EXCUSE ME SIR: The American Way

A friend once came from Nigeria to visit me in America and I mistreated him. Unknowingly.

Upon his arrival, I went to Iroko Market, the local African market where everything from ugba to ube can be found - but in a frozenly lamentable state. I bought every kind of ingredient and condiment that usually causes a go-slow in any good Nigerian egusi soup. Before I left the market (it is a super market, not anything close to Balogun Market) I went to the back and heaved a bag of Iyan (powdered pounded yam) on my shoulder and grabbed some bottled palmwine. Why? Because I wanted to give my friend a taste of Nigeria in America. We Nigerians don't travel light; we take our baggage wherever we go - including a heavy and debilitating culture of good hospitality, which I call African Hospitality on American Express.

We discussed everything from Nigerian politics to good old times, when he was the first person that bought my art works in Lagos in the early 90s. By the time the jetlag was dropping to his jaw, the pounded yam was ready. The egusi was fully covered with brokoto, bush meat, pomo, periwinkles, shaaky, fried fish, dried fish, bonga fish, okporoko - in fact, the soup was assaulted by assorted meat. My friend ate really well and drank some of the palmwine which he said tasted like badly mixed alabokun.

That was not a problem, I went to the fridge and brought a criminally cold six-pack small stout, aka Guinness. He beamed a smile and by the time the evening sun tipped off the sky, my friend was asleep.

The following day was Saturday. There was a Nigerian wedding around the neigbourhood. Excitiedly I told my friend he wouldn't miss Nigeria during his short stay in America. He smiled and followed me to the party. Again, there was all kinds of Nigerian food. Amala and efuo riro was on the menu. Cow legs the size of Julius Berger earth-moving equipment were served in large trays. Souvenirs went round and we sprayed dollars on the celebrants. Adewale Ayuba, the original Mr. Johnson, played good music that evening and Nigerian women danced like koso with gele resting at the tip of their well powdered foreheads. Asoebi brightly coloured the party and non-Nigerian friends envied our cultural heritage. By the time we left for home, we were quite full but the weather was cold, a reminder that the party might look and feel like a proper Lagos one, but this is America.

On Sunday morning, I woke my friend up at 8am to get ready for Bethel Fellowship Church. A church that is 99.9 percent Nigerian, except for a Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean family - whom we converted to Nigerians and allowed God to take care of the Christianity. The opening prayers rattled the earth the church was built on and the praise and worship rendered in Nigeria's three major languages including pidgin English would shame a King Sunny Ade concert any day, anytime.

By the time we sat down, my friend had shaken off the devil and evil spirit that may have followed him from Africa and he was sweating as if he just climbed Akpongbon Bridge with a bag of rice on his head. After the service, everybody greeted him and shook hands with him and hugged him. Discussants lingered at the church compound while photographers took pictures of families in every corner. The weather was nice.

I felt good,because I made sure my friend did not miss Nigeria too much. To me then,the Nigeria I had in mind was utopia - a perfect home full of nostalgia for every traveler; a place one should yearn to return to after a few days or weeks of vacation; a beautiful motherland whose badge one should wear the way a hunchback wears his uke.

On our way home from church that day, my friend asked me "Victor, when am I going to see America?" I did not quite get his question first, so I went - huh? And he replied with serious anger in his eyes - "I say when I go see America na, if I wanted to eat Nigerian food and go to Nigerian party and church I would have remained in Lagos because we have them boku." I took a deep breath and let out a pained laugh. I apologised. I had mistaken him for my other friends that visit from interior America, remote areas where Nigerians are not many and kparakpor is low.

That night we went to Washington DC. We ate fat juicy, greasy burgers from McDonalds and drank Budweiser all night. I made sure he paid for his food and drink. Before he went shopping at the mall, I gave him a new copy of Yellow Pages and a DC Map so he wouldn't get lost.On the day he was to return to Nigeria, I called a cab to take him to the airport, because that is the American way.