Girls Win; ‘Ifemelu’ Blogs; Fear Factor

Scholarships for Nigerian Girls

Fellow former Peace Corps Nigeria volunteer Steve Clapp sent me the news that the Peace Corps Nigeria Alumni Foundation is funding scholarship for three girls who escaped from Boko Haram.

In June I blogged about the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Miami Herald who suggested that readers fight Boko Haram by donating money for girls’ scholarships. People responded – PCNAF received more than $80,000 in donations! Now they’ve announced the first set of scholarships administered through the American University in Nigeria Foundation.

“Ifemelu” Blogs

I was happy to learn that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has started a blog – a real, live blog – in the voice of Ifemelu, the main character in Americanah. She calls it The Small Redemptions of Lagos. I read about it on the blog Brittle Paper.

But I searched in vain to see where to sign up to get regular updates. I hope Adichie will soon add a link so readers can subscribe, like I have. For the moment I’ll check every few days to see if there is something new.

I love the picture of the slightly run-down colonial style house that Adichie uses as the picture in her header. Our house at 8 Alexander in Ikoyi where I lived from 1964 to 1967 was newer but still had the same feel as the older colonial homes.

Leaving that house when we fled Lagos, in May 1967, in the month before Biafra’s secession was painful. Here’s what I write in my memoir:

“Too soon, it was six on Saturday morning. I sent Gabriel (the cook) to hire a lorry. By the time he returned, Rosa (our nanny) and Clem, with what little help I could provide in my pregnant state, had moved most of the boxes and suitcases to the downstairs hallway ready to load. The lorry driver and his assistant packed the major items with Clem’s supervision. His beloved radiogram, the piano, and my grandmother’s painting of Venice that hung on our living room wall went in.

While Rosa carried belongings from the house to the lorry, I left Chinaku, twenty-two months old, on the floor at the foot of the stairs, next to the mortar and pestle and a few pots. I waddled upstairs to use the bathroom one last time. When I came down a minute later, he had found a box of matches and was trying to strike one. I grabbed them from him so roughly he began crying. What if I hadn’t come down that second? I was almost sick with fright and relief.

Clem chose this moment to say for the second or third time, ‘Can you hurry? What else is there to pack?’

‘Don’t stand there telling me to hurry! Why don’t you get in here and watch Chinaku?’ I almost threw one of the boxes at him. I recovered as he helped get the last belongings loaded. By half-past eight, we were in the car. The cook was in the lorry.

I cast one look back as we drove away from 8 Alexander, the site of our wedding and our home. I didn’t want to cry, but I felt overwhelmed with sadness at all I was leaving.

Clem was driving the Ford Consul that he loved, and he seemed less sad at leaving. He was, after all, going to what should be an exciting new position.

Soon we were out of Lagos and headed toward the East. ‘What’s going to happen to this country? When do you think we’ll come back?’ I said. I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. This was the city I loved, where I’d become a teacher, met and married Clem, and had my first child. I was due to deliver our second child in a few weeks.”

EBOLA Update

In my recent post I said that the public health sector in Nigeria was ill-equipped to deal with the Ebola virus. But I was wrong. A day later, and again tonight, Public Television’s NewsHour featured a report on Ebola in West Africa with a special segment on Nigeria.

Fred de Sam Lazaro reported tonight from Nigeria where the strong public health response has meant just twenty-one cases and nine deaths from Ebola.

The Ebola Response Command Center includes representatives from UNICEF, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and others involved with health in Nigeria; altogether more than 1000 people have been working to contain the epidemic.

The Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, has responded with several powerful ads encouraging safe practices.

It is almost unheard-of for a Nigerian government initiative to get this kind of response. The Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, was clear on his opinion of the success. “On this kind of job, fear is always healthy,” he told the reporter.

In a separate piece on the NewsHour’s Reporters Notebook Fred de Sam Lazaro writes about negotiating corruption while reporting on Ebola. He describes the frustrating necessity for frequent “gifts” to get through traffic stops, his run-ins with the security forces in Lagos, and the lengthy lines at departure, where he was offered a chance to become a VIP for faster service.

Oh, so familiar!