Dad’s First Abroad Travel Experience: Lagos, Nigeria

As I sit my dad down to ask him about his first out-of-country travel experience, he looks to the ceiling as if that will help him remember all of the details, crosses his arms, and says, “well, Mexico I guess.” As I mentioned before, we grew up in South Texas which is about 3 hours from the United States/Mexico border. His earliest memories of going across were when he was about 18 years old. He spent many weekends there drinking and eating good food in Ma Crosby’s, and making friends in the border town of Acuna after attending a phenomenon called “Super Bull” in Del Rio, TX. Back then, no passport was needed and he attended this every year he could up until about 1993.

Ma Crosbys in Acuna, Mexico

After reminiscing on the Super Bull memories, it was time to get to the overseas travel stories. I first asked a question that I don’t think I have actually asked him before, “What made you want to go?” He replied simply, “I thought we could make some good money and see the world.” As someone who didn’t grow up traveling abroad, when he was given the opportunity through work, he decided to jump on it.

In May of 1996, they started a job on the US embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. He laughs to himself and says that the first thing he saw upon landing were burnt-out junk planes on each side of the runway and he asked himself “what did we get ourselves into?” There was also no A/C in the airport, which, he made sure to note and it seems he will never forget. They were picked up in an armored suburban by a man from the embassy and were then driven to their “new digs.” The embassy briefed them on a few important things like the necessity of double filtering their drinking water and were given handbooks just in case. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? The first few days that they were in their new apartment situated upon the top of the commissary, he noticed a few kids down the street playing soccer with balled-up rags. My dad decided to buy them a real soccer ball and says “you should’ve seen their faces”……………….until it got run over by a car a week later.

Shortly after arriving, they hired a local labor company to help them tear off the roof of the embassy. The whole crew showed up wearing flip-flops. Since they would be working with a lot of hot asphalt, dad knew he needed to buy them socks and shoes. He went to a local market and described being the “only white face amongst thousands of people.” When he got back to the embassy, he presented the shoes to the men and said “you’d think I gave them a million dollars.” They showed up the next day……in their flip-flops and told my dad they were gonna keep their new shoes and use them as their dress shoes. After convincing them to wear their shoes at work, he described that some of the younger guys would bang on their chests and tell him that they “needed power” which meant, they were ready to eat. He took them to the food vendors outside where they ate beans and rice which was a Nigerian staple. Through his stories, it seems that although Lagos is a very poor city, the people made the best out of what they had and were in turn, grateful for what we Americans would call the “little things in life.”

After being in Nigeria for about two months, he said they were only able to get about half of the job done because it was rainy season so they were due back in the states. It happened to be perfect timing because I was born 3 weeks later.

The crew headed back in October and my mom mentions behind me, “trust me, not long after you were born.” This time around, they stayed in a duplex my dad describes as “huge” as it had 7 bedrooms with a maid, butler, and an “excellent cook.” Apparently on a phone call to my mom at some point during this trip, he told her that the maid even ironed his socks and underwear to which she responded “well don’t get used to that.” Later he found out that she only did this to kill the eggs that bugs might’ve laid in his clothes.

Although he would’ve liked to, he couldn’t hang around the duplex all day, so back to work it was. Dad tells me that the US embassy is located on Victoria Island close to the German embassy, British High Commission, and the embassy of the Netherlands, amongst others. He explained that they were all connected by a road that was a loop, proceeds to say “like a 6” and draws a 6 in the air. (Not sure I would’ve been able to picture it without his help…). Anyways, not long after they had arrived back in Lagos, he was on the roof when a group of guys robbed a jewelry store on the island. When the thieves came off of the main road, they ended up on the road next to all of the embassies, and unbeknownst to the robbers, it was a “6” and they would eventually hit a dead end. Dad watched from above as they tried to run up the German embassy’s gates and got shot down by the Lagosian (don’t worry, I looked it up) cops. He said that the local workers all cheered, looked at him, and said “those men will never steal again.” He goes on to say that most people had such little money that possessions meant a lot to them, so stealing was a really big deal in Nigeria.

No worries, he did partake in fun things as well. After making friends with a few MSGs (Marine Security Guards) some of which were from Texas, (it’s always important to mention if someone is from Texas, obviously) he got to experience some of the nightlife with them and drank the local Star beer. They made sure to find the bottles that had the “least amount of stuff floating in them. It was either that or drink Heineken and I hate Heineken.” He said he always tried to buy rounds for the people from the embassies. In doing so, the facilities manager from the state department visited them from Washington and as he was talking to my dad and they were getting to know one another, he asked my dad where he was from. To avoid the “I’ve never heard of that place” responses, we usually explain it as a “small town south of San Antonio, TX.” Except this time when dad said “Natalia,” he actually knew where it was. He responded with “I know someone in Somerset”, which happens to be where my big brother graduated from high school and is located about 15 minutes from Natalia. There are people in San Antonio who have never heard of Natalia, but dad happened to find a guy in Nigeria that had. The term “small world” doesn’t feel like it describes it well enough.

One of my dad’s favorite memories from this trip was when they took a boat ride one weekend to an island where the local men climbed up coconut trees and brought them fresh coconut water. They spent the day there barbecuing and enjoying themselves. He said the beaches resembled Texas beaches, but there were too many riptides for them to swim. He goes on to mention a few more things about Lagos. He claims that the traffic was the “worst traffic I have ever seen, people literally drove on the sidewalks.” (This comment is coming from a man who I have seen drive backward in traffic on a highway more than once, so it must’ve been really bad.) Funny enough, Lagos was the first place he had ever tried Mediterranean food and it was the “best Greek food I’ve ever had to this day.”

When the job was over and it was time for them to leave close to Thanksgiving, two of the local men that worked for my dad who happened to be Muslim, gave him Christmas gifts. One was a handmade photo album and the other was a few art prints that my dad still has to this day. After receiving these gifts, one of them started to cry and my dad gave him his straw hat.

It’s amazing to me that a place like Lagos, Nigeria is where it all started for my dad. Although these experiences were not always pretty and were sometimes tough, it was enough for him to say, “I would like to do this again.” After hearing these stories, I think it was the people for him. The connections he was able to make in a short amount of time, and the way he got to experience a culture he had probably never even thought of, through these people and the way he was treated by them. I think that would make someone crave that adventure every time.