Nigeria is not what you see on TV - This is my Lagos

My name is David and I'm a teenager living in Lagos, Nigeria. If you're reading this from outside Nigeria, I am probably the first Nigerian you've ever actually heard from directly, not through a movie or the news. So let me tell you the truth.

Nigeria is not what they show you.

They show you two extremes - either everybody is suffering in a village with no shoes, or everybody is a scammer or dancing in a music video. Both are lies. The real Nigeria is in the middle, it's loud, it's stressful, it's beautiful, and it's the most interesting place to grow up.

How my day actually starts

My day doesn't start with an alarm. It starts with noise. By 5:30am, everywhere is already awake. You will hear the generator from my neighbor's compound - we call light NEPA, and NEPA can take light anytime. You will hear the call to prayer from the mosque far away, you will hear my mum's gospel music in the kitchen, and you will hear the danfo conductors on the road shouting "Oshodi! Oshodi! CMS!"

If you live in Lagos, you must learn how to beat traffic. Lagos traffic, we call it go-slow, can turn a 20-minute journey to 3 hours. So even if school starts by 8am, you have to leave home by 6am. You rush to the bus stop, you squeeze inside a danfo, 14 people in a bus made for 10. Everybody is pressing, conductor is shouting "enter with change o!", but somehow everybody is still laughing or gisting. That's Lagos for you. We suffer but we joke.

School or work day here is long. In school, we have morning assembly under hot sun, you sing national anthem, you listen to principal talk for one hour. Then classes back to back. No fancy lab like in America, sometimes we don't have light in classroom so we open all windows. But we still learn, we still argue, we still make noise during break time. After school, it's lesson - extra classes. Nigerian parents don't joke with education. Even if we have no light at night, you must use torch or rechargeable lamp to read.

And hustle doesn't stop. After school, my friend will go and help his mum in her shop, another one will go and do POS business, another one is already learning how to code in Yaba or make graphics on his phone. Everybody has side hustle. You can't be idle here.

What we really eat in a week - It's not what you think

We don't eat just one type of food. Let me tell you my real week:

Monday is always Jollof rice. And please, Nigerian Jollof is the best. Ghana people can argue but we know truth. Jollof with fried plantain (dodo) and chicken, and a cold malt.

Tuesday, my mum will make Egusi soup with fufu or garri. You have to eat it with your hands, you cut small, dip in soup. It's heavy but you will sleep well.

Wednesday is survival day - Indomie noodles with egg and sardine, or bread and beans. Every Nigerian student knows that combo.

Thursday, maybe white rice and stew, or Okro soup. Friday is often beans and plantain or yam and egg sauce.

Weekend is the best. Saturday morning, you might eat Akara and pap. Saturday night, you go out to buy Suya from Mallam. He will cut the meat, add plenty yaji (pepper), onions and cabbage. You eat it with your hands under street light while discussing football - Arsenal vs Man Utd argument will never finish.

We don't drink tap water. We buy pure water or bottled water. And soft drinks are Coca-Cola, Fanta, and malt - malt is like our own energy drink.

Festival and why Nigeria is never boring

We have over 250 tribes, but we live together. In my street you will hear Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Pidgin all in one hour. We celebrate everything.

If it's Christmas period - we call it Detty December - Lagos turns to another world. Everywhere has lights, there is church carol, family members coming from village, weddings every Saturday with loud music, you will hear talking drums, you will see Egungun masquerade during cultural day. If it's Eid, our Muslim friends will share ram meat to everybody, Christian or Muslim, nobody cares.

And music is everywhere. You can't walk 5 minutes without hearing Afrobeats from a shop - Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Ayra Starr, Asake. We hear the song on radio in morning, by evening every danfo driver already knows the lyrics.

What people abroad always get wrong about Nigeria

I want to correct three things:

We are not all poor and sad. Yes, things are hard, dollar is high, light is not stable. But we are not sitting and crying. Nigerians are the most hardworking people I know. We turn small to big. We laugh a lot. We have tech guys building apps, we have traders in Alaba, we have farmers in the North. We are not scammers. That Yahoo boy image has damaged us. The average Nigerian teenager is thinking about JAMB, WAEC, how to pass exam, how to make his parents proud, how to japa or how to make it here. Not scam. We don't live in huts. Lagos is a real city with skyscrapers on the Island, markets that never sleep on Mainland, traffic that looks like New York rush hour. We have beaches - Elegushi, Landmark. We have malls. We have bad roads too, yes, but we have flyovers and trains now (Blue Line). The real Nigeria is this: We complain about Nigeria every single day, from NEPA light to traffic to dollar price. But even with all that, we still find a way to laugh, to party, to hustle, to help each other. We don't just give up.

If you have never been here, you won't understand how we can be so stressed and so happy at the same time.

So that's my story. As an Afro Nigerian teenager, I just want to show you the real side, not the one from movies. If you want to know more - how we survive without constant light, how we make Jollof, how Pidgin English works, or you just want a pen pal who will tell you the real gist - write to me.

I will reply.