By Tosyn Bucknor
If Lagos had a smell what would it be? Does it depend on what day of the week or time of day you sniffed it?
I left home on Saturday morning for my photo shoot and I felt like I smelt Lagos.
Tell me if I have left anything out through ‘tosyn@thenet.ng’
Ewa agonyin
For those who don’t know, this is ‘beans’ but not just any kind of beans, we are talking about beans cooked in a style made popular by women of the Agonyi tribe.
There’s no Saturday morning complete without that I tell you…
Petrol
When we are not queuing for fuel, some tanker is spilling its’ content and someone is probably putting fuel in their generator. Lagos smells like fuel!
Fumes
Right up there with petrol is the fumes from the said generator, the cars and more.
Lagos is a constant hub of carbon dioxide…
Rain
We used to have a rainy season but now we just have rain. You can never predict when it will rain in Lagos and chances are one random Saturday morning, you will smell rain from the night before the rain to come.
Dust
Lagos on a Saturday morning involves someone cleaning up somewhere, whether they have been forced to (Environmental sanitation, punishment etc) or it is voluntary…
Food
Lagos smells of different kinds of food from one of the several hundred bukas on the street.
It is Lagos, but the food comes from all over Nigeria, and all over the world.
Indian anyone?
Gutters
Now if only some of these bukas were not by gutters. Lol.
On the real though, there is always some gutter overflowing somewhere… Especially when it rains.
Body Odour
Grrr!
I wish Lagos didn’t smell like body odour but we might need a National Deodorant Day for that.
It starts from early in the morning (really dude? You woke up like that?) and lasts till evening and then late at night.
Air Freshener, Perfumes and Insecticides
Remember the fumes and smells mentioned above? Well, because of them, we need to constantly spray rooms and ourselves.
And of course, the fear of malaria…
Hope
While this might not be a physical smell that can be bottled up, it is undeniably, a part of Lagos.
From the airport to the bus parks to the shops and the roads, Lagos smells, feels and looks like… Hope.
The Tosyn Bucknor Company
