Me against the third-world problems

I'm proud of my solutions:

No car

No generating set

No television set

No mosquitoes

Details?     
Car? X
I travel little - not some sort of salesperson - so I take public transport and stuff.  It's social and entertaining.  Walking between nodes is all the exercise I get anyhow.  Just as importantly, I cut out car maintenance, driving, cleaning, fueling, all that.  I'll let the experts do it for me.  Nobody has time for a Nigeria-based car mennn.  I pity the cars - you would age quickly and be sickly too if you had to do these treacherous, flooded, bumpy, start-stop courses called roads.

Soon, cars'll drive themselves.  Much safer anyhow.  I've always seen driving as a big responsibility.  You're using all this mental energy to make sure you don't kill; make sure you're not killed.  It's overwhelming sometimes.

And soon, we'll have trains.  Safe, social, civilized - what's not to love about great metropolitan and inter-city transport networks?  You can't properly have city life until it's incredibly easy to see your friends, hang out in the evenings, get drunk if you want, end up safely home.  Which is why LA was a terrible city, in my opinion, and why I had to get a car there, even if I only did like 5-10 miles a month on it.  I couldn't manage grocery shopping, so I broke down (literally crying one day, from the stress of homework and everything, then shopping bags on top of that) and bought one.  My baaaby!  However, I hear they now have improved public transport, or are working on it.

Clearly, there are trains and there are Trains.

Gen? X
I use an inverter.  Having a tiny cavewoman apartment with no high-power appliances helps.  Every Nigerian needs an inverter.
Cut out NEPA-dependence - let them switch on-off on a five-minute cycle if they please.
Cut out generator-hell.  Never had a gen, the smoke kills literally but the noise kills slowly too no?  I mean, and vibration too?

(Poetry Interlude) :

Seeking Sensuality in Lagos

I find I can't smile with a big or small generator on nearby.  I dream of massive sculptures made from the carcasses of generators.  A giant see-saw at the local park.  It says 'never again'.  Never again will we be so stupid, sub-optimal, left-behind...
What is a park, right?  lol.

What is a walkway?  
What is sanity?

TV? X
I don't want a TV because I spend so much time with other entertainment already.  With a TV, I might never DO anything.  Plus I watched enough in the noughties to last a lifetime.  Time to create more than I consume, no?   Also because I'm the kind of cheap black woman that won't pay for cable, lol.

Mosquitoes? X
I need to get help with these greedy ants, they really love baked goods I found the other day, they can sniff banana bread from an ant-mile away, but with the ant-famine on, they're scrounging, foraging, everywhere, even in my bed.  Or I'm imagining?  What could be attracting them?  Been putting off the suggested minor fumigation, but now that they're keeping me up at night, I have to call my friendly neighbourhood facilities manager man.

But the beautiful thing is I've had ~no mosquitoes for years because of my amazing housing-agent-builder-decorator dude who hooked me up, with the window/door nets, and I sure never keep them open.
Love him forever - he oversaw the inverter wiring or whatever too.  I was like, I want a place with a bathroom, electricity, and water, he was like, c'mon you'll need curtains, at least one cooking surface, a bed, ... and I had the sense, and the income (now gone), to let him do whatever.

One change I did require - lose the kitchen, add that to the over-tiny 'bathroom' space.  I believe in the California kitchen; to me, it's a political issue, no wife-slaves cooking in a smoky chamber, make food right where you live.  That or no kitchen at all, lol.  It's a lifestyle issue.

He snuck in a fridge and fans, and a lighter for the cooking thing and some beautiful energy-saving light 'globes' with really cool control circuitry that I don't understand, and - thank you!
I also think no mosquitoes because active geckos on my gecko-coloured wall - what do you think?  
I find carpet is essential.  Otherwise a space feels...industrial, cold, not cosy.  So yes he did carpet.  

I love my little cave so much, I've kept it from the last elections to ... we have elections this month, right?  I love my cave.
Sometimes I sleep in other places and am reminded...mosquitoes suck!

Cool reputation X 
:(
I mildly understand how unacceptable this behaviour is an image-obsessed town, so I pretend sometimes lol, wouldn't want to cause a scandal by taking the bus in full view of the Marie Antoi-nots and their nouveau-riche noses - thank God they haven't yet discovered rhinoplasty to get the proper up-turn, for now we're still as flat in the nose as our nude-butt primate brethren. 

Still, let me rave for a minute: I love the freakin' Keke NAPEPs.
I think they're glorious tuk-tuks and I'm a tourist in Thailand.  The boss at my food spot, aka my oga at the top, reminds me that they're glorified tricycles.  Scooters.  Mopeds.  Whatever.  I like how they get through traffic sometimes.  Sanity. 

Check out:
Seeking Serenity Sensuality in Lagos, and other poems of Nigeria, here.

PS Was talking to this fine boy the other day.  He's a doctor now, he used to just be one of the little kids of my fine-girl physics teacher who many really thought was my mum cos we had the same face and later the same hips lol, now he's this clearly very smart and reflective person.  He interpreted my way as 'backpacking through life.'  I hope, wish to live up to that.  Because it's not that serious.  We're here today, so soon gone.

PPS My music speaker died last week of an apparent suicide.  I'd taken to placing the cube flat on the table because I liked the boom boom effect, it sounded more raspy that way than when you let it stand against a wall for instance.  Once, it fell off the ledge so I took care not to leave it so precariously near the edge again.  But this other time I was dancing and heard a crash, and when it failed to work afterwards, I noticed that the electronic port had been damaged - made in China? - and that was the end of the tiny digicube with the fragile sinew and mighty voice.  
I could get larger equipment, but 'backpacking.'