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Africa the continent that all others were connected to, with the oldest
human remains ever found to this day. I finally made my first trip there.
I, Yewande, traveled to Nigeria with 11 other Americans to visit ancient
sites, temples, sacred rivers and mountains, and attend festivals that
have been going on for centuries. The trip was sponsored by the Orisa
CDC organization out of Philadelphia and overall was well planned, except
for being late for our flight out of Nigeria. Besides visiting ancient
sites and connecting to traditionalists in southwest Nigeria our trip
had a humanitarian aid component with clothing, school supplies, and
health supplies left at each stop of our journey.
I just want to give you a taste of some of my experiences and hopefully
those of Kai Smith, who went to Senegal for the first time this summer.
I plan to do this in installments, so check in again in 2 weeks.
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Above and below are some pictures of the great contrasts in Nigeria. Modern shopping malls, and high tech modernist buildings and in other locations, homes and buildings of mud, and an outdoor shoe shop with no wall, but a tin roof. (I wasn't allowed to take the picture of the shopping mall, which visually and in terms of merchandise would have been very familiar to any American who goes to a nice modern mall.
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10.14.08
As an American traveling in Nigeria, I was a magnet for street and market vendors,
artists, and some of the poor. Many of these people hoped I would purchase something from
them and had various levels of how persistent they were. I began to develop my force field
of not seeing people to help me navigate being hawked so much.
An interesting thing happened along this trip though, and I have to thank Wanda,
the reporter on our trip who’s interviewing made me aware of it. No matter who
I ignored or spoke to, no matter how friendly or indifferent some Nigerians were to me,
when the name Barack Obama came up it changed the whole atmosphere, because it changed
the conversation. When you mentioned or asked Nigerians about Barack Obama they were ready
to tell you why he should be president, what he would do for America and the world, and
you started a real conversation that minutes before might have been all about selling
you something. Barack Obama has captured the imaginations and pride of Africans and
I experienced that on this trip.
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