Christmas 09

The pictures on this page are (from top to bottom (I still can't shift them round to make them fit right on the page)):
Anita Aparshe, Abraham Aparshe and John Okereke enjoying my atlas, Abraham again with a toothpick, John again, Mrs Monde the Provost of the College, Dan Aparshe (the dad) with little Rihina from upstairs, a spectaular pair of jeans that I spotted at the Miss Akwanga Pageant on New Years Day, a group of volunteers enjoying a night out in Abuja, me with my hair braided, Janet and Augustine Aparshe, me again, guys playing in a basketball tournament in Akwanga. (The Aparshes and the Okerekes are my neighbours.)





















Christmas
The weekend before Christmas I went to Abuja for my friend Angie’s birthday and went out dancing. I was then meant to go down to Calabar, which is on the south coast, for Christmas. The bus company had said that the bus would be leaving Abuja at 7am and passing through Akwanga, so I kept in touch with the driver to know when. The time ticked away and the bus didn’t arrive until 1pm, meaning that we probably wouldn’t arrive in Calabar before midnight. There’s been a fuel crisis recently, so queues from the filling stations are hugely backed up. There was also a lot of congestion on the roads because of Christmas, so I forelornly picked up my backpack and went home. There I found the Aparshe children (my neighbours), who were happy to have me back to join them for Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent preparing food for the following day. I visited Comfort, another neighbour, who was also preparing food and practised a little bit of Mada dancing. Mada is the dominant tribe around here. In the night, around 1.30 in the morning, I spoke to the Stansted crew, who were all around Ed’s enjoying Finnish bun and gingerbread after having been at the pub. It was funny to think of them drunkenly standing around the phone in his mum’s kitchen while I lay in the hot night under my mosquito net.


I woke up early on Christmas morning. My fridge has been on the fritz but had miraculously started working a day earlier, so the Aparshes had stored some veg and meat in there. They came to pick it up and I chipped in by chopping green beans. The plan was to go to Church that morning at 9, but before we went we had some food – spicey rice with vegetables in, coleslaw and meat. So we waddled off to Church, bellies full. Once there, we discovered that the English spoken mass had been earlier and we had joined the Hausa service. ‘Bademwa’, as they say (no problem). Back at home, we went to rest, so chilled out a bit and had a nice call from home where everyone was enjoying opening presents.

Later on in the afternoon I went to visit Comfort and Gudi, my neighbours downstairs and had some more rice and meat and some watermelon. I then went on a little walk to Becky’s house, which is across the campus and in a part of town called Lo-cost. She tried to ply me with more food, but I just took some chicken as I knew she’d been keeping them for some time especially for Christmas. It seems that it’s the custom to go and visit other people’s houses on Christmas Day where you’ll be fed. From there I went to see Mrs Monde (Acting Provost of the College) and we sat outside drinking beer and eating meat. For Woody’s information (ever since some Nigerian couple were on The Restaurant, she’s obsessed with how I must be eating goat all the time!), the traditional meat at Christmas is beef. My neighbours had gone in with a group of 4 to buy a cow, which was slaughtered and divied up on Christmas Eve.

When I got back from Mrs Monde, I visited the Okerekes upstairs, my final visit for the day.

Boxing Day was quiet. I sat and watched some TV with the Okerekes and started to write this. I have a friend coming for dinner, so am cooking some beef that I bought today. It’s a bit of a pain that my fridge is being so temperamental, because it means that things go bad so quickly. I have a list of things to do in the new year though, which includes getting my fans and fridge fixed and building a book shelf for my parlour.

Ghana Dec09

Ghana

Eriye, the wife of David who used to be a volunteer here in Akwanga, has been waiting to get a call for an interview regarding her visa to follow David to Canada. Unfortunately, the office for Canadian visas for West Africa is in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Well, she got the call in September for an interview in December and I went with her to Ghana a few days ahead of it. She was travelling from Port Harcourt (down south) so I flew from Abuja to Lagos to Accra. It was a straight forward journey and when I landed in Accra in the evening, it was very muggy. The airport is right in the city and just a short taxi ride from where we stayed, so pretty easy. We were kindly hosted by Laurie and John, some Canadian missionaries with a church called the Church of the Nazarene that David had known when he used to live in Port Harcourt.

Apart from the sticky weather (highlighted by the fact that the dry season was already underway in Nigeria so I was used to dusty skin and a dry nose), one of the first things that struck me about Accra was the advertisements. In Abuja and the 2 Nigerian airports that I had travelled through, advert hoardings are either bare or taken up with domestic bank or mobile phone promotions. Now I was seeing images for Vodaphone, fashion designers and Pepsi towering over me. For good or bad, it just made the place seem more vibrant and desirable. The roads were also very neat, with trimmed bushes and proper pavements. As we drove through the back streets to a place called Nima, where we were to stay, street vendors seemed familiar, as did the smells.

We saw quite a bit of Accra by jumping in taxis to the market and combined this with sitting by the swimming pool. There was a lovely area down in the southern part of the town called James Town where we enjoyed some chicken and chips by the sea. Laurie’s food was also a treat n we enjoyed Chilli con Carni with real cheese!

Eriye was very anxious about her interview. She didn’t know quite what to expect but was hoping that she would pass so that she could soon travel to Canada. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. She came out upset because they had doubted the validity of their marriage certificate that had been issued in Akwanga a year and a half ago. So it’s a case of back to the drawing board and I’m going to see what I can do this end to try and verify their marriage. Who knows how long the process will take. It’s a very big deal moving so far from home to somewhere so different. It’s not something to be taken lightly and something that Manga, my colleague who has just returned from a 3 month placement at a University in London discovered (I’ll come to that at a later date).

Anyway, to add the disappointment of the day, after leaving the Canadian Embassy, Eriye got her handbag stolen in the market. I hadn’t seen her put it down next to me and a few minutes later it was gone. It had her passport, phone, diary and money in it. Not a good day. We then went on a tour of the town trying to put work out how she was going to get home after the fiasco. We went back to the Canadian Embassy and got the photocopy that they had of her passport and made our way to the Nigerian Embassy (I’m sure one or both of those places is called a High Commission rather than an Embassy due to the Commonwealth, but I can’t be bothered to interrupt my flow to check). It has to be noted at this point the differences between the two embassies. The Canadian has a thick gate with guards and when a car enters it has to open its bonnet and have its undercarriage checked with a large horizontal mirror thing on wheels before it can enter the next security guarded fence. We also had to leave our electronic devices at the gate and be sweeped with an airport beepy stick. The Nigerian embassy, on the other hand, allowed us to walk in to find a sleepy looking woman in the security office who asked us to leave our bags. Anyway, it must be nice not to have anyone wanting to blow you up. Back to our mission. The long and short of it is that they couldn’t do anything until the morning but did suggest that the bus company who she travelled with to Ghana might be able to help. At their office, they said that it’s possible to pass through the border but that the photocopy and a police report would help. Next stop was the police station, where they told us that we’d have to get the report from the police closest to the crime due to jurisdiction. We sighed, a lot, and I can’t remember what worked, but the nice desk sergeant (I don’t know if that was actually her rank, but that’s what they’re usually called in The Bill) wrote a report while a big group of male prisoners leered and whistled at me through the bars the separating us from them at the back of the station house.

So that was that. We’d also met up with another friend of David’s called Yaw, who is a policeman, and he came along to assist too.

On the last day of the holiday we went our separate ways – Eriye to shop and me to sightsee. I did my usual thing of walking my feet off, but visited a great little museum of West African relics and art and the cultural market.

It was nice to land back in Nigeria, to be back amongst the familiar and the warm smiles that I’m used to, despite the lack of organisation here. Maybe it’s to do with the fact that there’s so many more people, which makes me wonder what form of radical reform from above could possibly focus the burgeoning population.

21.11.09

Hey y'all. Have been languishing on the couch this week with malaria so am up and about today in town at the internet cafe, as the net at College is down. It's nice to be out and about. Anyway, as you can see, my new blogs have photos on. I've had real difficulty putting the pictures and making it look nice at the same time - I've tried and tried as I can be a little picky about how it looks, but you'll just have to take it the way it is. I also couldn't work out how to put captions with the pics, so you'll have to guess who all the people are!..Enjoy!

8.11.09 Part 4

Wedding

Last week, Eriye left for Port Harcourt. She is hoping to get her visa soon so that she can join David inCanada. Fingers crossed. It’s hard for her hanging in limbo not knowing whether she’s staying or going. Anyway, she’s safely down there with her friend and I’m back to living on my own. My neighbours the

Aparshes are always around though and I enjoy sitting out on the back step while they cook, clean and mess around (8 year old boys are the same the world over – Abraham (AB), their youngest, started to squelch his armpits this evening and made me chuckle as Alex used to do that when we were little).

Yesterday was the wedding of Mrs Monde’s son. The affair was huge. The ceremony took place in the College Catholic Chapel and then moved over to a big lecture hall in the College. Once in there, the happy couple and a host of dignitaries sat on the stage while an MC oversaw proceedings. There was lots of singing, food and dancing. While the married pair started their first dance, people came forward with handfuls of notes and stuck them to their foreheads.

It was quite hectic as gifts were exchanged for a wedding souvenir bag and calendar with a picture of the wedded couple on. This is common at weddings. When it came to cutting the wedding cake, the MC had announced that someone had given him 500 Naira to stop the cutting. The bidding was then opened up to let the cake be cut and this meant that people put forward amounts and several thousand was raised. Later, a group of traditional dancers came in and danced around the bridge and groom banging drums and blowing whistles (a change for more spraying). I danced quite a lot and made some new friends who encouraged me to shake my bum! It was all such fun. It seemed to frantic at times, but it all came together with laughter, which was the best thing of all.This is called ‘spraying’ and was lots of fun to watch and then join in with when I plucked up the courage.

There were loads of moments where the crowds took to the dance floor, so lots of spraying took place. The money was then gathered up and given to the couple. At one point guests were invited to present their gifts, so a long cue was formed.

Me the journalist

Next month’s issue of VSO Nigeria’s quarterly magazine will feature me! I’m the profile volunteer so had to write a little piece about myself and what I’m doing here. I’ve also submitted an article about Tashi and his long standing development through his interaction with all the VSOs that have passed through the College and I hope that will be published too. So for the souvenirs box, I’ll make sure I get a few copies.

8.11.09 Part 3

Teacher Training

This month saw the first bit of teacher training from CRD – hurrah! There’s been some research that we started some time ago into current teaching at the Demonstration Primary School that is attached to the College and we haven’t followed up on it yet. The report isn’t quite completed, but the Headteacher came in saying that the teachers had a training day coming up and could we step in with some training on classroom management. We jumped into action. I put together some key areas to cover and after a discussion with the team on what we were going to do, we decided who would be responsible for each part of the training. We submitted the proposal and budget (for pens, paper, refreshments) to Mrs Monde and she was more than happy to approve it.

So, the day came, the team was there, and we carried out a morning session on discipline and aspects of managing a classroom to 40 teachers. Lots of the morning was spent encouraging them to input so that experienced teachers could share their skills with less experienced one. After the initial input in the officer,

I was keen to see the rest of the team take over facilitating the workshop, however I did have a role and that was to act the part of 2 different behaviour management styles in a role play that the teachers then critiqued. The first teacher that I ‘played’ was frustrated, disorganised, shouty, unaware of the pupils’ names and distracted by someone at the door (this caused a lot of laughs as someone commented that it looked as though I was going out for a beer). The next teacher was controlled, organised, fair, had a good knowledge of children’s abilities, laid down the ground rules of behaviour at the start of the lesson and gave lots of positive encouragement to those doing the right things. Obviously, I’d like to think that I, as a teacher, have all the qualities of teacher number 2 and none of number 1’s, but I’m not sure if that’s the case!

Anyway, it went down well and we had lots of positive feedback. What we need to do now is to get it all written up in a report and plan what we want to do next. So, this week will be report writing week. We also need to finish off and plan a set of training for primary school teachers across Akwanga on early reading. We started this concept quite some ago, but once we’ve done it we can submit it to the local education secretary, because November is the month where budgets are decided. So, we’ll be quite busy.

Random

Sometimes you never know what your day will bring you. I was in the office the other day when Tashi called me. He was in the State capital, Lafia, for a meeting and asked me to go and see the Chairman of the Local Government (Stanley). Apparently he had some money to give to Tashi for his NGO, Beter Leven. When I met him, he said not to worry about the money, but that he had lots of guests arriving from Abujaand they were interested in seeing the women at Beter Leven and the training that they have been receiving on tailoring and dying. So, I returned later to meet the guests. It turned out that they were about 50 from the Defence College in Abuja and were doing a study tour of Nasarawa State looking into ‘youth empowerment’. Many were quite high ranking (Major Colonels etc), so I sat at the back and tried to blend in (not that that was going to be possible in any lifetime). Then, as it turned out, there would be no time to go to Beter Leven, because they were due to meet Mrs Monde at the College, so I went with Stanley and attended this meeting. It was interesting to watch and nice to see how those in Government or authority are taking an interest in what is going on out in different communities.

8.11.09 Part 2

Fulani Meetings

The Centre for Research and Documentation has worked quite a bit with a local Fulani School Supervisor called Adamu. He oversees a small group of nomadic schools in an area called Warro Basso, out into the countryside beyond a town called Wamba, which is a 40 minute drive from Akwanga. Previous volunteers had done fundraising with him to get a school building erected, but he is still experiencing problems with pupil numbers and lack of appropriate teachers. He is very keen for more support, so we’ve been trying to see what he can do to help himself and how wecan encourage the wider community to support him. We’ve written to the Nomadic Education Commission and they are keen to offer support. Then, I went with 2 colleagues, Alhaji and Clement, to Wamba to meet with Adamu, a selection of local Fulani Chiefs and the local education secretary. It was a very interesting meeting. I was the chairperson, despite the whole meeting being conducted in Hausa (although my understanding of Hausa has been improving, Alhaji did the translating for me). The main issues that we need to start tackling are the lack of appropriate teachers who are sensitive to the nature of nomadic children in terms of their language and religion (Islam), lack of understanding amongst the Fulani community at large on the importance of education and lack of resources in the form of buildings, desks, chairs and books. Several suggestions were put forward. The Fulani people will need to be encouraged to support schools more and even enrol in teacher training and the links between them and the local government need to be strengthened so that they feel as though they have a say in what happens. We’ve made a tentative arrangement to meet again and Adamu will arrange this.

Last weekend, Adamu had a naming ceremony for his new baby, so I went with Alhaji and a Kenyan volunteer who was staying with me for the weekend for her ‘recently arrived volunteer placement experience’. The naming of a new baby amongst the Fulanis takes place with just the men and then food is served. The photos will demonstrate better than words and show how it is the men who cook the meat and serve it. It was very special to be invited.

Here are some pictures of the Fulani village. I took along some presents from the UK for the children, including a teddy bear that a little girl then 'backed' it (put cloth round it and strapped it to her back), just like they do with babies.

8.11.09 Part 1

A month Back in Akwanga

Most of my September was spent in the UK with family and friends. It was wonderful to see everyone again. The journey there and back again was, however, peppered with a strange sensation of having each foot in very different worlds. One life was on hold while I experienced the other. I love my life here but also reflect on the special time I spent with my little nieces and nephew and hope that they won't have grown up too much more before I see them again.

When I arrived back to Abuja at the start of October, I was met by Eriye at the airport.

We’d been delayed due to fog, so bless her; she’d had to wait for over an hour for me. I was dazed for the next few hours, but was pleased to see my home here in staff quarters and my neighbours. I spent the first weekend home in Akwanga and started to prepare for my birthday party the following week.

The Party

I help the party in front of my block in what is essentially a car park.The Acting Provost, Mrs Monde, had lent me a set of plastic garden seats to use.

Several volunteers came and a number of people from the neighbourhood and work. I’d told people that it would start at 5pm. However, 6pm rolled on by and we were still waiting for quite a number of people who said that they would be coming.

I was asked by a nice couple who work here at the college what the order of events would be and who would be the MC. I’d completely forgotten about this aspect of Nigerian events, so I texted Tashi to come to my rescue ASAP. He finally arrived and kicked things off.

Proceedings start with a prayer and welcome. Then I was presented with my birthday cake. Not only that, I was asked to stand up and dance in honour of the cake. Thank goodness Becky stood up with me.

We then cut the cake and food was served. My neighbour, Mrs Aparshe, did the cooking for me, which was jaloff rice (spicy rice with vegetables in it), coleslaw and beef.

Eriye was also amazingly helpful and insisted on keeping on top of handing out drinks (I’d been out that week and purchased several crates of fizzy drinks and beers). While we were eating, several people got up and told jokes, some funnier than others and some just funny because of..well, I won’t go into it here and, at the risk of being extremely cryptic but for purposes of me enjoying this at a future date without offending anyone right now, one had no punch line and Nico found it very funny.

The light faded and so did many of the guests (apparently nearly 60 plates of food was served, so not bad!), so the VSOs and Mrs Aparshe’s family went inside to dance. Sylvester Aparshe was DJ for the night (another cryptic clue to myself – remember his nickname!) and we continued dancing and drinking until late. Anita, Sylvester, Enoch and Ann Aparshe were fantastic dance teachers, Abraham and Augustine Aparshe were photographers.

It was great fun, but it sadly had to come to and end for the sake of the rest of the neighbours.

Abuja

The following weekend, I went to Abuja and met up with some volunteers. Liz, my programme manager was leaving Nigeria to return to the UK and have a baby, so I saw her one last time. A Dutch volunteer, Sitske, had her parents and brother visiting, so we all went out for fish and beers at the ‘Barracks’, an army barracks just on the edge of the city that is thriving in the evening with vendors and barbecued fish. We also had a good time lounging by the pool at the British Village, an ex-pat run pool and bar.

This is a picture of Angie, a Canadian volunteer based in Abuja enjoying the remains of our barbecued fish.