What’s a place you visited that felt like home?
Where have I visited that felt like home?
For now, I’ll answer this question by taking you to Northern Nigeria.
One place that has stayed with me is Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State. The Hausa word lafiya means “good.” Say hello to a Hausa speaker, and you may hear “Lafiya!” in response. I remember wondering if this was where the city got its name. Whether that assumption was right or not, I decided to take Lafia as a symbol of good things. And somehow, it was.
I bought my first bus ticket to Lafia during my National Youth Service Corps year with little idea of what awaited me. I arrived as a stranger and, somehow, left feeling like I belonged. I made friends, taught local students, explored the markets, cooked endlessly, watched herders and their cattle, played football with locals, and found quiet places to sit and think.
Lafia was simple. It was a mix of the humble, the proud, the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural. I lived in Workers’ Village, in Tudun Amba, an area that wasn’t quite a village but had enough open fields, sandy roads, trees, animals, and quietness to make you feel far removed from the hustle of town. The weather, however, had no interest in keeping me comfortable. The heat could be intense, especially in April, while the nights could turn surprisingly cold. And then there were the scorpions. Somehow, they thought the walls outside my apartment were their personal headquarters. Still, I loved it.
I made friends—lots of them. The people were welcoming, and I quickly recognized familiar faces around me. I even received a few marriage proposals, which I found both funny and a little alarming. I also got the chance to teach mathematics to some local kids. At Government Secondary School, Tudun Amba, I became more than just a Corps member passing through. I became someone the students knew and cared about. When my service year ended, some of them cried as I was leaving. So did I, too.
Maybe that’s one of the simplest ways to define home: a place where your absence is noticed. A state of mind that stays with you even when you find yourself far away from where it all began.
I loved Lafia’s markets too. Traders from different parts of Nigeria gathered there, and over time, I got to know many of them. Some local and Igbo traders knew me well enough to recommend groceries and help me navigate the market. I was never really alone. As someone who loves food, Lafia was dangerous—in the best way. There was so much delicious food, and my kitchen became my laboratory. I experimented, cooked, ate, and tried again.
But my favorite spot was an empty field near the Nigerian Television Authority mast. Whenever I needed to escape people, I would go there. I would watch herders move their cattle across the grassland. I watched calves stay close to their mothers and listened as the herders communicated with their animals through sounds I could never quite reproduce. I tried, though. The cattle never responded to my calls. Apparently, my skills as a cattle whisperer were questionable. In the evenings, the field transformed into a gathering spot: herders, cattle, children, insects, birds, football players, and people simply looking for a breath of fresh air.
Sometimes I sat there alone and watched the sunset. Those moments are among my strongest memories of Lafia: the young calves close to their mothers, the patient shepherds with sticks on their shoulders, birds disappearing into the clouds, smoke rising somewhere in the distance, the smell of burning grass, and the dry wind moving across the field.
Nothing spectacular about it. Maybe that’s exactly what made it special.
Looking back now, I realize that home doesn’t always have to be the place where you were born. Sometimes home is a place that gives you space to become someone new. It’s where strangers become friends, where your students remember you, where traders recognize your face, and where you can sit in an empty field and feel completely at peace.
For now, I’ll leave it at this: home is a state of mind. And Lafia gave me that feeling. I’ll share another place that felt like home—this time in America—in a future blog post.
Good night.
