The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

N igeria produces lively indige- nous music, but the airwaves of Lagos, Africa’s most popu- lous city (more than 13 million inhab- itants), are filled mostly with Ameri- can R&B and hip-hop songs. Occasionally you’ll even hear country & western music. But it is easiest to catch Nigerian music on Sundays, when the streets are eerily quiet as Lagosians attend church services last- ing three hours or more. Lagos is my first Foreign Service post after a decade practicing law and working on the Hill, and I had been here only a few days when I was tasked to be control officer for the visit of a senior Senate staffer. I scheduled three days of meetings and entertainment, and hoped the consulate’s drivers knew their way around the sprawling mega- city because I certainly did not. The “staffdel” went smoothly, and on a Friday morning marking my second week in country I accompanied my outbound guest to the airport in an armored SUV. Another U.S. govern- ment employee who rode with us had trouble with his flight, so to ensure he wouldn’t be stranded (potentially for several hours) in one of Lagos’ infa- mous traffic jams, called “go slows,” I stayed at the airport until we confirmed his departure. As we waited in the airport’s diplo- matic car park, my driver, almost for- getting about me being tucked in the second row of seats of the big Suburban, tuned the radio to a station of his liking. Hearing no objection, he settled into his seat contentedly. At first I was distracted by something I had brought along to read, but slowly my mind focused on the distantly familiar tune emanating first from the radio, and then from the driver in a low, coarse voice. I paused and looked around. The scenery I saw through the tinted glass — squat trees cropping up from dusty streets amid crumbling infrastructure — placed me in West Africa, as did the look of the people walking by in both Western and colorful traditional dress. But then I began to recognize the song from my lily-white, all- American, Midwestern childhood, while the driver — a lanky, dark- skinned young man who spoke mostly pidgin English in addition to one or two of the many languages of Nigeria — sang easily and from the heart along with the refrain, which now reg- istered in my mind: “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. With four hungry children and a crop in the field.” I was 25 years and 10,000 miles from my days growing up amidst the dairy farms of Wisconsin, where I first heard Kenny Rogers singing those words on the radio. My mind reeled at the contrast between my past and cur- rent situations. I started a new chapter in my life when I joined the Foreign Service, and entered a world that couldn’t be more different from that of my youth and most of my adulthood. I now lived in sub-Saharan Africa, repre- sented the United States government, and at that moment was providing a safe haven for a diplomatic courier. But strangely, I was listening to my Yoruba driver comfortably singing out an old, familiar tune, albeit in an unfa- miliar accent: “Ahv hahd sum bahd tahmz. Liv’d true sum sahd tahmz. But dis tahm yo huhtin’ won’t heel.” The lyrics had references the dri- ver could not have had the slightest understanding of: a honky-tonk in Toledo; a long, lonely Midwestern summer; and a broken marriage hold- ing the prospect of a bitter divorce. Yet, that mournful, ironic, broken- hearted lament clearly resonated with him. As did the moment with me. With a knowing and contented smile drawing across my face, I joined him in the words we both knew: “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.” 88 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4 I was 25 years and 10,000 miles from my days growing up amidst the dairy farms of Wisconsin. Jeff Mazur’s first tour as an FSO was in Consulate General Lagos. His next assignment is to Sao Paulo. The stamp is courtesy of the AAFSW Bookfair “Stamp Corner.” R EFLECTIONS You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille B Y J EFF M AZUR