I'd like to talk about my aunt Funmi, who's a sales manager for an agricultural equipment company. She's based in Lagos, but honestly she's hardly ever there.
Her job is to sell irrigation systems and small tractors to farming cooperatives and distributors across West Africa. That means visiting farms to show how the equipment works, meeting government agricultural officers, and training local dealers.
She travels almost every week. Within Nigeria, she goes regularly to Kano, Kaduna and Jos, mostly by road, because many of the farms are far from airports. She also travels to Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal several times a year. Last year she flew to India to visit a factory that makes some of their pumps. She once told me she'd spent more nights in hotels than in her own bed that year.
Would I like a job like hers? My answer is yes and no. The exciting side is obvious. She's seen far more of Africa than most people, she speaks some French and Hausa because of her work, and she has contacts and friends in so many countries. I find it fascinating when she talks about how farming differs from one region to another. But I've also seen the downsides. She misses family events, she's often exhausted, and road travel in some areas isn't always safe. She has a teenage son, and I know she feels guilty about how much she's away. I'm a primary school teacher, and I love coming home to the same place every day. So I think I'd enjoy her job for a year or two, but not for a whole career.