Do they know it's Christmas time at all...

I know that most of my blog updates make little mention of some of the more ‘real’ aspects of life here. The situations that come at you like a kick in the stomach and make you realise just how lucky you are. And it’s not that I don’t encounter these situations frequently. It’s more that I try not to dwell on them, or not on my blog anyway. But this is going to be an exception.

On Friday I went to an orphanage in Abuja with a group of teachers from a school here, who have been visiting the orphanage for a couple of years now. And boy oh boy. The staff do their best - the children are clean and they don’t go hungry. There are about 30 children, most of them under the age of 3, and they all sleep in one room. And from what I could gather, they also spend pretty much all day, every day, in that room – apart from a few of the older ones who are able to open the door and go outside themselves. But for the younger ones, the staff can’t cope with taking them outside – one or two toddlers is enough of a handful, but 20 of them? Not easy. I even wonder how much time the smaller ones get to spend out of their beds. There were several very young babies. I picked up a baby when I got there because she was screaming, and I couldn’t put her down until I left because she just wouldn’t stop crying. I don’t think she was very well; she had a really chesty cough and seemed very hot, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be easily accessible medical care for the children there. And as they also haven’t had immunisations, and all sleep together in one very hot room, my guess is they get sick pretty frequently.

But if there was to be one positive, it would be that you can see how much the children love having the teachers going there each week. They were telling me that when they first started going it was really difficult to get the children to play with each other, because as soon as they were given a toy they would just want to run off with it and keep it for themselves, but now they do play with one another, and have learnt how to cooperate with each other (most of the time!). And some of the older ones were so desperate to learn, there were some foam letters, and one little girl just wanted me to teach her the alphabet the entire time I was there.

You could also see how much the community tries to help out, as just in the few hours we were there, about 5 or 6 people came through the gate to bring food for the children. Unfortunately what they need more than anything (apart from medical care) are people to go in there and just spend time with the children. So I’m going to go back each week. I don’t know how much good it will do, but it will at least mean that for an extra few hours there’s someone there playing with them and talking to them and just giving them some attention, which they are all so desperately lacking.

(And don’t worry mum, Squirt is proving enough of a challenge as it is. I appreciate that I can’t bring 30 children home with me)

Broken laptops, carnivals and two suitcases of cat food

It’s been a busy few weeks. I had a lovely two weeks at home. Lots of eating was done, and I returned to Nigeria with about 20kg of cat food for my little monkey who had grown considerably in my absence. I had a slight disaster in my first week back in that some water got spilt on my laptop at work and it immediately stopped working. It’s worth mentioning that I’m a fool who brought an Apple Mac to Nigeria with me. No one here uses macs, so trying to get it fixed was an absolute mission. I was helping to run some monitoring and evaluation training for VSO partners last week, and all of my presentations for this training were only saved on my laptop (this would be the one week when I hadn’t backed up my work). I tried leaving it to dry for 24 hours. No luck. I went to the Apple Shop in Abuja, also no luck. After sitting waiting for two hours I was told that their technician was in India until January. They gave me the address of a man I was told to go and see in a shopping complex here. This address consisted of 2 letters and 2 numbers. I got to the shopping complex, and spent the next hour trying to find the place. The complex was huge, with a rabbit warren of tiny little shops up numerous dark and creepy staircases. Most of the shops didn’t have names and only had the 4 digits above the doors, only they obviously weren’t in alphabetical or numerical order because that would have been far too easy. After eventually finding it, I realised the shop was locked up. I called the guy and was told he was “coming”. It was very very hot, and so I went to sit in the clothing shop next door where the woman was doing her very best to fall asleep, but was then disturbed by the irritating white woman who insisted on sitting there and talking to her for the next hour whilst waiting for the man to show up. By the time he arrived I was fast losing patience as I had spent the best part of the day sitting and waiting. He seemed to think he could fix it though (for an extortionate amount of money) and so I left it with him, after getting him to confirm about 10 times that if it wasn’t fixed I wouldn’t have to pay him any money. So the next day I went back to get it, and it worked! I was very excited. I won’t be able to afford food for the foreseeable future, but my laptop is at least working. Liquids will never be allowed near it again.

Jenny then arrived so it was great seeing her again, and then another VSO from Kaduna also came to stay for the weekend. We went to the Abuja Carnival, which helped to highlight once again one of the reasons why Nigeria does not have a booming tourism industry. We couldn’t find any information about the carnival route anywhere, and so after asking a friend we went to wait on one of the main roads in Abuja to see what happened. The carnival was meant to start at 7am. We got there at 12.30pm and were told it hadn’t yet started, but still couldn’t find out any information on the actual route the parade would follow. I have no idea what was happening on this particular day, normally I think I successfully give off a vibe of “please leave me alone” but this can’t have been the case on this Saturday, as I was targeted by people throughout the day. First of all we got accosted by a group of people who were representing a youth organisation, who wanted us to wear their t-shirts for the day and join in their parade. We managed to escape after being subjected to numerous video interviews and photos. We did get to keep the t-shirts though. We then went to sit back on the side of the road and wait. An old man came to sit down next to me. “Next to me” is a slight understatement; he was in distinct danger of sitting on my lap if he sat any closer. I couldn’t see what he was doing as I was sat with my back to him, but I could feel movements that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable, and so after some frantic communication via eye and head gestures, I got up and went to sit next to Jenny. Much to the amusement of everyone else, after about 10 seconds he then said he also needed to move because of “ants”, and once again came to sit pretty much on my lap. So off we walked again. Thankfully he then seemed to get the message.

Eventually the carnival started. Overall it was a really good day. The costumes were awesome, as were most of the floats (apart from one that looked scarily like it may ignite at any moment).

I did however feel immense pity for the people in the parade as it was very hot and they had to cover a distance of 18km. You could see some of them really wished they were anywhere else. I also lost count of how many photos I had to be in. At one point I was in very real danger of being dragged to be a part of the parade itself, but thankfully I managed to avoid that.

And now there’s less than two weeks left before the office closes for Christmas. And having brought back the best Christmas hat in the world from home (it sings AND dances) I am very excited about the prospect of my first sunny Christmas.

Thirteen steps

Trying to leave Nigeria is a complete nightmare. Forget all of the visa issues (that would be a separate blog entry in itself), the departure process at Abuja airport is like nothing I have ever experienced before (much like most things in this country!) The following is a summary of the steps you need to go through:

1. Arrive at the airport and show your passport to people outside the main departure lounge for British Airways flights
2. Go through a scan machine (with all your hold and hand luggage)
3. Go to see the lady with the scales and have your bag(s) weighed
4. Take the ticket you are given with the weight of your luggage and walk across to the people in uniform and have your hold luggage searched (and show your passport again)
5. Go to the person sitting at the desk before the check-in desks and show them your passport
6. Go to the check-in desk
7. Go to the immigration desk and give them the form you have previously completed and have your passport checked
8. Go to the foreign currency declaration desk and given them the second form that you have completed
9. Go upstairs and go through security with all your hand luggage (including a full body scanner)
10. Go to the next person sat waiting who wants to check your passport and boarding pass
11. Go to the next person sat waiting who wants to check your boarding pass and tears off the main part, giving you the stub
12. Go through to the final departure lounge and have your hand luggage checked at Desk 1
13. Walk 4 metres further into the room and have your hand luggage checked all over again at Desk 2

Thirteen steps. In addition to this, the two times I have flown out of Abuja I have been stopped numerous times by random police/immigration/army men who want to check my passport and ask me what my mission is in Nigeria, how long I am staying for, where I am flying to, and the list goes on. The world’s most complicated departure process?

I know that they need to be careful, Nigeria hasn’t exactly had the best few months in terms of security, but when it comes to having your hand luggage checked for the fifth time, you do start to wonder if it’s actually serving any purpose.

A whole load of rubbish...

The other day I had to travel to a neighbouring state for work. I was very proud of getting there and back on public transport all by myself. Coming from someone who was terrified of the tube before coming here, that’s quite an achievement! The return journey brought a whole new experience to my Nigerian time so far. To set the scene, I was sat on a very full, very old bus. It was very very hot. I had lost the ability to work out if I was covered in my own sweat or the sweat of the passengers around me. It was so dusty that I wasn’t convinced I would ever be able to remove my contact lenses again. It had been a long day, and I was thirsty but couldn’t drink because I knew it would be a while before I reached anywhere where I could go to the toilet. The point is, I was feeling a little jaded and fed up. We got to one of the checkpoints on the way back to Abuja, and the driver of the bus stupidly decided to jump the queue. I’ve mentioned my dislike of these checkpoints before. It has now quadrupled. The soldier came over waving his gun around and shouted that we all needed to get off the bus. Once we were off the bus stood on the side of the road in the blazing heat he started shouting that we all needed to pick up rubbish. To say I was confused at this point would be an understatement. After asking one of the other passengers, she said it was our “punishment” for the driver jumping the queue. So for 20 minutes, whilst the soldier stood with his gun watching us, we had to pick up rubbish from the side of the road. With our bare hands. This sent my OCD into overdrive. After this fun experience ended, we were permitted to board the bus again. And on moving 10 metres down the road to the next soldier, he then started shouting that we would be picking up rubbish all the way to Abuja so we should get down again and pick up where we left off. He then said to us “which one of you did something wrong?” When I realised that he didn’t even have any idea what had happened, or why we had been made to pick up rubbish, I lost the plot. It’s not normally my policy to answer back to a man carrying a big gun, but I guess the heat and everything else just pushed me slightly over the edge. I started to get up and asked him if he could excuse me and move from blocking the door so I could get out of the bus, as I wanted to flag down another bus. He said no, so I said if he didn’t mind, I would just call my employer and he could explain to them why I would be late back, and why he was detaining me on the side of the road collecting rubbish when A. He didn’t even know what anyone was meant to have done wrong and B. It had been the driver’s error. I also asked if he was going to make us move more rubbish, if he could at least provide a bin, because whilst I don’t really enjoy standing on the side of a very busy, very dirty, and very dusty road in mid-30 degree heating picking up rubbish, I particularly don’t enjoy standing on the side of a very busy, very dirty, and very dusty road in mid-30 degree heating picking up rubbish and just moving it from one place to another. If I’m going to be made to pick up rubbish, at least have a purpose to it and provide a place for the rubbish to be disposed of. After listening to the crazy white lady ranting for a while, he decided he’d had enough, and waved us through. I know it was stupid to argue with him, but this isn’t my first run in with authorities here where they have used their position to humiliate people and the blatant abuse of power drives me crazy. They weren’t even doing what they were meant to be doing, I saw little attempt to check vehicles for bombs. I was explaining what had happened to my friend when I got back to Abuja, and he was saying how he’d seen them make people do much worse before. He also said that on a recent journey he had made on a bus run by a private transport company there had been a lot of government officials. For various reasons they encountered checkpoints during the journey where they would ordinarily have had to be subjected to delays. But one flash of these government officials ID cards and they were waved right on through, whilst presumably people on public buses had to sit and wait. I’d like to see them try and make some of the government officials disembark the bus at the side of the road and collect rubbish.

Homeward bound, stolen cameras and tinned mushrooms

I’ve learnt some crucial lessons this week:

1. Tinned mushrooms: I’ll never forget when I first got to Nigeria I was stood in a supermarket with Jen and we looked at tinned mushrooms in disgust. “Will we ever get that desperate for mushrooms?” we asked each other. “No, of course we won’t” we both agreed. Well, 8 months in and I got that desperate. And then wished I hadn’t even attempted to eat them, as they were so unpleasant I’m not convinced they won’t have put me off eating real mushrooms again. It was like what I would imagine biting into an eyeball would be like. Not good.
2. When being asked if you want to go to church on Sunday, if every part of your being is screaming, NO I don’t want to go, please don’t make me, then listen. Do not smile sweetly and say, “Yes of course, that would be lovely.” I felt compelled to say yes though because this invitation came after our morning prayers one Wednesday at work. Squirt had been particularly lively the night before, and it was fair to say I had had very very little sleep. Closing my eyes to pray was therefore a bad idea, as it got to that very embarrassing stage where you wake up to feel your head bouncing. Unfortunately it was the worst church service yet. Full of attempts to “convert” me – to what, I’m not too sure. I was asked if I was a born again Christian. I stupidly said no (I haven’t yet learnt the benefit of a white lie) and was subjected to a 20 minute lecture on how the world is a “very dangerous place for people like me”, followed by numerous attempts to find out my home address so he could come and “counsel me” (all new people to the church apparently have to endure this service). Whilst this was going on my camera was also stolen out of my bag. I was sat in the middle of a church. When I reported this, the person who had been set the task of “counselling me” told me I must be mistaken and that I must be forgetful and just have left it at home without realising it. What I wanted to say in response was: “I don’t think so, because whilst you were lecturing me on how dangerous the world was for me, I reached into my bag to search for my phone to see if time had actually stood still, and felt my camera, so I know it was there then”. But I managed to restrain myself. The services I went to in Calabar might have gone on for a long time, but I was left alone and the music was really good. I won’t be going back to this particular church. On the plus side, it was the first time I’ve ever sat in a church and watched television. When you see inside some of the churches here you stop wondering where a lot of the money in this country is going.
3. Taking a cat to the vet here is not a relaxing experience. Especially when you’re carrying him in a cardboard box and he keeps pushing his head out the top and trying to escape. I’m aware that quite a few people here are very weary of cats, and so I didn’t really want to advertise the fact I had a cat with me when I was trying to flag down a taxi, but that became slightly more difficult once I was actually in the taxi given Squirt kept pushing his head up to see where he was and howled at not being able to run free. But I managed to get him home in one piece (although my nerves were in slightly worse shape than they had been before) and he has now had his first inoculations. I’m not looking forward to repeating the whole experience in 1 month’s time but by then I plan on having a proper carry case for him so there’s less chance of him jumping out of the box in the middle of a very busy main road.

And something exciting: I’m going home for two weeks! It’s even more exciting because I wasn’t expecting it. My parents were going to come out here to visit me, but for various reasons, that turned out to not be possible. So I get to go home instead for an early Christmas. It’s come at a good time; a break at home and some headspace will be a welcome relief. Squirt is going to be in very capable hands as my housemate has very kindly offered to be on Demon Duty and look after him. In no particular order, the things I am most excited about when I get home:

• Seeing friends and family (obviously, this goes without saying)
• My sister making me macaroni cheese pizza. I feel cheated that for 28 years I didn’t know this concoction existed. My two favourite meals in one. It’s going to be a very good day.
• Feeling cold and sitting on the sofa in front of the fire.
• Drinking tea with real milk. No chewing involved as a result of the congealed lumps of milk powder collected at the bottom of the cup.
• Hot showers.
• Getting into bed and smelling clean, fresh sheets and sleeping on pillows that don’t feel as though they have been made from concrete.
• Having my hair sorted out.
• Walking down the street and being completely inconspicuous.

I plan on filling my bag with cat food, toys and flea and worm treatment on the way back. Then the day after I get back Jen will hopefully be coming to stay for a week, which is also super exciting.

My new life

Squirt has definitely settled into his new surroundings

Since moving (or should I say “being moved”) to Abuja my routine has changed somewhat from the days in My Old Squat. My new daily routine goes something like this:

7.00 am: Wake up and try and find my way out of my bed. It is the biggest bed in the world. I could sleep 10 of me in it.

7.05 am: Feed Squirt who will be incessantly meowing and climbing up my leg to get my attention.

7.10 am: Put on the kettle. On a proper gas cooker, not a little camp gas stove on the floor.

7.15 am: Shower. Or rather wash out of a bucket, as is the case for at least 50% of the week. Or last week, 100% as we had no water all week, which confuses me slightly given we’ve just paid our water bill, so we are seemingly paying just for the privilege of thinking that the water MIGHT be turned on at some point. In the very distant future. Although we were helpfully told the other day that one of the massive water tanks in the compound belongs to our flat. Why we weren't told this sooner I don't know, it would have made life an awful lot easier.

7.30 am: Try to exhaust Squirt in the hope that he’ll go to sleep and not notice me leaving for work.

8.00 am: Leave home with my flatmate and head to our office. No walking up
hills from the End of the Earth involved, no pied piper style march with 10 children on each hand, no having to say good morning to every single person I pass, just need to flag down a passing cab or walk to the end of our road where there are always taxis parked waiting. The hardest part of our very easy journey to work is negotiating the taxi fare and trying not to spill the flask of tea I take to the office with me. I flatly refuse to pay more than 200N, but every morning almost without exception this involves me pretending to walk away when the driver demands more than that, then the driver following and accepting 200N. I’m not just being mean, transport here is EXPENSIVE. On the VSO allowance we really can’t afford to pay more for things just because we’re not Nigerian, which is effectively what it boils down to. I got told the other day that I was a Nigerian woman by a man in the market though, so at least I seem to have nailed the whole bargaining thing. Anyway, I digress.

8.15 am: Arrive at work.

8.20 am – 1.00 pm: Work work work. It’s busy, which is great. The office has recently purchased a new air freshener. For two days last week I thought one of the ladies in the office had started wearing quite possibly the worst smelling, strongest perfume ever to be invented. Until someone said it was the air freshener. I like the air to be fresh and all, but not so fresh you can actually taste it, which is currently the case.

1.00 pm: Go with my flatmate to try and find lunch (this isn’t a problem for her, but she has to suffer the fate of living and working with me, and me finding food for lunch is a daily challenge). I normally settle on icecream which I can get from over the road. I am more than happy with this arrangement, having to eat icecream isn’t really something I consider to be a bad thing. But one of the women who works there is constantly telling me that icecream isn’t food and I need to eat food. Although since Squirt has come into my life I’ve been going home at lunchtimes to feed him.

1.30 pm – 5.00 pm: More work work work. Not only am I busy but I also get to listen to Radio 1 live because my office has wireless internet. It’s awesome.

5.10 pm: Repeat the ridiculous charade of trying to secure a taxi for 200 N.

5.30 pm: Get home.

5.30 pm – 7.30 pm: What I do then depends. Either go for a run, go for a walk, go to the shop to buy things for dinner, clean, do washing (if the water is on). I think I drive my housemates crazy, someone as fidgety as me really would be better suited to living alone. I was saying last night that I thought I was finally adjusting to the slower pace of life here, and that I’d probably struggle adjusting back again when I get home, and my housemate just looked at me in amazement and said that if this was me on “slow pace” she couldn’t imagine what “fast pace” looked like. Well, I thought I’d slowed down anyway!

7.30 pm – 8.00 pm: Think about what I’m going to have for dinner. Since I’ve moved to Abuja a miracle has happened. I’ve started COOKING. Let’s not go overboard, I’m still likely to be a disappointment to my exceptionally skilled father in terms of my cooking ability, but still, I have branched out from eating bread, avocado and tomato every night. Heat and a range of ingredients and cooking implements are now involved.

8.00 – 11.00 pm: Watch a film, use the internet, talk to people on Skype, get chewed to pieces by Squirt.

11.00 pm: Bed. Whilst My New Squat is considerably quieter than My Old Squat (mainly because my neighbours no longer consist of the worst people in the world), I now sleep to the lullaby of the various calls for prayer that take place throughout the night. I actually like hearing this, I find it really soothing for some reason.

And weekends? Lots of fun things, including swimming/eating/showering at the British Village (I have no shame, they have hot water and we have no water, it’s a no brainer), going to top up my addiction to my Music Man (his new name. It’s not stalking, really, it’s a public place. I’d never do anything weird like turning up at his house or anything. Well, not yet anyway), going to the market, watching films.

After writing this I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me and why I still sometimes miss Calabar. My accommodation is better, my diet is better, I’ve got Squirt, and most importantly – my placement is immeasurably better meaning my mental health will hopefully be put under slightly less strain than it was for the first 6 months of my placement!

Squirt Update: He’s going for his first inoculations tonight. It’s not something I’m looking forward to. He’s a very vocal and very active cat. Given I wasn’t planning on adopting a cat whilst I was here, a cat carry case wasn’t one of the things I brought out with me, so I have to carry him around in a cardboard box and cling onto him in the hope that none of his attempts at escaping are successful. I also need to talk to the vet about all the things I need to get done before I can bring him back to the UK with me, as theoretically I only have just over 3 months left on my placement, and it takes that long to get him cleared for travel. I have a feeling it might be a frustrating and expensive process!

Is it just me...

Or does the following extract not quite make sense?

“A successful family man, his daily hard work, care of the family with lovely children and beautiful wife, one is played by Mitch Ryan Reynolds, he handsome, playful spirit, night life has been hanging out with the girls. But one kind of life will always feel unhappy too long. This fountain in the following two people and the “Goddess” pee in front of the time, common words out of “I want your life ah,” the desire, then desire to … achieved in the next day … “

This is the text from the back of a DVD I bought the other day. First prize goes to whoever can tell me what the film is actually going to be about.

Pirated DVDs are big here - you find them for sale everywhere. You can buy a film or an entire TV series for 200 Naira (about 80p). The quality varies, but generally I’ve been lucky and most things I’ve bought have been watchable. When they’re not watchable I just take them back and the guy lets me exchange them for something else. So we’re building up quite a collection in our flat, the next volunteers to move into the VSO flat when we leave will have enough DVDs to keep them occupied for the duration of their placement.

The only time I have ever found a traffic jam interesting

Abuja isn’t big on traffic lights. Don’t ask me why, but if the standard of driving here is anything to go by it’s probably got something to do with the fact that everyone would just ignore them anyway (you just buy a driving licence here, there are no driving tests). So instead of traffic lights, at major junctions there is a person in uniform stood directing traffic. I guess the thinking is that it’s harder to ignore a person stood in uniform telling you to stop than it is to ignore a red light. I appreciate this isn’t very interesting. Bear with me. Last Saturday we were sat in a cab in a traffic jam (or a hold up as they’re called here) when I looked out the window and saw one of the traffic guys doing something a little different. I didn’t have my camera on me, but my housemate managed to find this video on youtube and it is without a doubt the same guy. There cannot be two of them in Abuja. We drove back past him a few hours later and he was still going strong, despite the heat. He’s awesome. I almost hope we get stuck in more traffic jams when he’s on duty.

Sleep deprivation, giant bats and Squirt

Don’t worry; this isn’t another entire blog post on Squirt. Just one more picture.

Things have been much the same here. I can’t believe I’ve been in Nigeria for over 8 months, I really don’t know where the time is going. Some good things that have happened recently:

• Squirt. Okay, so I might just make one (or two!) more tiny mentions of him. He is officially a ‘he’ – well, according to several of the vets at the vet surgery I took him too. This did however seem to require slightly more discussion than I am used to at home, which did give me a few concerns about the standard of vet care available here. But, against the odds he is still going, and has become a proper part of our household. My sleep deprivation has reached whole new levels. For the first week he needed feeding every couple of hours, and now he has learnt how to climb onto my bed and just likes to wake me up at any given opportunity. But despite that and the fact that a tin of cat food costs half my daily allowance, he’s staying. He might just be the cutest thing in the world.
• A night out, Abuja style. Awesome night, lots of beer, and lots of dancing.
• Sunshine: Abuja is getting hotter. I think I should have been born a reptile. People keep expecting me to melt. The man selling vegetables at the end of our road looked like he thought I was categorically insane when I said I didn’t need to stand under his shelter whilst I waited for him to bag up everything I’d asked for (I buy a LOT of vegetables each week). And the gateman on our compound almost had heart failure when I came back from a run the other day. Granted I was very sweaty and red, but he looked as though he thought I was about to die. He only speaks Hausa and very limited English, so after jumping up from his seat and madly waving his hands around for a while he physically pushed me down onto his bench and wouldn’t let me get up for about 5 minutes. So whilst everyone else is saying the sun is too hot, I’m happy. Especially when I’ve got the British Village pool to lie by. Plus part of it is me telling myself it’s not hot – if I start to think it’s hot now, I’ll be a pool of mush when it really gets hot in a few months.
• Getting offered 50,000 Naira for my hair. Not the first time this has happened, but unlike the last time, this wasn’t by a drunk woman in a bar. This was by someone in my office. She seemed pretty serious, and has now mentioned it several times. That would pay for 5 return trips to Calabar by bus. Unfortunately a fairly important person in my life warned me that I’d be spending a lot of time on my own until my hair grew back if I did it, so I had to sadly thank her for her generous offer, but say no thank you.
• Buying some Nigerian fabric – someone in my office is going to take me to have some dresses made (it’s only taken me 8 months!!). I’m very excited.

And some not so good things:

• Watching an episode of House where a man had a cockroach in his ear. My paranoia where those little beasts are concerned didn’t need any help being blow even further out of proportion. At least now I know that my earplugs hopefully have two purposes at night.
• The morning that followed the night out. I’m getting too old for this. I was not a pretty site for the whole of Saturday.
• Dying my hair. I stupidly chose to do this at the weekend when our water is off. It took me two days to get the remnants of dye off my forehead. It seems a bucket bath really is no substitute for the real thing. You’d think I’d have learnt after the first time when I had to walk 30 minutes up my hill in Calabar in the scorching heat to fetch water with hair dye on my hair (and all over my face) because it hadn’t occurred to me to check my water was on before dying it. It also doesn’t seem to matter how many times I try and do it myself, I never avoid getting the two-tone look. Very glad my hair is up 90% of the time.
• Packet macaroni cheese. I never thought that would be classed as a bad thing, but I poured it in the pan only to see lots of little creatures come floating to the top. They must have got inside the box. Did I do the right thing and throw it out? No. This was the Saturday with the baaaaaad hangover. I needed that macaroni cheese. I used a spoon to remove the bugs from the water. Am I ever going to be able to re-integrate into society when I get home?
• Our office. A lot of people in a very small very hot very noisy space. Trying to concentrate has become a daily challenge. I’m considering sitting in the corridor, I think it would be more peaceful.
• Waking up at 3am to what sounded like endless squeaking from a dog toy coming from outside. It was beyond loud, and in my sleep dazed state, I really couldn’t figure out what it could be. After sitting in bed for about 10 minutes trying to work it out, I got up and looked out the window (why it didn’t occur to me to do this sooner, I don’t know). But I immediately wished I hadn’t, when a swarm of giant bats flew RIGHT past my nose. It took all my self-control not to scream. Or at least I think it was bats, it was very dark. It was either bats or big flying dogs or goats.

And one last mention of Squirt to finish. When I was asking my housemates if they minded if I adopted him, I tried to sell him to them by saying that he could help catch any bugs and ward off any rats/mice. I’m thinking I may have slightly oversold his potential usefulness. There was a massive cockroach in our lounge the other morning, and I didn’t have any raid to hand so went to crush it with my flipflop. He followed to see what I was doing, and then as soon as he got near enough to see what it was all his fur went up on end and he hid behind my legs. When I moved he then ran into my room and hid under my bed where he wouldn’t come out until I coaxed him out with milk. I’m thinking he might not be much of a rat catcher if cockroaches send him cowering under my bed.

Wheelchair access, Nigerian style

We came across this wheelchair ramp the other day outside a hotel. As with most things here, it's uniquely Nigerian. And if the sheer steepness of the ramp isn't terrifying enough, it comes out in the middle of a crazy busy dual carriage way.

Who needs a proper blog post when you can just have cute pictures of a kitten instead

Squirt. The world's most time consuming pet.

Sardines anyone?

Okay, so it's not quite this bad, but close

Public transport by bus in Nigeria deserves a mention. My colleague recently asked me if I minded travelling by public transport. It’s worth pointing out that by the time he asked me this question, it was a little late to say anything other than “no, of course I don’t mind”. We were sat on the bus, minutes from departure. The place we were going to was only about five hours away, which in mind wasn’t very far, especially compared to other places like Calabar, a bone juddering, teeth trembling thirteen hours away (the road to Calabar is baaaad). The general concept to follow when filling these buses is to work out how many people the bus can comfortably fit, and then double it. Despite telling myself that five hours really wasn’t a very long time, on our return journey to Abuja it felt like a lifetime.

To start with, we boarded the bus in the midday heat. We were the first people to board the bus. The bus doesn’t go until it’s full. It took two hours for the bus to get full. During this time I lost count of how many people tried to sell me things through the window, and looked like I’d crushed their very reason to carry on living when I said no. But if I had wanted to buy a watch that would never work, a year’s supply of chewing gum, male underwear, or a Bible, then I would have been sat in the right place. So for two hours I pretended to be asleep. This didn’t work; people just prodded me through the window. Finally the bus left. My colleague had insisted we got seats at the back of the bus so that we would get ‘ventilation’. But then it started to rain. Not only did this mean all the windows were immediately slammed shut, but the back of the bus started to leak. This wasn’t normal rain, this was full on In the Middle of Rainy Season Nigerian Rain. We got soaked. My colleague asked the driver to throw us a rag (not entirely sure what this was going to do given the amount of water that was pouring in would have filled a bucket, let alone saturating a small filthy piece of cloth). After about 10 minutes of sitting in a swimming pool, everyone else on the bus decided that everyone on the backseat should move forward and share their seats so we didn’t continue to get wet. Very thoughtful. But as I may have already hinted, the bus was already full to bursting. Removing one entire row of seating didn’t really help to lessen this problem. I was given an area to sit in that a 5 year old child would have struggled to squeeze into. For 5 hours. I got very well acquainted with the two (slightly oversized) people on either side of me. With the windows shut also came another issue – air circulation. These buses aren’t kept particularly clean. Within minutes the bus smelt overwhelmingly of a mixture of dried fish, feet, egg rolls, body odour, vomit, diesel and fizzy drinks. It was an interesting mix of smells. It finally stopped raining, and so I attempted to lean over and open the closest window within my grasp before asphyxiation set in. Sadly the person sat next to the window was passed out and leaning on the glass. Despite many desperate attempts, I failed to move either him or the window. And it seemed that it was only me that wasn’t enjoying the eclectic mix of aromas circulating the bus, as no one else attempted to help or to open any of the other windows.

So all in all, the journey was an experience. The one good thing about this journey compared to a thirteen-hour journey I endured to Calabar in the past, was the soundtrack. Thankfully the driver had reasonably good taste in music. I say thankfully, because given it was being played at ear splitting volume I had little choice but to listen to it. Any attempt to listen to my ipod would have been fruitless. Not so for my journey to Calabar, where the driver played a maths educational CD for children funded by USAID. On repeat. For four of the thirteen hours. I have never become so well acquainted with my times tables before.

Something else about long bus journeys here unnerves me slightly. Before the bus leaves the bus park, a preacher comes onboard to bless the bus. People start chanting and praying with him – this can last for a considerable period of time. I’ve witnessed this several times now, and each time, the prayers said by the preacher include assertions that anything that might go wrong on the journey (such as the bus crashing and people being killed) is beyond the driver’s control. Call me pessimistic, but I really would prefer the option of wearing a seatbelt and the driver attempting to drive carefully, rather than having to rely on some sort of divine intervention to keep us out of harm’s way.

Moral of the story? Enjoy the “experience”. To get anywhere here public transport can’t really be avoided, unless you want to pay considerably more money for a private car/taxi. And when travelling for work, that’s definitely not an option.

This isn't going to have a happy ending, is it?

People who know me will not be surprised to meet the latest edition to our Nigerian household – Squirt. I was walking back from the shop with my housemate yesterday when we heard this endless squeaking. I initially thought it was a bird, but then my housemate pointed to a kitten across the street sat on a drain cover. So so tiny, and completely on its own. I stood there for long enough for some of the men standing nearby to come over. They asked if I wanted the kitten. I explained I couldn’t have the kitten, but asked where it’s mum was. Dead. Right. Is anyone looking after the kitten? Yes. Does someone feed the kitten? Yes. And to prove the point, a man walked over and put some huge chunks of bread down in front of the kitten. This kitten could only have been about 2 weeks old; its eyes were barely open. It was not yet at the stage where it could eat bread. They kept asking if I wanted him, and I kept saying I couldn’t have him. And all the while the kitten kept sitting there howling. So we walked home, and I felt like a monster. By the time we got home, I’d pretty much decided I couldn’t just leave him there to die. But I was also aware that I’d be taking an animal potentially full of fleas into our flat. Might not bother me hugely if it meant the cat got to live, but my housemates might not be so keen. So I walked to the pharmacy across the street and asked if they had any flea treatment for cats. They laughed. Okay, well did they know a vet in Abuja? They laughed some more. I walked back to the kitten, half hoping someone had come along after me and given him a lovely caring home. No. Still sat there howling. The person who had earlier claimed to be in charge of feeding him came over to me again. We had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: “Is he your cat?”
Cat Man: “Yes”
Me: “Do you want to keep him?”
Cat Man: “Yes”
Me: “Where does he sleep at night?”
Cat Man: “Yes”
Me: “Do you want me to have the cat?”
Cat Man: “Yes”
Me: “You don’t understand a word I am saying do you?”
Cat Man: “Yes”

This clearly wasn’t working. Whilst we had been having this conversation, a crowd of about 10 other men had joined us, presumably to watch the crazy white woman talking to the man about the cat.

It’s worth explaining that cats are not loved here. In the South they were associated with witchcraft, so whenever I told anyone in Calabar I had cats at home they looked like I had just said I was harbouring the devil. Here, the association with witchcraft doesn’t seem to be as strong, but they are still not liked, and treated more like vermin.

But I digress. I looked around the group and asked if anyone could understand me and help the other man to understand my questions. One man said yes, he could. So I asked again if the man wanted the cat. No, he didn’t. He wanted me to take the cat - did I want to pay for the cat? No, I would give the cat a home and feed it and love it, if it was not wanted here, but I wasn’t going to pay for the cat. Especially as I was fairly certain the cat probably didn’t even belong to the Cat Man, it was more likely to just be a feral cat and he was claiming ownership in the hope of making money from the crazy white woman. So, the Cat Man picked up the cat, and thrust it into my hands. Then he disappeared off, gesturing that I should stay there. He came back a few minutes later with a box, put the cat in the box, and said goodbye.

So off I went home with a cat. A cat that was no bigger than the palm of my hand. Thankfully my housemate had been knitting me a blanket (I’m a weirdo, and had recently been starting to feel a bit cold). So she quickly finished off the edges and gave me the blanket for the cat. Cat was hungry. I found a syringe in my sterile medical kit (I knew VSO had told us to bring one of those for a reason) and made up some powdered milk. Cat went crazy for the milk, and couldn’t have eaten for days. Cat was very very bony with just a big alien head and a few tufts of fur to his name. Cat was washed in a bowl of warm water, in case of any fleas. Cat then went very limp and I thought for one awful minute I had killed him, but thankfully after a few minutes of madly rubbing him dry with his blanket he became slightly more lively. Cat was named Squirt.

And Squirt survived the night. Squirt does not like being left alone for a second. I have not been able to put him down and have to carry him everywhere. I didn’t sleep much last night, and had to go home at lunchtime today to feed him. He’s tiny, and bony, and still quite weak, but he seems surprisingly happy and healthy, and he is purring and always wants to eat. No matter what happens, I have little doubt if I had left him on the road he would have died, or been killed (I’ve seen cats drowned in open sewers here before) and so I’m glad he’s at least safe and being fed and loved, even if he’s too weak to make it. So now I have a pet. Anyone want to send a vet over to Abuja? Oh, and some cat food? And flea and worm treatment? And a litter tray?

Confused? I was too

There are some phrases here that took some getting used to. Some examples:

1. “I’m coming” – Actually means ‘I’m going, but at some point will return.’ The return seems to be open ended. I’ve waited over 3 hours for someone who said, “I’m coming” to come back to the office.

2. “I need to ease myself” – I need the bathroom.

3. “How far” – A greeting, or a way to ask about the outcome of something. The first time I was asked this I responded with “how far to where?” and the other person burst into hysterical laughter

4. “You’re welcome” – this is said ALL the time as a greeting when you get back from somewhere or arrive somewhere.

5. “Well done” – again, said ALL the time by people you’re passing as a greeting. It’s quite nice, I get told well done for walking down the road, putting my rubbish out, successfully sitting at my desk, and the list goes on.

6. “You’ve tried” – at home this would be a bit patronising, implying that the person had tried but hadn’t quite achieved what they were meant to achieve. Here it’s a form of praise.

I was told the other day that Nigeria has the highest number of early leavers but also the highest number of people wanting to extend their placements. I can understand that, I’ve come to think of it as the VSO equivalent of marmite, people either seem to love living here, or hate it. Thankfully, despite all the ups and downs of the past few months, I still love it. Although sometimes I’m not entirely sure why! Speaking of marmite, I get some tonight! A previous volunteer has just got back from London, and was under strict instructions to return with marmite. I used to find it easily in Calabar, but can't find it here for some reason and so I am very excited.

Twenty ways you know you've been living in Nigeria for too long...

1. You automatically flush a toilet with a bucket of water rather than trying the flush.
2. You find yourself sitting in the dark even though the electricity is on.
3. You think nothing of watching a pirated DVD where for most of the film your vision is obscured by the outline of the people who were sat in front of whoever was illegally filming it. You also get the added benefit of a unique soundtrack - the sounds of people laughing/coughing/talking in the background.
4. It’s normal to drink all of your water out of a plastic bag.
5. You crave the smell of Raid because it’s associated with the slow (and hopefully painful) death of the cockroaches that make you want to climb up walls to avoid them.
6. You think nothing of not having running water for half the week.
7. You see a washing machine at the British Village and wonder how easily you could get away with bringing your weekly washing there without anyone noticing.
8. You stop thinking your hair falling out is a strange occurrence.
9. You stop worrying about getting into a car which smells overwhelmingly of petrol, feels like it has at least one tyre that is about to fall off, has a massive crack across the windscreen, doesn’t appear to have working brakes. The list goes on. Anyone considering introducing MOTs to Nigeria would be a brave soul.
10. You stop expecting police checkpoints to involve the police actually CHECKING something, and start seeing them more as a means for the police to earn some extra pocket money.
11. You make plans but no longer expect them to happen as arranged. If anything it is always a nice surprise if things do actually go as they’re meant to. I noticed the other day that I had started saying things like “I am meant to get back to Abuja on….” Or “He is meant to be coming to see me on…” Everything has become a possibility rather than a certainty. This is more a method of preserving my sanity than anything else. The less I count on things happening as they should, the less chance of me being disappointed when things don’t go as planned.
12. You can’t sleep without being under a mosquito net.
13. Washing your clothes in a bucket has started to seem normal.
14. Walking into a shop and paying a fixed price for something seems strange.
15. You no longer find it odd when you’re sat at work and people around you suddenly burst into song. Or prayer. Or both.
16. You find yourself adopting the habit of making ridiculously obvious statements like ‘you’re back’ when someone walks through the door.
17. You crave fried yam.
18. You crave beer (this might not seem that odd, but coming from someone who never drunk beer before coming here, it surprised me)
19. You develop the ability to work in an environment that would make Waterloo train station seem peaceful and quiet. No one does anything quietly in this country.
20. You forget what colour your feet are meant to be.

Adventures

Doesn't look like much, but ahhh to be out of Abuja!

I was lucky enough to be able to travel for work last week. We went to two of the other offices the charity runs in Nigeria to do some training for the members of staff there. It was brilliant getting out of Abuja for the week. I’ve said before that whilst I don’t think I could handle a rural placement for a full year, few things make me happier than being surrounded by nothing but trees and greenery. I know, I’m odd. That’s what growing up in the middle of nowhere on a very small Island does to you. Some highlights of the trip:

• Getting on the back of a motorbike with 2 rucksacks, my laptop, a projector and flip chart paper and giving the driver the fright of his life when I then went very quickly off the back when he pulled away. He’d been driving off from a steep muddy hill way too fast, and that combined with the amount of things I was carrying on my back meant I just disappeared off the seat. Much to the amusement of all around me.
• Going to lock my door at one of the hotels we were staying at and the door handle coming off in my hand.
• Being told the electricity had come on in the hotel, so I could put my air conditioning on. I spent about 15 minutes messing around with various switches and electrical sockets in my room, but could I get the air conditioning to work? Called a guy from reception who came into my room and pressed the switch marked ‘water heater’, that was situated no where near the air conditioning unit, and on came the air conditioning. Silly me.

Clearly the switch for the air conditioning, how could I not have known that

• Day two of the training, going to set up the powerpoint presentation and realising the projector wasn’t around. Where was it? In the car of someone that worked in the office, we’d kept it in there because she said that would be safer than keeping it in the office. Where was the car? Ohhhhh someone had borrowed it… it was on its way to Abuja, 2 hours away, with the projector in it. Perfect.
• A driver stopping the car to answer his phone. First time I’ve seen it happen in 7 months.
• The driver of one of the cabs turning to me and saying ‘don’t worry auntie, I’ll drive very slowly for you’ and then proceeding to drive at the craziest speed I have ever known. I shut my eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening. I dread to think how he drives when ‘auntie’ isn’t in the car.
• Arriving in one of the towns we were running training to be told that all the hotels were fully booked because there was a massive conference going on.
• The place we then had to stay for two nights because all of the other hotels were fully booked. Basic doesn’t quite do it justice. Suffice to say it made My Old Squat look like the Hilton. It came complete with many free additions, including pets of various descriptions in my room, sticky sheets, no electricity, and no water. The no water thing wouldn’t have been so bad if the person that had been there before me had flushed the toilet before they left. I wasn’t too sad to check out.
• Being told by some of the staff in one of the offices that they wanted to ‘buy me yams to help my body’. Why? This was answered by moving their hands up and down in a straight motion. I wonder how many times someone is going to tell me that I don’t have an African woman’s figure this year. If Nigeria created food that didn’t include meat AND fish in it, then I’m sure I’d be able to maintain a slightly heavier or more rounded figure! Being away for the week really reminded me how difficult it is for me to eat anything here, I’m fine when I can make things for myself, but otherwise it’s just a case of buying ground nuts, biscuits, and yogurt drinks, and hoping malnutrition waits a while before setting in!

So all in all it was a great week, and I hope I get to spend some more time in the other offices again soon. I’m getting used to Abuja, and I’m happy here, but it’s just not somewhere I would have ever chosen to do my placement. For many reasons I’m very glad I got to spend 6 months in Calabar before coming here.

Honour God with your mode of dressing

A man ran across the road (a very busy road, he had a few too many close encounters with cars and bikes that didn’t want to stop for my liking) to give me this leaflet the other day. He didn’t seem to be giving the leaflets out to anyone else, so there was obviously something about my appearance that offended him enough to risk his life for (don’t worry mother, I really wasn’t dressed inappropriately, by any stretch of the imagination).

And some extracts from the leaflet:

“Once I was looking out of the window of my house, and I saw many young ladies, but noticed one lady dressed like a prostitute with her breasts, thigh, and contour of private parts exposed.”

“Note: The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord you know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible!”

“What must I do to be saved
Admit that you are a sinner, repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.”

So it looks like I’m going to have a busy few days trying to make sure I get myself saved and having my sins blotted out.

Healthcare Nigerian style

I managed to go 7 months without having to encounter the Nigerian healthcare service. Until last week when I had to take myself to a clinic in Abuja. The clinic itself was completely fine; that’s one of the benefits of being based in Abuja, there’s a clinic that VSO recommends here. I did however find some elements of the experience slightly amusing. When I registered at the reception I was given the number 35 so went to sit down to wait until it was my turn. I had assumed that I would follow whoever had number 34. Silly me. It became clear that it didn’t really matter what number you had in your hand, what was far more important was how much of a fuss you made and who could run to the door of the consultation room the fastest when the last patient came out. I’ve never seen so many clearly ill people move so fast. Not being one for pushing in or creating a scene, I didn’t relish the prospect of this. The man next to me asked when it was my turn. I pointed at my ticket and said after number 34 and he burst out laughing. It seems the numbers are really quite meaningless. Thankfully my friend was with me, who is far more used to the ways of doing things here, so I didn’t have to wait too long. Then when I was in the consultation room being examined, a woman walked in, sat down, and started talking to the doctor. I have no idea who she was, but they seemed to have a lovely conversation about how their children were, about general life in Abuja, and about how busy the clinic was. After 10 minutes she got up and walked out and the doctor returned to my consultation. I then had to repeat the fun game of jumping the queue when I went down to the lab for the next stage of the ‘process’. The lab technician was very friendly. He wanted me to take him to the UK to do his attachment in microbiology. I had to gently explain that perhaps that wouldn’t work, because 1. I am not living in the UK; I am living in Nigeria, and 2. On my VSO allowance I don’t really have the money to support myself and a random stranger doing his medical attachment. He looked quite upset, I almost wished I’d mentioned this after he’d done the blood test, I think he’d have been considerably more gentle with the needle if he’d still thought there was a chance I’d adopt him and take him home with me.

So, that was my first encounter with the healthcare service here, and also my first encounter with malaria. Not too bad after 7 months, but an experience I’m hoping I can avoid repeating for the remainder of my placement, I don’t really like going to the doctor at the best of times.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Two of VSO’s key selection criteria. And I now know why. Some things that have recently tested these characteristics:

1. De-worming. The less said about this experience the better.
2. Constantly being covered in bites and finding creatures crawling on my skin. I’m hoping that in the same way that whatever was living in the mattress in my Old Squat gave up and stopped chewing on me, the same thing will happen in my New Squat.
3. Being prepared to start a new placement in a completely new city 6 months into a 12 month placement. This hasn’t been easy. Abuja and Calabar are very different places. The local dialects are even different.
4. Electricity. Whilst I now have electricity most of the time, it’s weird how little it now affects me when we don’t have it. I now know I can easily live somewhere with a poor electricity supply. There have been several instances in my New Squat where I’ve found that I’m sat in my room in the dark without even realising it because it didn’t occur to me to try and turn a light on.
5. Water. The water in my New Squat is off every Friday until the following Monday (as well as several other times during the week!). Before I came to Nigeria, I would have thought this would be something that would have bothered me. But it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Especially as we generally know it’s going to go off, and so we can make sure the bins of stored water are filled. I realised the other day how used to having a poor water supply I have become when I poured a bucket of water down the toilet in the office, only to then hear the person that went into the toilet after me actually using the flush. It hadn’t even occurred to me to try and use the flush, I’m so used to using a bucket. Sad but true.
6. Going to long drop toilets (or really just any toilets, plumbing isn’t Nigeria’s strong point) and trying to then avoid noticing that the hems of my trousers are soaking wet.
7. And finally and most importantly: accepting that there are things I have absolutely no control over. And that sometimes even when things are going very wrong, there’s nothing I can do about it apart from just waiting to see what happens next. People who know me well and know how much of a control freak I am will appreciate that this has been the hardest lesson for me to learn.

Life in Abuja has been ticking along. I’m getting into a routine, and finding my way around. Last week we got an extra two days off work as public holidays for Eid ul-Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan. Someone from VSO invited us to his house to chop. I’m so used to not being able to eat food here that I really wasn’t expecting to be able to eat anything and was just looking forward to catching up with people and going to a new part of Abuja. So I was very very excited when he brought out not one, but TWO massive dishes of salad. Not just salad, but salad with LETTUCE. It was a good day. We’ve also now got a DVD player in our flat, and we can buy DVDs from the market down the road for 200/250 N each (about £1). We’ve also found a place that does live music at the weekends that might be one of my most favourite places in the world. I’m developing a bit of an unhealthy obsession with the singer. I consider it to be a bad weekend if I don’t get to go there. I’ve so far managed to refrain from walking up to the stage, throwing myself at his feet, and clinging onto his ankles, but give me time.

The end of the VSO Refugee

Or the VSO Internally Displaced Person would be more accurate. So I have a new placement. I started on Monday. And I am very excited. Anyone who knows me well knows how bad I am at not being gainfully employed. I need to be continually occupied or I am beyond irritating. The past few weeks have therefore been somewhat of a challenge. Thankfully I had the joy of moving into a flat that needed a clean. I clean when I am stressed. Actually that’s an understatement, I clean all the time. But I clean even more when I am stressed. I don’t think I have ever spent so many hours cleaning. VSO also took pity on me and gave me ‘tasks’ to do. I’m fairly certain these were just attempts at keeping me occupied so that I didn’t try to flee the country. Not that I could have done, I don’t even have my passport. But I was grateful nonetheless. I also spent a great deal of time at the VSO office making use of their internet and drinking endless cups of tea. Although having discovered the British Village this weekend, I am kicking myself for not having taken more advantage of it during the past three weeks. There is a pool that VSO’s can use for free. And not just that, there’s a bar that serves cocktails, and food that contains CHEESE. I might move in there and see if anyone notices.

Another volunteer came into the VSO office the other day and asked me where I was living now I’m in Abuja. I told her, and she looked less than impressed. I was very confused, given it is one hundred times better than where I was living before. Apparently whenever any volunteers come to stay in Abuja they ask to not be put in what is now my new home. And yet for me, it’s heaven. It seems that my standards are even lower than I had previously thought. I think the trick is to ensure that my expectations are at such a low level that there is never room for me to be disappointed. This coping mechanism has definitely helped to go some way towards stopping me jumping on the first flight home in the past few weeks. Quite a few people have asked me why I’ve stayed. And if I’m honest the thought of going home was definitely tempting at one stage. And at times it seemed like it might be the best thing for me to do. But I do not want the past 6 months to be the outcome of my VSO placement. And more importantly, I do not want the past 6 months to be the way I remember Nigeria. So, I decided to stick with it. And after now starting a new placement, I’m very glad I made that decision.

Despite having just said how much I like my new home, there is one thing about it that makes me very sad. There’s a monkey tied up outside on a piece of rope the length of my arm. Quite often I watch him trying desperately to get food that has been thrown to him and is just outside his grasp. It breaks my heart and I cannot understand how anybody could be so cruel. He spends most of his days just sat on the ground drawing in the dirt. I’m trying to think of something I can do to make it better but as yet I haven’t been able to come up with anything. If I go down to him then his owners would definitely see me. And I’m not entirely sure about what I’d do when I got to him. Whilst it would make me feel better to cuddle him, or smuggle him into my room, I’m not convinced that is something that would fix his life right now.

I got asked if I was a vegetarian the other day. Apparently I ‘look like one’. What does a vegetarian look like? ‘No meat’, ‘pale’ and ‘a sunken stomach’ were the responses I received. Great. I am definitely in the wrong country - that same night I was in a bar with a live band, and one of the women singing was what people here describe as ‘well endowed’. At home she would be described as curvy! And the song she was singing was about just how ‘endowed’ she was. And everyone loved it. The men were clearly enjoying the song (and more likely her dancing) and women who were equally as well ‘endowed’ all came and joined her. It was a refreshing change from being at home, where there is the constantly unhealthy obsession with people wanting to be thinner. The only slight downside was I left feeling like even more of a ‘vegetarian’ - I definitely do not have what would be described as an African figure. I need to start eating more groundnuts and avocadoes I think.

And finally, to continue with my constant attempts to be positive about my new placement, here are some more good things about being in Abuja:

1. My internet connection is much much faster here. I can upload photos and do video Skype without wanting to throw my laptop out the window. I can also listen to Radio 1 live. People who know how much I love Chris Moyles will appreciate how happy this makes me.
2. Being able to run around the area where I live. This would have just caused me endless hassle in Calabar.
3. The British Village. This is so good it deserves a second mention.
4. Access to coffee. I had my first latte in 6 months the other day. It was worth waiting for and it was even worth spending almost a day’s allowance on.
5. Having somewhere we can go for beer directly outside where we live.
6. Living in a compound that isn’t full of weird horrible men who flog people outside my window, constantly bug me for money, and turn off my water and electricity supply.
7. Having housemates. Having lived on my own for almost 5 years I didn’t think this would be something that I would find so comforting, but right now I am definitely happier that there are other people living in the same place as me.
8. Being able to have a cold glass of wine. Well, wine might be a stretch of the imagination. Vinegar would probably be a better description. But it beats not having wine at all.
9. Finding a café that sells macaroni cheese. It costs 2 days allowance, so will have to be saved for a special treat. But I at least know it’s there!

Want to lose your sanity?

Then come to Nigeria.

I knew I had spoken too soon when I said I was enjoying my placement. Six months in, and things went very wrong. I can’t go into details on my blog, but unfortunately my placement didn’t work out and I had to leave Calabar. People keep telling me that there will be a lesson to be learnt from all of this, and that everything happens for a reason. I am struggling to work out what that lesson is. Other than the fact that I’ll probably never trust anyone again. Another lesson I have learnt is how isolating it feels to be in a foreign country and to not be able to trust the people who are supposed to be looking out for you (just to be clear, I am not talking about VSO, they have been very supportive). I’ve also learnt that I’m considerably stronger than I was when I first came out here. Yes, I’ve fallen apart and cried, but my first thought hasn’t been to give up and to go home (well, that’s a slight lie, but I soon moved passed that!)

So it looks like I’ll be starting a new placement in Abuja. I have moved into where I’ll be living here, and I am starting to feel more settled. There are definitely some positives with being here:

1. Food – it is one hundred times easier for me to get a lot of fruit and vegetables here. In Calabar unless I went to one of the markets I was limited to just being able to buy tomatoes, onions, avocados, oranges, pineapple and mango. This sounds like a lot of choice, but for a vegetarian, my diet got a little monotonous. Here I am able to easily buy potatoes, carrots, peas, yam, aubergine, peppers, tomatoes, onions, mango, pineapple, oranges, papaya, bananas… the list goes on. So I’m a happy bunny.
2. Electricity. I won’t go on about this as I am terrified in case I jinx it, but suffice to say electricity is almost constant here. I don’t yet trust it enough to stop obsessively charging everything though (almost as soon as I typed this, the electricity went out. It turns out we have an electricity meter. But no one told us we have an electricity meter. So we didn’t know it needs topping up. Not a mistake we’ll make again).
3. With electricity comes a fridge. Yes, a real working fridge.
4. Living somewhere that has more than one room. This is beyond exciting for me. There’s a lounge and a kitchen and places for me to sit other than my bed. And the kitchen not only has a fridge in it, but an oven too. And the oven works. Does it get any better?!
5. Having somewhere outside where I can dry my washing. Granted, it’s over a very dusty car park, but I still think that dusty clothes are better than clothes that smell of wet dog.

And the things I miss about Calabar:

1. The people who I’ve shared the ups and downs of the past 6 months with. It still hasn’t sunk in that I won’t actually be living there anymore and seeing them all the time.
2. The public transport. From paying 50 N for any taxi journey, I am now paying a minimum of 250 N. There are no shared taxis in Abuja, and so it’s a case of paying for a private taxi to get anywhere. On an allowance of 1,000 N a day, this is a challenge.
3. Feeling like I’m actually living in Africa. Abuja is a big city like any other. I could be anywhere in the world.
4. The street side stalls. The furthest you could walk in Calabar without seeing somewhere you could buy bread, phone credit, tomatoes, onions, water (and the list goes on) was about 5 metres. Not so here. There are no roadside stalls (apart from the few who seem to risk it and set up shop down some of the smaller side roads). So you have to walk to the nearest supermarket.
5. Feeling settled. Calabar had really started to feel like home. Yes, it had its challenges (especially in my last week there), but I was used to it. I wasn’t expecting to have to start all over again after 6 months.

But I’m not going to end on a negative. On the plus side, I get to experience living in two different places, get to meet new people and make new friends. So I’m telling myself that instead of just having the one VSO experience, I get two. Like I said before, onwards and upwards.

And a nice thought to end on… I was speaking to my housemate the other day, and for some reason the topic of de worming came up. Turns out that after 6 months I really should have done this by now. So that’s going to be a highlight of the next few days. Oh the glamorous lifestyle of a VSO volunteer.

A vegetarian's worst nightmare?

The picture doesn’t really do it justice. You need to experience the smell at the same time in order to get the full effect.

I’ve had some pretty grim experiences with food since getting here. Having to eat the bean cake which turned out to be full of fish. Sharing my noodles with Ratty. Biting into roasted corn and a maggot falling out of it (I had already eaten 90% of the corn by that time so I told myself that was definitely the ONLY maggot that would have been in there. There was absolutely NO chance there were others and I’d just ingested them). They were nothing compared to Saturday night’s adventures. We went to a friend’s restaurant/bar, which is very well known locally for its signature dish. In fact it boasts that it serves the best version of this dish in town. And what is this delicious meal? Goat Head. Yes, that’s right, the Head of a Goat. The ENTIRE head of a goat. One of the people we were out with expressed an interest (or perhaps more a morbid curiosity) in what this dish was like. I learnt very early on not to show any interest in food here unless you are very very sure that you want to eat it. And not just eat it, but have your facial expression scrutinised by everyone you are with whilst you eat whatever delicacy you have been given, just to make sure you really are enjoying it and you’re not just pretending. And sure enough, no more than ten minutes after he uttered the words “I wonder what it tastes like” two big pots of steaming Goat Head had been placed on the table in front of us. Now, I knew being a vegetarian here would cause some challenges. The concept is just not understood. I can’t count how many times I’ve said I can’t eat something and the response has been, “I know you’re vegetarian, but it’s okay, this is just chicken.” I don’t usually ever have a problem with other people eating meat. I am also realistic and have to accept that quite often (here and at home) I am probably eating things that have been cooked next to, or come into contact with meat and fish. And I’d never be fussy enough to refuse to eat anything on that basis (I’d probably starve here if I started being that obsessive about it!) But the two pots of Goat Head really did push my vegetarianism to the extreme. It was like being in a horror movie. When my friend started chewing the meat off a lump of something and I realised when he put down the remains that it was the goats teeth, dirt, decay and all, I really did have to take a few deep breaths. The highlight was at the end of the evening when they were closing the restaurant and pushed a wheelbarrow of rejected Goat Head Bones past our table. I kept being told by one of our local friends that I was ‘missing out’. I’m not certain I agree with him. As appealing as chewing on a goats jawbone and eyeballs might seem, I might just push on through and stick to being a vegetarian.

Some other new ‘experiences’ this week.

1. Goosebumps. Yes, that’s right. I was cold. In Nigeria. I had to sleep with my jumper on.
2. Losing my temper. This doesn’t happen often. I’m frequently grumpy and I moan all the time, but actually losing my temper? Very rare. I had no water for most of last week. And when I say ‘no water’ I literally mean nothing. For the first part of the week it was fine because I just used the stored water I keep in my room (and tried to ignore the smell of stagnant pond). But by the time that ran out on Thursday I was feeling pretty fed up. The closest tap to collect water from is a 20 minute walk up my hill. I’m reasonably strong, but even I can’t carry my filled jerry can that far. On Friday morning I’d had enough and I asked my neighbour whether he could help me fetch water in his car, or if he knew when they’d be using the generator to pump us water (which is what usually happens when the water is off for a long-time). He just looked really confused and said he’d had water all week. I asked a couple more of my neighbours and they all said the same thing. Then my neighbour took me to the outside area behind my room and showed me the tap which controls my water supply. Which had been turned off. The security guard saw me and shouted to ask if there was a problem. He’d been bugging me all week for money for another fictitious electricity bill. The last time he did that and I refused to pay he turned the electricity supply off to my room. I have little doubt that he was responsible for turning the water off to my room. The tap is directly outside my bathroom window. It is impossible that it was turned off by mistake. Its only function is to control the water supply to my room. He then had the nerve to ask me for money again. He still owes me 2,000 Naira for the kitchen sink he never fixed. Something tells me that the two of us will never see eye to eye. At least I now know how to turn my water on myself.
3. The taxi I was in on the way to work being wheel clamped. In the middle of the road. There’s an area where taxi drivers aren’t allowed to stop and pick up passengers unless they dash (pay/bribe) the random men who stand on the side of the road. I’m not really sure what purpose these men serve. All they seem to do is to direct you to which cab to get into, which the taxi drivers are more than able to do themselves. Anyway, the driver of the taxi I was in didn’t want to dash anyone so seemed to think that if he just crawled along the road very slowly and made passengers jump into a moving car then he wouldn’t have to pay because technically he never stopped. Not so. The random men on the side of the road reached into the car, turned off the ignition, and pulled out the car keys. The taxi driver then started fighting with them (not very intelligent given there was one of him and about 10 of them). And then the traffic police (or just some more random men, I’m not really sure) came and clamped the car. Right in the middle of the road. In rush hour traffic. The door handle on the inside of the passenger door where I was sitting was broken and so I couldn’t actually get out. It took them a few minutes to realise I was still stuck inside, and to open the door so I could get another cab to work. This time I made sure I got in one that had paid the taxi attendants and so was actually allowed to stop to pick me up.

So all in all, another quiet few days in Calabar!

Green sludge and a bruised ego

As I’ve already mentioned, walking around here isn’t the most relaxing pastime. If you’re not being greeted or shouted at by everyone that you walk past, you’re being offered lifts by passing cars, or constantly being asked why you’re trekking again. If I’m having a tired day it’s almost a relief when it’s raining and I can use my umbrella to cover my face and have a relatively peaceful walk up my road. Not so the other day. I was walking back down the hill after work, and it had been raining pretty much all day. The sides of the roads were flooded, and so I was sticking to the pavements. Only the pavements were covered in green sludge. Green sludge that was every bit as slippery and as slimy as it looked. And I fell. Hard. Flat on my a*s and my back. My immediate thought was that I’d probably broken my laptop, which was in my rucksack, but thankfully I hadn’t. I was on the busiest part of my road, and within seconds I was surrounded by people saying sorry that I had fallen and trying to help me up and wipe all of the green sludge off me. They were shouting down the road to other people,’ “The Bakara has fallen, the Bakara has fallen.” It took about 5 minutes for me to convince them I was fine. Then I had to walk the rest of the way home covered in green sludge all down my back, with blood coming out of my elbow, leg and foot, and with a very bruised ego. It’s a measure of my lowered standards that when I was telling Jenny what had happened I said, “Oh well, at least it was only green sludge that I got covered in.” We had to laugh about the fact that I found that comforting. But I really did, considering all of the other things I frequently walk past/through on the roads that it could have been. So no more walking down the green sludgy pavements on rainy days in flipflops.

Some cultural learnings this week:

1. What do you do when you have a baby with a very blocked nose and you can’t get them to blow their nose? (WARNING: DO NOT KEEP READING THIS IF YOU ARE EATING) You suck the gunk out and then spit it out. I almost feel bad for putting this on my blog because it is so disgusting, but I couldn’t resist sharing this horrific piece of information. Witnessing this was not a highlight of my week.
2. When someone strokes your arm and says “Your skin is so soft, do you put sperm in your moisturiser?” the correct response is not to laugh. This is a very serious question. I then listened to a 10-minute explanation on the benefits of adding sperm to your moisturiser.
3. Rainy season here is not a good time to be unmarried. You get bombarded with constant questions regarding how you can possibly sleep at night in this cold weather without a “natural blanket”. A “natural blanket” being a man.
4. Working for an organisation that is supposed to promote women’s empowerment and hearing a stream of comments about the inferiority of women and then being told, “Gender equality? This is Africa. The man is still the man, and the woman is still the woman. You won't find gender equality here" by one of the managers in the organisation doesn’t do wonders for your enthusiasm as a volunteer.
5. Sitting and watching an attachment upload to an email for four hours is not the most calming of hobbies. Especially when it’s 9pm on a Thursday evening and you’ve been working on the same thing since 7am that morning. I very nearly threw my modem under a passing car.
6. When someone asks if you are married say yes, irrespective of who they are. Otherwise you get dragged down the road to be introduced to a crazy lady’s brother, who must have been about 70 years old. She ran up to him dragging me behind her shouting “Brother, I’ve found you a wife, I’ve found you a wife”. I made a hasty exit. The poor man looked very confused. This was the same lady who had spent the entire tricycle ride up my hill telling me I was lucky she was letting me sit next to her because in my country (being the UK) that would never happen as (and I quote): ‘your people would never be sat next to my people’.
7. Doing something as simple as standing on the side of the road minding your own business can cause a full-blown row between two men. I was just stood hailing down a taxi when a man stood on the pavement behind me told me that he didn’t want me to get a public taxi because ‘he loved me’ and wanted to ‘buy me a drop’ (a drop is a private taxi where you are the only passenger, and so it is about 8 times the cost of a public taxi which you share with however many other people). He then started shouting at every taxi that passed that he wanted a drop. A taxi full of people stopped, and the driver chucked all the passengers out so that he could take me in a drop. I explained to the taxi driver that I didn’t know the man, I didn’t want him paying for my taxi, and I just wanted a 50 Naira shared public taxi journey. The annoying man on the side of the road wouldn’t stop arguing with me about this, and by that time the poor taxi driver’s passengers had all gone and got in other taxis, so he’d lost all his fares from that journey. He was therefore pretty fed up with the annoying man on the side of the road, and quite rightly so. I wasn’t getting anywhere, as every time I tried to flag down a new taxi the annoying man on the side of the road interrupted me to tell the driver I wanted a drop, so I gave up and walked further up the road away from him so I could get a taxi in peace. Him and the taxi driver were still having a full-blown row by the time I last looked back.

And some good things this week:

1. Finding a place that sells REALLY good ice cream. It’s expensive, but definitely worth it.
2. A lovely lady who has a shop on my road refusing to let me pay my taxi fare and paying for me herself.
3. A new volunteer arriving in Calabar – someone else to drink beer with.
4. Packet macaroni cheese that I brought back from home. It was worth paying excess luggage for.
5. Finding a relatively decent bottle of red wine. Although I had to have a very long discussion with the lady in the shop about why I didn’t want a chilled bottle. Yes, that’s right, they all put red wine in the fridges here. The colder the better is the general motto.
6. Cooking fajitas for Jenny’s birthday. Despite me being the one who cooked them, they were actually edible. Especially when combined with fried yam. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that there’s nothing fried yam doesn’t go with.
7. Finding my way around a whole new part of Calabar all by myself. This doesn’t sound like much of an achievement, but for anyone who knows me well enough to know how bad my sense of direction is, and how much I hate doing things on my own, this was a pretty big breakthrough for me. I might just be becoming an adult.

So there goes another week. We’re praying for sunshine on Saturday so we can go and collapse by the swimming pool for the day. But if the past few days weather have been anything to go by, I shouldn’t get my hopes up!

I really need to learn to Man Up

I have just returned to Calabar after a lovely two weeks at home. I have the worlds best parents, who bought me a ticket to go home for my birthday so that I could indulge in hot showers and electricity and wine. And it was the best birthday present in the world. Nothing beats Jersey in the summer, and it was great to be able to catch up with so many people, although as predicted the time flew by and I didn’t get to see nearly as many people as I had hoped. And the down side? Me learning that no matter how settled I might think I feel in Calabar, I will never be happy about going back or saying goodbye to everyone at home. Given how much of a total mess I was back in February when I first left, I had really hoped that I might manage to be a bit more controlled this time round at the airport. But no such luck. There was nothing dignified or reserved about my departure. So much for the British not showing emotions. I once again shuffled through security snuffling and snorting, with tears pouring down my face. On the plus side, my lack of dignity and inability to control my emotions works wonders in terms of the way I am treated by airport staff – the man that needed to go through my bag couldn’t have been more apologetic as he asked me to unpack the 20 packets of ‘pasta in a mug’ and packet macaroni cheese, 6 copies of trashy magazines, and 5 packets of Boots cucumber face wipes. However I think I was slightly less hysterical than I was in February, as the people at security didn’t offer me a glass of water and a seat before asking me to go through the scanner this time, so maybe there was a small improvement. Either way, someone really needs to teach me to Man the Hell Up.

I took full advantage of my luggage allowance, and came back with my bags full of every type of dried food on offer in Waitrose. Including couscous, dried mushrooms, a bottle of Pimms, Pringles, chocolate and magazines. As well as the entire contents of Boots, and Warehouse’s summer collection. It might be a bit late to be mentioning this now, but if anyone bought shares in Warehouse or Accessorise during the last two weeks, they will be smiling.

Whilst I was at home I also attempted to have something done with The Hair. My hairdresser took one look at it and had to walk away for a few minutes. But after cutting it all off, it seems to be falling out a little bit less. In a bid to avoid me going in with a comb over the next time I see her, she also gave me what seemed like an entire year’s supply of free samples. So I’m sorted for intensive conditioning treatments for the rest of my placement.

On the not so good side, after feeling pretty healthy for the past four months, I got home and got some nasty bug. So spent the last few days at home feeling very sorry for myself because I couldn’t do any of the things I wanted to do. My mood didn’t improve during my journey back to Calabar, which went something like this: Jersey – Gatwick – Heathrow – Abuja - Lagos (yes, that’s right, Lagos) – Abuja – Uyo – Calabar – MY SQUAT. I left home at 12pm on Saturday and arrived at My Squat at 8pm on Sunday. I was already feeling quite tired by 4.20am on Sunday when we went to land at Abuja (I’ve never been good at sleeping at planes), and so I was slightly confused when after starting to descend, the plane began to go back up again. And up. And up. And then the Captain announced that unfortunately we couldn’t land at Abuja. Well, not yet anyway. The landing lights on the runway weren’t working. But not to worry, he assured us; the plane had enough fuel for another three hours. Excellent. So for the next hour we circled Abuja. Over and over and over again. Until finally it was accepted that the men working on the lights would not be able to fix them, and we didn’t have enough fuel left to keep circling until daylight. And so off we went to Lagos instead. We sat at Lagos for an hour or so, refuelled the plane, and finally landed in Abuja at 9am. This didn’t actually bother me too much as it helped to take some time away from the 11 hour wait I knew I had at Abuja airport before my flight to Uyo. It also didn’t seem to bother anyone else on the plane. We were sat there for over 4 and a half hours longer than we were expecting, and yet no one seemed to complain. People just sat there quietly and waited until we heard the next update. I’ve been on planes that have attempted to land in Jersey, failed for some reason (usually fog) and everyone has complained endlessly. Not so here.

I did discover one slight downside with long waits at Nigerian airports. They are not designed for people travelling on their own with a lot of luggage. Just trying to get a trolley was a mission in itself, and then I discovered that the trolleys don’t fit through the door to the bathrooms. The airport was really busy, I couldn’t risk leaving all my luggage out in the corridor. And I couldn’t check my luggage in until 2 hours before my flight. But after having just sat on the flight from Heathrow for 11 hours I was desperate for a change of clothes, a wash, and to brush my teeth. So I had to improvise. I found a deserted corridor and crouched down behind my trolley to change my top, and then brushed my teeth over a plant pot. I hope they don’t have security cameras. I was also very very thirsty, but the only place I could buy water was upstairs in the airport. And guess what, there wasn’t a lift. Well actually, there was a lift. But it had a sign on it saying it only went to the 3rd floor offices, it didn’t go to the 1st floor where there was the cafeteria and the bar. Of course not, because people waiting at an international airport aren’t likely to have a lot of luggage. It would make no sense at all to have a lift going to the cafe. So by the time I could check my luggage in at 1.40pm I was just about ready to abandon my luggage and go and buy a drink anyway. Although I’d gone from wanting water to wanting a neat vodka. My journey back to Calabar continued to not go quite as planned, as in the taxi on the drive from Uyo (it’s at least a 2 hour journey to Calabar) our taxi ran out of petrol. In the torrential rain. By that stage I was starting to feel like someone was really trying to see how long I could stay awake without passing out.

When the plane couldn’t land in Abuja, the lady sat next to me turned to me and asked if it was my first time in Nigeria. I explained that it wasn’t, and she said thank goodness, because she didn’t want me to get a bad impression from the very start. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that nothing about what had just happened had surprised me in the slightest. When she asked how I was liking Nigeria, and I said I was really happy, and liked living in Calabar, all she could say was, “Why?” She couldn’t have looked more surprised. She said that whenever she hears anyone say anything positive about her country she wonders whether they’re living in the same place as she is. Like many people I have spoken to here, she is fed up. Fed up with the fact that Nigeria has resources. And Nigeria has money. A lot of it. And yet these resources and this money are not getting to the people who need it. She was fed up with the leadership. And she was fed up with the fact that in some ways the country has gone backwards in recent years rather than forwards. So when she asked why I liked living here, I didn’t know what to say. Because I know that part of the reason I’m happy here is because I know that it’s just for now. If this was where I knew I would be living for the next 20 years, my response might have been very different. Unlike most people here, I have the luxury of knowing I can go home for two weeks to escape the craziness, to soak up the easiness of life there, to enjoy the hot showers, the running water, and the constant electricity. So why do I like living here? Probably because it’s a novelty. ‘An experience’. But for most people here it’s neither of those things. It’s every day life, and it’s frustrating.

Unfortunately this has turned into another negative blog post. But no matter what the reason is, it is nice to be back. My Squat was exactly as I had left it, and hadn’t been taken over by Ratty as I had feared. In fact the only signs of life were a half dead cockroach and a big fat slimy millipede. I also had my reunion with Harp and fried yam last night. And Jenny got me the best birthday present anyone living here could ask for, a “Stop Nigeria I want to get out of here” voucher, entitling me to a day’s swimming at the lovely hotel up the road, including dinner there. They serve pizza. And cold beer. And have a huge flat screen TV in the outside bar area. So as soon as we find a Saturday when it isn’t raining, I plan on taking up residence on the sun lounger at 8am and not moving until someone actually has to ask me to leave.