About a year ago I helped my close friend Ifeoma move from a shared flat in Lagos mainland to her first apartment of her own in Yaba. I'm a junior accountant, and she's a nurse, and we've been friends since secondary school.
She moved on a Saturday in the rainy season, which was a mistake, because it poured all morning. She'd hired a small van with a driver, but she couldn't afford proper removal men, so four of us friends volunteered. I arrived at seven and spent the first two hours wrapping her plates and glasses in newspaper and packing them into boxes, because, typically, she hadn't finished packing. Then we carried everything down three flights of stairs, including a heavy wooden wardrobe that had belonged to her grandmother. Getting that round the corner of the staircase took four people, a lot of shouting and one scraped knuckle. At the new place, I mainly unpacked the kitchen while the others assembled her bed, and by evening we were sitting on the floor eating jollof rice from takeaway containers, completely exhausted.
I felt really good about helping, even though my back ached for two days. Partly it's because I know she'd do the same for me. When my father was in hospital two years ago, she was the one who explained everything to my family and visited every day. But it was also a special moment for her. She'd been saving for years to live alone, and she grew up sharing a room with four sisters, so seeing her standing in her own empty living room, almost crying with happiness, made the whole messy day worth it.