http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/12033149/Dear-Nigeria-goodbye-and-thank-you.html

Dear Nigeria,

After some time as your guest in Abuja, I wanted to thank you for teaching me:

Patience. If you’d told me I’d spend a year of my life waiting for a Nigerian visa, I might have backed out of the plan altogether and never made it to Abuja. I am glad I stuck with it. Now, if anyone wants to help with my next visa ...

To thank God. Whether you have faith or not, this is a philosophy worth taking with you through life: be grateful for what you have. One night when I had no power, no water, no phone, no candles and my air con unit caught fire, a friend told me I should thank God my house didn’t burn down and that I had somewhere to sleep. She was right.

That a day can only be improved with a proper greeting. Say it with me: “How is your day?” “How was your night?”
The kindness of strangers. It made such a difference to hear people shout “I hope you’re enjoying Nigeria” at me in the street.
That the British Airways luggage allowance is a target every time you fly. However hard you try, there’ll always be someone with more than you (it might even be me).

That if someone passes you a baby on a plane, not to worry, just to give it a cuddle and wait for someone to take it off you again.
Your names — Christmas, Paradise, Endurance, Peculiar, Loveth — are the most beautiful around.

Always to light a candle when showering in a windowless bathroom. The day you forget is the day your power cuts when you have shampoo in your eyes.

Not to ask, but instead to admire, how a car got to Lagos from California still sporting US plates and bumper stickers. My favourite ever was the car claiming on its bumper to be driven by a Texan policeman, though what he was doing moonlighting as a Lagos cabbie is anyone’s guess.
Exactly where my limits are with pepper.

The answer is somewhere after suya and before goat’s head soup. Don’t push it any further.
That akara (fried bean cakes) are God’s own breakfast. That eating three akara is fine, four is filling, five is piggy and six is unacceptable.

How to dress properly. I will never again think holes, frays or missing buttons are OK when out in public.

Overdressing is not a thing. Too many sparkles are not enough, pink is always better than black.

Politics is in everything. When your rubbish bin disappears under election posters, when every taxi driver knows which ministry the former governor of Rivers State should take on, then you know you’re in a place for political animals.

That no avocado tastes better than the one from your garden tree and no orange is better than a green orange from Benue State.

That a road trip is never complete without a tyre change.

That anything can be bought and sold. There’s a margin for everything so long as you’re skilled enough to find it.

To express gratitude, not annoyance, when someone says “Clementine, you have added – you look so fat.”

How to kill a cockroach in seconds.

That, unless you want to do the above, to check behind the shower curtain before you get in.

The true meaning of the word traffic.

That it’s OK to dance badly so long as you dance a bit, and that it’s OK to have people tell you while you’re dancing that you’re a terrible dancer because everyone knows oyinbo cannot dance.

The romance of Nigerian English. Never again will someone clear glasses from a table with the words “let me decongest this” or park the car saying “let me find some road that’s unencumbered”.

There is no journey a Toyota Camry cannot take on.

That if you need to feel relaxed, there’s Calabar. If you need to go wild, there’s Lagos. That if you want to see history, there’s Kano. That if you want natural splendour, there’s Plateau State or the confluence of the Niger and Benue at Lokoja. There are many Nigerias in Nigeria.

It doesn’t matter what it says your occupation is on paper because it’s all hustle. In my time here I have been a writer, a business advisor and a playschool teacher. I do not yet have a catfish farm but it must be a matter of time.

That what’s in the news should not cancel out the million things that make this country great. You are extraordinary.

My regards to your families,
Clementine

nonsense

Believe it or not, dat oyinbo man fell in love with this great country.

Ehm. . . What am I supposed to say?? I believe a woman wrote this. . Great country my foot.

JUST WATCHING

Believe me when I say that every foreigner enjoy NigeriA because there are plenty of unemployed and unemployable serfs at their beck and call.
They get to live the lived they cannot dream about living in their own countries.
Drivers, domestic servants, police guards, Grace and favour mansions, 5 star hotel stay and not to talk about people suffering from low self esteem

I wish her story can make fp

Oyinbo pepper's Ode on her visit to Nigeria.

.

citizenisb:
I wish her story can make fp

Sounds like a male write up although the name is feminine and also, coincidentally, happens to be the name of a type of orange fruit.

Oyibo have a great life in Nigeria.

they are cushioned from poverty, so are able to truely experience and enjoy our great country.

I hope he shares his positive experience with his people when he gets home.

The kindness of strangers. It made such a difference to hear people shout “I hope you’re enjoying Nigeria” at me in the street.

is this an excuse for harassing Nigerians in foreign countries?

wonderful write-ups, I'd say...

lol, maybe I could write this likewise if I were in say, Baltimore. Nigeria, to the masses, is a country on auto pilot.

Skilled in his/her writing
.but y are people hating? The writer wrote facts and in a beautiful way

chai!!! you can tell this guy enjoyed his stay. and he entered the streets too

Not really, Oyibos marvel at out suffering and smiling attitude, but every time they faced with other option of staying in Naija, the choose their country.
It's a lie we have told ourselves, Naija is a mess.. A country like Dominican Republic is a tropical paradise, but not as rich as Naija, but Oyibos are buying houses and relocating.