Nigerian Ghosts

Nigerians do not celebrate Halloween. But living in an expat community far from home, people go to great lengths to celebrate familiar traditions. And Halloween is no different. This year enthusiastic friends in a neighboring community commemorated the American tradition with B00ze Fest. The party itself progressed as any other party would: plenty of food, music, camaraderie, and even a margarita machine. Toward the end of the evening, the oppressive humidity and one too many margaritas caught up with me and I ventured outside in my "beer wench" costume for fresh air.

At the end of the walkway my friend Echo sat in a plastic chair observing who came and went. He waited for us and our friends to finish our enjoyable evening so he could finish his work by driving us home. We exchanged pleasantries, and I stopped beside him to chat about nothing in particular.

As it happened, I took a seat on the asphalt beside Echo’s chair out of the streetlight’s reach and obscured by shadows. After a bit, I began to notice something peculiar. People trickled in and out, some offering a surreptitious hello but most passed avoiding eye contact all together. “They do not see us,” Echo observed. I thought nothing of this simple statement at the time, and we continued to chat unobserved by those who passed by.

Then yesterday, I saw Echo on my way to the gym. He once again waited by the car to fulfill his duties as a driver. As we spoke, I discovered he attended college and received degrees in city planning and geographical studies. He is a smart and well spoken individual so his education level did not surprise me. But his current vocation did! Why is a college graduate, who has a strong work ethic and ambitions for bigger and better things, working as a driver?

"I have struggled with that for years," Echo said, with obvious pain and anger in his voice. He spent six years in school training for a job he would never have...six years he now feels were a waste. "They don't think we a human beings! They don't think we have anything here [pointing to his head]," he says of those with more respectable jobs. And so he continues to struggle, knowing how much he is capable of but trapped in a land of inopportunity.

Then I think of the our steward John, who speaks English, Igbo, and German; or Johnson, another driver, who can clearly explain and differentiate Yoruba grammatical cases. Yet somehow, their vocations obscure their intelligence in the eyes of others. They are left in the shadows; they are present but unseen; they are passed by but unacknowledged. And, like so many others, they remain ghosts in their own home.