The Anti-Smell

It's clearly been a minute since I updated. Shortly after my last post, I started grad school and the blog kind of got away from me. I'm still in school but on a break right now.

This post has been floating around in my head pretty much since we moved it, but I've never been totally sure how to describe this sensory experience, so I just let it rattle around in there. 

There are a lot of interesting smells in Abuja. Most of them are the result of non-existent trash collection; there's no city trash. People who can pay private companies to collect do, and people who can't either abandon their trash or burn it. The community next to us fairly regularly burns their trash, and it is among the more awful smells I've experienced in my life, including other burning trash. 

There are also animal smells because goats, dogs, chickens, and cows roam the streets during the day and either hunker down or are collected by their owners at night. The cattle are nearly always with someone but still just walking down the road. 

There are also good smells, mostly food from the many stalls all over. Walking around you'll definitely find people selling fruit, roasted ears of corn, spicy suya, and all kinds of smoky meat. We're in the rainy season, so we've also been getting a lot of petrichor which is always lovely. Also around the school are plumeria trees and orchids that have lovely flowers to smell while out walking.

However, only one smell feels like it haunts me across time and space. I'm not even sure how to even describe it; to me, it is simply the anti-smell. It seems to rip any scent from my nose but also smells like the worst experience I've ever had in my life. I honestly think I'd rather smell garlic than this anti-smell (I'm allergic to garlic, and the smell also makes me sick.)

I first encountered this smell in my own kitchen when we first moved in. It smelled so bad that I just assumed it was for pest control, and I would have to learn to live with it. After we got our stuff settled, the smell seemed to die down. I could only smell it standing directly above the sink.

 I really thought I could get used to it. Instead, it only got worse. And I couldn't find the source of the smell. There was nothing obvious under the sink that was causing it. I would only look in small bursts though because truly I wanted to be as far away from it as possible. After weeks, I finally found this little white blob in the back of a cabinet next to the sink. One of those really deep cabinets you have to stick your whole body into to be able to reach the back. (I held my breath.) 

I asked our housekeeper what on earth this thing was, and she told me it was an AIR FRESHENER. 

The world truly is a mysterious place. There are many things in the world that aren't for me–different kinds of foods or experiences, but I can usually imagine how someone could enjoy it, knowing that if I grew up in a different area or had a different temperament I would too. 

I cannot imagine a way a human nose could find this smell acceptable. Let alone as an air freshener. 

Clearly I am wrong though, because it's quite popular here. I mostly experience it in bathrooms. Once an Uber driver had one in his car, and I nearly canceled the ride, but I was with people so I just tried not to breathe for 20 minutes. 

My brain clearly tries hard to forget about these experiences because each time I smell it, I have this "Oh yeah..... oh nooooooo" feeling and try to plot how quickly I can leave. Each time I tell myself I won't experience it again. Each time is a lie. It waits until I just forgotten to come back and haunt me.  

0/10, do not recommend

That's all I've got for now. Ending on a nice smell, there is a plant called a scent leaf, or African basil used in cooking that you can smell a lot when out hiking, so that adds a nice moment to hike like this one we took last year in the northwest of Abuja.

As always, if you see something (a typo), say something (to me about the typo.)