It started Halloween Night. Well not exactly Halloween Night but the day we celebrated it in our compound. I woke to a screeching megaphone announcement of “We hope you enjoyed your Halloween worship of the devil and invite you to come to the Lord!” I thought I had dreamed it but no. Every morning since, around 5 am, I am awoken from a dead sleep. Irritated to loose the last 45 minutes of rest before I have to get the kids up and out to catch the bus.

This is what I hear:

After the megaphone we get this:

You will notice he stops and turns at the end of our compound. Song then prayer, then song then prayer. Imagine this continues for at least 20 minutes.

GOOD MORNING! I can’t even hear the rooster anymore.

My kids sleep through it and so does Ben but years of motherhood and listening for the ring or buzz of a phone during the night while on call for midwifery has given me super spidy sense hearing. Call to Muslim Prayers occur during my weekly in-home massage, I know I have such a hard life, and I run a white noise machine so I can relax more. My therapist can’t even hear it. Selective hearing from living in a loud city with little insulation from the noise. Nigerians sleep all over the place with traffic and horns blazing and people stepping over them. Hats off man!

I love my Mormon friends and I often hear stories of how relentless and often successful the missionaries are in conversion due to repeated knocking and exposure, but they have nothing on my neighbors! You got to up your game Lagos style.

The car dust graffiti left by my movers shows how dedicated to their religion many Nigerians are:

That reads “Holy Bible”

No “Wash Me” “You Suck!” or “N.L.+ D.B=<3” .

No we get religious graffiti.