NIGERIA: A BIT MUCH

Mom and Me in Lagos, Nigeria

After being on three continents in a week and flying all night from London, my mother and I arrived into Lagos hot and exhausted in September of 1974. An Embassy car and driver took us to our new home on Ikoyi Island, which had winding roads wth lots of palm trees and greenry and manicured lawns and big old houses set back in the trees. Lagos was made up of Lagos Island and the Mainland, which were the main parts of the city, and Victoria and Ikoyi Islands, which were the plush residential sections. Our neighborhood housed many diplomats, oil company executives, and rich Nigerians. One of our Nigerian neighbors had five Mercedes cars parked in his compound. 

Lagos was hot, dirty, and crowded with horrendous traffic, and the vast majority of Nigerians lived in squalid conditions, but it was considered the most important city in West Africa. Nigeria was a military dictatorship, but it was also a major oil exporter to the US, and the man in power, General Gowan, was a close ally of the British. General Gowan would be removed from power while we were there, and replaced by General Murtala Mohammed, but, no matter, the United States remained close economic allies. (General Mohammed was assassinated about a year later in a violent coup d'etat attempt, but I'll tell about that later) 

Our house was gated and spacious and had a backyard with servants quarters and a very large banana tree. When we arrived from the airport, my father introduced my mother to our steward named Pius. He would do our cooking and cleaning. "This is Madame," my father said to Pius. According to local custom, my father and mother were called Master and Madame, which my mother thought was a bit much. Perhaps, what was also a bit much, was that our house had a staff of five: our Steward, my nanny Grace, the gardener, the day-watchman, and the night-watchman (everyone had watchmen). I had gone up to our day-watchman and said: "We didn't have a day-watch in Washington."

Pius, our steward

My father had only been with the State Department for a year when he was assigned to the American Embassy in Lagos, the largest U.S. Embassy in Sub-Saharan Africa. His job title was Regional Security Officer, and his region was Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, The Central African Republic, and Chad. My father was responsible for the security and safety of all personnel, facilities, and classified information for six embassies and three consulates in his region. That was also a bit much. 

My father in the "Bush." Nigeria

I went to kindergarten at the American International School and made many friends. And our steward's daughter, Stella, who was about a year younger than me, came to live with her father, so there was another little girl in our household. My parents went to formal functions several times a week and often had dinner parties at our house. On the weekends, we went to the beach. We took an embassy-owned boat called the "Yankee Doodle" and it sailed us across the bay to Tarkwa Bay Beach, off the Gulf of Guinea, which was only accessible by boat. This is where I remember being the happiest in Lagos.  

But there were other things I remember, like the men on the beach with long, sharp-looking swords who would dance on the sand, wide-eyed and fierce, to entertain us, swishing their swords across their necks making a whistling sound. At home, there were peddlers who came to our gate to sell African masks, and ju-ju men, dressed in tribal costumes, sometimes danced in front of our house.

I can still see them in my mind. These are the kind of things a child remembers. It was interesting, a bit much, and sometimes frightening. 

Me, Stella, and a friend