The reception after the memorial service took place in a part of Lagos known as Mile 2, a large sub-division undergoing a sprucing up. We set up in a grassy area between two rows of buildings. Those pictured on the right still reflect years of neglect.

I smelled Lagos before I saw it, before I even stepped off the plane. That first inhalation of the city and each subsequent breath overwhelmed me like flood waters spilling over a river’s muddy banks.

It was the effect — I would soon discover — of imbibing through my nose the reality of Third World urban living: too much heat, too much carbon dioxide, and too many heaps of roadside trash. This was my first trip to my parents’ homeland, to attend a service commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of my grandmother’s death, and over the next couple of weeks, there would be much more for my senses to absorb.

For the moment, however, I was hours away from stepping out into any of it. I still had to get through the long customs line, which comes before baggage claim in Lagos. Probably because the customs agents know the baggage handlers nab any valuable contraband we passengers might have hidden in our suitcases. Two hours of waiting under epileptic fluorescent lights while baggage handlers presumably ransacked my bags gave me plenty of time to try and decipher the olfactory puzzle that is Lagos.

Of course, I couldn’t. The American-born-and-raised nose cannot isolate the sweet, unctuous aroma of thousands of diesel generators revved up after the electricity has gone out. Again.

A family friend adjusts my headdress made of stiff gold damask, the latest trend, which my inexperienced hands cannot maneuver. In the background, my mother works on her identical headpiece.

On-the-ground realities

A lifetime of Western media exposure had prepared me for the worst this geographically small but socially and economically substantial country — home to a sixth of Africa’s population — could offer. The months before my December visit, the headlines from Nigeria were filled with words like corruption, AIDS, death toll, malaria, Internet scam, ethnic violence, poverty.

Around the time of my trip, The New York Times ran an article, “Blood Flows with Oil in Poor Nigerian Villages.”

The story covered the Niger Delta region around Port Harcourt that is constantly — literally — aflame as militants burn oil pipelines in an attempt to pressure the government and multinational oil companies to share more petro-profits with natives. They’re fighting for more than just a few kobo, Nigerian coins made obsolete by rampant inflation. Nigeria is the tenth-largest crude oil producer in the world and the fifth-largest supplier to the United States. The stakes rise as hostages’ lives are increasingly brought to the table as bargaining chips.

Life for most Nigerians, however, precludes international intrigue. In Lagos in particular, the daily business of survival is more than stressful enough for the poor and middle class.

In the hazy morning light of my first full day, what I had assumed the night before were several new building projects on the road from the airport revealed themselves to be ancient high-rise developments. The unpainted cement buildings seemed on the verge of collapse, having received little cosmetic attention since being built four decades earlier. Despite their dilapidated state, people lived in them. Many left laundry drying on the balconies while they camped in their regular spots on the roadside below, selling anything that could be grown or manufactured in mass quantities: clothing, produce, and various housewares made from wood, plastic, and cheap metals like tin and aluminum.

On day-long vigils lasting well into the night, thousands of Lagosians lined the streets, shoulder to shoulder, stall to stall. Drivers trapped in the traffic jumble of the city’s narrow streets often rolled down their car windows to buy bottled drinks or long-distance calling cards from the hawkers who weaved between the bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to make a sale.

Two days into my trip, I bought a handkerchief while sitting with my mother and aunt in the backseat of a car, on the way to pick up outfits for the memorial ceremony. The salesman looked about 15. Traffic began rolling again before he could collect his money, so he ran between the moving vehicles to catch up with us. His job was dangerous for sure, but he was lucky to have made any money at all. He competed with countless others: older men, boys from the country, and immigrants from all over Africa working the streets.

As I wiped sweat and grime from my face, browning my cheap white handkerchief, I tried to ignore the incessant honking and black exhaust plumes from the cars around us. Sedated by the heat, I felt like yawning but tried hard not to: the filthy haze in the air made me fearful of taking deep breaths. It struck me then that my family and the people of Lagos breathed this air daily. The thought chilled me despite the energy-sapping heat. It had never occurred to me that just getting sufficient oxygen might be one of the daily struggles Nigerians faced, smiling all the while.

Considering their determination to overcome difficult circumstances, I tried not to fret over the next day’s memorial service. But I continued to view the ceremony with my American mind, one that finds dealing with death awkward and depressing. At the very least, I saw it as a chore: attending the funeral of someone I hardly knew largely out of a sense of obligation.  

Finding the silver lining

But, to Nigerians, death can be cause for a celebration. Many things are.

Despite their unrelenting social, economic, and environmental woes, Nigerians express a relentless optimism and sincere exuberance. They see through the suffocating smog that blankets their capital to the fecund (if fast-disappearing) tropical forests in the rest of the country. They hear over the constant commotion of traffic the drumbeat of a rich musical history that includes the internationally influential Afrobeat and the lively Fuji — a hybrid of traditional beats and an ’80s synthesizer aesthetic — named so by a musician who was inspired by the famous volcano in Japan. They read between the headlines that daily spell out political doom, finding instead an opportunity for change and constructive leadership.

Faced with the tumult of the world around them, most Nigerians hold fast to religion — be it Christianity, Islam, tribal beliefs, or some sort of fusion faith — focusing not on death, but on the celebration of a life well-lived and a wonderful afterlife to follow. As a result, the Nigerians I encountered were truly a joyful people.

For me, the day of my grandmother’s memorial service was an interface of all aspects of this diverse culture. The Catholic church service was solemn and prompt, but the day ended the way many things seem to end in Nigeria: with a party.

More people attended the reception than the church service. As we early birds sat outside under a large tent, waiting to be served, I looked at everyone’s attire, which seemed like an attempt to showcase every color imaginable.

It was the third party that week for one of my aunts, a 50-year-old school headmistress. Four parties a week is not unusual for her, so she has a stack of colorful outfits, nearly as tall as I am, to wear for such occasions. In that stack are iro and gele, wrap-around skirts with matching headdresses worn with a buba, a blouse that might match or contrast the color of the skirt.

Nearly every woman at the party wore one of these traditional outfits. Someone wore white with a blue diamond pattern; another wore gold with wine-red flowers. Someone else had on a black buba with gold polka dots and green French-script swirls. Both men and women donned ornately embroidered materials, and members of the same family usually wore matching outfits. In this way, clothing was an expression of two important sources of Nigerian happiness: strong family ties and an impeccable sense of style.

The clothing in all of its scintillating intricacy — and downright costliness in some cases — called to mind another Nigerian value: wealth. Everyone at our party had his or her best foot forward, likely encased in a brand new, flashy shoe. Likewise, wrists, necks, fingers, and ears displayed the most expensive (or most expensive-looking) jewelry people owned. Anything less is barely better than turning up in jeans and a T-shirt to Nigerians. Real gold is precious and treated like a family heirloom. Those of us who could not afford the real thing — and I believe that included a good portion of the attendees — proudly sported inexpensive knock-offs.

The food, when it arrived, was some of the finest (if basic) Nigerian cuisine, cooked by paid women who had been peeling, boiling, and stirring outdoors since the night before. Bits of roasted goat meat and vegetables decorated jolof rice made red by cooking in a tomato sauce. Side dishes included moyin moyin, or bean cake, a soft mound of ground beans mixed with water and steamed inside banana leaves, and egusi, a spicy spinach dish with shrimp and meat. Sweet fried plantain, another staple, barely left room for even the thought of dessert. Everything was served hot — cool food is blasphemy in Nigeria — with a soul-lifting combination of tastes, textures, and colors.

The various elements of the party seemed designed to appeal to all five senses. After the guests had eaten their fill, the music started and partygoers of all ages let loose. There was not only dancing, but also “spraying,” a local custom in which dancers place cash on one another’s faces, necks, and shoulders, all the while moving to that irresistible beat. At times, perhaps at a wedding reception where a new bride is the focus of spraying, Nigeria’s multicolored bills actually float in the air, and it’s easy to see where the custom might have gotten its name.

Why they dance

In some ways, the vigorous Nigerian social life is a response to the country’s downtrodden condition. Certainly, it’s a great way to deal with the day’s frustrations and release energy that seems futilely directed elsewhere, say, at environmental protection.

But there’s something more, I think.

Nigerians hold on to what cannot be quashed by the turbulence of the modern world. They have music, ever present, with instruments such as the talking drum, which for centuries has perfectly mimicked the intonations of the Yoruba language. And they have each other, revered elders and cherished children. And for these things, they are truly grateful.

It’s right there in the language. When one person asks another in Yoruba, “How are you?” the second responds “Mo dupe,” or “I give thanks.”  It’s not just senseless giddiness that keeps them smiling and laughing.

At my grandmother’s party, the most unique elements of Nigerian culture came together like a talented jazz ensemble, playing off one another, giving the best of what they had well into the night and then a little while longer. Friends conversing would suddenly break into a popular song. We younger ones danced to before-our-time favorites that morphed seamlessly, in the middle of a long music set, into Christian praise hymns.

And although the invitation had expressly said “no night party” in red letters, by 9 p.m. the dancing had only just begun.

This idyllic atmosphere did not unfold in a vacuum. The cost of the service, along with the choir, cooks, photographer, and caterers, proved to be a financial strain, despite the combined resources of family and friends. And for all the enthusiasm displayed, illness or death kept some seats conspicuously empty. But this was taken as all the more reason to dance harder, laugh louder, chat longer.

It was death that had brought us together that evening, but I was hard-pressed to remember it when I looked at the jubilant faces of my grandmother’s children and siblings. Perhaps they would save their sadness for another day. But even so, I’m sure it would soon dissolve into the bliss of another long night of festivities.

jennifero