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.