Moving to a new country comes with its ups, downs and super-hilarious moments. Here are a few of those funny incidents that have happened thus far:
- But I ordered a veggie pizza…
There is a little hidden treasure in Abuja that serves the most amazing pizza and it’s called The Secret Garden. The pizza is always fresh and made with the best ingredients, so considering how big of fans we are of this gem we decided to order the pizza for delivery. I selected the vegetarian pizza with mushrooms, onions, artichokes, and tomatoes. I was expecting a full-on veggie pizza with the vegetables gloriously spread throughout my entire pie. Instead, what I got was a pizza divided into quadrants, and each fourth had a different topping. So instead of enjoying a delicious full-on veggie pizza I had a slice of mushroom, a slice of tomato, a slice of onion, and a slice of artichoke. Yeah, that totally happened. - I don’t understand.
I tend to break things…very often. So the other day, I accidently pulled my curtains and the curtain rod fell down. Naturally, I called the maintenance team in my apartment building to have them come up and reattach the rod, and basically, our conversation was a hot mess. This is roughly how it went:
“Hi, Charles! I need some help with the curtain rod, it fell down.”
”Ma, your water heater?”
“No, the curtain rod.”
“The water heater is broke?”
“No, the curtain rod fell.”
“Okay, okay, I go see.”Oh, it’s incredible challenging when you speak the same language as everyone around you but you don’t understand them and they don’t understand you. The struggle is real.
- You want me to what?
I went to Mango a few weeks ago to try on a nice dress for a party I was going to, and the sales associate would not let me try on the white dress without putting a bag over my head. I laughed so hard. I thought she was completely ridiculous, but I did it anyway. I am not a very complicated person (at least, I think I am not), and most of the time I go with the flow, but this situation took the cake. - …because everyone needs five keys for the W/C.
When we first arrived to Abuja we stayed at The Nordic Hotel for two weeks. Upon arriving at the hotel, we received one key for the main entrance to our room and five keys for the en-suite bathroom. I don’t even know what to say about this situation, but it was really confusing as to why we had so many bathroom keys and only one key to the main door. Especially when every time we left our room we had to hand our key to the receptionist if we wanted to have the room cleaned. You would think that if they took the time to make five keys for our en-suite bathroom, they would have taken the time to make more than one key for the entrance of our room. - All I want is to take a bath.
Our apartment came with a jacuzzi in the bathroom. At first, I thought this was a dream come true. Who wouldn’t want a bathtub with jets in their bathroom? So, a few weeks ago, I was so excited about my bathtub that I decided that I was going to soak in my new jacuzzi. I started filling the water and everything was going fine, up until the hot water in my tiny water heater ran out. So, I decided to improvise. I grabbed a bucket and went to the guest bathrooms and filled my bucket with water and dumped the hot water into my jacuzzi. By the time I had emptied all the hot water in my entire apartment, I no longer wanted to take a bath. It was so much effort and caused me so much pain along the way that it wasn’t worth it. I simply can’t understand why they chose to install a jacuzzi without a water heater with enough capacity to fill it. It just doesn’t make much sense. I did, however, feel like I was in the 1800s filling up my bathtub with a bucket of boiling water. - So, you’re telling me that the post office doesn’t deliver.
Now, it may sound completely crazy, but I expect the post office to deliver my packages to my door. Apparently that is a completely wild assumption on my part. The post office only delivers certain packages, and when they do deliver, you have to give the guy a little something for making his way to your door.
Well, that’s all for now. I will write some more about my experience in Abuja soon. Do you have a similar experience? Comment below and tell me all about it! I would love to hear your story.
The Curvy Spine 
Such a culture shock eh? My husband lived and worked in Nigeria for 15 years before I met him and he has many tales to tell. Looking forward to hearing more of your tales.
Oh, wow! Where in Nigeria? I love it so far. Yes, the culture shock eats at me some times, but so far, I appreciate begin there so much. It’s opening my eyes to a completely different world and way of living, and I think it’s healthy.
My husband was stationed in the Shell compound in Port Harcourt, near Lagos. He worked there for 14 years as a helicopter pilot so got around a bit. He met most of his best friends there too and they live all over the world now. He also helped to build wells as charity work in some areas and when he left gave enough financial to help his ‘servant’ (who he had trained) to set up his own catering business in Lagos.
WOW, 14 years in Port Harcourt! That couldn’t have been easy. We are also trying to provide financial aid to our one employee. We are paying for his education so that when we leave, he can get a better job. I’m excited to see how different our lives will become after being in Abuja for a while.
Hey you most of the world was filling tin baths from kitchen sinks in the 1950’s! This little boy remembers sharing the soapy water in front of a coalfire shared with 2 brothers about 8, 6, & 4 years old. Sons of very poorly paid Salvation Army officers serving a mining community. In the last50 years the acceleration of luxery for most in the west has been incredible and those born aftertthe 70’s have no idea. My grandfather once said that to me, I took no notice but 30 years on he would never believed what my thumbs are transmitting to you or how. My sister in law could not figure out why the San Paulo post office could not find her parcel from me until I in the UK suggested she waved some cash around. The same lack of thought or corruption still exists in our societys it’s just so well hidden and subtle we don’t notice. – happy Christmas curvy – dave the carpetbeater
Hey Dave- It’s so true: corruption exists EVERYWHERE. It’s just so blatant in some places that there’s nothing else to do but to react. In a twisted way, I enjoy it. Yes, it’s true, it’s frustrated and funny, because I have never lived in a place like Nigeria, but I also love the honesty of it all. It’s an incredible place to live. I love it with all it’s madness. And juts FYI, I did know that the world was filling up buckets in the 50s, and in fact I know many people still do that, but it’s something I’ve never done so it made me feel like I was part of the the movie The Scarlet Letter or something like that. I had this visualisation of me in an oak tub soaking away. Hope all is well! Big hug your way 🙂
x
Well well,im Nigerian(fathers side) and the funny thing is that you adapt to crazy living until you live outside of Nigeria and wonder ” why all of these?”. But its home, and sometimes home is familiar and comfortable even when one is aware of the craziness.
Its the same way i feel outside of Nigeria i wonder why all the racism…both overt and covert. Why all the impersonal, mind your business and individualistic living. For example, one can be neigbours and have no idea or care if they exist. No wonder its lonely. How about disrespectful kids, who consider their parents who invested so much i them as Liabilities and ship them to old people’s home in their old age. Then no offence but( we hardly ever see it here in Nigeria) “Lesbians and Gay people doing their thing– kissing and smooching in street etc” To me,these were shocking and distressing experience but i adapted, and sometimes feeling a strong sickness for home.
I think thats the beauty of Living in different places with different culture. I have come appreciate both the beauty and the ugliness of it. Life would be painfully boring without the diversity, exposure,learning and experience living in different places and countries afford us.
So I hope I did not offend you with this post, because that was not at all my intention. This was suppose to be a funny light-hearted post about the things I’ve laugh about while living in Abuja. However, please know that I think Nigeria is incredibly charming. I often find myself laughing at the madness, but that doesn’t mean I am not completely enamoured with it all.
There really is no comparison, between a funny pizza and real-life issues that occur in the states. Racisim, sexism, isolationism. These are shameful horrific things that are part of the American culture, but I pray that it is not the only thing that comes to mind when we think of the USA, because that is incredibly heart-breaking and it brings me so much sadness.
Home is always home and with it means we are sometimes blind to it all. I have trouble finding the humour in my own home. I can’t see what’s funny about the USA,other than maybe Walmart amongst some other recent shameful news, but I am sure that those who visit have a nice laundry list of ridiculous things that happen to them while in the states.