Pressure makes diamond much harder than stone and it only gets brighter as each day goes by. You're right about challenges being opportunities for growth. We can only see them as such, though if we first see ourselves as people that were put on this earth to achieve some great purpose that can only be achieved by us.
With this attitude of I'm special and I'm destined to achieve some great purpose, nothing can bring you down.
Yes, I live in Nigeria and I prefer to write stories with Nigerian context because, even though I know what happens elsewhere, I prefer to leave people from those places to write about their place. Nigeria is big enough for me.