Some Last Thoughts in Nigeria

It seems that the entirety of the country is really one big, extended marketplace. Nearly every significant road doubles as a sort of shopping center, with hawkers selling everything imaginable along the side of the road -- furniture, mangoes, spare car parts, draperies, carrots, ground nuts, heaps of grains and beans, and even that final need, coffins. For some reason, there are many sellers who seem to be dedicated to the sale of things that are red -- namely tomatoes and scotch-bonnet red peppers. Their neatly piled tomatoes and rows of peppers are a thing of beauty.



Sometimes the market and the road come together and merge as one. This seems to happen most in the midst of actual markets. It is quite difficult to determine where the market ends and the road begins, as trade often spills out into the traffic, with people buying from their cars as the traffic passes slowly through the market. In one case, a goat escaped from the meat market, and a small boy was sent to corral him from the traffic. The smell of all kinds of street food drifts out over the whole scenario, and the omnipresent dust makes the water and other drinks being sold at road side all the more attractive. 

Music is everywhere. Not the kind of gently muzack that tends to dominate shopping in North America, but often loud and aggressive music. The beats of the music blend with the surroundings to somehow complete and amplify an already full experience. 

One of about a million roadside churches

Everything is negotiable. Although there are many fixed-price stores, street-side shopping involves bargaining. As much as I love travel, I hate -- abhor -- detest bargaining, although I've gotten better at it with the passage of time (I'm sure I still pay at least slightly too much). Finding that "sweet spot" of a first offer that is low enough to land you a good deal, without being so low as to look silly and/or offensive, is an art that I doubt I'll ever master. But not only prices are negotiable. So is much of the driving experience. A road block has been put up? No problem. Just go and negotiate with the officer. You need to get something from an office that has just closed for the day? Strike up a conversation with whoever is there. A hotel doesn't have the room you reserved available? Strike up a long conversation. I've been amazed to watch these conversations and participate in a few of them. They almost always involve lots of laughter. It's a good reminder that in most of the world "no" doesn't necessarily mean "no." 

one of many roadside furniture markets

Drivers who know the city of Lagos are a gift from God. I would venture driving in many places. Lagos is not one of them. The infrastructure, by comparison to many other global cities, is decent. Yet the absolute lack of road signs and the necessity of knowing multiple short-cuts to avoid traffic jams ("slow gos") is amazing. 

All the mannequins are white. This is not only a Nigerian phenomenon, but it continues to puzzle me as I travel in Africa. 

The Biggest City in the World?

Lagos Island - from Wikipedia

The ranking of cities is an exercise notoriously fraught with all kinds of problems. Do we mean cities-proper, meaning a core political unit, or a broader metropolitan area? Do we mean the entire cachement area influenced or affected by a city? Almost any way of looking at the world's cities has put Tokyo at the top for several decades, usually followed by some combination of Shanghai, Mumbai, and Delhi. 

a common part of transit in Lagos

So I was a bit surprised when reading an airline magazine * on board my flight from Jos to Lagos when it proclaimed Lagos "the world's biggest city." Reading the fine print of the article, it was clear that the author was referring to a projection that, if current trends continue, Lagos will be the world's largest city -- with over 30 million people -- by 2050. I've since seen several variations on this theme, and the definitional and statistical questions are large. But what is without doubt is that Lagos is a HUGE city, by far the largest in sub-Saharan Africa with somewhere between 15-20 million people, with rapid continuing population growth. 

Like several other cities in coastal West Africa, Lagos spreads over a series of islands and lagoons near the shore, but has long ago spread onto the mainland in several directions. This complex islands-mainland geography has made transit difficult. In recent years, several roads have been built quite literally on the sea -- long bridges running parallel to the land -- in order to try to keep up with the city's expansion.

A market in Ikorodu

Yet unlike so many other mega-cities which have made great strides in terms of urban planning, public transportation, and air, rail, and road infrastructure, Lagos lags far behind. Traffic jams, known locally as "go slow," seem to figure in just about every decision in Lagos. When planning for transit from one meeting to another tomorrow morning, I was told "we can leave at six in the morning and be there by ten, or wait until ten and be there by twelve." This is a distance of perhaps 15 miles. I've since been told that the person who shared this was being a bit cautious, but not overly so. Southern California suddenly looks like a commuter's paradise. 

The town/city/suburb of Ikorodu is located about 25 miles from central Lagos, on the north side of the Lagos Lagoon. It clearly once had an existence completely separate from the city of Lagos, as it has a historic center all its own, with some lovely traditional homes and old churches and mosques. It also has an unforgettable marketplace. The town drapes itself over a series of low hills rising up from the Lagoon and is cut through by numerous tropical rivulets lined with banana and palm trees. It has a quieter feel than much of Lagos proper, and a bit less of the sense of a mega-city environment. There are parts of it that one could call peaceful. 

An old home in Ikorodu

Overall, I have to say that Lagos is one of the most overwhelming cities I have encountered. Yet many millions of people -- no one seems to know quite how many millions -- somehow make it work every day. 

* The fact that there IS an airline magazine in the seat pocket of the CR Regional Jet flying a domestic route in Nigeria says a lot about how far air travel within Africa has come in recent years. 

The Darker Side - The Crisis in Nigeria

My previous post on Jos and Nigeria might be judged by some to be a bit too positive. It is admittedly my default disposition to look for the positive, despite the abundant negative things that one can find in almost any nation of the world. Yet it would be naive to pretend that Nigeria is not a deeply challenged nation, despite the magnanimity of its people. 

The greatest and most profound challenge to Nigeria is the political, social, ethnic, and religious tension that divides its three main regions:  the Hausa-speaking north, the Igbo-speaking southeast, and the Yoruba-speaking southwest. The latter two regions are predominantly Christian, while the north is deeply Islamic, ruled by various emirs and sultans from the arrival of Islam in the ninth century. There are also profound differences in the economic and social structures of these societies, as the two were brought together as a unit only by the British in the nineteenth century. 

Yams for sale along a road near Jos

Despite these differences, for many decades, Nigerians from various places intermingled and traded together. Jos is one of the more cosmopolitan cities of the country, with people from nearly every region coming here for the tin mining that was the main economic force in British times. Today, although Hausa is the language of the street, I'm told that one can also hear Yoruba, Ibo, Tiv, and many other languages spoken on the streets of Jos. Muslim communities were well integrated in parts of the south, while Christian communities thrived in the north. This began to unravel in 2001, when a bomb blast ripped through the central market in Jos. In the late 2000s, numerous Christian churches and other infrastructure was targeted in the north. Jos descended into violence a number of times, with some Muslims killing and looting Christian homes, churches and businesses, with reprisals from some Christians against Muslim targets. The city, once largely integrated, quickly balkanized. Today, Jos is divided into predominantly Muslim and predominantly Christian areas. I visited a strongly Muslim neighborhood where "not a Christian remains" in residence and all churches and Christian organizations have been destroyed. I also visited a number of Christian neighborhoods where the scars of reprisal violence against Muslims remains in burned out homes and businesses and destroyed mosques. The two communities look warily at one another, while all suffer from the economic effects.

The remains of a church in a heavily Muslim neighborhood of Jos

Thankfully, here in Jos, most people feel that the situation has improved, although it remains precarious. There is increasing daytime movement of people across some of these lines, and there are some quite remarkable peace-building efforts happening. Many people on both sides have risen up to say that enough is enough and that we must live in peace. Yet tensions remain, especially as the Muslim population (now about 20%) continues to grow. 

Unfortunately, the situation further north is much more dire. The northeastern states have suffered mightily at the hands of Boko Haram, the militant Islamist movement that has wreaked havoc in Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon in recent years. Many churches in these places have been forced "underground," and a lot of church buildings (though far from all) have been destroyed. I am told that many Christian medical and social ministries have seen growth in these areas in recent years, as the social challenges remain great. The population of these places -- Christian and Muslim -- is suffering mightily. Some of the stories of violence are stomach-turning. 

The remains of a mosque in a Christian area of Jos

As in so most conflicts, the situation is not simple. Although the conflict is perceived as religious, many tell me that it is not only religious. The complex dance of Nigerian Federal politics, with its careful balance between ethnicities, regions, and religions, is always at play, as are more localized tensions between settled and more migratory populations in the north. Corruption plays a major role. Cultural norms that call for violent reprisal against those who hurt you add to the volatile mix. As in much of the world, the psychological, social, and economic tensions of the clash of the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern globalized world are also at play. There is no one cause, just as there is not a simple solution. 

It is indeed encouraging to me to see Nigerian ministries involved in the hard work of peace-building, trauma counseling, and community development in the face of so many obstacles. It seems to me that the Nigerian church inherently embraces a holistic view of Christian ministry, as do so many across Africa. Many of these women and men labor selflessly in the interest of seeing a more just society and greater peace with God. It is inspiring. 

The Rocky City of Jos, Nigeria

Jos is the capital of the Plateau State, located in the central part of Nigeria. Jos is a major city of northern Nigeria, although it is also a distinct area. Jos is unquestionably a Christian hub, with dozens of denominations, Christian organizations, and Christian social ministries, both international and Nigerian, having their headquarters here. Yet it is also right on the line between predominantly Christian coastal West Africa and the mostly Muslim interior. This religious line is at times quite imperceptible, while at other times its contours are stark and explosive. It also tends to migrate from time to time, as the outbreak in religious tension in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, has recently shown. 

A landscape between Abuja and Jos

Perhaps the most striking feature of Jos is the landscape, which includes low, rocky mountains in the distance. Most of the four-hour trip from Nigeria's capital, Abuja, is a gradually ascending trek through a rocky terrain. Some of these are small hills composed of hundreds of round boulders, while others are immense single mountains of rock. Some of them are strikingly beautiful in their stacks of rocks, precariously placed there by nature. Jos itself has many of these outcrops of rocks, big and small. Increasingly the growing city seems to be scaling up the sides of some of these rocky hills, placing buildings in precariously stacked positions on their tops. 

In Nigeria, every vehicle's license plate reveals which state it comes from, yet unlike in the US, the plates are uniform. Under the name of the state of origin is the state's motto or nickname. Abuja is the "Centre of Unity," while Kaduna is the "Land of Learning" (due to the presence of many universities there). Plateau State, where Jos is located, is the "land of peace and tourism." This seems a bit incongruous, given Jos' frequent place in the headlines due to religious and other violence. Yet Jos and the surrounding area remains a special destination in Nigerian minds, due primarily to its favorable climate. Its position on a 1000-meter plateau makes the temperatures much more moderate than most other points in the country. I have seen numerous people on the streets in the morning hours bundled tightly in winter coats and hats, despite a temperature that is probably in excess of 60F/15C. A number of people have apologized to me for "our cool weather," unaware of what truly cold weather is. Weather is indeed one of the more relative subjects. 

Half the city seemed to be covered in advertisements for these Indonesian instant noodles

Jos is a modest city of perhaps 1.5 million and much of it, including the city center, still has the feel of a much smaller town. The buildings are, for the most part, low-rise (the second "skyscraper," a perhaps 10- or 12-story building, is under construction). The streets are lined with small shops selling every imaginable wear, as well as a fruits and vegetables and various kinds of street food, some cooked in hot oil, others cooked over charcoal. 

This is my third visit to Nigeria. I have to confess that some of my most "interesting" travel stories have come from this country. Yet there are few countries where I have been welcomed more. The words "you are welcome" or "sanu" in Hausa are heard hundreds of times a day. I am amazed as well by how Nigerians navigate challenges, of which there are more than a few. In one situation, cars had to navigate their way through some concrete barriers in advance of an entry gate. This required a kind of zig-zag driving that reminded me of my first driver's test. The problem was that only one car could navigate this at a time, which often caused drivers to have to do the zig-zag in reverse to clear the way. Rather than exhibiting anger, those involved did the driving feats required, and loudly waved and greeted to the other party as they eventually passed. Police checkpoints, while intimidating sheerly because of the number of weapons about, usually involved jovial conversation and laughter and lots of big smiles. How deep any of this camaraderie goes is hard to say, for the challenges of the nation are many and great. Yet it seems to me that there is something to be learned from the mentality of so many Jos residents. Life may be challenging, but it should be enjoyed. 

A typical rocky scene in Jos

A Morning in Amsterdam

The number of cities that I've seen a bit of by means of a very early morning walk before other commitments is really quite a long one… Brussels, Shanghai, Warsaw, Santiago to name a few. There are certainly drawbacks to this approach. It's hard to enjoy the nice cafes in the main square of Brussels or the wonders of Shanghai street fair at 6:00 in the morning. But there's also a tranquility hanging over great cities in these early morning hours. And if nothing else, you learn a lot about how cities clean their streets. 

Amsterdam, fortunately, is a city I've explored numerous times, almost always during a lengthy layover at Schiphol, which is probably the airport in the world where I have spent the most time. The city center is a quick and easy 15-minute train ride from the airport and the city has marvelous public transport. It's hard to forget that the Netherlands means literally the "low-lying country" in Amsterdam, as it's hard to get more than 20 feet from some body of water anywhere in the city. The feats of engineering that have made Amsterdam (and Rotterdam, and the Hague, etc.) possible are quite amazing. Yet these wonders of hard-wired engineering are also strikingly beautiful, as the canals of central Amsterdam gradually slope in half circles, creating fascinating vistas at nearly every turn. 

A painting of one of the gentle curves of one of Amsterdam's canals. They don't look all that different today! (from Wikipedia)

So much of Amsterdam is a great monument to the Golden Age of Dutch history in the 17th century when the Netherlands, having brushed off Spanish rule, became a commercial and maritime power. Although the Dutch are rarely thought of as a great colonial power, the number of places they have colonized is significant -- from Northeast Brazil and many places in West Africa to Sri Lanka and even a tiny island in Nagasaki Bay that for a number of years in the 17th century served as the only European trading link to the Empire of Japan. And of course, there are the East Indies that would later form Indonesia, where Dutch power was most enduring. 

A fascinating window display in the Spiegelgracht

Walking the streets of Amsterdam, I am amazed at how many grand buildings show their year of construction as sometime in the 1600s. This was a time of great commercial power, but it was also a time of enormous cultural output. My main reason for journeying into Amsterdam was to visit the Rijksmuseum. Housed in a spectacular nineteenth century building (on a canal!), the building is an artistic wonder of it's own. But walking through the vast collections of mostly Dutch art, I couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer burst of creative wonder that emerged in this Dutch Golden age. The long central gallery, filled as it is with the works of Halls, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, is crowned most by the view of Rembrandt's spectacular Night Watch in a grand hall at gallery's end. I know little about art, but it seems to me that there are few painters in history who capture the fullness of the human as well as Rembrandt. 

The entrance to the Rijksmuseum

By the time I left the museum at 11 am, it was swarming with people, as were the nearby streets, which just a few hours before were quiet enough to hear a pigeon take to flight, the "jing-jing" of a bike horn, or the sound of a shopkeeper washing down the sidewalk in front of his or her store. While it might be hard to find a cup of coffee, it gives you both a fascinating view of a great city, as well as proper time and atmosphere to think about it. 

And it's always good to be reminded that there are places in the world that are indeed more Dutch than West Michigan. 

Realities of Refugees

It's relatively easy to be a distant and detached witness to history. As I read various news sources each day, I am constantly reminded of the important events -- often in distant places -- that are nonetheless shaping the world in which my daughters will live in a few decades. The dizzying array of events in the Middle East in recent years play themselves out on a daily basis in the pages of the world's leading newspapers. Even when I read about these events from afar and think about their impact on the world, it is easy to see them in a disembodied, dehumanized kind of way. Sometimes, in the midst of thinking about the long-term consequences and patterns, I can lose track of how these same events are turning the lives of individuals and communities upside down. 

Today was one of those days when the sheer reality and human consequence of great events becomes so tangible as to become nearly suffocating. 

Lebanon is a small country of four million people wedged between Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The nation is stunning in its diversity and its natural beauty. Mount Lebanon rises above Beirut and divides the coastal plane from the long Beqaa Valley in the interior, along the Syrian border. The Beqaa is a place of stunning beauty, flanked by mountain ranges on both sides and filled with beautiful farms, lush orchards, and towns and villages with diverse religious identities. 

When I last visited the Beqaa, the view from a familiar spot was one of villages and towns, roads and farms stretching to the Syrian frontier. Today, that view is slightly different, punctuated by hundreds of small white dwelling places in clusters across the Beqaa. 

These dwellings belong to a large portion of the nearly two million Syrian refugees that have flooded into Lebanon and continue to arrive by the thousands as the conflict continues to deepen. Think a bit about those numbers -- two million refugees in a nation of 4 million. Into a nation that was occupied by the Syrian army for nearly 30 years. A nation still emerging from the terror of a 25-year-long civil war. A nation experiencing significant internal political, economic, social, and religious tensions. 

The refugees themselves are diverse, some fleeing the Syrian government, with others fleeing the Free Syrian Army. They represent Muslims and Christians of nearly every type and stripe, both urban and rural, rich and poor, old and young, highly educated and illiterate. Some with financial resources are living "on the market," renting homes, apartments, rooms, and hovels. Market forces have driven rents and many other prices up by two-three times, impacting not only refugees but the Lebanese population as a whole. 

Others live in tent cities popping up on across the Beqaa. I visited one of these places today, assisted (in a very minimal way) in the distribution of food aid, and visited a displaced family in their makeshift home. Even more than the concrete conditions I saw today, I am sheerly stunned by the scope and scale and human impact of what I saw. Words, frankly, fail. 

In some ways, those I saw today are fortunate ones. I heard other stories of family members of friends living moment to moment, knowing that their home could be hit by a mortar at any moment. I was told of fields and olive groves being burned by fast-moving, foreign-fueled armies of fundamentalists. I heard a brother and sister speaking in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, as they attempted to find their bearings in Lebanon, having experienced the grace of kind Lebanese who have taken them in. They have lost everything, including their tight-knit, ancient village that has endured for millennia. 

One cannot help but feel powerless. Contrite. Humbled. Angry. Aware. Fearful. Vulnerable. Human. 

Misunderstanding

The title of "misunderstanding" could, in many ways, stand at the top of many an article or reflection on the Middle East. Although western societies have spent immense time and effort seeking to better understand the Arab world and the broader Middle East over the past couple of decades, it seems to me that not a lot of this has flowed down to the level of popular understanding. In some ways, the quest to better understand this part of the world parallels in part the US investment in study of the Soviet Union in the 1940s onward. This earlier quest produced some of the great centers of study of Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, etc., that continue to function at places like Indiana University, where I had the privilege to study. Despite years of meaningful and insightful work designed in part to inform public understanding, simpler narratives seem to have prevailed in popular understanding. Perhaps that is just the way of things in this world. Simpler narratives are unquestionably easier to digest. 

A view over Beirut with the Mediterranean in the background

I travel to a lot of interesting places. But few raise eyebrows more than Lebanon. It seems that the popular conception of this place is one of a battered, war-torn Middle Eastern metropolis. Not all that long ago, this was true as the city rose from the ashes of their civil war. Yet Beirut historically and today is one of the world's most cosmopolitan and arguably most beautiful cities with variegated, intersecting cultures. Contrary to a lot of popular understanding in the West, Lebanon is in many ways the center of Arab Christianity. For many years, Lebanon's identity was defined by its predominantly Christian population. This has changed as demographics have shifted toward Muslims since the establishment of huge Palestinian camps in the south of Lebanon after 1948. The delicate balance of power between the Christian population, and large Sunni and Shia Muslim populations (along with others - Druze, Alawite, etc.) has been the defining element of Lebanon since World War II. 

Beirut and Lebanon are, it seem to me, some of the more misunderstood places on earth. Perhaps it is the enduring images of the Lebanese Civil War that endured from 1975-1990 or the iconic images of the bombing of the US marine barracks in 1983 that conjure a prevailing understanding of chaos, disorder, and extreme religious strife. Granted -- chaos, disorder, and extreme religious strife do constitute a significant part of Lebanon's history and culture, especially during my lifetime. Yet even this tension arises out of the incredible diversity and cosmopolitan nature of this beautiful land.