When life gives you oranges

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One of my best memories of Costa Rica is of drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice from a vendor in San Jose's main plaza. In Turkey, I saw hundreds of men, like this guy, selling the same thing.

In Nigeria, oranges are dirt cheap (about 12 cents each) and there are lots of orange sellers. But none of them take the additional, value-added step of squeezing the oranges into juice, for which they could charge a premium. What's up, Nigerians? Do you not like fresh orange juice?

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It’s not that. It seems to be a lack of equipment -- nobody I spoke to here had ever seen a simple hand-crank juicer like many Americans have in their kitchens. And good ones are pretty expensive. So I ordered one online a couple months ago and had Mom and Dad ship it to me here in Lagos. I dreamed of training a team of orange-hawkers to use it, and helping them all buy juicers through this grant program sponsored by the US Embassy. Orange juice for everyone!

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Well, not exactly. I gave the juicer to Dami (below) whose mom sells fruit on my street, for a trial run. And it’s worked -- he’s slowly building up some regular customers. He still helps his mom, when he’s not in school, but now he also has his own juice stand on the side. At 15, it’s the first money he’s ever made. And we’re talking about how he can grow his business, like by painting a sign, which he’s working on.

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But the bigger vision has not quite worked out. None of the other orange hawkers near me speak English, so I couldn’t easily explain the idea to them. And, truth be told, with Dami doing well, I haven’t really followed through. So right now there is exactly one fresh-squeezed OJ hawker on the streets of Lagos. And its starting to look like one 15 year-old young man will be getting a very nice gift when I leave.

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