How Life in Lagos Schooled Me on Swapping Perspectives

I often proud myself as being conscientious and tolerant, but yesterday I found myself irritated at a fellow passenger's muffled whines as our driver raced to the last bus stop.

If you know Lagos you know chaos. Being Africa's most populous city with huge commerce power, everything about the city is intense. And the terrible efforts by authorities to handle the logistics is all the more visible in the transport sector. The popular "danfo" buses -- a fleet of well beaten hard buses Volkswagen won't even remember it once produced -- is a major public commute medium for the city, and the drivers are often wreckless as the vehicles are tattered. They poke the ugly faces of their dismal buses where there's a small pocket of space on the road as they try to defy the ceaseless traffic.

I have a philosophy in life to not get bothered by things I can't change, so I refuse often to join the other passengers in hailing caution and abuse on the drivers. I figure I could just work harder to afford a car of my own, or pick an Uber cab when I need one. So I put up with the chaos. Something I can't change now.

Then yesterday there was this lady seated by me. It wasn't rush hour of the day so it was just two of us in this vehicle. She made muffled complaints of either a hiss, a sigh, a feet ruffle, and a visible countenance of discomfort at the driver's every moment of madness. Boy there were lots of them. And I wondered why she can't just hold her breathe for the five minutes of dismay. A night before I had to breathe through my baseball cap as mask over my nose as the whole bus smelt of fish. I didn't fizzle.

Just at the height of my irritation, the "whining woman" uttered a few words to the driver. She said in Nigerian pidgin, "no spoil my baby o." I impulsively turned towards her, towards her belly. There was a slight bulge. She was pregnant. Chill fell on me. I was embarrassed for my insensitivity.

It dawned on me I wasn't bothered much because I was the only one at stake. But she had another more fragile life to protect, and possibly a family's expectations. I was ashamed because my Birdseye view of life couldn't pick out this one. I felt terrible all the way. In an effort to make amends I held the driver accountable for the rest of the journey, because he seemed to not have heard or didn't care.

More importantly, I sought the lesson from that encounter: if only we could try to understand other people's perspectives, if only we could try to walk in their shoes before we decide if to throw a jab their way. If only I had thought there probably was a darn good reason that lady kept complaining.