Nigeria: Day One Continued

I failed miserably at staying awake. The hours between 6 and 8 PM were a total loss. I did not even gain the satisfaction of feeling refreshed because I woke up at least 50 times during that nap. If you don’t know, I am a light sleeper, and in this noisy city, that equaled no sleep. So I literally would lie down on the bed, fall asleep, wake up, look at my watch, realize two or three minutes had passed, tell my self to get up, try and will myself to move, and in the process fall back asleep; repeat. Two hours later, I broke the cycle. Mostly, I awoke because I was supposed to call my boss around 8PM for dinner.

After receiving a busy tone from his phone, I went down to the dining hall of the Hotel and found a group of Houston coworkers well into some post-meal bottles of wine. They offered some leftover pizza and I eagerly obliged. But being old, most of those guys went to bed around 9, and another recent hire and I stayed behind. The EuroCup was in full effect so we went to the bar across the hall where I was introduced to Star Beer. Evidently, in Nigeria, you can choose between Heineken and Star when it comes to beer. There are more, but those definitely seem to be the most popular. This leads me to the legend (or rumor) behind Star beer. Once upon a time ago, Heineken opened a brewery in Nigeria to satisfy the demand from it’s local customers. Soon the brewery went defunct and was abandoned. Not long after, a Star was born that somehow tastes remarkably like Heineken. And that’s the story, but the source of it warned me that it could be completely false. Anyways, at the bar with my Caucasian friend, the Nigerian bartender asks my friend Ryan where he is from. He says the US. Then she turns and asks me where I am from, and I say the US. Then she proceeds to look very confused. She asks, ‘Are you from the US, America?’ I say yes. Then she says, ‘but’, and rubs her skin. I, shocked that she might think there are no black people in America, look at my friend who is just plain confused, and explain to her that there are plenty of black people in America. She then goes and gets a friend and explains that both me and the white guy are from the same place. Ryan, finally understanding the situation, adds in that we even work in the same building for the same company. More shock and incredulity. All in all, it was a revelation for all parties involved. I almost refuse to believe that their misconception was genuine, but perhaps it was.

Not long after that, the bar closed and we were forced to take our drinks to our rooms like drunkards. What’s awesome is that the giant bottles of Star beer we were drinking cost 300 Naira, which is about $2.50. Party at the Bayshore Suites.