DOWN THE LANE
Revising a Ritual, Nigerian Style

Brenda Hartman-Souder

When Greg was a newborn, we regularly snuggled him into the baby sling and strolled down the Fellows Avenue sidewalk to soothe him to sleep. Three-year-old Valerie skipped along. New to the neighborhood in Syracuse, New York, we began to make acquaintances of our neighbors that through the years developed into friendships.

Eventually our jaunts around the block became a daily, after-supper ritual, when weather permitted. We’d stop to chat with our porch-sitting neighbors. Sometimes we detoured to swing in someone’s back yard. We slowed down to examine ants scurrying over a dropped Popsicle and to admire newly planted flower beds.

Now that we live in Nigeria, West Africa, to serve with Mennonite Central Committee as personnel and program coordinators, we no longer have our city block to traipse around. But we have the lane that winds through the compound where we live.

Nigeria lies near the equator; dark comes by six-thirty. So here, after an early supper, while dusk starts to thicken and the yellow ball of sun makes a hasty descent, we start out. Our compound is an about 15-acre plot of land bounded by eight feet high red brick walls. Shards of thief-deterring green Fanta bottles are cemented along the wall’s top ridge. The compound holds offices, homes, and guest quarters for several nonprofit organizations as well as plenty of open space. A friend aptly called it a walled neighborhood.

The kids’ flip-flops snap snap as we chat about the day and greet Nigerian neighbors coming home from work or going out to evening meetings. The burnt orange dirt road winds by tin-roofed, concrete block homes painted in shades of blue, cream, rust, and yellow. Round aluminum pots of yams, rice or cornmeal simmer over cooking fires attended by young girls or women.

Youngsters bend over buckets of soapy water scrubbing clothes and hanging them on nearby lines. Goats bleat and pull on their tethers. Children race and deftly maneuver a battered soccer ball, catching last minutes of play before dark. They shout and laugh across the dusty, empty fields that wait to be planted in ridges of yam and potatoes when the rains come. Chickens strut and peck across the path in front of us.

We walk the quarter mile or so to the main gate and the guards who staff it. Guards are not unusual here; in many settings they are a necessity. At this large compound, guards are at the entrance gate around the clock, to monitor who comes and goes, while at night six individual guards spread out to various posts.

Baba David is our night guard. He’ll turn on the outside security lights around our home and build a fire to provide warmth. He’ll trudge around the house at regular intervals all night long, swinging his flashlight in an arc, doing his best to ensure our safety. He has no weapon but a whistle which he’ll use to alert us if anything is awry.

The gate guards hail us a hearty greeting and always ask Greg and Val how they are doing. They do it in Hausa and try to teach the kids the appropriate responses to their greeting. We laugh at our energetic, but mistake-filled attempts to speak as rapidly as they. We try to learn a new word or two, ask about the welfare of their families, and then, resorting to English, find them astute sources of news and politics.

As the sun dips below the brick wall, we know in minutes it will be dark. So we take our leave.

"Until tomorrow," we say.

"May God bring us to the morning." the guards reply.

"Amen."

We turn back down the lane, meeting and greeting different neighbors, until we reach the other end, where baths and bed awaits us.

Our pastor friend Obed, who lived seven years in the United States, said that when someone chooses to live in an another culture and country, coming to participate in God’s work, what matters at the end of the day, what local folks remember, is not so much what missionaries or development workers do, but simply that they came, that they left what was familiar to serve and live and learn among what is not familiar. My Western activity-oriented mind both rebels at and is comforted by this comment.

We’ve come to Nigeria and we’re walking the lane almost every night and we are making a new life here. We long for our Fellows Avenue neighbors and friends, but the broad grins and greetings of our new ones help and give us hope that we are developing a sense of belonging here too.

And each night as we turn the last little bend, the outline of our tin roofed house, with brick-red walls, forms a dark, solid outline against the deepening sky. Warmth still emanating from the sun baked walls and sidewalks welcomes us.

And now, finally, this is the place we are starting to call home.

—Brenda Hartman-Souder, Jos, Nigeria, serves as co-representative of Mennonite Central Committee Nigeria and, along with spouse Mark, as parent of Valerie and Greg.