Becoming Integrated into the system.

It seems like ive been in Lagos for a lifetime while ive actually spent just two months and four days. I remember my first few days at home the noise from the generators put me on edge constantly, i continually complained that the noise was getting to me, a few days ago my mum commented that it had been sometime since i complained about the noise, i looked up startled realisisng that i had gotten used to the noise, now it seemed like it didnt exist.

How i wish that was the least of signs that i was becoming more of Lagos and less of an outsider. My trips round Lagos where always met with trepidation on my part, as i wondered how i would meander through the horrors of traffic in Lagos. At first i would stand back at bus stops waiting to board a bus, refusing to rush for a bus i had been waiting almost 10minutes or more for and smiling to myself when i see otherwise civilised persons rushing for and nearly tearing their clothes in a bid to jump on the bus already revving away. I was almost suprised the other day when i realised that i had joined the fray of those rushing to climb on a moving bus narrowly missing giving someone a black eye just to ensure i got on the bus. My smile turned to an inward groan.

In many more ways ive almost been integrated into the Lagosians mould but i still lack several prerequisite features namely....
1. The ability to put on aso ebi every weekend and head to another 'owambe' on a street which has been barricaded to prevent the free flow of traffic.
2. The love of filth, the ability to eat a cob of corn and casually throw it out of the window of a moving car.
3. The love of a good fight. Stopping to watch two adults disgrace themselves in public over a matter that is not of any public significance.
4. The aggro (aggresiveness) with which they go about life.....wait i think i have a few streaks of this trait which need to be exorcised. The other day i demanded in my loudest 'small girls' voice for the return of my change which the conductor was very reluctant to give me Iall the while i was praying that none of my patients was in the bus to see their doctor behave in an unseemly manner and blurt out 'haba doctor' after all the change i wanted to collect was just 20 naira. Of course he eventually gave me my change not without the driver asking me if i was from a particular state as 'mo lagidi pupo'

So be the judges, am i a true Lagosian, if i may influence the jurors decision, please say NO.