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?