An Expatriate’s Email From Nigeria
Written by Rowland Adewumi
Friday, 01 May 2009

I got this email forwarded to my e-mail box from an IT expert for a foreign, but Nigeria based big company. I guess he must have intercepted the email from an expatriate’s email address, and I thought it will be wise but sad to share it…it is unedited…

Behrend,

Wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a real exciting NEW YEAR. I miss you so much . I miss all the action there…all the fun… He !

But the only thing that makes it better is the good atmosphere at work : Too many projects to control, in different fields, a lot of experience to get, and the ****** guys here are real close and gentle, we leave like brothers than when we ar at home!… Believe it or not we’re working not less then 13 hours each day !

Most of Nigerian people are real poor and dirty!: schwarz ist nicht gut, Es ist eine Krankheit! but they very smart and it amase me many times how smart good they are…but you will be really shocked when you see the way they live…there houses built by sand…

Their foods like posion and better than what you will feed Gerhard with! …their wear like rags, ! And the big guys of the government, those who are in power…you don’t mant to know how reach they are : Wörter werden sich wie reich nicht zeigen!!!! And they still want and beg us to come to their villages with them, go around town with them, even pay. Hannes and Rafael wher paid to come to a party!! Nigeria government people want people to see white men around them…komische Leute!!!

Anyway, our situation here is a lot better : We have our own house, and three Nigerian guys to cook and clean…we have uncounted mobile armed guard with AK47 that stay with us 24/7, I have two pamanent drivers that drive me around sites and towns, he works as long as I work, only for 125£ every monts, we have big how with fence and big like Brandenburger!!! I am more than president ******* here in Nigeria …we also have television with dish, stereo, AC…and each one of us has a brand new car: a 507 peugeot designed especially for Nigerian roads that most of it are still made with sand without asphalt (those are the roads inside the towns), still they have good highways that link the cities with each other.

Prostituierte! Prostituierte!! Every where, for 10$! and the fine girls that are good are also Prostituierte for 15$, Ich habe nichts wie das vorher gesehen!, the girl will do anything for money! Rafael use mädchen howless and to abuse them with sex and treet them like sluts and dogs every night with different mädchen … schlecht und verrückt! Sometimes we stay in camp’s common room and watch via CCTV!!!! At midnights…

I am just few months, but I will always keep you posted….Bye and greetings to Janh!

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/rowland-adewumi/an-expatriate-s-email-from-nigeria.html

German speakers might help out in the german written above.

Kai!!

The same idiot - you pay $500 per day.

Their foods like posion and better than what you will feed Gerhard with! …their wear like rags, ! And the big guys of the government, those who are in power…you don’t mant to know how reach they are : Wörter werden sich wie reich nicht zeigen!!!! And they still want and beg us to come to their villages with them, go around town with them, even pay. Hannes and Rafael wher paid to come to a party!! Nigeria government people want people to see white men around them…komische Leute!!!

chei think positive people or just ban all the bloody diasporans with their slavish mentality!

can someone dig out the dictionary is this german or dutch

Their foods like posion and better than what you will feed Gerhard with!  …their wear like rags, ! And the big guys of the government, those who are in power…you don’t mant to know how reach they are : Wörter werden sich wie reich nicht zeigen!!!! And they still want and beg us to come to their villages with them, go around town with them, even pay. Hannes and Rafael wher paid to come to a party!! Nigeria government people want people to see white men around them…komische Leute!!!

Maybe this one na inferiority complex.

@disguy

What do you mean?

Can you imagine - being paid to come to a party . . Nigeria has lost it moral values.

blacksta:

Can you imagine - being paid to come to a party . . Nigeria has lost it moral values.

lol

Hollywood celebrities get paid to do that too. Only in the case highlighted by the author, it seems it is all about inferiority complex and nothing more. Imagine being paid to attend a party so people can claim they were at a party attended by white people. ** shudders***

asha 80:



German speakers might help out in the german written above.

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

That is what you need. Just select "German to englsih translation" and then copy and paste the text.

I personally do not believe in such things though, that alleged email could have been written by anyone. It may even be faux.

schwarz ist nicht gut, Es ist eine Krankheit  ==  black is not good, it is an illness

Wörter werden sich wie reich nicht zeigen!!!! ===  Words will richly not show up like!!!!

…komische Leute!!! === … amusing people!!!

mädchen … schlecht und verrückt! === girl… badly and moves!

@asha
just echoing the thoughts of the poster of a thread on positivity and another calling for those in diaspora to be banned for complaining too much

Prostituierte! Prostituierte!! Every where, for 10$! and the fine girls that are good are also Prostituierte for 15$, Ich habe nichts wie das vorher gesehen!, the girl will do anything for money! Rafael use mädchen howless and to abuse them with sex and treet them like sluts and dogs every night with different mädchen … schlecht und verrückt! Sometimes we stay in camp’s common room and watch via CCTV!!!! At midnights…

madchen? =prostitute or housemaids?  

wow! such an wicked person didn't know they paid him to yab the pple

Überraschen, wie wir auf dieser unserer eigenen Hände verringert worden sind. Wir haben alle geworfen, die wir die Hunde müssen und heute denken wir sehen, wie sogar der wir anbeten, wenig an uns.

*Hauwa*:

wow! such an wicked person didn't know they paid him to yab the pple

Oh! Because you pay him means he cannot talk of the stupidity he sees around him? If an expatriate living in Nigeria has this to say, what do you think is the problem? The Expatriate?

well, i thot abt it and i don't blame him. just too much nonsense going on in motherland

So the German talking donkey can shoot his whiskery little mouth off, and one is supposed to like it? Which way to the gas chamber? Directions to the crematorium nko?Nigerians are dirty and their food is poison. What the hell is the matter with these people?His country and its history is perfect,abi? He's entitled to his opinion, not a pat on the back. We know we have issues, thank you very much. What we don't need is a stupid 'superior' little snot to add salt to injury.

Mad_Max:

So the German talking donkey can shoot his whiskery little mouth off, and one is supposed to like it? Which way to the gas chamber? Directions to the crematorium nko?Nigerians are dirty and their food is poison. What the hell is the matter with these people?His country and its history is perfect,abi? He's entitled to his opinion, not a pat on the back. We know we have issues, thank you very much. What we don't need is a stupid 'superior' little snot to add salt to injury.   

Well, herein lies the problem in how we approach these things. First, what has his country and it's history to do with his experience in Nigeria ? You no read where e tell you say na una dey give am big head by paying him and his kind to appear next to you and how your girls fall around for them even on CCTV?  You don't see where he is made to think he is all that by your own people?

i doubt it's real. another willie lynch like letter

Expat e-mail: Nigeria
Justin (right) and a family at water well, photo by VSO/Karl Lang
Many Britons dream of giving up the rat race and volunteering abroad. This is what Justin Scully has done, as he tells in our series featuring expatriate readers of BBC News Online.

I came out to Nigeria last February on a two-year placement with VSO, having left my job managing pubs and restaurants for Scottish and Newcastle.

I decided to volunteer because after 10 years working in and benefiting from the "system", I wanted to give something back.


I've come across no anti-Western feeling except T-shirts with "Osama bin Laden - My Hero". I feel safer in Nigeria - its unique internal problems aside - than I would in the UK. Nigeria might do many odd things, but it's never going to bomb Iraq to get oil.

After 11 months here, the hardships and joys will stay with me forever: sharing a taxi with six people, two children, a basket of chickens and a goat; the immense delight when a parcel of chocolate gets through from the UK; picking mangos straight from the tree; the stranger who takes my hand, asks my name and bids me welcome.

'I've been shot at'

Nigeria is a country that has a very poor image in the West; I find it diverse, vibrant, fascinating - and frightening. Security can be an issue, as shown by the furore over the Miss World contest.

It's not unusual to pass 10 armed police checkpoints in a 100 km journey. To travel at night is to run the gauntlet of all too frequent armed robberies - I'd been shot at twice before I'd been here three months.

Corruption is endemic and political; religious and ethnic tensions are not far below the surface in a country where immense wealth and extreme poverty are everyday sights.

Basic facilities are erratic at best: electricity is provided by NEPA, which I am assured stands for No Electric Power Always. I'm regularly without power for five hours a day, but I've learnt to cook and shave by candlelight.

Clean running water is a luxury - my longest period without it is six weeks, but collecting water from the well is a great way to learn village gossip.

I have no TV (even if I had one there is only one channel, and back to the electricity problem), no cinema, no theatre, no phone, no cheese, no fresh milk, no wine and, worst of all, no chocolate.

But after you get used to all these deprivations - and you very quickly do - it's the immense kindness, humour and generosity that keeps you going a long way from home.

Instant celebrity

To begin with, rural Nigeria outside the oil producing areas sees very few Europeans. On my initial trips to market I felt like the Pied Piper leading a crowd of small children all chanting "oyibo pepe". Oyibo means white man; pepe is pepper, for the strange colour white people go in the sun.

Women at market, photo copyright VSO/Karl Lang
Every sight and sound has been an eye-opener
Now if I leave my village for more than a few days, on my return I am embraced by a crowd of children shouting "Mr Justin, ekaabo", which means welcome.

That a European would come to Nigeria and live in a village rather than an air-conditioned compound has endeared me to the community. The fact that I earn about $100 a month - much more than a teacher or policeman - has been greeted with incomprehension.

And being an ex-pat has given me a new perspective on my home country. A Nigerian who comes to the UK will certainly have access to electricity, running water, education and healthcare - which only the rich have access to in Nigeria - but would they enjoy the overwhelming welcome I've received here?


Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2632861.stm

^^ Put things into perspective isn't? It warmed my heart reading the kindness of our people.

Well, Justin sums it up pretty well; its all a matter of perspective and unfortunately most Nigerians have been disenfranchised by the system.
As for the German idiot, what do you expect from an Aryan slowpoke getting it easy in my fatherland while I labor hard to get little in the same country? Sad irony!

People describe us as if we are still on the level of NATIVE mentality,like situations you will find in the jungles of andes,namibia or ethipian deserts,despite all the education,exposure and resources,we are still very backward.

The seventh largest producers of black gold in the world.Na waoo.

It is down to one's attitude to life -

1. Justin on the other hand - does not take life for granted and agrees that being born in a western culture is a special privilege. He understands that role can easily flip.

on the other hand


2. German Idiot - i am from the west that makes me better than the African man coupled with fact that we have large portion of the populace suffering from inferiority complex.

It is not about what people say or think but about the fact that we are feeling the pain for real and not making any head way.It feels like hell for real out there and there shouldn't be any reason for that.

Everything the Oyinbo said was true to an extent. Imagine a country with 90% unemployment rate. A place where an average person spends less than N135 per day.  Go to Kuramo, Allen, Empire etc and see our so called call girls.  Is Naija better than what he described ?

@Yicob

My bros where did you get your unemployment figure from? 90%? C'mon. While there is some truth to some of the things this man has said, he is in Nigeria living a luxurious life that he can't afford to live in Germany or wherever he is from.

Lax75:
While there is some truth to some of the things this man has said, he is in Nigeria living a luxurious life that he can't afford to live in Germany or wherever he is from.

I don’t think we ought to celebrate the above. I mean it is not like we hire the Ivy leaguers or something. He is likely making way more than his skills are worth back in Germany.

ElRazur:

^^ Put things into perspective isn't? It warmed my heart reading the kindness of our people.

ElRazur:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

That is what you need. Just select "German to englsih translation" and then copy and paste the text.

I personally do not believe in such things though, that alleged email could have been written by anyone. It may even be faux.

But you believed the second one with thinking anyone could write it? A contradiction isn't it?

@ Lax, out of every 10 employees, 8 are not contempted and happy with what they are doing. Imagine a graduate on N15,000 per month. Ask our boys working in the Lebannese Companies in Naija and you will be amazed. Research department of an HR Company said over 120,000 graduates applied for less than 100 vacant seats in Bank PHB sometimes 2007. Do you still call these Employment ?

spikedcylinder:

I was talking to one of our Project Managers (an American) the other day. Irritating man to say the least.
He has two official cars - A Prado and an Avensis, gets paid almost $20,000 after tax every month and everything down to his laundry detergent is bought for him and his family and yet he claims he feels "unwelcome here". In fact, just last week, he still said he should be more welcome and exonerated here because he protested African liberty and freedom on the streets on New York in his hay days.

Tell him if he doesn't feel welcomed here he should go back home. I grew up around expatriates, they are all the same, segregate themselves from the community and live in their perfect world. They complain about the country 24/7 yet they don't even know what hardship is. . I've had so many arguments with them, amazing. Some are not even qualified, you've got intelligent Nigerians who could do the job better being bossed around by foreigners, Such a shame, when are we going to put our ppl first?