A Surprising Story of Makoko

It's time to tell a few stories about the slums. Might sound a bit surprising, but the most joyful experiences I have had in Nigeria so far are the visits to a desperately poor fishing community called Makoko. But surprising is also the place itself.

Despite of being one of the most famous slums in Lagos and in whole Africa, Makoko is surprisingly small - about one kilometer wide, at most. But what it lacks in size, it compensates in everything else. It is immensely crowded and densely populated, with an estimated population between 100 000 and 200 000. Nobody really knows the number. But what makes Makoko extraordinary as a slum, is that it is mostly built on water. It's a maze of bridges, canals, huts, narrow alleys, shelters and small wooden houses supported above the water by logs. A myriad of sights and smells fill the senses. Women roasting freshly caught fish on their cooking fires, smoke hovering on the alleyways, chicken and goats digging piles of trash to find food, people skillfully carrying heavy water pots over their heads, mud splashing under the feet, canoes sliding between the huts.

But above all, the most striking, shocking and joyful thing about Makoko is the children. The sheer amount of them is just unbelievable - they are everywhere! It has been estimated that 60% of the population of the community are small children. One of the families that our organization helps has 15, and that is not uncommon at all. But what a merry sight they are! Despite of the extreme poverty, nowhere ever have I seen such an amount of joy, smile and laughter. The experience is just uplifting. Everywhere I walk, a cascade of children meets me with smiles and shouting: Oyibo, oyibo, oyibo! Despite the initial shyness, they are always welcoming, eventually surrounding, touching and hugging me. Some of them even put up a wild dance of joy - something between the best moves of the late MJ and an African tribal dance.

Visiting a slum like Makoko is an eye-opening experience in several ways. There is the poverty and material shortage, of course. But otherwise, you won't experience too many of the negative things that the stereotypes would suggest. The safety, for example, is not bad. In fact, the vibe of the whole place is the exact opposite - welcoming and generous. To my understanding, the government and the official police forces have quite a negligible presence in Makoko - it's the Area Boys (local street gangs) that keep the order in the slums. And they are doing it well, it seems. Despite of the hustle and bustle of the slum, the experience is always somehow peaceful. The people live there in a beautiful communality, helping each other to survive. Numerous ethnicities and religions live mixed up, side by side. Makoko is a place full-packed with the whole spectrum of life and human emotions from extreme pain to extreme joy - something you won't see in the rich world.

Catching the Landlords (a.k.a. Mouse in the house)

My day started at around 4 AM in the morning. I woke up in a complete darkness to a loud, rustling sound coming from the corner of my room. I was awake in a split second, heart beating like a drum. I grabbed my light, put it on and pointed it to the corner of the room. My food bags lay there, but nothing else. I tried to search the room but didn't find anything. I went back to sleep, doubting myself - maybe it was just a dream. But just as I was about to fall asleep again, it came back. Rustling of the food bags. Slowly and silently I picked up the light, pointed and put it on.

And there it was. A mouse, or a small rat. I got a glimpse before it disappeared behind the rubble. Actually, I was quite relieved, because I had feared that it was one of those big, cat sized rats, that you see in India and some other places. I took a shoe for stamping the creature, but it was impossible to find, so I went to sleep.

The same thing happened 5 times during the next hours. Everytime as it got to my food, I put on the light to smash it with my shoe, but each time it outran or outsmarted me. Once I was already totally certain that I would get it, as I saw it hide behind a bag. But as I removed the bag, there was nothing.

In the morning, I talked with the locals. They laughed and told me that mice in the house are very common. Particularly hard-to-catch individuals, they call "the landlords". In the evening I bought a mouseboard from the street. It's a sticky board, where you plant food in the middle and the mice get stuck when they come to get it.

Power had shifted. around nine o'clock in the evening, I had the "landlord" on my trap. But when I saw it struggle there to get out, I just pitied it. I removed it and let it outside. And to my surprise, the next morning I found another landlord from the board.

After that weekend, there's been several others "lording" my house. The next generation is smarter, however. They don't go to my traps as easily as the first ones.

Creating a home

The first weeks in NIgeria have primarily been marked by one thing - creating a livable home. Solving the everyday challenges has been a survival course like no other - even the Finnish Military Forces would envy it. As well as being a challenge, it has definitely been a joy. Nothing compares to the feeling of making a creative solution to a problem and seeing it concretely improve your life. Fixing the lock of your door with a piece of metal, found from a pile of trash. Cutting kitchen towels from a rug you found from the backyard. Etc, etc.

Ok, maybe I am giving a wrong picture here. The life isn't actually super difficult for everyone here, and the place I am staying in is not particularly poor. It's just our house. As it happens, my boss / roomie is an extremely busy man, working on average about 18 hours a day. When I go to sleep, he's still sitting in the dark living room, in the light of his gadgets. When I wake up in the morning, between 6.00 and 7.00, he's sitting in the same place and position, staring at his screen. It's just that he is such an adaptable and devoted person that he doesn't need to sleep more than a few hours, eat, or keep breaks from the work. Household matters are definitely not too high on his priority list.

When it comes to survival, the one absolutely irreplaceable resource has been the neighbors. They have been extremely helpful. In the neighboring apartment lives a group of six local guys, mostly recent University graduates. And also the Spanish girl, who is an intern like me. Quite hospitable folks, all of them. For example, when on the second week we ran out of tap water for 4 days, we borrowed their water. Same thing with cooking gas - this week I have been cooking my meals in their kitchen. Naturally, it works both ways. When they run out of water, we lend them. And of course, we always charge mobile phones and computers in each others apartments, depending on which one has the blessing of electricity.

And finally, some pics from the house:

 Our backyard. (It's a lake after raining.)

 Front yard. We live in the right side of the house, our neighbours in the left.

Kitchen facilities. We dont own a table for cooking.

 My room (including all furniture).

 Our precious generator.

A wave of relief

My culture shock evaporated on the second whole day. I had food, we got water. I met the neighbors. One of them cooked us a delicious Nigerian meal. And I was mentally better prepared for everything. I also met a spanish girl, who was also doing an internship and lived at the neighbors' place. She had arrived the day before and was apparently going on the same things in her mind as me.

From the earlier blog post, one might draw the conclusion, that life is always hard and there are no joys of life here. Of course, that's not the case. And when it comes to the problems, they just need some time to fix themselves. Many of the "problems" are a matter of standards and attitude. With time, what first seems to be a problem soon becomes a familiarity, and eventually something as trivial as snow in the Finnish winter. Life started to take its course quite fast. 

Culture Shock

Let's be honest. The first whole day in Lagos was a shock, resulting from a combination of many things. The morning began quite okay, but not without surprises. 

Myself, I am used to eating quite much and regularly. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper, at least. As I figured out during the first day, all of these were quite unfamiliar concepts in Nigeria. So, as I asked about breakfast, the surprise was both-sided. I was explained, that the locals eat when they feel hungry (which, I soon realized, is about once every day). I still found some food from the kitchen, so no problem.

We spent almost the whole day in a car. The concept of the day was this: we picked up 7 of the projects volunteers, crammed into the car and drove around Lagos from one place to another. The language was the next surprise. In Nigeria, people widely speak English as their common language, but it was something quite different from what I had heard elsewhere. This is why during the first day, I didn't have much idea about what was going on around me. Now, a few weeks later, the language barrier doesn't bother me anymore, but during that first day, it did.

By afternoon, I got really hungry and thirsty. Due to my demand, around five o'clock we finally stopped at a fast food restaurant to pick up some fried rice. It helped. Next thing on our todo-list was a slum visit. We went there to do some routine work related to the project. It was something that I had looked forward to, but I have to admit that the first time was tough. The slums earn a blog post of their own, so more on that later.

When we got home late in the evening, I insisted that we buy some food home. So we did. I bought some cold foods, like ham and yogurt. Of course, I should have remembered, that we don't have a fridge, and even if we had, it's wouldn't be on most of the time. Woops. And still no water to drink. I also made the mistake of closing the door of my room, soon realizing that it actually locks, so that it cannot be opened from inside the room. Luckily, my host woke up to my knocking and let me out. Soon after going to sleep, I woke up to a giant cockroach running on my back. Uh.

So, there it was, the first day. 100% culture shock. The right way to start every proper adventure.

First Impressions

Warm and humid air greeted me, when I stepped out of the plane. After a long day of travel (three flights) I was finally in Lagos. Outside the airport, I was relieved to find and meet my hosts amidst the crowd of taxi drivers. In the car I found out that I would live at the house of the project leader himself. I heard a lot about places that we passed and about the project itself. I was quite excited about everything.

To be honest, the first impressions of the house were a bit grim. Darkness and no electricity. I soon found out, that as the electricity network doesn't typically work, a generator is needed for creating electricity. We had one too, at the footsteps of our backdoor. The motor creates a constant loud voice, like someone driving a Harley Davidson at your backyard. (This is something that doesn't take too long to get used to).

The house was quite dirty and unequipped at first. Except a few eggs, rotten chilis and onions, there was no food. And at the first night, no drinking water. Well, I had actually expected the unexpected, so I was not too surprised. I ate the eggs and went to sleep, assuring myself that things will eventually sort out. And of course, they did. Eventually.