I dey okay...

So, nearly one month in. I now have somewhere to live, which is a big relief. From hereon I will affectionately refer to it as My Squat. The initial accommodation I was meant to be living in didn’t work out (long story!) and so after 10 days staying with another VSO in Calabar (who is possibly the most patient person I have ever met for putting up with me and all my bags for that long) I moved into My Squat on Saturday. Photos will follow as soon as I find an internet connection fast enough to upload them.

I thought I would share the joy of my morning routine. I wake up in My Squat to the sound of Celine Dion’s greatest hits. I think my neighbour must have only just discovered her, and so is taking full advantage of listening to the same CD at any given opportunity. And this CD isn’t just played at normal volume. It’s set to ‘Nigerian Loud’. Take the loudest setting of any music system at home and triple it. I should probably also mention that this isn’t just her normal greatest hits either; this is the techno trance version. And this is at 6am. I am either going to have to buy him (yes, it’s a him) another CD, or somehow subtly suggest that if he wants to be able to hear by the time he reaches the age of 40, he should probably consider listening to it on a quieter volume.

So I get up. I don’t actually need to be up that early, but sleep isn’t an option. I boil water for a cup of tea on my camp gas stove in my little tin kettle (I have always wanted a proper old style kettle, and now I have one!) and try and assess the water situation. If the water is off, I fill a bucket from the store of water I keep for such situations, and have a bucket shower, which is actually more effective than using the normal shower, for reasons about to be explained. If the water is on, I attempt my new ‘Shower Routine’. My Squat has a stand up shower, which seems to be unusual here. The taps for the shower are about 20 cm from the floor, and the showerhead is at normal height. Because the water pressure is so bad (and for obvious electrical reasons, power showers do not exist) the water cannot get from the taps UP the shower hose to the showerhead. The only way water comes out of the showerhead is if it is held at the same height as the taps. So, to have a shower, I need to curl up on the floor of the shower cubicle. It’s a whole new washing experience, and involves some pretty nifty yoga moves to try and get myself to fit into the base of the shower cubicle, and try and wash at the same time.

I try and leave by about 7.15am. I don’t need to start work until 8.30am, but it’s a 25 minute walk from My Squat to the main road where I catch public transport to work, and if I leave any later than that it is too humid to try and walk that far, unless I want to arrive at work sporting the ‘wet look’. Public transport deserves a mention. There are no motorbike taxis allowed in Calabar, and so the only way to get around is by shared taxi or shared minibus. One journey costs 50 Naira (there are 250 Naira to the pound). You stand on a road somewhere, wherever you want to get picked up from, and whenever a shared taxi or bus drives past, you shout out the place you want to get to. I work by an area called Bogobiri, in the centre of town, and for some reason, me saying that word in an English accent sends every single taxi and bus driver into a fit of hysterics. So trying to get a taxi takes some time and patience. And whilst all this is going on, I am trying to work out that the cars I am flagging down are actually taxis, because I realised for the first week I was just getting into random mens cars, and then not being able to work out why they wouldn’t accept my taxi fare. But now I know that the taxis need to have red number plates on the front AND the back, so I won’t be making that mistake again! Once I manage to find a taxi or bus that doesn’t just drive off after listening to my accent, in I get. Taxis tend to seat 4 or 5 people in the back (yes, this is just a normal sized car) and 3 people in the front. So I arrive at the junction I jump out at covered in not only my own sweat, but that of my fellow passengers as well.

And then I walk a short distance to work, and find it difficult to believe that all that has happened and it is only 8am. Work is going well, it’s much busier than I expected it would be to start off with, which I’m very grateful for. Having worked in a political environment for the past 5 years, I was looking forward to starting work here and focusing on a different subject area. So it made it me laugh when on my first day at work I found out that one of the main projects the charity is currently working on is a Voters Education project. Its focus is on mobilising the community and raising their awareness of the electoral process and their right to vote in the run up to Nigeria’s forthcoming elections (scheduled for April). So more politics for me! It’s been really interesting observing the workshops that the charity are running, and hearing about some of the challenges they face here.

Calabar is great and there’s plenty to see and do. And last night we even celebrated Shrove Tuesday, although making pancakes on a gas stove, with the opposite of a non-stick frying pan, was slightly more of a challenge than it is at home! I’m gradually starting to find my way round the city and so I don’t feel completely lost all of the time now, and my Pidgin English is slowly improving. So all in all, I dey okay.