Homecoming. Not that this is the view I would necessarily associate with this word. Instead, this is the view I see “when I return to my flat” Why is that so different than homecoming? I guess for many different reasons. I nurture my children and my husband here. Those are the most important things to me by far. That being said, sometimes it seems I do not nurture much else here. There are no huge pots of geraniums waiting to greet me home (and beg for water). No cat rubbing my leg, wanting to be fed. No piles of junk mail to be gone through. No answering machine blinking, blinking, blinking with messages to be returned. No, this is just my flat. A place where I live . . . while in Nigeria. It is not so much that I don’t want to improve my flat beyond its shabby façade, but knowing it is so temporary really stunts my desire to better it. I remember fondly those glimpses of home magazines while standing in line to check out at the store. Not only are those types of stores rare here, the glimpses I have of those magazines are not in a store, but rather being held up to my window in a go-slow. Yet still this is home. Close friends just next door. Trials and tribulations we all go through seem to sometimes make this place feel like we are all part of a family, and my flat is just my room. So, in a way, it is a homecoming seeing these dimly lit stairwells, the flickering dirty florescent bulbs casting shadows on cobwebs and upturned cockroach bodies. The suffering we all endure and eventually laugh at as we sit together with our family in our home-away-from-home.