I woke up twice last night to sweating and mosquito bites,
and this isn’t the first time. When it happens my routine is to get on whatsapp
and chat with my family back in the States because they’re usually awake during
my night hours. Once I chimed in on the conversation and they were surprised
asking, ‘what are you doing up’? They’re met with my response, ‘Mosquitoes and
I’m sweating’. It has become the family joke and now one of my younger brothers
is even more convinced that Nigeria isn’t for him. He left the country at age
9, and came to visit when in his 20s. He’s spoiled by the usual American AC
life. When I suggest he consider moving back, his repetitive response is a
reminder that the last time he visited he suffered constant perspiration, ‘Na
man! Even when you take showers mid day, you still come out sweating’. Well
Frank, maybe you should lose some of your muscles because that would help.
Perhaps that’s why men I see here are usually slender. It’s called Adaptation.
The heavier you are (muscles or fat), the more uncomfortable you will be
without AC. Don’t get me wrong, Houston and Waco Texas can be smokin’ hot in
the summers. What mitigates the discomfort is the access to Air Conditioning.
Lord, I need one of those right now. Wait, I have one in my room, but no light,
and it’s surely cost inefficient to run the generator all night long, although
as I type this at 5am, I hear my neighbors doing just that. With fuel scarcity,
long queues to buy at already jacked up prices, impatient Nigerians who wanna jump
the cue because they know someone who knows someone who works at the fueling
station, who wants to bear the brunt of that movement?
Enjoyment here during
the hot days and nights is to have light in the middle of the night, turn on
your AC AND fan and sleep blissfully. It has been weeks I tasted of this
privilege, and my hope for my country is that one day all people will move from
perceiving this as enjoyment to become everyday necessity. They say Africa is
the darkness continent, producing significantly less power supply than our
counterparts. And God said, ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT’. We don’t need to wait for God
to cure our ills in this land. He already established things, as they should
be. It’s left for man to take substance and make tangible realities. So, where
do we start because it’s now 5:18am and the chickens are already crowing and
this woman isn’t ready to face the challenges of the day because she’s been up
for over an hour and a half doing research and trying to find mosquitoes to kill. She has resorted
to just cursing death upon them. Yes, it has come to that. No wonder men and
women all over this town sometimes look angry and any little irritant leads
them to shout and even engage in fist fights. It’s because they’ve been
suffering heat at night and heat in the day, and most without access to Air
conditioned offices, especially manual labourers and keke and taxi drivers.
Those are the most hostile one I come across. No wonder! I leave you with this-
I once heard a Nigerian comedian say, ‘how can you expect a man to be cool-headed
when he’s out in the sun all day. Give him AC and it’ll cool off his head and
that man will become a different person”. This comedian is on to something.
