The Woman Who Tried to Carry a Country in Her Suitcase

Lagos. 5:17am.

Terminal D was buzzing mosquitoes and people fighting for attention.

At the check-in line,
Mrs. Ezinne Anulika Nwokedi
stood in full ankara wrapper, face set like an ancestral oath,
dragging a big red suitcase that was clearly overfed.

Not overweight. Overfed.

The bag had been zipped with prayers, rope, and shame-proof nylon.
Even the wheels protested.

When it hit the customs table, the officer sighed.

He’d seen her type before.

Women who don’t just travel they relocate their entire kitchen, altar, and childhood bedroom in one suitcase.

“Madam, please open your bag.”

“For what? I’ve already checked in. Don’t you people fear God?”

“Just routine, ma.”

She hissed, unzipping the bag like it was a betrayal.

What they found:
    •    A cooler of egusi soup, sealed with masking tape and anointing oil
    •    A large ziplock bag of dry fish and ogbono, labeled “Body Scrub”
    •    A 5-litre keg of palm oil, disguised inside a Nestlé Milo container
    •    A frozen goat leg, vacuum-sealed in a Gala wrapper
    •    Local sponge, black soap, and three white plastic bags filled with unknown powder
    •    Two bottles of bitters, marked as “hair growth tonic”
    •    And one small calabash tucked inside a lace blouse

The officer stared.

“Madam, this is too much.”

“Young man. Everything in this bag is important to my survival.”

“You’re flying to Toronto. You can’t carry soup and shrine.”

“Did you people stop the woman with chihuahua in business class? Or the one with perfume that smells like chemical weapon? Leave me alone, biko.” But deep down, Ezinne wasn’t mad. She was afraid.

Afraid of cold mornings with no pepper soup.
Of strange food and colder people.
Of forgetting who she was in a country that didn’t care.

The soup was her comfort.
The powder was for protection.
The goat meat was from her late father’s farm.
The lace blouse? Her mother’s last gift before dementia took her name.

Behind her in line, someone whispered,

“These women. Always overpacking nonsense.”

She turned, slowly.

“It’s not nonsense.
You carry iPads and AirPods.
I carry the things that raised me.” Silence.

Nearby…

Adaeze, a 23-year-old going to Australia for school,
was being forced to throw away her black soap and unlabeled zobo mix.
She kept saying,

“But it’s for skincare!”
But security thought it was powdered curse.

Ireti, 35, relocating to Houston,
was caught with a generator carburetor hidden in pampers.

“I promised my husband,” she whispered.
“He says American light is like NEPA. It can off without warning.”

And Ezinne?

They made her surrender the goat leg.
The Milo container was seized.
She fought to keep the fish but lost.
Only the lace blouse made it through.

As she zipped her bag again lighter, lonelier she wiped a tear with the same wrapper she wrapped her dreams in.

“I wasn’t just packing for a trip.
I was packing for war.
For winter.
For silence.
For a new life that doesn’t speak my language.”

Final Scene:

As she walked toward Gate 4,
the officer called after her:

“Madam, next time, travel light!”

She didn’t turn back.

“My dear,” she said under her breath,
“if only you knew how heavy it is to leave home.”

Have you or someone you know ever “overpacked home” at the airport?
Tag them.
Let them know they’re not crazy.
They were just afraid of forgetting.