Farouq comes in just in time to keep my thoughts from quietly devouring me. He finds me sitting cross-legged on the vanity, with my back resting against the mirror. Only a week in Lagos and already, he is burnt and browning. He is also clean-shaven. “You decided against the beard, huh?” I ask, reaching out to hold his face. He sucks his teeth like I showed him. “It’s too hot for all that jor,” he says in a poor interpretation of a Nigerian accent and Yoruba vernacular.
