Worms, pizza, “wine bars” and more goodbyes

I’ll start with the hideous story first. I went to get in the shower the other morning and was surprised to see a big worm lying dead on the floor of the shower. There are many hideous creatures living in the flat, but I’ve never seen a worm before. I turned on the shower, and for some reason something made me look up at the showerhead. And how I wished I hadn’t. There was a whole load of worm tails (or heads?) hanging out of the holes in the showerhead. I know they were worms because I initially couldn’t work it out and tried pulling one of them with my tweezers and it disappeared back up inside the showerhead. The showerhead can’t be unscrewed because it’s welded on. How what looks like earthworms have got into the showerhead is beyond me. So now showering here is a whole new experience.

Someone was talking about a “wine bar” in Abuja, and loving wine, and bars, I obviously wanted to go. However when we got there we realised the name was a little misleading. There is a wine shop in a car park, and you buy your wine, and you can then sit and drink it in the car park out of plastic cups. And as always here, the red wine is served freezing cold, and often mixed with fizzy drinks. But it was somewhere new to go.

Another volunteer was staying with me last week before he flew back to America. We wanted pizza and beer one night, so went to get takeaway pizza, and took it to the bar opposite where I live. They know me well, so I asked one of the staff there if they would mind if we sat there and ate our pizza. He said no, of course not, but it was raining so he showed us through into their restaurant. And then he walked away. We had to call him back over to explain that we wanted to order drinks. He was just going to let us sit in their restaurant (which was really busy, we took the last table) and eat our pizzas that we had bought from somewhere else. I might just start taking my dinner over there each night, they have digital TV.

And then this last weekend involved ANOTHER goodbye. I’ve had enough of them now; I don’t want anyone else to leave before I do!

And a worm update – I wrote the first part of this blog a week ago. The worms are no more. Because the showerhead couldn’t be removed, my friend burnt them. He held a candle under the shower until anything living within it had burnt to a crisp. Then we ran the water until the worm remains came out. I will say it again, it’s a glamorous life this volunteering malarkey.

8 weeks and counting

So I’ve now got eight weeks left in Nigeria – almost to the day. I try not to think about this too much because it stresses me out. Not because I don’t want to come home, I miss home like crazy and I cannot wait to see everyone and I especially cannot wait for my friend’s wedding. But for a few different reasons, it’s going to be very hard for me to leave Nigeria. It’s also slightly unsettling that I have no idea what I will do next. I’m just going to apply for a lot of different jobs in a lot of different places and see where fate ends up putting me. But it’s also fair to say that the main reason I am dreading leaving is because I know the journey home with Squirt is going to be a complete and utter nightmare! Rainy season has started now, and so we’re having storms most nights at the moment. And Squirt is not a fan of loud noises. It’s not the thunder that wakes me up; it’s Squirt trying to climb underneath me to avoid the noise that wakes me most nights. So a plane journey is definitely not going to be something she enjoys.

It’s been another busy few weeks, and some fun highlights have included:

·      My first Nigerian Haircut! Another volunteer cut it for me as it was in desperate need of help, and she did a very good job.

·      Going for a drink on the top of a massive hill overlooking Abuja. It’s beautiful up there, and having lived in Abuja since last July I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve been up there.

·      More fish (and egg for me) and chips at Abacha Barracks.

·      A mini pubcrawl around the area I live – it doesn’t feel so bad drinking beer during the day when you end up walking about 8km in total.

·      Lots of sunbathing at the British Village.

·      Free dinner courtesy of someone who was visiting from VSO, which meant … you guessed it – CHEESE.

·      Walking back from work – it only takes me an hour and it’s a really nice walk. But I think people here think I’m crazy.

·      Getting a parcel from home that included an array of delicious food to keep me going until I come back. And it only took 12 days to get here, which is a new record.

·      Spending a Saturday night swimming and drinking wine (from the swimming pool).

·      Collecting my dresses from the tailor – and this time they aren’t a complete disaster.

I love going to work at the moment – one lady here gave birth 3 months ago, and so now her maternity leave is up. So the baby comes to work with her. It’s awesome, he just gets passed around from person to person all day and is a very welcome distraction when the generator is broken and all of our laptop batteries are dead.

But I also realised the other day when I smelt bacon cooking and felt very homesick (despite the fact that I am vegetarian) that it’s probably time for me to come home. I have never before felt homesick at the smell of cooking flesh.