Busy last day for Haleigh and Aayush started at 7:30 on the road to the island for an appearance on the morning show of Arise TV, the #1 national news channel in Nigeria. Haleigh and Mary were donned in our tailored Nigerian clothes, but Aayush didn’t get the memo, prompting Chika to tell him he looks worse in a suit than his Nigerian clothes. They could only accommodate two people in the studio, so Haleigh and Paschall were chosen. A woman came by with a white powder and Haleigh thought it was like a makeup touch up thing but the woman was like “no you’re good, I don’t need to do you.” Haleigh is also on day 6 of unwashed hair and in retrospect probably should have just washed it so she didn’t keep adjusting it during the show, and also it was incredibly humid today which didn’t help.

Our segment on Arise started at 9:15 am, and apparently aired for tens of millions of viewers (which Haleigh was blissfully unaware of at the time). They brought her and Paschall into the room, where she sat at the table with the rest of the hosts and Paschall sat at a desk on the side, with all these fancy teleprompters and cameras and lights around them. They briefly introduced us and then when Haleigh began to answer a question, she got 10 seconds in before they interrupted her saying they were taking a break. Turns out, nobody had put a microphone on her and nobody could hear her on the tv. All was resolved and the rest of the 15 minute appearance went smoothly! Zach also informed Haleigh this was the single biggest media appearance LFR has had, which is pretty cool ngl. And huge thanks to Paschall and Officer Tomi for being able to coordinate this!

You can watch the whole segment here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8EBqWu7Pg4

After the show, we went to chicken republic (where we got those chickwizz sandwiches a week ago), but they were out of chickwizz, so Haleigh got two pieces of chicken, Mary got some chicken sandwich (without this interesting pink mayo that others got, but it did come with cheese much to Mary’s chagrin), and Aayush got a few yam fries (poor dude thinks he’s going to gain weight when he gets back from actually eating protein again). Aayush was finally able to contribute financially to the trip after he’s been relying on Haleigh (the LFR bank account) the entire time, donating his 3500 Naira (~$3.88) to our food bill. This was the culmination of Mary’s spice tolerance journey as the sandwich she got was the spiciest she ever had but she was still determined to finish it.

With two hours before our next meeting, we of course scheduled two more meetings in the meantime. The first with the branch manager of Zenith National Bank, and the first person to ever donate to HEI (and is still a consistent monthly donor)! Afterwards, Haleigh desperately needed to go to an atm to have money for food, except the two at the bank were not dispensing cash. Even with the help of the branch manager, this card is insistent on making our lives difficult and we eventually gave up. Our next meeting was with a guy in a parking lot, which was less sketchy than it sounds but we were a slight bit confused. Just another stakeholder meeting to foster engagement that we squeezed in for five minutes before driving to the US Embassy.

A brief interlude for some random facts and tidbits from our multiple hours of driving today. We often see people selling snack food and drinks on the street, walking between cars and taxis, and Paschall told us they likely only make a 10-20% margin on those purchases, which was unfortunate to hear the lack of sustainable lifestyle. We also learned that 80% of Nigerians don’t have even $600 on their bank account. On a lighter note, both Aayush and Mary have gotten Snapchat recommendations to add the LFRs we’ve been adding as contacts in our phones for interviews. Someone asked if Paschall was Aayush’s dad today and Aayush also tried to gaslight Haleigh into thinking 92 degrees real feel wasn’t hot. We also learned Mary has never made a charcuterie board in her life and doesn’t ever plan too, much to Haleigh’s dismay and even Aayush has made one before.

We had to wait a while at the US embassy (gotta love US protocols) and they needed our passports and ids to confirm our identities, and then collected all our phones, bags, and any electronic devices. After a bit more waiting, we went to meet with Julie McKay, the Nigeria Public Affairs Officer. We had brief introductions, and Officer Tomi and HEI’s CFO were there as well. Haleigh gave a presentation on the background of LFR with statistics about our impact and outcomes that was well-received. In the past they have worked with universities to distribute a large number of massive open online courses, so hopefully we can collaborate on disseminating our online curriculum. We also got these incredible tote bags (honestly the highlight of the day) and everyone was very nice, welcoming, and supportive! Mary also made the observation that everyone here always says “good afternoon” or “good evening”, whereas in the states that’s almost unheard of and everyone just says “good morning” or “good night.”

After the embassy was yet another meeting with Verraki, a business management consulting firm in Lagos, that has been giving advice to Paschall on a variety of issues (can you tell we’re not really sure what consultants do?) This was supposed to be a five minute meeting, but required each of the seven of us to individually check in and then drive the cars to a different parking lot and the hassle very much irritated Paschall, as we had a strict 3 pm meeting time with Microsoft.

We were still able to take this meeting on time, aided by Paschall’s impressive driving skills. On the way, Tomi learned of Mary’s weird craving for fruit so she stopped to buy grapes from a guy on the street. She even had a container and water ready to clean the grapes so they could be eaten right away. Turns out they were actually from Egypt, much to Mary’s excitement. Tomi and Mary talked about how the fruit is all really fresh, which Mary affirmed when she tasted the perfectly sweet grapes.

The Microsoft office was phenomenal, kinda felt like a playground for tech nerds. We discussed how Microsoft could help expand technology provided to LFRs, such as our online training, dispatch systems, and future goals of an integrated “i-responder” app. There was section of the 14th floor called The Garage, inspired by Bill Gates’ humble beginnings. Microsoft has an internship program also that employs students as young as 13! After some pics there where we were told to be less lame and do some fun poses more true to our authentic selves, the LFR team chilled in the waiting room while Chika and Paschall had a secret meeting with the Microsoft lady (still not sure why we weren’t allowed to be there tbh). Mary very much wanted to get one of their iced coffees, which everyone said were delicious.

We hadn’t eaten in many hours, but luckily one of Chika’s friends, Kachi, made us yam porridge that was very delicious, and definitely Haleigh’s favorite type of Nigerian dish. Even Mary braved through the spice and said she was sad she wouldn’t be able to have more yams (after admonishing yams the entire trip because she thought they were like sweet potatoes, which she also doesn’t like.) We also made a trip to the atm where, you guessed it, the LFR card did not work. Luckily Aayush has taken Chika’s words to heart and decided to be a financial provider and somehow his personal card was able to take out money (Haleigh is still the one reimbursing him though).

After we all packed, Mary called Aayush to her and Haleigh’s room by once again texting him “we have an emergency.” He showed up promptly, which is promising for if there’s ever a real emergency. Anyways, Mary told Haleigh, Aayush, and Chika to walk around the hotel area to find food instead of ordering on the delivery app we discovered recently called glovo. When everyone stepped outside the hotel, Haleigh and Aayush kept asking Mary if she knew where she was going but she didn’t. She just wanted to walk around. Chika suggested we go to this place called “The Place,” which after a 20 minute walk in the dark, was indeed closed. The lounge part of it was open but they didn’t have food so we decided to just go up really quickly to look at the rooftop and get the experience (also Chika was rather undressed in her literal pajamas). Soon after, we came back down and rode in a tuk tuk (which is what Mary refers to it in Arabic, called a keke here). Mary has been wanting to ride in it every since we got here so today being our last night was a perfect opportunity. We ended up taking keke to this one restaurant called thirty8. However, it all looked spicy so Mary refrained and Aayush and Haleigh followed in her footsteps. We decided that we were all gonna go back to the hotel and get some food there, but not before walking another 20 minutes to a specific fruit stand for Mary to get an orange, only to find they were closed because it was almost 10 pm.

Aayush was ready to fight the food staff at the hotel restaurant after our very simple food (noodles, omelette, plantains, and pancakes) took over an hour to come. “I deadass think I could grow the plantains faster.” We were the only people in the restaurant. In his delusion. Aayush started explaining the steps of how he would make an omelette in less than 90 seconds. Aayush and Mary got into a heated debate over Mary not liking syrup (her hottest food take in Aayush’s opinion), but Aayush was satisfied enough with his hot chocolate to agree to disagree, but not after saying he didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with all of Mary’s hot food takes. In other news, Aayush thinks the perfect man is a combination of Kachi, Mayowa, and Paschall (but with Aayush’s height of course). Anyways, Aayush is excited to be a prioritized customer at Taco Bell when he gets back.

Chika stayed the night with Haleigh and Mary due to our 5:30 am departure time for the airport. We really tried to get Chika to take the middle but eventually Haleigh took it and we squeezed into the queen sized bed. Aayush also determined that it’s much easier to wake up at 5 am than the 7 am for trainings, but we’ll see if that holds up when he falls asleep on the plane. Much to his dismay, the new Drake album did not drop last night and now he needs to find things to do on the plane. Stay tuned for our flight adventures and Mary’s training adventures tomorrow and for a final blog reflection!

Haleigh would like everyone to know her dedication to uploading this blog for our fervent fans while in the airport and her phone is now at 68% and she’s really hoping the plane has outlets. Also she couldn’t be bothered to put the pictures in any kind of chronological order so now you have a fun game of guessing when in the day each picture was taken, enjoy.

Aayush contemplating his life choices after waiting over half an hour for four sticks of yam (the only food he ate for the next 7 hours)

What’s Lebron doing in Nigeria (it’s a goat) (caption sponsored by Aayush)

Chika taking a well deserved nap with abandoned Aayush’s suit coat

Our fifth engagement of the day but Chika managed to smile for this nice selfie

The Microsoft headquarters was incredibly fancy

Aayush gave Chika his credit card to “go buy any Rolex watch you want”, but she requested he take her to a boutique for clothes instead

Aayush felt left out of yesterday’s Bible study and decided to start his own

Kachi wrote a nice note on each of our food containers… what did we do to deserve him

Parking lot meetings!

Mary and Aayush eyed each others’ bags for 30 seconds until mutually agreeing to switch to better match their ~vibes~

The five seconds we were on this rooftop bar were actually pretty cool

Mayowa looking very swag wearing the NYC hats Haleigh brought for some of our partners as a gift (yes we did leave paying for the hotel food until the last minute and yes this is Mayowa helping Haleigh with it)

Should we train the people that hold onto the taxi buses as LFRs?

In our corporate banking eras

Haleigh doesn’t actually think her brother is reading the blog but if he is, he would greatly appreciate her middle name being displayed on tv because he used to make fun of her by calling her “Elmo”