20th July 2009

Football!

I’m writing this in retrospect as I suddenly realised that I forgot to write about my attendance (that makes it sound like there had been a formal request for me to attend, much like the queen, but there was no such thing) at the Nigeria/Kenya World Cup qualifier last month. It was great, and the first football match that I’ve been to. I was with Berry (a volunteer), and met Thessa and some others at Abuja stadium. Richard, another volunteer, got us the tickets, but he went off to sit with his fellow Kenyans. They were deifinitely in the minority. We got dropped off close to the stadium and followed the long snake of people that gradually got fatter the closer we got. Everything was pretty sedate – we queued for a little while before we got into the inner sanctum, and could sit just about anywhere. We found some space on the second tier looking down onto the long side of the pitch. There were drums and trumpets coming from somewhere in the crowd, but as the seats filled up with a sea of green it was hard to distinguish where all the sounds were coming from.

It took an age to begin as the 5pm kick off was timed using a Nigerian clock. When the players came onto the pitch, the crowd went crazy. The Nigerians were preceeded by the Kenyans, who were greeted by a polite smattering of claps (I imagined Richard and his crew going wild) and then there was a fair bit of warming up before the game began.

It was all very thrilling and I thought that the momentum was kept throughout, despite more seasoned football fans being disappointed by the lack of excitement (this was my first match so eyes were glued). As you can imagine, it being a game and all, there was lots of running around and passing and I think I got to grips with the off-side rule, but do wonder how much exercise the refs have to do just to keep up with it all. Nigeria dominated in the first half, scoring a goal pretty much straight away. That was great. Lots of cheers and bangs reverberated around the stadium, but not as much as I imagined. I thought that I would have to wiggle my fingers in my ears to bring back my ear drums, but that didn’t happen.

The star of the match appeared to be Peter Odemwingie, a Nigerian player who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He didn’t score any of the 3 goals, but contributed to them. Nigeria scored the other 2 in the second half, one by penalty and the other because of apathy from the deflated Kenyan side. They did do more in the second half, but not quite enough to score. I was to hear from Richard later that he drowned his sorrows with the Kenyan team and various ministers at their embassy later while we were out on the highway trying to flag down a taxi along with 20,000 others.

So, all in all, great fun and I now wish I had a team to get excited about.

19th July 2009

Fulani

Yesterday I was visited by Adam, a Head teacher of a Fulani school in a place not too far from Akwanga called Warro Basso. He often calls to greet me and to encourage me to carry on with the school improvement work that previous volunteers had done with his school. I haven’t made it over to the school yet, but this has now been remedied. He came over to invite me to the opening of a new vet surgery in Wamba, a 20 minute car journey away. It primarily caters for the Fulani farmers. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but the Fulani people are nomadic and are scattered throughout West Africa. Rather than rearranging words into my own prose, I’ll lift a bit from my ‘Bradt guide’ here…

‘A number of African states, including ancient Ghana and Senegal, have had Fulani rulers. The Fulani also converted to Islam and were known to have arrived in Hausaland (now northern Nigeria) in the early 13^th century, though their origin is more of a mystery. Once a pastoral nomadic people, theories and legends abound: descendants of gypsies or Roman soldiers who became lost in the desert, a lost ‘tribe’ of Israel, or relatives of the Tusreg who inhabit the southern edge of the Sahara. More realistically, it’s believed the Fulani originated from Mauritanian shepherds who were looking new pastures. Whatever their origin, the Fulani, with their olive skin and straight hair, settled in the cities and mingled freely with the Hausa, and mostly adopted the latter’s customs and language’

When I arrived at the ceremony on this Sunday morning I was ushered to a comfortable lounge seat at the front of proceedings and enjoyed some piped music before the speeches began. The surgery is in partnership with an organisation supplying pills and potions, which were then distributed by a lively rep. I was also asked to say a few words, which I stumbled over trying to express my gratitude at being there and wishing them well.

I also visited Adam’s family, who were not far from the venue and live right next to the school. It was a fleeting visit, but I hope to return next week and discuss what I can do to help.

Food and Health

I have to say at this stage that I’m dong a lot better with my cooking. My favourites so far have been my bean burgers with sweet potato chips. I plan to do more, but it does mean that I’m looking a bit ‘plumpy’ (Eriye’s word for it) and I keep getting comments from colleagues that I’m looking fat! I should point out that this is not an insult; it’s actually desirable here to look plump, as it’s a sign of good living. I have been trying hard to get up and go for short runs in the mornings though and do my Pilates exercises that I can remember, so hopefully some of it is muscle too! Oh well…

Until next time…

As for the rest of today, I plan to go and cook some dinner at David and Eriye’s as my gas has run out. I’ll have to go and get that refilled tomorrow. It’s quite in the block at the moment – Sunday’s quite a quiet day generally and I have some Django Rheinhart playing while I type. Lately, my music of choice is David Bowie. Managed to acquire a huge collection of his albums from another volunteer. As for entertainment, am running a bit low on movies – bought a pirate copy of the new Star Trek but refused to watch it as it was filmed in the cinema and cuts the tops off the characters heads. I don’t have a problem with copied movies, but I do draw a line. I also enjoy receiving newspaper clippings from the UK and the odd newspaper, and very much enjoyed looking through a copy of OK magazine that Bec sent me. Hilarious! Am reading quite a bit these days as I’ve discovered that I can read in moving vehicles without feeling queasy, and am feeling (quasi)political so am reading a copy of Tony Benn’s Diaries 1991 – 2001 that I picked up in the VSO office this week!

1st June 2009

Abuja Skills Share Workshop

Ahh, it’s been a fun few weeks. 2 weeks ago I travelled up to Abuja to take part in a VSO skills sharing workshop. I met up with Clare and Martyn at Howard’s place where we stayed for the weekend preceeding the workshop. We went out for drinks with Thessa (an ex-VSO who now works for the Dutch embassy), her boyfriend Bash, Trina, Richard and Wahab, other VSOs who were up for the workshop. On the Sunday, Clare, Martyn and I headed over to an ex-pat compound called the ‘British Village’ where we found a bar showing football, tennis courts and a gorgeous outside pool gleaming in the Nigerian sun and calling us in. It was an extremely refreshing swim (as well as stretching the muscles, it did quite a good job of cleaning my feet, which seem to be in a constantly dirty state despite regular baths). That evening we headed over to share some wonderful croaker fish at a grilled fish restaurant called Abacha Barracks. It’s actually a working army barracks, but also opens its doors to trade and people in search of very tasty spiced fish. We met Thessa and Bash there along with another VSO down for the workshop called Binu and some Indian friends of his. Clare and Martyn were also able to finally meet up with the brother of a friend of Clare’s from the UK.

Anyway, VSO business started on Monday. It was run by fellow volunteers Cicely and Laurie with various others facilitating sessions. It was very informative and covered issues such as participatory approaches, how to fundraise, HIV/AIDS awareness and the rights based approach (using the U.N.’s Human Rights Acts as a basis for development). It ran for three days and we finished off on Thursday. It was a great workshop, especially as it was good to catch up with other volunteers and generally mix with some really positive people. I could also browse on the hotel’s wireless broadband and watch CNN!

Cakes at the Hilton

I stayed in Abuja for the weekend after the workshop and stayed with Berry, another volunteer who was based in Lagos, who is unfortunately going home because her placement hasn’t worked out. We were all exceedingly sad about this, but I’m glad I got to spend some time with her while she waited in Abuja for her flight home. We pottered about, ate some nice food and spent some good time with another volunteer called Stacey. Oooh, and on the Sunday, after frequenting the British Village swimming pool again, Berry, Teleri and I went to the Abuja Hilton! We were feeling incredibly indulgent and spent N1500 (just over our daily allowance and equivalent to roughly £6) on their afternoon tea buffet. What a treat! There was an endless supply of a range of teas, little smoked salmon and cheese sandwiches, petit fours, chocolates, huge cheesscakes, brownies, apples tarts and gorgeous cakes. Oh, and scones with jam – yum! We ate as much as we could and generally felt much scruffier than we ought to have been, but we didn’t care!

Back to Akwanga

It was nice to get back to Akwanga the following week and see my work friends again. While I’d been away they’d finished off the lesson observations at the demonstration primary school, which was great. We had to put that project on hold, however, because Liz wanted us to work on a proposal for CRD to carry out some research for VSO on the National Youth Volunteering programme. It’s a scheme that graduates take part in and involves them moving to another state and working in schools as teachers. So we had to plan how we would carry out this research and compile a budget. That took a couple of days and on the Wednesday we went to attend the opening of ‘Beter Leven’s permanent site. Beter Leven is Tashi and Manga’s Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that works with local widows and orphans to train them in self-sustaining skills such as knitting, bead making and small business enterprises. They had been given money from the Dutch Embassy here in Nigeria to construct the building, so the deputy Ambassador for The Netherlands came along with a range of local dignitaries. The ceremony was great, culminating with some cold drinks at a local café.

Last Friday was a public holiday and I went up to see Clare and Martyn in Kaduna. Kaduna was the capital of the north and a 2-3 hour drive north of Abuja. I travelled up with Thessa and Bash (Thessa has a car!) and met up with C&M that evening for a super fish and chips supper in Kaduna.

The following morning C,M and I travelled up to Kano, another 2-3 hours north of Kaduna to stay with Binu. Kamal (another VSO) was also there. We had some nice Indian food and went clubbing. Beer has been disagreeing with me, so I’m off alcohol from now on, so it was interesting to see how I’d last on the dance floor. As it turned out, this new tee-total idea is quite a good one and I had lots of fun with no hangover! We also visited the dye pits (see pictures) and the ancient market. It was quite a labyrinth, and although I haven’t been, it reminded me of what I’ve seen of Moroccan markets. Within was an old slave pit where traders used to barter for labour. Some of the guys wanted a group photo there, something I thought inappropriate. Kind of akin to doing a thumbs up pose outside a prison camp.

Clare, Martyn and I travelled back to Kaduna on the Sunday to find no lights and no gas left in their kitchen. There was also no food on the roadside or local ‘chop house’ (restaurant), but we did find some beef being barbecued. I’m not sure how to spell it, but it’s called ‘soo-ya’. It’s very tasty, but, as Martyn and I found out later after trips to the toilet, something was wrong with it (Clare had wisely abstained)!

Weekends whizzing past

Time really does seem to be flying by, so a quick summary of other things I’ve been up to.

v I’ve visited Kaduna again and seen some great Hausa theatre (dancing, music and drama).

v Went down to Kwara State in the south of Nigeria with CRD to research the current national volunteering scheme for VSO. We conducted interviews with all the key stakeholders and then wrote a report on our findings. I then went to Abuja and took part in a meeting with VSO to present the report and discuss plans for the next role out phase.

v Enjoyed a party that David and Eriye threw to celebrate their one year wedding anniversary. We had goat that I watched being slaughtered and cooked (it’s amazing what you’ll find in the belly of a goat – I wonder how long those plastic bags will take to decompose!)

Sorry the quick briefing, but I’ve gotten so behind with things that it will take me a month of Sundays to go into detail. I’ll try harder in the future!

5th May 2009

Flying Time

Time really does seem to be flying by but that’s probably because settling into work and life here and that means time finds it easier to slip by. April was also an extremely busy month as it turned out so I have a lot to try and remember here.

Lafia

On the first weekend of April I visited Lafia. Another volunteer that came to Nigeria at the same time as me, Trina, lives there so we arranged to meet up. Lafia is the state capital of Nasarawa State, the state in which I’m based. Its main industry is coal mining and was founded about 300 years ago by the Hausa people (Hausa is the language that a majority of people speak in the northern part of Nigeria. There are many tribes with their own languages throughout the country, resulting in english remaining the main language of instruction.)

As for Lafia, all I can say is hot, hot, hot!!! I’d heard that it’s hot but I wasn’t expecting the wall of heat that greeted me, and the sweat was dripping off me in buckets. Aminu from work was visiting family there so I got a lift down with him. Trina works as an organisation developer and is working with a group of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the area of education. She’s based at one of their offices, the staff of which were working on a project linking local children with sponsors overseas. On the Saturday we visited the market and I bought a rechargeable lamp, which has proven useful when the electricity goes. I continued to sweat but we watched a couple of movies and stayed until Sunday. On Saturday, Lafia saw its first rain storm of the season and Trina was shocked at how the temperature dropped below 40 degrees for the first time at night! The journey home was nice and cool.

Osogbo

The following weekend was Easter so we had the Friday and Monday off work. A group of us had planned to go down to Osogbo for the long weekend. Osogbo is in Osun State in the south-west of Nigeria so it was going to be a bit of a trek to get there. Unfortunately some of the volunteers planning to go couldn’t make it but we ended with a good little posse – Richard (a volunteer from Kenya working up in the College of Education, Gidan Waya on IT systems), Howard (a volunteer from the U.S. working on IT systems for the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, SNR), Mary (a UK volunteer working with youth volunteers at a College of Education in Oro State) and Esther (a Dutch volunteer working in Lagos). And me, of course.

I travelled to Abuja on Thursday night and stayed at Howard’s place. He has a pretty swanky place in the city with lots of space. Richard also came and met us there and we went out for some chicken and chips (not as good as nice plump Akwanga country reared chicken, I might add.). The following morning we got up at 6am and made our way to a motorpark to find transport to Osogbo. Lots of people were vying for our attention and it was pretty packed, but eventually we found a bus (again, not a bus that we’re used to, but a mini-van, an old mini-van). We waited some time for the bus to fill up (there’s no schedules here, you just got onboard and wait for every seat to be taken – this can take 5 minutes or 2 hours) and set off. We were told 7 hours for the journey time, but this turned out to be a very optimistic estimate and it took more like 10 hours. It was fine though. I chatted with Howard and the guy sitting next to me (Richard had got the front seat, something he later regretted as he said it was like sitting in the front seat of a horror movie with cars hurtling past at great speeds and with great recklessness). We had a stop on the way to refuel, change 2 tyres and for Howard to get told off for taking photos of the market without seeking permission. Rather amusingly, this guy turned out to be somewhat of a local ‘eccentric’ given to hastling tourists. Once on the road again, our journey was mostly plagued by police stops, where we were generally checked over and waved on our way.

Finally we arrived in Osogbo. It’s a large place with lots of buildings and pretty good roads. We met up with Mary and Esther at the hotel, divided into boys and girls for the 2 rooms that we had (luckily for us girls the beds were huge) and went about finding food. There’s a fast food chain store in Nigeria called Tantilizers that was right opposite our hotel, so we went there and I had a burger and chips that was quite tasty. I do appreciate I so seem to eat lots of chips – I really don’t eat that badly, it’s just been a bit of a treat at the time so I felt it worthy of a mention.

The following day we went exploring and visited the Sacred Grove, a forest that’s inhabited by traditional Yoruba shrines. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it’s believed to be the last remaining Yoruba grove. The ancient Yoruba culture was revitalised by an Austrian artist called Susanne Wenger, who came to Osogbo in the 1960s. Amongst her legacies are a large collection of sculptures based on the Yoruba gods that can be found throughout the beautiful forest, where we also found bamboo trees and a collection of friendly monkeys.

Back in the city we visited the Market Shrine and Oba’s Palace, some old buildings that we entered cautiously, but ended up being welcomed into a Yoruba shrine where we left some bread in order to avoid being cursed with chicken pox! The main road was busy with market traders and okadas shooting by. As we made our way along the rows of shops, we found ourselves in the ‘ju-ju’ section of the city. Ju-ju is a form of witch craft, something still practised in Nigeria by a few and still feared by the superstitious many. The ju-ju part of the market sold things such as rats, hedgehogs, dead vultures and dried chameleons. It was an interesting mixture and for the non-believer was quite startling!

Osogbo is also home to many artists and galleries, which was good to experience. I bought a small painting from the Phoenix gallery, where I also got to meet and chat with the artists. He was a very skilled artisan. A painter, sculpture and furniture maker, he was also passing his skills onto a group of young artists. On our trek through the city, we were also presented with an impromptu exhibition of dancing and drumming from a huge group of children that we managed to gather.

The journey back to Abuja was fairly uneventful. I tried not to eat and drink too much so as to avoid needing to go to the toilet enroute! Back in Abuja we had another night at Howard’s, bought some tinned foods at Park ‘n’ Shop (an Indian owned shop near him that sells a huge range of western foods) and enjoyed a Mexican Schwama (salad and chicken roll). I also managed to purchase the next season of ‘24’, which I duly devoured the following week.

Weddings

The following Saturday was awash with weddings. My neighbours Mr and Mrs Arpache (he’s a language lecturer here and she works in the home economics department) were sponsoring a pair of students who were getting married in the campus’ Catholic Church. The service was meant to start at 10am, so David, Eriye and I set off in the rain. On arrival, events weren’t happening yet (there’s something called ‘Nigerian time’ here, which means that time is like a very loose elastic band – it reminds me how us Europeans are ruled by the clock), so we decided to visit another wedding that was taking place in the Fellowship Hall, also here on campus. This was a very grand affair with dancers, a band, an MC and about 5 different priests presiding over the ceremony. The bride entered in a western wedding gown looking beautiful and the service was very recognisable in its format. At one point, guests were given envelopes, which they filled with money and formed a procession to hand the gifts to the bride and groom.

After the ceremony we made our way back to the other service, which was still taking place. Food of chicken, donuts and Schweppes was also provided, which was yummy. Something that I’ve noticed at weddings here is how the importance of having babies is celebrated in the service. In the UK we don’t take it for granted that couples will have children, but here families have traditionally been very large. For example, Tashi’s father had 9 wives and he estimates that he has between 50 – 60 brothers and sisters. That’s an extreme example and not that common these days, but polygamy is still quite widespread.

Work

That week also saw the visit of a volunteer who had served at the college about 4 years ago. It was good to catch up with her and for her to see how CRD had changed. We’d spent some time getting the office tidied up and have started to sort through the various teaching resources that it has. It has a small selection of children’s books, some teaching manuals and lots of flash cards to teach the alphabet. I’m hoping that in the future we’ll be able to develop these into a resource lending library for local primary teachers. Tashi (the Acting Program Manager) and I also conducted staff interviews to establish perceptions on CRD, its work, their roles and ideas for further training needs. I’ve been working closely with Tashi on how to manage the department and how to organise training and projects in an organised way.

We developed an Action Plan of objectives and activities that we wanted to achieve in the short term that would get CRD generating ideas and work. One of the first things we did was to have a team meeting to discuss the department’s Strategy Plan. This was successful and we managed to generate ideas for research that we would like to carry out that fits in with CRD’s long term aims and objectives. We also planned some in-house training that staff members felt was necessary. Tashi has starting stepping down some training on how to write proposals for funding and I’m running a short course on phonics. I’m also training the staff on grammar and spelling. The weeks seem to fly by, so the aim is to not be too ambitious, but to have a selection of achievable activities each week.

In-house training takes up a lot of time, but we’ve also devised and distributed a questionnaire on HIV/AIDS awareness for the group of 1^st year students who hope to be peer educators. Peer educators are young people who spread the message of awareness and they will help to educate their fellow students of HIV/AIDS. They will also be involved in awareness campaigns that we hope to hold. We have also started planning a course on teaching aids for primary education students. Linking with the Primary Education Studies Department is going to be important for CRD, so this should be good. We will also be working with teachers from the demonstration primary school here on the campus. We’re carrying out lesson observations in their classes and interviews with the teachers, starting this week, and when we’ve finished these we’ll be able to put forward a proposal for some teacher training workshops. All these activities take some time, but little steps…

Dutch Embassy Party

On 30^th April, Holland celebrates ‘Queen’s Day’. You may wonder what on earth this has to do with me, but when the Dutch Embassy holds a party in Abuja, that VSOs are invited to, where purchase of a ticket equals free food and drinks all evening, I was pretty keen to celebrate. A group of about 10 volunteers were there, along with various ex-pats living in Abuja, and it went on late into the night. Eriye and her brother Evans, who was visiting from Port Harcourt (a city in the south of Nigeria), came too, and we, along with a volunteer couple from the UK (Clare and Martin who are based up in Kaduna), stayed at Howard’s. It was good to let our hair down and big thanks goes to Thessa, a previous volunteer who now works at the Dutch embassy.

Jos

The following week was a short one as the Friday was a national holiday. For the long weekend I travelled to Jos with Eriye and David and stayed with some American missionary friends of theirs. Steve and Deedee spend half their year in Jos and the other half in Tennessee in the States. They’ve been in Nigeria for many years now and are currently building a Bible school in Jos. They were great hosts and had a wonderful house on the hillside overlooking the city of Jos. The journey from Akwanga took about 2 hours. Jos is on a plateau (it’s the capital of Plateau State), which means that the temperature was very cool. This was further improved by the storms in the evenings, which nearly called for socks to be worn. Eriye found it very chilly and wrapped up in blankets, but as someone from the UK, I could still appreciate that it wasn’t really cold! Jos was very pleasant and we visited the museum and shopped at the market. I bought some fabrics to make some skirts as well as a wooden African board game that’s proved to be very addictive (it reminds of all those hours spent playing backgammon in Harlow).

On the Sunday, Steve wanted to visit a new well and a church in Gombe State, so we thought we’d travel with him too, not fully appreciating the length of time it would take to get there. 5 hours later we were joining in with the church service and taking snaps with the villagers who had gathered. It was great to meet Steve and Deedee and will remain grateful for the great pots of tea I was inundated with! I was also bestowed with a Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD when I left, so was very very happy! I hear that there’s been a bit of a Star Trek rejuvenation back home thanks to the new movie. I can’t believe I’m missing it!

Tummy

Unfortunately the last week has given me my first proper illness. I had to stay at home for a few days with a bad stomach, but have now been under the course of a range of interesting pills that the doctor prescribed and I’m now feeling a lot better. I had a quiet weekend with a visit from Trina, who proved an excellent pancake maker when David, Eriye and Tashi came over for brunch on Sunday morning! I have to admit that being ill has made me miss home, particularly when I think about food! I keep thinking about mum’s roast dinners, lasagne, pizza and cake. I made myself feel better though by watching ‘Withnail and I’ and a Jimmy Carr DVD!

Anyway, this has been a really long blog entry, so I will endeavour to make it shorter next time. Tomorrow I will be observing some lessons at the demonstration primary school and delivering some phonics training in the afternoon. Captain’s Log over and out.

27th March 2009

Abuja

Well, it’s been quite a while since I checked in. I’m hoping that the internet will return, but for now there’s an internet café in town. Since I last wrote things at work have been fairly busy and I had a good weekend in Abuja the weekend before last. In honour of St. Patrick’s Day there was a party at a compound that belongs to an Irish construction company. We (myself along with a group of other volunteers) had food and drinks (including pizza, which made me very happy) all evening and chilled out by the pool. The following day we went for a late lunch at a famous fish restaurant, which is on an army barracks. A huge courtyard was full of smoking grills covered with large croaker fish. One whole fish was enough to share between 2 and we feasted on it with chips. It was yummy and, of course, very spicy. That evening the extortionate price I paid for some palm wine reminded me how expensive Abuja is, but I did treat myself when I found a shop that sold imported foods (tins of tuna and strawberry jam). The journey back to Abuja was quite straight forward. I made my way out of the city on a bus (a small Nissan van full of people – the one I used on my inbound journey kept stalling and passengers had to quickly jump out and give it a push) and got to a motor park in Nyanya. There, I was directed to an old Peugeot 505 that took me all the way to the Akwanga roundabout. From there I donned my crash helmet and caught an Okada back home.

Down to Work

The last week has seen the return of Tashi to the team. He’s just finished his teaching practise but is now back to work in the Centre for Research and Documentation. Among the team’s jobs is to enhance the teaching of literacy and numeracy in primary schools within the state, to expand and increase the capacity of HIV&AIDS services within the college campus and to carry out needs assessments that lead to effective training of pre and in-service teachers. For the past few months, CRD has been working on an externally funded project to make and distribute around 800 desks and chairs as well as blackboards to a host of primary schools around Nasarawa State. They have seen the project through, from a needs analysis of primary schools, to developing and submitting a proposal for funding, working with carpenters, to distributing the products when completed. Everyone is very proud of this achievement but are happy to see it wrapped up this week.

The CRD is part of the College of Education, Akwanga, and is very keen to increase awareness and mainstream HIV&AIDS education amongst its 13,000 students. So, we have been writing proposals for funding to develop youth (or peer) educators within the college, to produce educational resources and improve access to medical services. Hopefully we will be successful. As well as this, we are about to start working with the college’s demonstration primary school to determine what kind of further training the teachers there require. The CRD team have come from a variety of backgrounds, so we will also begin by ensuring everyone is aware of how to assess and evaluate teaching when we carry out our needs analysis. I guess we’re hoping to be a friendly Ofsted! I’ve also been helping an English lecturer here with a project that he’s going to present about the teaching of oral English in schools. Of course I’ve taught English, but English as a foreign language is a whole other kettle of fish. Any TEFL resources will be greatly appreciated!

Weekends in Akwanga

I’m spending the weekend in Akwanga as I did last week. A neighbour in my block of flats has been a very good host and we often sit outside in the evenings drinking palm wine or cola. Last Sunday I went with him and his family to the Catholic Church on the campus. The service is similar to the Anglican services back home and the hall (a lecture hall during the week) was packed, with people flowing out of the door. Religion is often a topic of conversation here and people are either Christian or Muslim but I’m known as a ‘free-thinker’.

That weekend I also went for a walk with Eriye to a Fulani village situated not too far from the staff quarters. The Fulani people are a roaming tribe. The men herd cows across the country for grazing while the women and children stay at home. I’ll post some pictures of their homes in the future, but they were very friendly and allowed us to take a papaw (not sure if that’s how to spell it) from their tree. On our journey there we also came across a huge mango tree. Despite throwing stones and sticks at it, the fruit was very stubborn and refused to come down. Luckily, some boys were walking by and one of them climbed it and threw some down, much to our delight.

Food

Back at home, my cooking has been a bit better. I now have a bowl of porridge with freshly picked mango on top for breakfast. Lunch is leftover dinner, a sandwich or fried yam and akara from the shops here. Mum and dad will find it funny to hear that I made tuna pasta the other evening and sat down to watch an episode of Hustle from a DVD that a friend lent me! I tend to have pasta, noodles, rice or couscous with vegetables (beans, peppers, tomatoes, and onions), tuna or egg for supper. Eriye has also treated me to her yam and red sauce (a very spicy tomato sauce). I hope to get my oven fixed soon too, because I bought a baking tin and ingredients to make a cake. The diet here doesn’t include much sweet stuff, which means that Nigerian teeth are very strong and can open bottle tops (don’t worry, I won’t be trying that with my weak sugary white man’s teeth!).

And finally…

Finally, I watched a hilarious movie this week called The Gods Must Be Crazy that I highly recommend everyone watches. It’s from 1980 and set in Botswana and I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. What a treat. I also watched the Michael Moore film Sicko, which I also recommend. It made me feel very proud of the NHS – Nina, it wasn’t your hospital featured was it? Anyway, all is good, ‘Mungo-dey Allah’ (we thank god), apart from the extraordinary event of a cold that I’ve been suffering with this week. I didn’t have one all winter back home, and now, with it rarely cooling below 30 degrees at night time, I have one! After couple of restless nights I now feel much better though. Over and out.

11th March 2009

A Dancing Priest

Last week seemed to fly by. Nepa came back on Thursday night after men worked through the night to repair the pole. It’s good to have lights and fans working. On Friday, David, Eriye and I were invited to Sabine and Markus’ leaving party up in Gidan Waya so we left work just after 11am and made our way out onto the road to find transport. Everything that passed was full and the sun was beating down. Transport here can seem to take any form. Usually I would want to catch little buses or taxis. However, rescue that day came in the form of a kind stranger who picked us up in his nice car and drove us as far as a motor park in a place called ‘Forrest’. Along the side of the road men worked on the land in the scorching sun. I was also intrigued by the poles that stand erect at intervals along the roadside with plastic bottles hanging on the top. I discovered that these mark the places where you can buy ‘palm wine’. This is tapped from the tops of palm trees and bottled. Eriye described it as being like Smirnoff Ice and she wasn’t far off, although it’s not as sweet. It seems that it’s a naturally occurring alcoholic drink and I actually quite liked it when we stopped and tried some. At Forrest we went to find a taxi and found one that offered a price as long as the other seats were filled too. David managed to negotiate a price for us to leave then and there, however, and we managed to make it just after 1pm.

It was good to see Sabine and Markus again, as well as Richard the volunteer who was taking over their job at the college working on IT systems and had been there for the past week for some handover. Their fridge was stocked with beers, minerals and water and food was Jalof rice (rice cooked with tomatoes, onions and chillies) with meat and some delicious meat pies. Lots of people from their college came, as well as Cicely, Laurie and Dori. All in all it was a good evening, especially when Father Basil their local Catholic priest started dancing and even break dancing. Got to be seen to be believed!

We stayed in their vacant next door apartment and were treated to cups of tea and bread with jam the following morning. Yum! I was reminded how much I miss sweet things such as jam and have been going on about hunting down some jam ever since (haven’t found any yet despite assurances that it can be found on the market!).

The journey back was fairly straight forward, although I was made to negotiate seeing as I’d had an easy ride up to that point. We got a good price for a taxi all the way back to Akwanga and he drove fairly safely.

Entertainment

The weekend passed with a couple of trips to the market for more kitchen wares and food and some movie watching and eating round at David and Eriye’s. David was having a complete Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings marathon thanks to the addition of my DVD collection and in return I now have seasons 3-5 of Lost, which are very addictive. Monday was a public holiday because of the Muslim festival Edil-Molud (the birth of the prophet Mohammed) and I enjoyed some dinner with my neighbour Mrs Amu-Nandi, the Dean of Languages here. We had Cassava (the texture is like pounded yam or semovita – the starchy part of the meal) and used it to scoop up Obono soup or ‘draw’ soup. The consistency of the soup is very unusual as it is very gloopy and leaves a long string of liquid when you pick it up. Tasty though and I’m getting a lot better at using my hands to eat even though I’m usually offered a spoon. Before eating, you get a bowl of water with some soap (a tube of washing up liquid commonly known as ‘Morning Fresh’).

Right, well, hopefully next time I report in I’ll say a bit more about work, but for now I’m going to sign out.

3rd March 2009

Arriving at Work

So, after arrival and settling into my new place, I had a good night’s sleep and awoke to the smell of a new morning. I lay there thinking about what work might have in store for me. Breakfast was some bread and a cup of tea. I wasn’t quite sure about the water. It didn’t seem that sandy, but David had said that that was what I had to watch out for. Patricia arrived to clean and do my washing, which I was very grateful for. The walk to work is a fairly straight road that leads straight from the accommodation blocks down the centre of the college campus and my office. Students litter the road, ambling to and from college and being woven in and out of by okadas. Once in the office, I met various people: Manga, Becky, Tashi, Joseph, Aminu, Clement, Musa and Musa. They were all working on various projects so were in and out. The office was awaiting a current order of desks and stools for primary school in the state waiting to be completed. The prospect of this being achieved was very exciting, but until that was completed Becky was to show me round and get me orientated. We spent that first morning walking and talking around the campus, meeting Heads of Departments, enjoying the odd ‘mineral’ (soft drinks such as Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes or Guinness Malta (a non-alcoholic malt drink)) and generally greeting lots of new people. I’m sure they’ll remember me, as David and I are the only white people on campus, but I’m not sure whether I can do the same in return as we met so many people. We walked for about 2 hours, so we were quite tired that afternoon. People seemed very keen for me to work with them, particularly when it comes to computer skills, but that’s something that I will need to figure out in the up coming weeks.

Days and Nights

That night was another unappetising meal, but fortunately I’m not too fussy! Thanks to my friends, I have the box set of the complete series of Sex and the City so was very happy sitting down with a cup of tea and ‘the girls’. I did make a mental note, however, to spread my enjoyment of the DVDs out. It can easily become obsession that leads to devastation when the seasons run out. I know, I know. Anyway, I wasn’t that easily diverted from my new life, and after another bucket wash, had another comfortable sleep under my mosquito net. It actually makes me feel like a princess – look at the picture once I upload it and you’ll see what I mean!

Friday was another relaxed day and then I found myself at the weekend thinking about what to do. People tend to take it easy here in Akwanga on the weekend so I went with David into the town, which is 2 to 3 km away. He has his own motorbike that has been loaned to him by the college, so I sat on the back. After filling up my shopping bags with carrots, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, rice, sugar, cornflakes, matches, tomato puree, fruit juice and biscuits, we went and had some lunch at a local restaurant. I had my old favourite, egusi soup and pounded yam. Unfortunately I’d had a funny tummy for a couple of days so couldn’t finish. I won’t go into the ins and outs, but generally I’ve been ok. I’d heard from a fellow new volunteer in Abuja who had already gone down with a suspected case of malaria, which is a shame. I have to take anti-malarial pills everyday and sleep under a net to try and hold back the threat, but you never know when a mosquito might attack!

On Sunday I went to church with David, which was interesting. He attends one called Church of Christ. It was fairly long service with lots of hymns and some teaching from the bible where the congregation could join in by reading out passages or contributing thoughts. The hardest worker, however, was the man leading the service, who translated the sermon, teachings and quotations from English into Hausa, the local language.

On Monday, I had some visits from a couple of local children. I gave them each a biscuit, but unfortunately didn’t have anything like story books or colouring, which they built up the courage to ask for. News spread of the biscuits and I’m certain to get more visits from more children in the area.

That night disaster struck. Just as I was tucking into what I have to say is my nicest cooking yet (rice with a tomato and vegetable sauce), there was a crash and I saw the power line pole fall down just outside my window. Instantly, Nepa went. Some people gathered round to look at what had happened and as the whole area appeared to be in darkness I’m hoping that it will be sorted out soon. I will have to take things into work to charge for the foreseeable future though and will have to limit my laptop use at home. All is good though. Life goes on!

27th February 2009

Flying out from Heathrow to Abuja

My overbooked flight from Heathrow was scattered with 7 VSO volunteers like myself and we were all packed in tightly. The first half an hour onboard passed with folk cramming bags into the overhead lockers. The stories that painted Nigerians as a people who didn’t relish the notion of travelling light seemed to be confirmed by the very slight roll of the eyes and flicker of a smile that betrayed the otherwise composed demeanour of the diligent BA cabin crew. I didn’t help much with 2 largish bags for my hand luggage. It was a case of shove them in, slam the door shut and hope for the best. My weeks of precise packing had paid off, however, and I managed to get everything through, including the helmet that VSO had given me to wear as a passenger on the many ‘Okadas’ or motorbike taxis that I would use once in Nigeria. To those of who that are interested, I was 2g shy of my maximum 56kg that I was allowed in the hold. The trick now was to make sure everything stayed in tact and that there were some strong men when I touched down to lug them about.

Abuja

We arrived in the capital city of Abuja at about 5:30am on Saturday 14^th February. Milling about waiting for customs was when the VSOs met up and chatted, eager to discover who we all were and where we were headed. We then sailed through and met up with Matthew and Marlous from VSO, who ushered us outside to pack into vans and head for the city. I always like stepping off a plane and judging a climate by the impact that it makes on me as I step out of the sanctuary of an air conditioned airport terminal. This time I was expecting hot. And humid. It didn’t disappoint. The air was still and close and the sun was attempting to shine through a very orange haze that hung everywhere. Welcome to ‘Harmattan’ I was told. Harmattan are winds that carry and sweep fine sands across the country. It can give the appearance of smoggy air and makes life and belongings dusty.

On our journey into the centre of Abuja I tried to take it all in. I was finally here. After months of planning, I was finally here in a place that I knew could not be imagined from the pages of a book. The road was long and straight into the city and people were emerging, as if from nowhere, to push trolleys stacked with bottled water, cram into vans to get to work, climb onto the back of Okadas or to scratch heads at a broken down car perched precariously on the kerb.

After visiting the VSO flat for a quick meeting, I was then taken to the Crystal Palace Hotel where I finally got to lay my head down.

My first job was to get a SIM card for my mobile. Mobiles are the main form of communication here. They are everywhere and so are the sellers of top-up/charge cards. In fact, there were about 6 guys standing at the gates of the hotel waving strips of charge cards 24 hours a day. I presume they do a good business, along with the vast amounts of others who peddle their wares on the streets. But that’s not all. The prize for most courageous seller surely goes to the man who walks between the cars at Abuja traffic lights selling everything from a huge assortment of daily newspapers, to CD wallets, umbrellas and a store of Obama books (he is, of course, the man and worth risking life and limb for).

Life in the hotel was good. I got to sample my first Nigerian food and met some new volunteers who had arrived from Uganda, Kenya, India and the States. I shared a room with Mary, another UK volunteer, who I have to say was extremely neat, well at least when comparing here tidy suitcases with my explosions).

Most meals here tend to be made up of a main starchy staple accompanied by a spicy stew like soup. Crushed chillies (or ‘pepper’) go into most things and a lot of palm oil is used. My first meal consisted of a bag of pounded yam (it looked like mashed potato) and some egusi soup, which is made from ground melon seeds and bitter leaf (it looks like spinach). The goat and fish were pretty good too. So far so good.

We all gathered for seminars from Monday through Wednesday and started to learn about Nigerian culture and procedures. On Thursday 19^th February we were all dispatched to serving volunteers who would look after us and show us their homes. Trine and I went to stay with Sabine and Markus, a German couple who were here on a 6 month placement working on computer systems in the College of Education in Gidan Waya in Kaduna state. They had opted to buy their own Golf as they’d been fed up with the treacherous nature of Nigerian driving. The 2 hour journey was indeed a good introduction to this and I’m not sure whether words will do the experience justice. Suffice to say I, as front seat passenger, constantly had my ‘break’ foot slamming into the floor. Of course, this action did nothing, and we all arrived safely in one piece thanks to Sabine. Cars go quickly here and the road up to Gidan Waya was full off pot holes. Overtaking is audacious – coming up to a hill or a sharp bend would not put some drivers off speeding round a line of 5 cars and a truck.

Placement Visit

Visiting Sabine and Markus was a great introduction to volunteers’ way of life here in Nigeria: cooking, cleaning, water filtering and going to the market. Market was hot and busy. Throngs of people bustled through narrow, muddy paths, under ornings and passing sellers sitting on stools displaying their wares in baskets. Greetings came thick and fast. It was something that I found out fairly quickly about Nigerians – wherever you go and whoever you are, you will always be greeted with a warm welcome and a smile. Something I was pleased to find and a fun point of comparison when thinking about Britain!

The College of Education was a vast campus full of institutional offices and lecture halls, student accommodation blocks and employee houses. Markus and Sabine had been instrumental in setting up an internet café within the college and it was proving to be a hit. It’s a room of about 20 computers, all with internet access. Their presence seemed to hold a world of possibilities, which will hopefully continue. They would be leaving in a couple of weeks and taking over their reigns was a recent employee, Solomon, and a new VSO, Richard.

Back at their house, children played freely under the trees. Their excitement at the sight of us was overwhelming as they clambered to gather bags and goods from the car whenever we pulled up. ‘Snap, snap!’ they would cry when the cameras came out.

On Saturday we went to visit 3 volunteers who were staying nearby. Cicely from the UK and Dorie and Laurie from the US. They’d bought chickens and had cooked a delicious barbecue.

The following morning I went to a Catholic Church service with them followed a lunch with and lift back to Abuja with the priest, Father Basil. The main religions here are Christianity and Islam. Roads are chock-a-block with churches and they certainly play a very important part of life here. The service was vibrant with colour and sound. Fantastic singing. Everyone was very welcoming of us too.

Back in Abuja we all met up together at the hotel. Also arriving were representatives of our Nigerian partner organisations. I met Manga, from the department that I would be working with at the College of Education in Akwanga. We spent 2 days participating in training sessions together before saying farewell to Abuja. We attempted going to a local bar that we had been frequenting, only to find a Champions League match going on, so we couldn’t get in. Football appears to be the other religion here. Favourite teams are Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man United. Not sure how teams are picked but, I’m sorry to say boys; Spurs don’t seem to get a look in!

Foreign (silver) Service

Before I forget, I should also mention that we visited the house of the High Commissioner and his wife here, Bob and Jenny Dewer. It was a nice place with palm trees, well kept turf and good food (and drinks). They were great hosts and it was interesting to discover that he and his wife had volunteered with VSO many years ago. My regret, however, was that I put my name in the guest book and put ‘Crystal Palace Hotel’ in the part where it asked where I was from. Sorry Essex. There was security but Howard, the only American in our party, pointed out that if it were the American embassy things would have been different (I presume he meant more machines and checks at the gate rather than general hospitality). Thanks to a conversation I had with mum and dad before I came, I also felt very proud to be the only one to really explain to him why we’re special and sometimes have ‘High Commissions’ rather than common garden ‘embassies’. Kids, ask your teacher. Having an American in the group also turned me into an uber Brit and I took great delight in explaining what Pimms was and why I was expecting cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off!

I haven’t actually said too much about the heat so far. It is hot, but I’m coping and think that I’ve gotten to grips with it. I have factor 50+. I don’t expose my skin too much. I don’t do the crazy tourist thing and walk for hours in the scorching sun. It remains humid all day and cools off in the evening. I’ve been sleeping quite well – I just try and keep still.

To Akwanga

The ride in Manga’s car out to Akwanga took about 2 hours. If you’re the studious type (which I’m sure you are if you’ve kept reading this far!) and are looking at a map, you can see that the capital, Abuja, is right in the middle of the country in an area called Federal Capital Territory. To the south-east of this is an area called Nasarawa State. Lafia is in the middle of this state and Akwanga is a little town just to the north of Lafia.

As I entered Akwanga, the sun was beating down on the dusty streets. I surveyed the place that would be my home for the foreseeable future and tried to take it all in. Okadas, market sellers and goats. I’ll have to post more pictures up to give you a better idea. I did a quick stop off at the college where I met Mr Khuze, my new boss, before being taken to my new home in the college grounds. I’m on the first floor of a 3 storey block. It’s quite a spacious place with lounge seats, a dining table and chairs and a bed and desk for me in my room. I was soon whisked away to the market with Maria, a college cleaner, and Patricia who was to be my cleaner. They helped me buy buckets for the kitchen and bathroom, pots and pans, knives, cutlery, plates and some food. All if this was then carried back to my door on the back of an Okada. As it was my first time I was let off lightly, but I soon discovered how easy it is to hold on to so much.

I attempted to cook that first night. Noodles with a sauce of onions and tomatoes. Quite unappetising really, but I’m hoping that I’ll get better and am kind of regretting not managing to stuff my copy of the Complete Delia Smith into my luggage somehow. My water filter also appeared to be broken, but fortunately David, an existing VSO volunteer who lives in the block next door with his wife, brought me round some bottled water. Apparently it’s fairly safe to drink, but needs filtering because of all the sand. By the way, the water doesn’t come out of the tap (very often), but Patricia fills up huge containers in the kitchen and bathroom for me to use.

That night I finally got to sit still and listen to the sounds around me. Car and bike engines. Various birds clucking and quacking. Children calling. Wind tapping at the window frames. People talking loudly in the stair well. Doors creaking. Fans turning. A TV in a next door flat.

It was then bucket bath time. I crouched in the bath and scooped the water from a bucket over me. It’s actually quite refreshing. There’s something so shocking and excruciating about a cold shower, but this is different. It felt nice to be clean. I had that clean warm feeling I used to get on summer evenings as a child when a British summer actually meant sunshine. I had been warned that power (or ‘Nepa’) here can be temperamental, so took advantage of the fact that there was still electricity and watched a whole movie on my laptop. And I have to report, folks, that out of all the DVDs that I brought with me, the very first one that I watched on Nigerian soil was True Lies. Can’t beat a bit of Arnie and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I was then so tired, so went to bed at 9pm and actually slept well until 4:30am when the TV went on downstairs with BBC world service. I listened to the dulcet British tones of the news reader and was soothed back to sleep again.