I arrived in Lagos Yesterday.

Well, I don’t know if it was really “yesterday” or “today” because I’ve had to reset my wristwatch so many times. Right now, it says a quarter past 5am on Sunday. On my laptop whose time still reflects Edwardsville, it says 11.16pm on Saturday. I am sleepless. I have been travelling for 24 hours, but now I don’t even know which of the days I want to occupy. Let me just take Sunday.

I have not eaten anything other than a few fried chicken wings that my sister thought might do me some good. Really? Even with this overweight size of mine? When I left here in August, I was about 176 pounds. Now I’m about 200, and what do I get for that? Some more fried chicken. I’ve danced, and sweated, and hugged my nephews and nieces some of whom I’m meeting for the first time. I’ve now also been bitten by wicked mosquitos as I type this post. Returning from a one-year trip abroad has certainly put some things in perspective. Electricity, area boys, police, stable internet, time zones, and fried chicken.

Let me thank you all faithful blog readers, those who leave and those who don’t leave comments. I thank the wonderful staff of the foreign languages department, SIUE, for a wonderful session. Belinda Carstens-Wickam, Douglas Simms, Tom Lavalle, Olga Bezhanova, Mariana Solares, Debbie Mann, Yvonne Mattson, Joaquim, Heidi, Carolina; and the workers in the language lab: Catherine, John, Rachael, Elizabeth, Heather, Scott, Joey, Elvira and everyone else I may have forgotten to mention.  I thank Prof Ron Schaefer, the director of International Programmes, Sandra Tamari who also works in the same office, and every other person in the IP who made my stay very pleasant, even though they don’t read my blog. I thank the students from both semesters for a wonderful time. I also thank my friends in Cougar Village, Mafoya, Chinomso, Ikechukwu, Jocy, Chris, Ben, Mahsa, Iman, Yo, Keshi, and Afua. See you guys soon. I miss you already.

This is not the end, dear blog readers. I am going to tell you about the trip, and some observations from France and New York. Right now, I just want to figure out which of these time zones I want to adjust to.