My heart will go on and on...

Celine Dion has become the theme music to my life here in Nigeria. It’s like living in some sort of bizarre cheesy TV sitcom. She seems to be following me everywhere I go. As well as continuing to wake me up each morning, she also accompanied me as I lay by a pool and sunbathed, and in one of my taxis to work. But with the exception of good old Celine, I do seem to have found a country that shares my taste in truly cheesy music. Round every corner is another Power Ballads classic just waiting to brighten my day (Kate you’d hate it!)

I managed to wholeheartedly humiliate myself at the end of our team meeting at work the other day. They start and finish all meetings here with opening and closing prayers. At the end of the meeting, my boss asked me to lead the group in the closing prayer. I tried to ask if I could maybe just observe a few more meetings, because it’s not a practice we follow at home, and so I wouldn’t really know what they normally say. But that didn’t work. So after thanking God for bringing everyone together for a successful meeting, my brain went completely blank. In hindsight I should have just called it a day and said Amen then. But no. My boss had just been on a 2-day conference in Abuja, and had brought everyone some chocolates back. This was the first chocolate I’d eaten since arriving in Nigeria 4 weeks before. I love chocolate. Because I was meant to be praying, my eyes were cast down onto the table in front of me, and what did they see? The chocolate. So what were my next words in my attempt at a closing prayer? “And thank you God for bringing us back this lovely chocolate from Abuja, I love chocolate God, thank you. Amen.” To which there was then nothing but silence, until my boss finally said, “Samantha, did you just thank God for chocolate?” I don’t think she’ll be asking me to do a closing prayer again for a while.

I seem to have unknowingly acquired a curfew at My Squat. I got back the other night at about 10.30pm. Not what I would consider to be a particularly late night. Almost as soon as I got back there was a knock on my door, but I was in the shower so couldn’t answer it. The next morning, the security guy came knocking on my door again at 7am: “You were back late last night, what happened?” I explained that nothing had ‘happened,’ I’d come back at the time I was expecting to come back. “Oh. Well that’s late. Will you be late tonight?” I said I wasn’t sure yet, but I would let him know. My boss then came round for something else, and he must have mentioned to her that I was “back late last night” because when she came to my room she asked why I was out so late the night before, and if I was wanting to get pregnant in Nigeria. I’m still not entirely convinced that there’s a direct link between my coming back late and getting pregnant! Now whenever I go anywhere, even just for a walk, I get about 5 different people from my compound asking me where I’m going, whether I know how to get there, and when I will be back. I have a sneaky suspicion that my boss may have set them all the task of keeping an eye on me. If 10.30pm is considered a late night, this could be a long year!

In an attempt to try and even out the t-shirt tans, we found a lovely swimming pool to collapse by the other day. At 1,000 Naira per time though (which is the equivalent of my daily living allowance) it’s probably not going to be a frequent occurrence!

Some other highlights of the past few days. Going to the Calabar Museum. Seeing the Presidential Rally held at Calabar Stadium. Finding Bar Munch, a really nice beer garden. My lovely neighbour taking me to work in the mornings in his lovely air-conditioned car. Finally getting my mosquito net hung up. Yes, I’m a weirdo and love nothing more than sleeping under a mosquito net. Don’t ask me why. Possibly because it provides an extra layer of protection between me and any cockroaches. Finding a supermarket that sells Dairy Milk and wine.

Some not so good bits. Finding unidentifiable tiny creatures crawling on my skin, which seem to be the culprits of the bites that are covering my hands, legs and feet, and I think might be living in my mattress. Going to a meeting that was meant to start at 1pm but didn’t start until 3.40pm and then spending the first hour doing introductions and going through the minutes from the last meeting. Bring back Scrutiny Panel meetings (I never thought I’d hear myself say that!). Finding out that hand washing bed linen in a bucket really isn’t very much fun. At all. Sitting in a taxi on the way to work and being convinced I could smell petrol. I said to the driver I could smell fuel, but he didn’t take much notice. 10 minutes on he pulled over, looked in the boot, and sure enough the 20 litre jerry can full of petrol he had been carrying had leaked all in the boot.

I realise my blog posts aren’t really making much mention of work. At the moment I’m spending a lot of time just observing and attending all of the activities and projects the charity undertakes, so that I can make sure I understand the way they work as much as possible. But a blog posting on work will follow!