God Please, I Don’t Want to Die in Shomolu

Last week, my line manager was informing me of her vacation plans as she handed over some tasks to me. One conversation led to another, and somehow we started talking about how some people sacrifice rest for adventure during vacations; how some people do not really use vacations to rest but to walk around and stress themselves out.

She was trying to tell me about an experience she had one time in Italy, and she casually said, “You know some of those tourist buses leave quite early and…”

I stared at her confused. I don’t know anything ma. I have only ever been to Ghana and it was for a wedding.

”God please I don’t want to die in Shomolu” I murmured as she showed me photos of herself in Paris and Italy. I asked her if Paris smelled, as I have read several articles about the Paris Syndrome – a sense of extreme disappointment exhibited by many individuals when visiting Paris, who feel that the city does not live up to their expectations. I asked her about the Amalfi coast and several other places I have only read about.

As she indulged me by answering all my questions in detail, I mulled over what it must feel like to explore the world and see the world from a place of curiosity and relaxation and not anxiety and the need to make a better life for oneself. A travelling bereft of angst and stress. What it must feel like to experience snow for the first time with giddy delight, to visit the gold souk in Dubai and marvel at the blouses and dresses made entirely of gold! It must be wondrous to be teased by the ice cream sellers in Turkiye and nuzzle against the friendly cats of Istanbul.

Praying not to die in Shomolu extends beyond living out of Shomolu in itself. I do not even hate Shomolu but I also do not love it here either. Shomolu is an overzealous but warm aunty that will keep you well fed and clothed throughout your stay with her but she also has a crazy temper and wakes you up early every morning with her shouting at someone on the phone or praying loudly against the enemies from her father’s village. Shomolu is the aunty you take in small doses, so a 2 week vacation is pushing it with her and now extending it for years? Well…

I love my house, it is easily in the top three “‘finest” houses on my street, I love the warmth of my space, I love the colour that I chose to repaint my walls. I love the simple but beautiful piece of décor in my house that represents me and what I am at my core. I love my cute little plant whom I have named Ewe because it is an ewe. I like the fact that my space always smells nice except when I forget to throw out my bin on time. LOL. I love days I can spend being naked without a care in the world. I like that I can parade from my kitchen to my bedroom multiple times with different cuts of meats and I don’t have to provide a reason for eating as many meats as I want. Who gon check me boo? I love my bed, my sturdy but comfy bed, my many pillows – I have 4 pillows! I love my wardrobe, I love the smell of oils, attars and perfumes that embraces me when I open my wardrobe. I even love how earthy my bedroom feels because of the sage green curtains I chose for it. BUT, I do want to experience a world beyond Shomolu!

Why should I be content being a big fish in a small pond if I can be a big fish in the big wide sea and learn from bigger fishes?

I do not like the neighbourhood, it can be quite noisy and naija neighbourly, right adjacent my house the woman that sells coke or fruits or whatever she sells is always seated and staring, it is uncomfortable and jarring and sometimes when I and my friends return from events and stuff at 12am, she is there, seated and staring! I hate the fact that my neighbourhood never sleeps, there seems to be a nonstop buzz buzz buzz in the air! It is jarring! 2am, I can hear the faint sound of someone’s radio, people gisting or arguing or some people partying. Sometimes, as early as 5am, people would be arguing in the next street and for someone with sensitive ears like mine it is torture! I remember during Ramadan this year, a woman had engaged in a cursing competition with her neighbour or sister in law and I was appalled at how women who had woken to prepare sahur could throw aside the entire meaning of Ramadan to trade curses at the top of their voices. I hate the churches! The multitudes of them plying every street in Shomolu, the cacophony of noise that accompanies every vigil session, the disregard for human rest and sanity, the way Sundays are no longer rest days for me because it is nonstop disoriented singing from several churches from 9am – whenever!

God please, I don’t want to die in Shomolu. I have seen a bit of the world that exists beyond where I currently stay, during drives around. On my phone and in shows. I do not want my reality to be limited to this! There is no reality of mine that would ever wish to settle in an environment as deeply draining as the part of Shomolu I have found myself in, and I say this because there are certain areas in Shomolu that are more coordinated and gated even! Like Okulaja street, but right by the gate is a sign that a church is located inside the close, when does it end?! My belief is that getting a better job to afford a better space would help greatly, but I would rather even leave Lagos in its entirety and if possible Nigeria!

Not wanting to die in Shomolu doesn’t mean I prefer a death in Ikoyi. Shomolu, aside from my intense dissatisfactions with living there, also represents my yearning and my longing: a reach for something I haven’t quite gotten a hold on yet

While I am deeply grateful for all God has deemed me worthy of deserving, I would also want to explore the expanse of all he has created. The people. The places and the experience. What is even out there? How beautiful can it get? Can it be better than this? Crazier than this? More eventful than this? I would like to pull apart the layers and layers of the abundance in God’s creation and see the road it leads to. I want more. I yearn for more and I will be more.

This is why it is important that I do not die in Shomolu, because it is time already for me to carry what I have experienced in the Shomolu part of my existence and take it elsewhere.

One day I will write a love letter to Shomolu but today is not that day, in fact, as I type this the church that is a harbinger to my existence in this neighbourhood has started their Thursday session as I type this. It is quite surprising because their service starts at 9am sharp but today they are starting by 9:27am and this would go on till 12:30 or as the spirit leads.

Yoruba would say, a woman needs to taste the hands of two different husbands so she can decide if the first one is better than the second one. I am ready to divorce Shomolu amicably and wish them well. It is not you, it is me. I want more and I don’t want to die here…