Security

In my country I can feel safe. I can walk outside after dark, although that is not true for the bigger cities anymore. And it is no longer recommended to walk outside after dark alone. Even though I do it where I live.

We have police walking, biking, driving, ever riding horses during summer, around in the city. I do not see them so often, but every once in a while I see one walking, biking or I see a policecar. On horses I don't remember if I have ever seen or if I only know about them.

But that is not my point. The police have guns, I think, they have batons, they have handcuffs and I never ever see what all they have. They are just dressed in blue, walking, driving, biking, what ever, around to see to our safety.

I was in Lagos. The first time I did not see policemen outside. Only the security at the airport, and my eyes...they had to be big like plates! WHAT a gun!! Not that small one that you put away so that nobody knows you have it, but the one that is child-size! Wow! If I would know guns I would probably be able to tell you what kind, but I didn't even dare to look straight at it!

This time when I was in Lagos we were walking and all of a sudden I saw them. The police checking the road. And the guns....amazing! I would not want to talk to them no matter what, I do not even think I would walk up to them if I was in trouble. They did not make me feel safe. They did not make me feel unsafe either, but they made me want to keep my eyes at the ground so that I could walk past them without them noticing me.

...yeah....cause that will work! The only white in the whole area! They will not notice me if I do not look at them....or do they??

Your eyes are...different

I was just sitting among some girls that Honey knows. I have met them before and I really like talking to them. We have discussed if I pray, if I can take them with me when I go, how I like it in Nigeria, stuff like that.

Todays topic was actually not them talking to me, but them talking to each other about me. I do not understand their language, they can be selling me for what do I know. I know that they will not, but still!

They were talking, pointing at me, pointing at my eyes and their own eyes. And I was surprised! What I know is that people here do not see eyecolor! ...well, what I know is only male response  of course, friends of mine that have told me about it. And here I am, in Lagos, among a bunch of girls that are truly discussing the color of my eyes!

I do not say anything, I let them be, they will turn to me, I know they will, when they are ready for it. And I didn't have to wait for long before one of the girls translate, she likes the color of my eyes, they are not like theirs, she call theirs black. Even tough in certain lights they have amber-color eyes, and that is so beautiful! A very dark color, that actually looks black if it would not be for the certain lights that make them show their real color. Anyway. She tells me that my eyes are, then she pauses for a moment, and tell me, they are different. I want to ask her, what color does she think I have, but the question slips my mind when she tells me that they have lenses here so that they can change the color of their eyes.

We have that too in Finland, I tell her.

And in my mind, I wonder, what is the point of changing the color of their eyes....as all the males I have talked to, does not even know that my eyes are different. The last one that I asked, told me that my eyes are black, and white. One have told me that I have green eyes. So, will guys even notice if a girl spends money on a lens just so that she can have different color on her eye?

Oh! I'm sorry!

There are so many different people on this worl. Some are white, some are black, some are red, some are yellow, some are smart, some are dumb, some are kind, some are evil. And the beauti of it, colour of your skin does not tell weather you are smart or dumb, kind or evil, we are all the same!

Colour is only the first thing you see when you see another person. Well, I usually look at the colour of the eyes first, but I have got to know that everybody doesn't even notice that there are different colours in eyes.

Here I live as the only white among everybody that is black. Do they treat me the same? No! I do not care that much, and I try not to notice. The most noticable is that everybody want to take pictures of me, I can handle that, I can smile, even though I can honestly say that in some pictures I do not smile for real, because I am so tired of smiling in a picture. They want to great me, say hi and I try to regocnize who greets me so that I can be polite enough to greet them back, though Honey still have to point out that there are people greeting me, I am still not used to complete strangers just wanting to say hi. And what is the right answer to ”Welcome!”? If it would be one time, then I can say tank you or thanks, but when I am faced with it about once a day. Well, it should be different people, so I guess it might me okay to say thank you to everybody...?

The biggest difference I met just yesterday, I was tired and dizzy, I guess I had not been drinking enough water, again. We were walking home, along the road that is mostly dirty messy puddle with dry areas along the sides where people walk. Honey was in front of me, I was looking at the ground to where I should put my feet, sometimes it is a small area where I can walk without sliding down in the mud. I was about to pass a group of men talking when I lost my balance for a second and bumped into one of them, I instantly turned to him and said that I am sorry. He quickly tunred to me, automatically answering sorry or it's okay or what ever he said, the words were lost for me when I saw the change in his face. From the automatic answer that he would give everybody, to the surpriced face seeing a white and the change to say that he was sorry instead of what ever he was about to tell me before. I did not stop to reflect about it, because we were on our way and I still needed to see where I put my feet.

But the surpriced face stayed with me. But I ca nunderstand, during this trip I have seen one white girl other than me, and Honey pointed out one white man, that I am not so sure was actually white, if he was he had spent a lot of time in the sun gaining some color, but I would not call him black.

Pop vine?

I am now in Lagos. At our hotel. We have the most funniest fridge ever! It does about as it self wants too....sometimes everything inside the fridge freezes! Sometimes everything inside the fridge melts....sometimes it is just off. And sometimes it behaves like it should be.

Today I was looking for something to eat or drink, I picked a yoghurtdrink that we bought, I left the fridge door open as I was trying to reorganize to make space and take away some stuff that was not supposed to freeze. When I think and drink I hear a POP-sound and all of a sudden the fridge has vine inside!

I quickly remove the vine bottle and realize it has to have broke, make it got frozen also...? Well, it didn't break, but the cap was pressed out because it WAS ice!

Letting the vine melt and then we had some vine drinking to do. Seriously GOOD vine! I could drink that one like juice! So nice! Hope I find this one at home.