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.