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- Passport, with at least 6 months remaining
- Visa in passport
- Yellow fever card, if necessary
- Flashlight (preferably, headlamp), esp. if traveling to a country with intermittent power
- Laptop, possibly spare batteries
- Digital camera
- As much money as you expect to spend in cash – - especially in Nigeria, you will not be able to use credit cards or ATM cards. If you do not take cash, you will not have money.
- If you can, take a world cell phone. SIM cards in Nigeria are very inexpensive.
- Letters of invitation (from MIT and from the Africans)
- Contact info for whomever you will meet at the airport
- If you have a chance, a guidebook (or at least the name of a hotel in the city you are arriving in, as a fallback)
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