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.