josibodu7596
Sep 29, 2013
Undergraduate / My trip to Nigeria was an eye-opener; U Florida [2]
In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.
As I walked out of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, the smoggy air cloaked my asthmatic lungs. Security guards wielding AK-47s, clenching them so tightly as if they were waiting for someone to get out of hand, were scattered around the parking lot. This was Nigeria. This was a glimpse firsthand of the country in which my forefathers were born in. People were all around us, doing about their business, but as I entered my grandmother's car, I could feel their begrudging gazes penetrating through me, for reasons that I became aware of afterwards. "Omo America" in Yoruba, "American Boy" in English. As if I was not a Nigerian myself, but an ignorant American child invading their country.
My grandmother's driver began to pull out of the airport parking lot and proceeded onto the craggy Nigerian streets. The traffic in Lagos dwarfed any type of traffic that I had otherwise seen. I wanted to know the reason for the hold up, so I peered through the backseat window as we were driving through the city. I saw things that a 9 year old (at the time) should not have seen. Extreme poverty lined the sidewalks and people were hurling themselves at passing-by vehicles, begging for food, money, or anything that would help them see daylight of the next day. I checked my pockets to see if I had some loose change, a piece of candy, anything would suffice, but all that I was able to uncover was a clump of pocket lint. I begged both my mother and grandmother for some money, no matter the amount, to give to those impoverished people, but the driver was insistent on us not giving them anything. He felt that if they saw you give somebody else money or food, then the rest of them would come swarm to the car in hopes of the same fortune. I pleaded with him, but the words coming out of the 9 year old were ignored, as if my age meant that I had no say in anything. I felt sick to my core and to my soul that nothing was able to be done as I looked through the back window. I saw a mother tightly holding her crying baby, a boy pushing his father in a wheelchair, and two children, no older than I was, craving for food and money, as we drove off to our destination.
Nearly a decade has passed and those sights are still engraved in my memory. I feel the guilt of not only not being able to help the starving people, but of being an American and my eyes were opened up to my own ignorance. I have taken too many things for granted, whether it is wanting to have a Nintendo DS as a 9 year old, the new Grand Theft Auto at 17. I would not have fresh food in my fridge or table, electricity at all times, and clean clothes on my back if I was living in such destitute conditions. Ever since my trip, I have been helping my mother with donating food to organizations that help the needy.
My trip to Nigeria was an eye-opener to how large the world actually is and that not everybody is able to enjoy the same living conditions that I am able to have. As a UF student, I will share this experience with my fellow Gators as well, letting them know that poverty is real, and use that to help us all contribute positively to our society and community.
In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.
As I walked out of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, the smoggy air cloaked my asthmatic lungs. Security guards wielding AK-47s, clenching them so tightly as if they were waiting for someone to get out of hand, were scattered around the parking lot. This was Nigeria. This was a glimpse firsthand of the country in which my forefathers were born in. People were all around us, doing about their business, but as I entered my grandmother's car, I could feel their begrudging gazes penetrating through me, for reasons that I became aware of afterwards. "Omo America" in Yoruba, "American Boy" in English. As if I was not a Nigerian myself, but an ignorant American child invading their country.
My grandmother's driver began to pull out of the airport parking lot and proceeded onto the craggy Nigerian streets. The traffic in Lagos dwarfed any type of traffic that I had otherwise seen. I wanted to know the reason for the hold up, so I peered through the backseat window as we were driving through the city. I saw things that a 9 year old (at the time) should not have seen. Extreme poverty lined the sidewalks and people were hurling themselves at passing-by vehicles, begging for food, money, or anything that would help them see daylight of the next day. I checked my pockets to see if I had some loose change, a piece of candy, anything would suffice, but all that I was able to uncover was a clump of pocket lint. I begged both my mother and grandmother for some money, no matter the amount, to give to those impoverished people, but the driver was insistent on us not giving them anything. He felt that if they saw you give somebody else money or food, then the rest of them would come swarm to the car in hopes of the same fortune. I pleaded with him, but the words coming out of the 9 year old were ignored, as if my age meant that I had no say in anything. I felt sick to my core and to my soul that nothing was able to be done as I looked through the back window. I saw a mother tightly holding her crying baby, a boy pushing his father in a wheelchair, and two children, no older than I was, craving for food and money, as we drove off to our destination.
Nearly a decade has passed and those sights are still engraved in my memory. I feel the guilt of not only not being able to help the starving people, but of being an American and my eyes were opened up to my own ignorance. I have taken too many things for granted, whether it is wanting to have a Nintendo DS as a 9 year old, the new Grand Theft Auto at 17. I would not have fresh food in my fridge or table, electricity at all times, and clean clothes on my back if I was living in such destitute conditions. Ever since my trip, I have been helping my mother with donating food to organizations that help the needy.
My trip to Nigeria was an eye-opener to how large the world actually is and that not everybody is able to enjoy the same living conditions that I am able to have. As a UF student, I will share this experience with my fellow Gators as well, letting them know that poverty is real, and use that to help us all contribute positively to our society and community.
