Uwem Akpan's "Baptizing the Gun" offers a colorful depiction of Lagos; from people "carrying amulets, clubs, and locally made hunting rifles" through the streets to running over a corpse in the road, explained as a "ritual corpse," meaning "the ritualists cut off the parts they want and toss the remains on the road," the narrator, a catholic priest, is quickly introduced to the extreme circumstances that are considered everyday events in the little town in Niger. Along the way, the narrator meets a Lagostian, a man who remains unnamed throughout the story and is depicted as both untrustworthy and insignificant as far as the narrator is concerned. I can understand the narrator's lack of interest and fear of the Lagostian; I would be unwilling to trust a man in a foreign country who carried a "gun" around in his pocket and just hopped in my car without an invitation.
While Akpan's story was fairly interesting, it seemed to drag on and become a little ridiculous. In a matter of about 15 hours the narrator encountered such a long string of events that it seemed slightly unrealistic and caused me to lose interest after the first few adventures. However, I found the ending amusing since the narrators' fear revolved around the belief that the Lagostian had a gun in his pocket, however it was really just a handkerchief.
Vocabulary
Mallam (in Nigerian): a title for an educated man
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