"What do you have in your bags?" bellowed the customs officer at Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Dressed in plain clothes, he seemed a jovial fellow. It was Dec. 26, 1999. I was checking luggage in Lagos, Nigeria, before boarding a flight to Detroit via Amsterdam.
I ticked off my list: clothing, books, toiletries, wood carvings and dried foodstuff. And a rusty sword that I had purchased as a souvenir from a street vendor in Lagos.
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