"El culo del mundo" is what my Spanish friends elegantly used to call an undesirable place they never want to go. Nigeria certainly falls under this category, and I recently said that phrase back to them when asked how things were where I was. One of the most corrupt countries in the world, and recently ranked the third most unlivable, is not appealing to international flight crews either. An Etihad attendant told me they always post the Lagos route hoping someone will on a whim swap it (they never do), not even wanting to touch down, disembark, and leave 35 hours later, the company not even allowing them to explore outside the hotel. I told her a bit hopelessly that I'll be staying a bit longer, long enough to not really see the endpoint, what drove me here, or where this mess really even began. In short, my few months in Lagos by a number of standards, will effectually constitute the worst and most unwanted place I'll ever live.
I woke up first night to a dense tropical West Africa rain, straight out of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I asked myself from the confines of my bed why I do this, going off to places where kidnapping stories run rampant, the police are toll booths, the diseases that much more ghastly, and the list goes on. With such a short life, why spend any time in the terrible places that run under every sort of dysfunction and keep trickling by, when New York City and Los Angeles and even the peace and quiet of Austin are very much within my reach? The answer I continue to fall back on is that in this time alone behind high walls, surrounded by misery and repression and anger, and a country imploding on itself from all directions, there continues to be great value - in finding what you're made of and what is left in the dark spaces when you truly are all alone.
When you put cargo on board a ship, you make that venture on trust,
For you know not whether you will be drowned or come safe to land.
If you say, "I will not embark until I am certain of my fate," then you will do no trade: the secret of these two destinies is never disclosed.
The faint-hearted merchant neither gains nor loses; nay he loses: one must take fire in order to get light.
I woke up first night to a dense tropical West Africa rain, straight out of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I asked myself from the confines of my bed why I do this, going off to places where kidnapping stories run rampant, the police are toll booths, the diseases that much more ghastly, and the list goes on. With such a short life, why spend any time in the terrible places that run under every sort of dysfunction and keep trickling by, when New York City and Los Angeles and even the peace and quiet of Austin are very much within my reach? The answer I continue to fall back on is that in this time alone behind high walls, surrounded by misery and repression and anger, and a country imploding on itself from all directions, there continues to be great value - in finding what you're made of and what is left in the dark spaces when you truly are all alone.
When you put cargo on board a ship, you make that venture on trust,
For you know not whether you will be drowned or come safe to land.
If you say, "I will not embark until I am certain of my fate," then you will do no trade: the secret of these two destinies is never disclosed.
The faint-hearted merchant neither gains nor loses; nay he loses: one must take fire in order to get light.
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