was too ill to walk, let alone dance, but I could tell that he did not understand. I imagined him wondering what the big deal was about malaria that I could not come dancing a couple of days later.

That same evening I got a call from my mother in The Netherlands. I had not informed her I had been taken ill, knowing fully well what her reaction would be. I was planning to tell her after I had recovered. But my mum discovered Twitter (the full consequences of which I still have to get to terms with) and had just read one of my malaria tweets. ‘Lieverd, are you ill?’ she inquired. She sounded short of breath, her voice higher-pitched than usual. ‘Mama, I am fine. Don’t worry. Malaria here is regarded as nothing more than a common cold.’

I was not just downplaying my illness to alleviate her anxiety, but also mirroring a common Nigerian reaction to malaria: most people simply do not see it as a very big deal. They have grown up with the illness that in the west sends shivers down people’s spines. In the Netherlands, when they hear you are suffering from malaria, people fear for your life. In Nigeria, when it considers a healthy grown up, they shrug. You are supposed to self medicate, stay in bed maybe for a day or two or show up at the office feeling miserable, and then life continues.

The mosquito net over the queen sized bed in my doll’s house has always been a subject of mockery to my Nigerian friends. Mosquito nets are for babies, they reckon, pleasantly ridiculing my netted bed in the same way they shake their heads when I refuse to drink pure water, fearing my used to nothing stomach will not be able to handle the content of the dodgy little bags. Sometimes my weak constitution irritates me. I long for the moment when I have finally toughened up and gotten used to pure water, malaria and eating fresh salads outdoors (another oyinbo no no). I even tried looking at my first acquaintance with malaria in my life as a Lagos initiation rite, understating the illness as a common cold.

Until I read up on the facts. Truth of the matter is: malaria is not in any way innocent. Malaria is responsible for one out of ten cases of maternal mortality in Nigeria, one out of four of infant mortality and for one third of the deaths of children under the age of five. More people in this country die of malaria than of HIV/AIDS (Nigeria Malaria Fact Sheet). And the disastrous economic, social and health related effects of almost an entire population regularly coming down with the disease, are hardly measurable.

The malaria parasite needs two hosts in order to survive: mosquitoes and humans. We play as much a part in the spreading of the disease as those annoying insects (the female ones) do. Simply said: if mosquitoes were to be extinguished, malaria would die along with them. But the same goes for humans.

Now I would not go as far as to advocate the latter, which seems a bit beside the point. But realising my own role in the malaria drama, I do not feel ashamed anymore when I hide under my much ridiculed adult mosquito net at night. I will probably not die of malaria, because I am strong enough and I have access to medication. But the children and pregnant women around me might not be so lucky.

Talk to Femke on Twitter @femkevanzeijl

Continued (but not exhaustive) list of the captivating idiosyncrasies of Nigerian English and its common English words bestowed with a new meaning, as they strike the relative newcomer – until she starts using them herself and cannot tell the difference anymore.

For part 1 click here.

bad belle [expression] Derived from Niger Delta Pidgin, now commonly used in Nigerian English, ‘bad belle’ literally means bad stomach and refers to a bitter taste. In the metaphorical sense ‘bad belle’ stands for jealousy. Bad belle people are those who live in envy of others, who begrudge other people their success or happiness. Bad belle people whisper disapprovingly amongst each other when a neighbour has bought the newest Toyota Prado or when a colleague comes to work with a more expensive Brazilian weave than they could afford this month themselves. In a society where passing your neighbour seems to be a national goal, bad belle sprouts everywhere. Especially in combination with the ‘amebo’ phenomenon. Amebos idle their time away doing nothing but gossiping maliciously about other people. Often of the female gender, amebos are most commonly found among clients in hair salons.

crazy / foolish / idiot [adjective, adverb] Used in the public arena
these words might appear to be synonyms, but that is deception. Being called ‘crazy’, at least in the Lagosian sense, is in fact a sign of respect. When the taxi driver whose car you have missed by half an inch forcing your way into the go slow on Ikorodu Road mutters to no one in particular ‘this one is crazy’, he has acknowledged you as a worthy opponent, a street wise Lagosian. Foolish however dismisses you as a nitwit. Idiot is the superlative of foolish.

don’t be annoyed [expression] Without exception a forebode of something extremely annoying. Speaker wants to avoid wahala (see part 1) and tries to butter up the person who might cause the foreseen trouble. ‘Don’t be annoyed’, my landlady implored as it turned out my promised prepaid electricity meter would not be installed after all, leaving me the burden of guaranteed monthly visits to the PHCN office to complain about my crazy bills.

exposed [past participle] Refers to a Nigerian who is educated, more particularly who has been exposed to other cultural influences than those of his or her village. Implies at least an academic degree. It also (but not necessarily) can indicate the Nigerian in question has travelled abroad, preferably to the UK or the US, facts some will therefore never fail to mention in casual conversation (with the fake American or British accent to match). Anything in order to not be mistaken for a bush man. Exposedness does not in any way correlate with broad mindedness.

gist [noun, verb] Talk, gossip [pej], to talk. Used in American slang as a noun only. ‘Gimme the gist’, ‘Tell me what’s happening.’ Nigerians upgraded it to a verb and use it in the sense of ‘talking’. ‘I was gisting with my friends at the junction’ says the philanderer who wants his girlfriend to think he was innocently chatting with his buddies. Need not have a pejorative connotation. When it comes to amebos (see earlier) however, it definitely does: their gist is seldom benign.

on a good day [expression] Commonly used when one asks for an estimated travel time, either by road or airway. ‘On a good day you can make it from Ikeja to VI in 30 minutes’. ‘On a good day with no  delays or cancellations an Aero flight will take you from Abuja to Lagos in less than an hour’. But when is it ever a good day? Even Sundays and holidays cannot be trusted as such anymore. The expression merely illustrates what I have come to see as a typically Nigerian tendency for unfounded optimism. Never mind overwhelming evidence to the contrary, one always hopes for the best. It is the perfect foundation for mastering the art of ‘shuffering and shmiling’ Fela sang of.

pain [verb] To hurt. ‘Am I paining you?’ the doctor asked as he jabbed the intravenous needle into my hand for the fifth time after I had landed in the clinic with my first malaria (yes, white people visit the hospital when they have their first bout of malaria, read next week’s column). In my feverish state I understood ‘Am I paying you?’ I tried to reply it was actually me who was paying him – I had just parted with N10,000 as a downpayment for my hospital admission, but was too ill to speak. Only later did I realise he had inquired if he was hurting me as he was using my hands for pin cushions. Duh.

sister/brother [nouns] Not a strictly Nigerian phenomenon, to be found across Africa, and therefore one the Western visitor should be aware of. Calling someone a sister or a brother in the African context does not indicate you come from the same parents. It can refer to any kind of close connection between two people in the same age group. Either you have grown up together, are cousins far removed, sat next to each other in primary school, or come from the same village or ethnic background. It took me a while to figure that out. With shame I think back of my first reports in Mozambique over ten years ago, when I did not know this yet. I must have mixed up quite a lot of family ties, unwillingly describing the Pemba area in Northern Mozambique as a highly incestuous zone. Now I am used to following up with the question: ‘Same mother, same father?’ This is the example I always use to point out why translating words alone does not cut it. You also have to know the culture behind a language, otherwise you risk blundering like I did in Mozambique. Unfortunately we journalists rarely have or take the time to get to know that culture. That is why hit and run journalism in foreign countries often goofs up.

well done [expression] Greeting. The first time it was said to me, I was dumbfounded. I was sitting  on a wooden bench in a little close in Ebute Metta with a STAR, gisting with one of the street’s elders. What could the speaker possibly want to compliment me with? My beer intake? My ability to sit on hard surfaces? The fact I was chatting with a neighbour? The baba next to me set me straight. ‘Well done’ need not refer to the action (or in my case, inaction) you are undertaking. Even now I haven’t gotten accustomed to using it myself, because it feels odd. For similar reasons the greeting ‘How body?’ has never passed my lips: to me it comes across as a very impertinent question. But that’s Pidgin and subject for a different blog entirely.

without further ado [expression] Archaic English and for that reason still fashionable in Nigerian English. Big words are held in high esteem in Nigerian speech, especially in a somewhat official context. Nigerian speakers tend to overdo their speeches, both in length and in bloated vocabulary. When a speaker utters the phrase ‘without further ado’, do not let out a sigh of relief thinking he is rounding up and you can go find the chop that is the grand finale of any event. On the contrary: the orator is only just beginning.

to ease oneself [expression] Archaic English, to urinate. In this case the archaism serves a euphemistic purpose.

trafficate [verb], trafficator [noun] Archaic English, indicate direction, direction indicator.

yesternight [adverb] Archaic English. Last night. A word of beautiful simplicity. I intend to use it generously in everyday speech, adding ‘yesteryear’ and, why not, ‘yesterweek’. I wonder how come Nigerians still use this Shakespearian word the Britons have forgotten long ago. Might show more than the already mentioned Nigerian preference of big words. I cannot help but wonder if British literature – Much Ado About Nothing‘s Claudio asks Hero: ‘What man he talk’d with you yesternight Out at your window betwixt twelve and one’ — has left more of a lasting impression on Nigerians than on the Brits themselves. What that says about the cultural awareness of the average Nigerian is subject for yet  another column. (I have been announcing many future columns here; I had better get along with it if I want to cover all remaining subjects before the Femke Becomes Funke series ends in March, a year after it started.)

you tried [expression] Form of appraisal. I however still tend to take it is an insult disguised as a compliment. It was the reaction of my Nigerian friend in the Netherlands last winter, after he tasted my first home made moin moin. ‘You tried’, he said, leaving me with the feeling I surely had a lot more kitchen experimenting to do before my steamed bean cake would be edible. Let me just say I hope not too many of the comments on this particular blog will tell me that at least, ‘you tried’.

Talk to Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl