Yep, you heard right.
Nigeria isn’t exactly the most child-friendly place in the
world. We drove past a preschool once. Most buildings have walls around their
perimeters, this one wasn’t any different. But to make them look more festive,
the preschool walls are painted with children things like the alphabet. So we
drove past the wall, and I was looking at their rendition of the alphabet. A
for apple, C for cow…G for gun. Yeah. Gun. They even had a picture of a
handgun under G. If you can believe it this happens a lot. I’ve seen so many G
for guns here it’s crazy. I’ve even heard sample sentences in 2nd
grade English books like, “the man stole from the woman and pointed his gun at
her.” You might be saying, “but Nigeria even has it’s own version of Sesame
Street! Doesn’t that count?” Sorta…nah. Not really. For one, Sesame Street
Nigeria is on a channel hiding in a desolate corner of the satellite TV
services. It only comes on at awkward times on awkward days. My Mother finally
got the time right and my little sister was able to watch an episode. That was
the first and last time she’s ever watched Sesame Street Nigeria. Sesame Street
Nigeria is just a bunch of clips with Sesame Street America with Nigerian voice
overs. It's super, super weird looking. Imagine Ernie speaking pidgin English! On the other hand Nigeria can be extremely children friendly. Here, Children's Day is a national holiday with parties and games at public venues, and every family can join! So Nigeria can be friendly and unfriendly to children.
Signing off,
The Traveller
