I said I'd make another one and I wasn't lying. Here we go, we're starting with Rule #6!
Rule #6 - Pure Water is NOT Pure Water!!!
A Nigerian you've been talking with talks about how it's really hot today. You agree, and ask if you could get something to drink. The Nigerian brings back a small plastic sack. Inside is water. Whatever you do DON'T DRINK IT. UNLESS if you're from here! It's very important! This water is called Pure Water and it's anything but pure. The hundreds of companies that make this so called Pure Water suck dirty water out of a borehole and use a rudimentary filtration system. Most of the bacteria stays in there. Every time we've been forced to drink Pure Water since we've been here we've gotten sick. Now the reason I say it's okay for Nigerians to drink is because their bodies are used to it and they won't start puking. My Dad's Nigerian too but he can't drink it because he's lived in America for a while. Besides Pure Water didn't exist in Nigeria back in the 70s and 80s. Seriously this is something you should remember, unless you're planning on staying here for a long while and you're gonna have to drink Pure Water frequently. It's better just to get your body used to it if this is the case.
Rule #7 - Don't Buy Anything
This is a little bit of an exaggeration. What I mean to say is don't buy anything if you don't have a lot of money in your pocket. The thing is this: you're a foreigner. Nigerians can spot foreigners from five hundred miles away with their eyes blindfolded while hanging upside-down in a rapidly flowing river. If you hear somebody shout "oyibo!" at you then you know you've been spotted. Any minute now you're gonna be sniped down by horrible prices. In Nigeria a lot of products don't have any price tags on them. Because of this haggling is the benevolent overlord. People haggle everywhere; sometimes when Nigerians come to America and places like that they even miss it. I personally am not a huge fan of it but it's all about personal preference really. Anyway, because you're a foreigner, if you ask the owner for a shop for an item that should be 100 Naira, the price will skyrocket to 500 Naira. They think you have a lot of money. For example:
YOU: (points at a 50 centiliter bottle of Coke) How much is this?
OWNER: (smiles) 750 Naira!
YOU: (ignorant to the real price so you smile back) Thanks! (you slap the money down and you take your Coke)
NIGERIAN: (turns to owner after staring at this strange foreigner) Hey, my brother! (turns to you) Oyibo!
YOU: (confused so you just nod as you sip your coke)
NIGERIAN: (turns back to owner) Big Coca-Cola.
OWNER: 500 Naira.
YOU: (mouth drops)
You see what I mean? This sort of scene has happened to us a billion times. Of course in this example a 250 Naira price difference isn't much in currencies like the USD or the Euro (do a conversion in Wolfram|Alpha) but it's all about the principle. What if you're buying something much more expensive than a Coke? Like a lawnmower? So you gotta stick up for what you know is the right price!
Rule #8 - There are Code Words...
You go to a restaurant. You ask for the choice of food (nobody has menus). The Nigerian waiter says: "Egba, Amala, Rice." You know that Egba is not a dish, it's what you use to eat soups. You don't wanna eat egba plain so you go for the rice:
YOU: Um...(taps thigh) I guess I'll have rice.
WAITER: (turns away without another word)
After waiting for 300 hours your food arrives. You're surprised; you got a reddish colored rice which is extremely spicy!
YOU: Uh, I asked for rice.
WAITER: Yes.
YOU: (hesitates) You know...just regular rice.
WAITER: (glares) Yes.
YOU: I just wanted white rice.
WAITER: I got you rice! What else do you want me to do, now?!
YOU: (not wanting the waiter to scream again, you ask for some meat) What type of meat do you have?
WAITER: We have Meat.
YOU: Yes...but what types?
WAITER: Meat.
YOU: Yes, but--
WAITER: We have Meat, Meat!
YOU: (breaks down crying)
Guess what? It's not the waiter's fault; it's yours. You don't know the Nigerian code words! So therefore you were confusing yourself and the waiter. The first mistake you made was thinking that "Egba" meant "Egba by itself". "Egba" actually means "Egba with any soup we have ready at the moment." The second mistake you made was that you believed that "rice" meant "white rice". If you say to a Nigerian that you're going to have plain white rice for lunch they'll take you to an asylum. "Rice" has pretty much the same meaning as "Egba" which means that they'll give you whatever rice they have. The third mistake you made was misunderstanding "Meat" to mean "meat". You see where I'm going here? No you don't. "Meat" means "beef". Threw a curveball on that one, didn't I? There are a lot of different code words in Nigeria, I don't know them all and I've been here for two years! You'll learn them the more you talk to people.
Rule #9 - Cellphone Etiquette
When Nigerians talk to other Nigerians on the cellphone (nobody owns traditional phones) they have a unique way of doing it. In the future it might be named the "Are You There?" technique. When Nigerians believe that their phone signal is weak they will scream at the top of their lungs "ARE YOU THERE?!?!" to anybody on the other line. This isn't the peculiar part. What's interesting is that they take the cellphone away from their ear and bring the lower half to their mouth so they can scream with maximum loudness. So it's so ingrained in the culture even when their phone signal is good they scream into the phone and do the mouth tilt thing. So they'll go back and forth; when the person on the other line's talking, they put the cellphone back to their ear, but when it's their turn to talk, they put the phone up to their mouth and start hollering. This is considered the proper thing to do when you think that the phone signal is weak.
Something else that is very important in the Nigerian phone culture is what is called "flashing". Flashing is when you call the person and then hang up in less than a second, not giving the other person anytime to receive the call. Before I explain why they do this (it's not a prank call), let me explain what "credit" is. Credit it what everyone calls the minutes you put on your cell phone. You for example if you put 1,000 Naira credit on your cellphone your account has 1,000 Naira in it. Every minute you spend on the phone might suck like--I don't know--1 Naira? So that's how it works. Now here's why Flashing happens--the person who flashes is tight and they want you to spend your money on the conversation instead of them. Because some people don't want to spend up their credit they flash. You see whoever calls the other is the one who's credit is getting depleted. They started the conversation. So you flash someone else to tell them "hey, call me!". It's kinda selfish but that's how it works! It's also considered rude if you pick up lightning quick when someone's trying to flash. Cellphone culture...fascinating stuff.
Rule #10 - Don't Drive a Rusted Car From 20 Years Ago
If you do the police'll bully you so bad...Every checkpoint you pass they'll bother you asking you for money. All the police really want is money but the thing is that they pick on people who drive broken down cars because they're too afraid to harass the people driving those big bad SUVs. The reason why is because what if the person in that SUV is a governor? And that governor is their half-brother's mother's father's sister's brother's uncle's aunt's friend of a friend's acquaintance? Then because of that the governor will bully their family and their family will bully the police. They don't want that. So drive SUVs! Also it helps to look angry with the window rolled up--that really scares them! >:-D
Thanks for reading these 10 rules. This definitely won't be the end of them! But these ones are just as important as the last ones so READ BOTH.
Signing off,
The Traveler
P.S. It's my sister's birthday today! She's turning 10.
Rule #6 - Pure Water is NOT Pure Water!!!
A Nigerian you've been talking with talks about how it's really hot today. You agree, and ask if you could get something to drink. The Nigerian brings back a small plastic sack. Inside is water. Whatever you do DON'T DRINK IT. UNLESS if you're from here! It's very important! This water is called Pure Water and it's anything but pure. The hundreds of companies that make this so called Pure Water suck dirty water out of a borehole and use a rudimentary filtration system. Most of the bacteria stays in there. Every time we've been forced to drink Pure Water since we've been here we've gotten sick. Now the reason I say it's okay for Nigerians to drink is because their bodies are used to it and they won't start puking. My Dad's Nigerian too but he can't drink it because he's lived in America for a while. Besides Pure Water didn't exist in Nigeria back in the 70s and 80s. Seriously this is something you should remember, unless you're planning on staying here for a long while and you're gonna have to drink Pure Water frequently. It's better just to get your body used to it if this is the case.
Rule #7 - Don't Buy Anything
This is a little bit of an exaggeration. What I mean to say is don't buy anything if you don't have a lot of money in your pocket. The thing is this: you're a foreigner. Nigerians can spot foreigners from five hundred miles away with their eyes blindfolded while hanging upside-down in a rapidly flowing river. If you hear somebody shout "oyibo!" at you then you know you've been spotted. Any minute now you're gonna be sniped down by horrible prices. In Nigeria a lot of products don't have any price tags on them. Because of this haggling is the benevolent overlord. People haggle everywhere; sometimes when Nigerians come to America and places like that they even miss it. I personally am not a huge fan of it but it's all about personal preference really. Anyway, because you're a foreigner, if you ask the owner for a shop for an item that should be 100 Naira, the price will skyrocket to 500 Naira. They think you have a lot of money. For example:
YOU: (points at a 50 centiliter bottle of Coke) How much is this?
OWNER: (smiles) 750 Naira!
YOU: (ignorant to the real price so you smile back) Thanks! (you slap the money down and you take your Coke)
NIGERIAN: (turns to owner after staring at this strange foreigner) Hey, my brother! (turns to you) Oyibo!
YOU: (confused so you just nod as you sip your coke)
NIGERIAN: (turns back to owner) Big Coca-Cola.
OWNER: 500 Naira.
YOU: (mouth drops)
You see what I mean? This sort of scene has happened to us a billion times. Of course in this example a 250 Naira price difference isn't much in currencies like the USD or the Euro (do a conversion in Wolfram|Alpha) but it's all about the principle. What if you're buying something much more expensive than a Coke? Like a lawnmower? So you gotta stick up for what you know is the right price!
Rule #8 - There are Code Words...
You go to a restaurant. You ask for the choice of food (nobody has menus). The Nigerian waiter says: "Egba, Amala, Rice." You know that Egba is not a dish, it's what you use to eat soups. You don't wanna eat egba plain so you go for the rice:
YOU: Um...(taps thigh) I guess I'll have rice.
WAITER: (turns away without another word)
After waiting for 300 hours your food arrives. You're surprised; you got a reddish colored rice which is extremely spicy!
YOU: Uh, I asked for rice.
WAITER: Yes.
YOU: (hesitates) You know...just regular rice.
WAITER: (glares) Yes.
YOU: I just wanted white rice.
WAITER: I got you rice! What else do you want me to do, now?!
YOU: (not wanting the waiter to scream again, you ask for some meat) What type of meat do you have?
WAITER: We have Meat.
YOU: Yes...but what types?
WAITER: Meat.
YOU: Yes, but--
WAITER: We have Meat, Meat!
YOU: (breaks down crying)
Guess what? It's not the waiter's fault; it's yours. You don't know the Nigerian code words! So therefore you were confusing yourself and the waiter. The first mistake you made was thinking that "Egba" meant "Egba by itself". "Egba" actually means "Egba with any soup we have ready at the moment." The second mistake you made was that you believed that "rice" meant "white rice". If you say to a Nigerian that you're going to have plain white rice for lunch they'll take you to an asylum. "Rice" has pretty much the same meaning as "Egba" which means that they'll give you whatever rice they have. The third mistake you made was misunderstanding "Meat" to mean "meat". You see where I'm going here? No you don't. "Meat" means "beef". Threw a curveball on that one, didn't I? There are a lot of different code words in Nigeria, I don't know them all and I've been here for two years! You'll learn them the more you talk to people.
Rule #9 - Cellphone Etiquette
When Nigerians talk to other Nigerians on the cellphone (nobody owns traditional phones) they have a unique way of doing it. In the future it might be named the "Are You There?" technique. When Nigerians believe that their phone signal is weak they will scream at the top of their lungs "ARE YOU THERE?!?!" to anybody on the other line. This isn't the peculiar part. What's interesting is that they take the cellphone away from their ear and bring the lower half to their mouth so they can scream with maximum loudness. So it's so ingrained in the culture even when their phone signal is good they scream into the phone and do the mouth tilt thing. So they'll go back and forth; when the person on the other line's talking, they put the cellphone back to their ear, but when it's their turn to talk, they put the phone up to their mouth and start hollering. This is considered the proper thing to do when you think that the phone signal is weak.
Something else that is very important in the Nigerian phone culture is what is called "flashing". Flashing is when you call the person and then hang up in less than a second, not giving the other person anytime to receive the call. Before I explain why they do this (it's not a prank call), let me explain what "credit" is. Credit it what everyone calls the minutes you put on your cell phone. You for example if you put 1,000 Naira credit on your cellphone your account has 1,000 Naira in it. Every minute you spend on the phone might suck like--I don't know--1 Naira? So that's how it works. Now here's why Flashing happens--the person who flashes is tight and they want you to spend your money on the conversation instead of them. Because some people don't want to spend up their credit they flash. You see whoever calls the other is the one who's credit is getting depleted. They started the conversation. So you flash someone else to tell them "hey, call me!". It's kinda selfish but that's how it works! It's also considered rude if you pick up lightning quick when someone's trying to flash. Cellphone culture...fascinating stuff.
Rule #10 - Don't Drive a Rusted Car From 20 Years Ago
If you do the police'll bully you so bad...Every checkpoint you pass they'll bother you asking you for money. All the police really want is money but the thing is that they pick on people who drive broken down cars because they're too afraid to harass the people driving those big bad SUVs. The reason why is because what if the person in that SUV is a governor? And that governor is their half-brother's mother's father's sister's brother's uncle's aunt's friend of a friend's acquaintance? Then because of that the governor will bully their family and their family will bully the police. They don't want that. So drive SUVs! Also it helps to look angry with the window rolled up--that really scares them! >:-D
Thanks for reading these 10 rules. This definitely won't be the end of them! But these ones are just as important as the last ones so READ BOTH.
Signing off,
The Traveler
P.S. It's my sister's birthday today! She's turning 10.
