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.