Field Notes

PhD candidate, doing fieldwork in Ibadan, Nigeria.

[bauzeitgeist]

A Comet jet is greeted by a trumpet, Kano, Nigeria, c.1960

[ogbenifemi]

Interesting

[nigeria4ever]

c. 1958

[ogbenifemi]

“Will-Men”

Location: Bodija Market, Ibadan

Earlier this year, when civil servants had not been paid their salaries for months, market women were affected. Many of them daily earners, they complained of low patronage. Their hope of survival dimmer, each passing moment. 

These women wanted me to buy something from them, no matter how small. 

“Please just buy one tuber of yam,” the one standing begged.

“If we do not sell today, there will be no food on the table.” The other said in Yoruba.

In Ibadan, many women are largely the hustlers. Making ends meet for themselves and their families, usually with children strapped to the back.  

Women are the first people you meet in the morning. They are also the last people you see at night.

This takes a strong will. That is why they are will-men. 

[nigeria4ever]

Hard to imagine market streets so empty anywhere in Nigeria, nonetheless Onitsha.

[nigeria4ever]

[nigeria4ever]

All work and no play makes Rev Joseph Smith a dull missionary. 

[nigeria4ever]

Self-portrait of a missionary, when his camp chair betrayed him in 1907.

[nigeria4ever]

And on my last night in Ibadan, Benson encountered the fountain he’ll install in front of his house when he becomes a ‘big man’ (har-har)

[nigeria4ever]

[nigeria4ever]

On this point, I agree with Mr. Lyttelton: language should always have a good appetite.

[cultureartsociety]

Palace guard in Zaria, Nigeria / © of Nigerien architect Rahim Danto Barry’s publication titled “ Portes D'Afrique” #architectureedits

[nigeria4ever]

The old-city of Zaria, and the Emir’s Palace, September 2015.

[nigeria4ever]

One of the guards at the Emir’s Palace in Zaria, holding a hollow (but heavy) elephant’s foot.

[nigeria4ever]

Selection of passport photos of Nigerian pilgrims, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s.

[nigeria4ever]

When Islam met Capitalism (in 1964): ​

[nigeria4ever]

Emir of Kano at Eid-al-Adha, 1964, “in the garb of an alhaji.”

[nigeria4ever]

From the New Nigerian, 1964.