Osun

Yoruba cooking is built on swallow and soup, and on a willingness to use pepper properly.

• Amala (yam flour) with ewedu, gbegiri (bean soup) and stew — the combination is called abula.
• Jollof rice, argued about nationally and cooked here with a smoky finish.
• Ewa agoyin — mashed beans with a dark fried pepper sauce, eaten with bread. Cheap, filling, excellent.
• Efo riro — a vegetable stew, usually with assorted meat or fish.
• Moin moin and akara — steamed and fried bean cakes, mostly breakfast.
• Asun — peppered goat meat, grilled.
• Pounded yam and eba with egusi or okra.

Ask for the pepper on the side the first week if you are not used to it. Nobody will judge you for it twice.

The South-West is the part of Nigeria where Christianity and Islam are most evenly distributed, and it is entirely normal for one family to contain both. Traditional Yoruba religious practice continues alongside them and is visible in festivals rather than in daily life.

Sunday morning and Friday midday are both quiet periods. Camp runs a church and a mosque with service times on the timetable.

Religious difference is unremarkable here. Treating it as remarkable is the thing that will stand out.

Yorùbá is spoken everywhere in Osun; English and Pidgin are universal. Yorùbá is a tonal language, so the same syllable said at a different pitch is a different word — expect to be corrected, cheerfully. The marks are the pitch: á is high, à is low, and a vowel with neither is in the middle. The dot under ẹ, ọ and ṣ changes the sound — ẹ as in bed, ọ as in law, ṣ as sh.

• Ẹ káàárọ̀ — good morning
• Ẹ káàsán — good afternoon
• Ẹ káalẹ́ — good evening
• Ẹ ṣé — thank you (to one person, respectfully)
• Èló ni? — how much is it?
• Ẹ jọ̀ọ́ — please
• Ó dàbọ̀ — goodbye

Greeting elders is taken seriously. The ẹ prefix is the respectful form and using it with anyone older than you costs nothing and buys a great deal.

Danfo minibuses and korope run fixed routes and you pay a set drop; call your destination at the bus stop and the conductor will tell you if it is the right bus. Keke napep covers shorter hops.

Motorcycle taxis (okada) are banned or restricted on many roads, and the restrictions differ by local government and are enforced unevenly. Ride-hailing apps work in the larger cities.

Traffic is the real constraint. Journeys that look short on a map are not short at rush hour — leave far earlier than you think you need to.