A chance set of circumstances put me next to a young American guy on the flight from Abuja back home to Lagos. He wore sandals and baggy pants, and sported an impressive beard, which by any standard satisfies the typical NGO look spread across Sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria however, nothing is as it seems, and I soon discovered he was into commercial farming, owning about 200 acres in the North of the country. When asked how a white American happens to end up in the middle of nowhere growing a variety of grains with four tractors, he said it was a random and unpredictable series of events.
Knowing the challenges operating out of Lagos, Northern Nigeria is hard to imagine. He enlightened me on a few of the things he deals with, including crime, lack of basic infrastructure, and spiders, scorpions, and snakes ("always watch where you step!"). A prominent Indian businessman was recently killed when a cobra came up through his toilet and bit him while on the pot. "The worst are the people though," he said. "I am always armed. Since all my staff are pious Muslims and I am Jewish, I was watching the Gaza crisis closely. Didn't know if one day they would all revolt and cut off my head as retaliation. Luckily nothing happened." The conversation had an oddly casual tone of voice when referencing such things the average population would hardly take so lightly.
We talked about his wife, too. He married a local Nigerian he met one day at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development while getting his land titles sorted, and fast forward to present day and his current flight will lead to another flight to watch her give birth to his first child. As a footnote, he advised me as a rule not to mess around with the average locals here, because there are a lot of diseases. I assured him I had no intention, though he was particularly concerned, in that case, about what I did for girls. We also talked taxes, which he hasn't paid in ten years. He doesn't expect anyone to come after them now in the remote corners of the Sahel. "But you're a suit and tie guy," he said as he motioned to my outfit. "You definitely have to worry about that stuff."
I wish I could have recorded the conversation. Too many jewels are now missing, lost forever, just hours and days later. All in all, he was the most ridiculous human being I have met in a long time and probably a little bit crazy, but he seemed happy, genuinely happy - that aura of confidence someone has when they need nothing from you or anyone else and are just along for the ride - and that is more than most can say in most parts of the world, and I appreciate that in somebody. The whole 55 minute flight got me thinking, or more helped me remember something I knew already, which is that there really are a million possible ways to live your life, more than one could ever dream up or think suitable for themselves, combining the big decisions and the little ones, and it really is never too late to wipe your slate clean, pick up the pieces, buy a ticket (yes, that part of it actually is that easy), and start the whole thing over again. Whatever it takes to find your own niche; whatever it takes to live your own life. No matter how far flung some people end up, and how off their rocker some people seem, I will always respect the hell out of a person who at the very least has the courage and the balls to try and figure things out - in practice by doing, and with much less talking, which is really the only way.
Knowing the challenges operating out of Lagos, Northern Nigeria is hard to imagine. He enlightened me on a few of the things he deals with, including crime, lack of basic infrastructure, and spiders, scorpions, and snakes ("always watch where you step!"). A prominent Indian businessman was recently killed when a cobra came up through his toilet and bit him while on the pot. "The worst are the people though," he said. "I am always armed. Since all my staff are pious Muslims and I am Jewish, I was watching the Gaza crisis closely. Didn't know if one day they would all revolt and cut off my head as retaliation. Luckily nothing happened." The conversation had an oddly casual tone of voice when referencing such things the average population would hardly take so lightly.
We talked about his wife, too. He married a local Nigerian he met one day at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development while getting his land titles sorted, and fast forward to present day and his current flight will lead to another flight to watch her give birth to his first child. As a footnote, he advised me as a rule not to mess around with the average locals here, because there are a lot of diseases. I assured him I had no intention, though he was particularly concerned, in that case, about what I did for girls. We also talked taxes, which he hasn't paid in ten years. He doesn't expect anyone to come after them now in the remote corners of the Sahel. "But you're a suit and tie guy," he said as he motioned to my outfit. "You definitely have to worry about that stuff."
I wish I could have recorded the conversation. Too many jewels are now missing, lost forever, just hours and days later. All in all, he was the most ridiculous human being I have met in a long time and probably a little bit crazy, but he seemed happy, genuinely happy - that aura of confidence someone has when they need nothing from you or anyone else and are just along for the ride - and that is more than most can say in most parts of the world, and I appreciate that in somebody. The whole 55 minute flight got me thinking, or more helped me remember something I knew already, which is that there really are a million possible ways to live your life, more than one could ever dream up or think suitable for themselves, combining the big decisions and the little ones, and it really is never too late to wipe your slate clean, pick up the pieces, buy a ticket (yes, that part of it actually is that easy), and start the whole thing over again. Whatever it takes to find your own niche; whatever it takes to live your own life. No matter how far flung some people end up, and how off their rocker some people seem, I will always respect the hell out of a person who at the very least has the courage and the balls to try and figure things out - in practice by doing, and with much less talking, which is really the only way.
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