Houston Should Be Called Little Nigeria

First of all, I want to say that my thoughts and prayers are with people who were affected by the senseless gun violence and terrorist attack in Las Vegas. I am so, so sorry. I wish my thoughts could undo the hurt that has been done. I cannot imagine the pain you are growing through. I am truly sorry and heartbroken.

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We are back from Houston. We came home early yesterday morning, or should I say late Monday night? We landed at about 1:00 AM on Tuesday morning. Some may call it late Monday night. Anyway, we had so much fun. As you know, the one thing I was really looking forward to doing was eating nkwobi. Well, my people, I ate nkwobi till it was almost falling out of my nose. 

The day we landed (Thursday), I ate a plate of nkwobi all by myself. That night, I pooped four times back to back to back. Like after poop number one, I went back to bed, and seconds later, I was back on the toilet. It happened like this four times. Something was moving around inside my tummy and whatever it was, it was quite talkative.

A smart person would stay away from nkwobi, right? No, not me. The next day, I ate another plate of nkwobi. Even when I was feeling full, I kept eating. It was as if I had forgotten that there was a fridge and I could put my leftovers in there. So instead of saving it for the next day, I suffered through and ate it all. I even ate some of Uju’s own. In the end, we were both stuffed and two agrees from throwing up. The result at night was another bathroom trip. This time, it happened only once. I suppose my tummy was getting used to the nkwobi. Needless to say, that was the last time I ate mkwobi in Houston. I did bring some home though. Yesss!

Houston is quite an interesting place. It was so hot and so full of Nigerians. I live in Maryland, which has a huge Nigerian community, but Maryland has nothing on Houston. Everywhere I turned, there were Nigerians. Every single where. The mall, the shops, the streets, the airport. Everywhere. Sure, I usually see Nigerians in these places in Maryland, too, but not so many and not so often. has taught me that Maryland has nothing on it. 

There were several Nigeria restaurants and businesses, too, and they were not too far from each other. I saw prostitutes on the road, and I learned that Nigerian men are some of their biggest customers. I’m not surprised about that at all.’

On Sunday, I got to attend an Anglican Igbo church, and I was excited until I was there for a while – three and half hours to be exact. It was then that I was reminded of why I did not like attending Igbo church. And when I was coming back to Maryland, I came home with frozen nkwobi, a little bowl of ora soup, a half-eaten can of powdered peak milk, and a bottle of Ribena. ‘My people, is that not a trip to Nigeria?

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. And in case you’re wondering, Ada Verastic was good on both flights.