My second Easter in Nigeria. This year the long weekend was spent having lots of fun in Abuja. Jenny came to stay, and some highlights included:
• Going to the craft village. I need to start filtering down the number of things I want to buy from there to take home, as at the moment it’s pretty much everything they sell, including a big jewelled trunk thing and a chair and table. Given I’m already transporting a cat back with me I’m thinking all of those things may not fit in my luggage allowance.
• Having a drink at the Sheraton. Okay, it was only a fanta, and it was 5 times the price we normally pay for a fanta, but it’s nice to see how the other half live every now and again.
• Going for fish (or egg and chips for me) at Abacha Barracks and buying more mangos the size of my head.
• Having beer at our local bar.
• Sangria out of a carton. It’s actually pretty good.
• Spending two days lying by the pool at the British Village, and drinking gin and tonic (we could only afford one each, but still).
• A night in ordering pizza (yes, this service does exist in Abuja) and watching a DVD.
• Making yam balls (they’re nicer than they sound, really).
I even got to eat my body weight in chocolate as Jenny helped to deliver a super exciting parcel from my very own Easter Bunny in Calabar.
As always it was awesome to see Jenny, but it made me sad to think this was probably one of our last weekends together before the end of our VSO time here. July is definitely approaching far too quickly for my liking. But all in all, a very fun Easter!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
No water, running in the desert and getting PUBLISHED!
Another blog post full of a whole lot of waffle…
I’ll start with the really exciting news first (well, I was excited anyway!) – our journal article got accepted for publication, so all the hard work and submitting about 600 different versions was worth it. I’m not quite sure this qualifies me as a published author, but I’m going to keep pretending it does anyway.
I have even more respect than I did before for the crazy people who do the Marathon des Sables through the Sahara desert. I was feeling very lazy the other day so decided to go for a run, but the temperature was pushing 42 degrees at the time. It wasn’t a pleasant experience; I truly thought I was going to have a heart attack. I almost considered selling my iPod so I’d have money for a taxi home. One lady I passed along the way looked at me and said “Oh Oyibo, sorry sorry sorry”. I might refrain from any more running until it cools down a bit.
And on the subject of heat, I thought I’d got used to the temperature here by now, but recently nights here have been a little unbearable. Our electricity has been off a lot meaning no fan, and so I’ve been getting up numerous times each night and pouring a bucket of water over my head before going back to bed again. A couple of nights have been spent trying to sleep on the floor as the tiles are about the coolest thing in the flat when it’s that hot. Poor Squirt is feeling the heat as well - I keep finding her lying in the shower. And because the electricity has been bad, the water has been even worse as they need electricity to pump the water. It normally comes on from Monday to Friday, but over the past two weeks I can count the number of times we’ve had water on one hand. So when I came home last Thursday and found the man from the water board disconnecting our water I was less than impressed. I asked him how he could disconnect something that was never on anyway, but he said until everyone in the building paid their bill it would be disconnected. So I begged. And when that didn’t work I told him if he disconnected it I would follow him back to the water board office with the bag of dirty washing that was fast taking over my room and use their water supply. I think I scared him, but it worked and he left it on. I also now have his phone number and he told me to call him whenever we don’t have water. He may live to regret doing that – this was almost a week ago and we’ve had water once since then.
We got in a cab home the other night and even though we’d already negotiated the fare, the driver tried telling us that we should pay more because we “must have money because we’re white.” We explained we don’t have money, we’re volunteers, so he said “But you must have air conditioning at home, so you’ve got money.” So we explained we do not have air conditioning, we do not have a generator, we do not have any of the things he probably thinks we have. And you would think we had told him that we were living in a shack, “You don’t have air conditioning? You must be hot all the time. You come here to our country to help us and we don’t give you air conditioning?” So then from trying to get more money off us he changed to saying he wanted to write to the President and tell him what a disgrace it was that we don’t have air conditioning. I tried explaining that I think the President might have slightly more pressing matters to attend to than our lack of air conditioning. I was glad to get out of the cab. Although he still tried the standard “when you go home to UK you take me, or you bring me clothes and books for my baby” line.
My Abuja Cat Sanctuary is flourishing. Cat Two’s kittens are now 6 weeks old, running around, and also require feeding twice a day. How I went from saying I would never have any pets here to feeding 6 cats is beyond me. But one thing is for sure; I need a job, as my volunteer allowance doesn’t even cover the cost of me living in Abuja, let alone me and 6 cats. If anyone wants to sponsor the very first Nigerian Animal Shelter then let me know, I’ll willingly run it.
And FINALLY. This small health and safety risk caught my eye the other day. Never before have I been so glad that my job doesn’t involve me having to climb scaffolding.
I’ll start with the really exciting news first (well, I was excited anyway!) – our journal article got accepted for publication, so all the hard work and submitting about 600 different versions was worth it. I’m not quite sure this qualifies me as a published author, but I’m going to keep pretending it does anyway.
I have even more respect than I did before for the crazy people who do the Marathon des Sables through the Sahara desert. I was feeling very lazy the other day so decided to go for a run, but the temperature was pushing 42 degrees at the time. It wasn’t a pleasant experience; I truly thought I was going to have a heart attack. I almost considered selling my iPod so I’d have money for a taxi home. One lady I passed along the way looked at me and said “Oh Oyibo, sorry sorry sorry”. I might refrain from any more running until it cools down a bit.
And on the subject of heat, I thought I’d got used to the temperature here by now, but recently nights here have been a little unbearable. Our electricity has been off a lot meaning no fan, and so I’ve been getting up numerous times each night and pouring a bucket of water over my head before going back to bed again. A couple of nights have been spent trying to sleep on the floor as the tiles are about the coolest thing in the flat when it’s that hot. Poor Squirt is feeling the heat as well - I keep finding her lying in the shower. And because the electricity has been bad, the water has been even worse as they need electricity to pump the water. It normally comes on from Monday to Friday, but over the past two weeks I can count the number of times we’ve had water on one hand. So when I came home last Thursday and found the man from the water board disconnecting our water I was less than impressed. I asked him how he could disconnect something that was never on anyway, but he said until everyone in the building paid their bill it would be disconnected. So I begged. And when that didn’t work I told him if he disconnected it I would follow him back to the water board office with the bag of dirty washing that was fast taking over my room and use their water supply. I think I scared him, but it worked and he left it on. I also now have his phone number and he told me to call him whenever we don’t have water. He may live to regret doing that – this was almost a week ago and we’ve had water once since then.
We got in a cab home the other night and even though we’d already negotiated the fare, the driver tried telling us that we should pay more because we “must have money because we’re white.” We explained we don’t have money, we’re volunteers, so he said “But you must have air conditioning at home, so you’ve got money.” So we explained we do not have air conditioning, we do not have a generator, we do not have any of the things he probably thinks we have. And you would think we had told him that we were living in a shack, “You don’t have air conditioning? You must be hot all the time. You come here to our country to help us and we don’t give you air conditioning?” So then from trying to get more money off us he changed to saying he wanted to write to the President and tell him what a disgrace it was that we don’t have air conditioning. I tried explaining that I think the President might have slightly more pressing matters to attend to than our lack of air conditioning. I was glad to get out of the cab. Although he still tried the standard “when you go home to UK you take me, or you bring me clothes and books for my baby” line.
My Abuja Cat Sanctuary is flourishing. Cat Two’s kittens are now 6 weeks old, running around, and also require feeding twice a day. How I went from saying I would never have any pets here to feeding 6 cats is beyond me. But one thing is for sure; I need a job, as my volunteer allowance doesn’t even cover the cost of me living in Abuja, let alone me and 6 cats. If anyone wants to sponsor the very first Nigerian Animal Shelter then let me know, I’ll willingly run it.
And FINALLY. This small health and safety risk caught my eye the other day. Never before have I been so glad that my job doesn’t involve me having to climb scaffolding.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Contraception? What's that?
I apologise in advance. This is more of a rant than a blog post.
I mentioned in my last post that we’d been running some focus groups in some rural FCT communities this week. Some data the organisation had collected showed that there was a very high rate of teen pregnancy in these communities, so we went to talk to the unmarried girls there to try and find out why the rate is so high, and how the program the organisation runs there can better help to tackle the problem.
And lets just say it was an eye opener. I knew that the focus groups would be run in pidgin, so I didn’t hold out much hope of being able to understand what was being said, but I was pleasantly surprised as I think I managed to understand about 90% of what they were talking about. But boy oh boy does it make you realise just how much of an issue there is here. The girls basically outlined the following issues as stopping them from using contraception:
• Their boyfriends/partners won’t use condoms.
• Even if their boyfriends/partners will use condoms, they won’t actually initiate the buying of the condoms, and any girls who are seen buying condoms in the community are seen as easy and looked down on.
• People in the community assume that anyone who is buying condoms is buying them to use them with someone other than their partner, so even men don’t feel able to go and buy them without being met with disapproval.
• The health centre in the community is supposed to provide contraception free of charge, but they very rarely have condoms available. If the girls go there for the injection or the contraceptive pill they can get it free for the first two visits, but then have to pay 500N for each visit from then on. 500N a month for the pill is out of reach for pretty much all of the girls in this community.
• Because of it being frowned upon for unmarried (and to a certain degree, even married) girls to access contraception, even if the health centre provided contraception free of charge (and accurate advice), the girls would be too embarrassed to go there.
• The men in the community practice “Juju” (magic) on the girls, so that they can have sex with them without the girls realising it has happened (a summarised version of their words – not mine). We had to ask several questions when we heard this to try and understand what they meant. They explained that the men put something in the girls’ food or drink that makes them “go to sleep.” And then they have sex with them. My colleague’s response to this was “do you mean rape?” and the girls replied, “no, not rape, its Juju - like charm.”
And on top of all of these issues, the health centre in the community provides inaccurate information. We asked one of the girls we spoke to to go there as a “mystery client” and ask for advice on contraception. She asked the person there what contraception they could give her to protect her from HIV and STI, and they told her condoms AND, wait for it …
… the injection.
I had to take some very deep breaths when she came back and told us this.
And this is a community a couple of hours from the centre of Abuja. It was definitely one of the days when I went home wondering how anything is ever going to change here.
And then later that day I read an article about the police force getting a new uniform. A camouflage uniform that will apparently also have magical powers, given these uniforms will, and I quote, “discourage them [police officers] from developing cold feet any time they come face to face with robbers.” Having collectively spent over 3 hours over the past 2 days sat at one of the checkpoints here, news that money was being spent on uniforms rather than training did not fill me with joy.
I mentioned in my last post that we’d been running some focus groups in some rural FCT communities this week. Some data the organisation had collected showed that there was a very high rate of teen pregnancy in these communities, so we went to talk to the unmarried girls there to try and find out why the rate is so high, and how the program the organisation runs there can better help to tackle the problem.
And lets just say it was an eye opener. I knew that the focus groups would be run in pidgin, so I didn’t hold out much hope of being able to understand what was being said, but I was pleasantly surprised as I think I managed to understand about 90% of what they were talking about. But boy oh boy does it make you realise just how much of an issue there is here. The girls basically outlined the following issues as stopping them from using contraception:
• Their boyfriends/partners won’t use condoms.
• Even if their boyfriends/partners will use condoms, they won’t actually initiate the buying of the condoms, and any girls who are seen buying condoms in the community are seen as easy and looked down on.
• People in the community assume that anyone who is buying condoms is buying them to use them with someone other than their partner, so even men don’t feel able to go and buy them without being met with disapproval.
• The health centre in the community is supposed to provide contraception free of charge, but they very rarely have condoms available. If the girls go there for the injection or the contraceptive pill they can get it free for the first two visits, but then have to pay 500N for each visit from then on. 500N a month for the pill is out of reach for pretty much all of the girls in this community.
• Because of it being frowned upon for unmarried (and to a certain degree, even married) girls to access contraception, even if the health centre provided contraception free of charge (and accurate advice), the girls would be too embarrassed to go there.
• The men in the community practice “Juju” (magic) on the girls, so that they can have sex with them without the girls realising it has happened (a summarised version of their words – not mine). We had to ask several questions when we heard this to try and understand what they meant. They explained that the men put something in the girls’ food or drink that makes them “go to sleep.” And then they have sex with them. My colleague’s response to this was “do you mean rape?” and the girls replied, “no, not rape, its Juju - like charm.”
And on top of all of these issues, the health centre in the community provides inaccurate information. We asked one of the girls we spoke to to go there as a “mystery client” and ask for advice on contraception. She asked the person there what contraception they could give her to protect her from HIV and STI, and they told her condoms AND, wait for it …
… the injection.
I had to take some very deep breaths when she came back and told us this.
And this is a community a couple of hours from the centre of Abuja. It was definitely one of the days when I went home wondering how anything is ever going to change here.
And then later that day I read an article about the police force getting a new uniform. A camouflage uniform that will apparently also have magical powers, given these uniforms will, and I quote, “discourage them [police officers] from developing cold feet any time they come face to face with robbers.” Having collectively spent over 3 hours over the past 2 days sat at one of the checkpoints here, news that money was being spent on uniforms rather than training did not fill me with joy.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Vets, cats, fish and motorbikes
I’ve been a bit useless with updating my blog recently. I think it’s a combination between being busy and also having been here for long enough now to find everything normal, so I never think there’s anything worth writing about.
I took Squirt to the vet a couple of weeks ago for the blood test she needs to pass to get her entry to the UK. To cut a long story short, it was hideous, and I won’t be taking her to the vet again here if I can help it. They had to “sedate her” (this actually just involved paralysing her whilst keeping her wide awake) and the drug either didn’t agree with her, or she had too much. It was meant to last for 2 hours, but instead lasted well over 12 hours, and then it was another 2 days before she’d come out from under my bed, eat, drink or do anything. Thankfully she’s okay now, and so was her test result.
And Cat 2 has had her babies. I was outside feeding her the other night when I thought my foot felt a bit wet. Unusual in the dry season. And sure enough, her waters had broken over my flipflop. Lovely. She hid them well and so no one knew where they were for the first 2 weeks, but since they were found she seems to have moved them again. I can’t blame her, there aren’t many cat lovers out here so she’s very sensible to keep them out of the way.
I got two parcels the other day, which was pretty much the most exciting event to happen for quite some time. I had to sit at the Post Office for ages whilst they tried to find them, and then whilst Customs went through the contents. The lady at the Post Office asked me if I had any money in either parcel, or anything of any value, as I would need to remove it before she called the customs officers in. Nice, huh? The customs officers had a good old look through the contents, including the box of tampax. They were clearly looking for things to be able to “confiscate” but got rewarded with a number of items they didn’t recognise. I had thought one item might require some explanation – the catnip hedgehogs that I had asked my mum to send me for Squirt – knitted hedgehogs stuffed full of an unidentifiable dried herbal substance. This would presumably be the kind of thing that may attract at least a question from customs at home. But not so here. Squirt proved how much better she was feeling over the weekend – I buried the hedgehogs at the back of my wardrobe on the top shelf (which is higher than the top of my head) underneath all of my clothes, so that I could save them for when she’d destroyed all of her current toys. Not so, I woke up in the middle of the night to her burrowing through all of my clothes to get to the hedgehogs. How she could smell them from up there is beyond me.
I’ve been to a place called Abacha Barracks two weekends in a row now, and it’s my new favourite place to go for food here. They mainly sell massive barbequed fish, but they also do an alternative of omelette and chips for strange people like me. If I was to break my vegetarianism for anything it would probably be this fish though, it looked yummy and smelt amazing. It’s on the outskirts of Abuja, but has a great atmosphere and is well worth the trip. They also sell mangos as big as my head (well, almost) so that’s another good reason to go there.
And as if that excitement wasn’t enough, I discovered leeks in the supermarket the other day. I nearly cried with joy. They were AMAZING. Other than that I’ve generally spent the weekends swimming, reading, and drinking beer. Not bad really!
I spent the first two days of this week helping to run focus groups in some rural communities on the outskirts of Abuja. Despite still technically being classified as part of FCT (Federal Capital Territory) these communities are a world away from the rest of Abuja. The one we went to yesterday is only accessible by bike down a long sandy track, and is miles away from any main road. It’s probably the least developed place I’ve been to in my time here. On the bike on the way back my flipflop broke, and given I didn’t really want to head back to Abuja bare foot, I tried asking the driver to stop so I could fix it quickly before I lost it for good. Which is when he turned to me and I nearly passed out from the smell of alcohol fumes. It then transpired that he couldn’t actually understand a word I said, because even when I shouted “stop” he just nodded and carried on driving. I’m quite happy on the back of a bike, but not when the driver is drunk, and driving at a crazy speed down a sandy road. I weighed up how badly I’d injure myself if I jumped off, and decided that as my main fear was him crashing and us falling off anyway, it would probably be better to wait for that than to throw myself off unnecessarily. So I clung on for 25 minutes and did the truly Nigerian thing and prayed. And thankfully we got there in one piece. I think the driver could tell how angry I was by the time we arrived at the road though, and it’ll teach me to check the drivers eyes in future before jumping on the back of a bike – if they’re bright red and having trouble focusing, I won’t be getting on it!!!
I took Squirt to the vet a couple of weeks ago for the blood test she needs to pass to get her entry to the UK. To cut a long story short, it was hideous, and I won’t be taking her to the vet again here if I can help it. They had to “sedate her” (this actually just involved paralysing her whilst keeping her wide awake) and the drug either didn’t agree with her, or she had too much. It was meant to last for 2 hours, but instead lasted well over 12 hours, and then it was another 2 days before she’d come out from under my bed, eat, drink or do anything. Thankfully she’s okay now, and so was her test result.
And Cat 2 has had her babies. I was outside feeding her the other night when I thought my foot felt a bit wet. Unusual in the dry season. And sure enough, her waters had broken over my flipflop. Lovely. She hid them well and so no one knew where they were for the first 2 weeks, but since they were found she seems to have moved them again. I can’t blame her, there aren’t many cat lovers out here so she’s very sensible to keep them out of the way.
I got two parcels the other day, which was pretty much the most exciting event to happen for quite some time. I had to sit at the Post Office for ages whilst they tried to find them, and then whilst Customs went through the contents. The lady at the Post Office asked me if I had any money in either parcel, or anything of any value, as I would need to remove it before she called the customs officers in. Nice, huh? The customs officers had a good old look through the contents, including the box of tampax. They were clearly looking for things to be able to “confiscate” but got rewarded with a number of items they didn’t recognise. I had thought one item might require some explanation – the catnip hedgehogs that I had asked my mum to send me for Squirt – knitted hedgehogs stuffed full of an unidentifiable dried herbal substance. This would presumably be the kind of thing that may attract at least a question from customs at home. But not so here. Squirt proved how much better she was feeling over the weekend – I buried the hedgehogs at the back of my wardrobe on the top shelf (which is higher than the top of my head) underneath all of my clothes, so that I could save them for when she’d destroyed all of her current toys. Not so, I woke up in the middle of the night to her burrowing through all of my clothes to get to the hedgehogs. How she could smell them from up there is beyond me.
I’ve been to a place called Abacha Barracks two weekends in a row now, and it’s my new favourite place to go for food here. They mainly sell massive barbequed fish, but they also do an alternative of omelette and chips for strange people like me. If I was to break my vegetarianism for anything it would probably be this fish though, it looked yummy and smelt amazing. It’s on the outskirts of Abuja, but has a great atmosphere and is well worth the trip. They also sell mangos as big as my head (well, almost) so that’s another good reason to go there.
I spent the first two days of this week helping to run focus groups in some rural communities on the outskirts of Abuja. Despite still technically being classified as part of FCT (Federal Capital Territory) these communities are a world away from the rest of Abuja. The one we went to yesterday is only accessible by bike down a long sandy track, and is miles away from any main road. It’s probably the least developed place I’ve been to in my time here. On the bike on the way back my flipflop broke, and given I didn’t really want to head back to Abuja bare foot, I tried asking the driver to stop so I could fix it quickly before I lost it for good. Which is when he turned to me and I nearly passed out from the smell of alcohol fumes. It then transpired that he couldn’t actually understand a word I said, because even when I shouted “stop” he just nodded and carried on driving. I’m quite happy on the back of a bike, but not when the driver is drunk, and driving at a crazy speed down a sandy road. I weighed up how badly I’d injure myself if I jumped off, and decided that as my main fear was him crashing and us falling off anyway, it would probably be better to wait for that than to throw myself off unnecessarily. So I clung on for 25 minutes and did the truly Nigerian thing and prayed. And thankfully we got there in one piece. I think the driver could tell how angry I was by the time we arrived at the road though, and it’ll teach me to check the drivers eyes in future before jumping on the back of a bike – if they’re bright red and having trouble focusing, I won’t be getting on it!!!
Monday, February 27, 2012
We're all going on a Nigerian holiday
I’ve been to two lovely places recently that have made me like Nigeria even more than I did before. A couple of weeks ago we went to Usuma Dam for the afternoon (40 minutes outside Abuja). If my memory serves me correctly, this place isn’t in the Nigerian guidebook, and I have no idea why as it’s one of my favourite places that I’ve been to in Nigeria so far. We spent a lovely afternoon going on a boat across the reservoir, walking around the path that leads all the way around the dam, and swimming in the lovely warm water (whilst ignoring any thoughts about the possibility of contracting bilharzia!).
And I have just come back from spending 5 days in Obudu – this is somewhere I’ve wanted to go since before I even arrived in Nigeria, so when the 1 year mark hit I decided it was time to finally visit. We spent the first night in Obudu town, before heading 60km up the mountain, spending 2 nights in Abebe’s Lodge (phone number for anyone who wants to visit: 08036242192) and then a final night in Obudu town. I love Obudu. I want to live there and commute to Abuja each day. But as it’s at least an 8 hour journey, I’m thinking that probably wouldn’t be too practical. The top of the mountain has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. It almost looks like the end of the earth – all you can see for miles and miles is endless expanses of unspoilt mountain views. Some memorable moments:
1. Our first night in a “luxury” room in a hotel in Obudu town. I had wanted to book a hotel before we arrived, but my travelling companion reliably informed me this would not be necessary, there would definitely be a vacancy in the hotel that he wanted us to stay in. Not so. And several other hotels were also fully booked. So we couldn’t actually afford to be fussy by the time we finally found somewhere that had a room available. This hotel had the hardest bed I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was literally like sleeping on a tabletop.
2. Going up the mountain on the back of a motorbike. This wasn’t planned, we were meant to be going up by car, but the lift we were going to get never arrived, and then when we went to the park to find a car it was Sunday morning, so it was likely to take hours for the cars to fill. I was told over and over that I didn’t want to go up by bike because it would be “challenging”, but I also didn’t want to spend the whole day sat in the park waiting for the car to fill, so bike it was. And I’m very very glad as I got to see so much more by bike than I would have seen by car. Admittedly there were certain times during the two hours (I had a very sore behind afterwards!) when we were going up the “intestine road” (see photo which explains this name) when I thought we might plummet to our death, but our bike driver was very good. I do however pity him as I doubt he had any ribs left intact after having me clinging on to him for dear life for so long.
3. The views. Everywhere you went they were breathtaking.
4. Visiting “Holy Mountain.” According to our guide this was named Holy Mountain as during the Biafran war people were able to hide there and remain safe, so it was said that God must have protected them (presumably as the mountain is so frickin high that you actually feel like you’re in the sky when you’re stood on it!). I think it probably had more to do with the fact that the soldiers couldn’t actually find them, or reach them, given it was about as far from civilisation as you could hope to go. We went there on a Sunday afternoon and there was a church group on pilgrimage there. There must have been over 50 people on the top of the mountain all praying and chanting, and the cloud cover was really low, so it was all a bit eerie as more and more people emerged from the clouds as we got closer.
4. Being cold. Obudu is COLD. Not just Nigerian cold, but proper can’t-sleep-for-teeth-chattering-cannot-physically-face-a-cold-shower-cold.
5. Abebe’s Lodge. This is the “economical” place to stay. There is the Obudu Mountain Resort, but with the cheapest room being over 22,000 N (£88) and my monthly allowance being 36,000 N, this was slightly out of the VSO price range. So for 5,000 N we got a room at Abebe’s Lodge instead, which had running water, hot water when requested, and was perfectly clean. The staff were lovely, and it was right in the middle of the community, so I actually preferred it to the Mountain Resort (or so I told myself, anyway).
6. Being able to eat fried yam, akara and fried plantain for dinner every night.
7. Doing very little. It was lovely to just play scrabble, read books, and be lazy. I’m not normally very good at doing nothing, but I think I was pretty exhausted as life here has been busy recently, so it was definitely time for some down time and some space from Abuja and life here.
8. Walking along the canopy walk at the Becheve Nature Reserve. I’m a wimp and I hate heights. I blindly walked onto the canopy walk before realising or contemplating that it perhaps might be called a canopy walk for a reason, and was about a third of the way across before I actually looked down and realised I was suspended over the forest. On a rickety Nigerian walk way. But it was worth getting to the end and seeing the views from the viewing platform (providing I still didn’t look down).
9. Our hotel on our last night in Obudu. This is the hotel we had wanted to stay in during our first night, so we came down the mountain a day early in the hope it would have a room available as it was mid-week. And yes they did. We wanted to stay in this hotel for one very specific reason – each room has a bath with hot running water. So after spending 20 minutes investigating several rooms, and finally settling on the one with the biggest bath, I spent a very long time lying in lovely hot water. Granted, this was Nigeria, and so making a plug to fill the bath took some experimenting, but we got there in the end (who would have thought a pot of vaseline, a black plastic bag, and a big bucket could be so useful).
1. Our first night in a “luxury” room in a hotel in Obudu town. I had wanted to book a hotel before we arrived, but my travelling companion reliably informed me this would not be necessary, there would definitely be a vacancy in the hotel that he wanted us to stay in. Not so. And several other hotels were also fully booked. So we couldn’t actually afford to be fussy by the time we finally found somewhere that had a room available. This hotel had the hardest bed I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was literally like sleeping on a tabletop.
2. Going up the mountain on the back of a motorbike. This wasn’t planned, we were meant to be going up by car, but the lift we were going to get never arrived, and then when we went to the park to find a car it was Sunday morning, so it was likely to take hours for the cars to fill. I was told over and over that I didn’t want to go up by bike because it would be “challenging”, but I also didn’t want to spend the whole day sat in the park waiting for the car to fill, so bike it was. And I’m very very glad as I got to see so much more by bike than I would have seen by car. Admittedly there were certain times during the two hours (I had a very sore behind afterwards!) when we were going up the “intestine road” (see photo which explains this name) when I thought we might plummet to our death, but our bike driver was very good. I do however pity him as I doubt he had any ribs left intact after having me clinging on to him for dear life for so long.
4. Visiting “Holy Mountain.” According to our guide this was named Holy Mountain as during the Biafran war people were able to hide there and remain safe, so it was said that God must have protected them (presumably as the mountain is so frickin high that you actually feel like you’re in the sky when you’re stood on it!). I think it probably had more to do with the fact that the soldiers couldn’t actually find them, or reach them, given it was about as far from civilisation as you could hope to go. We went there on a Sunday afternoon and there was a church group on pilgrimage there. There must have been over 50 people on the top of the mountain all praying and chanting, and the cloud cover was really low, so it was all a bit eerie as more and more people emerged from the clouds as we got closer.
5. Abebe’s Lodge. This is the “economical” place to stay. There is the Obudu Mountain Resort, but with the cheapest room being over 22,000 N (£88) and my monthly allowance being 36,000 N, this was slightly out of the VSO price range. So for 5,000 N we got a room at Abebe’s Lodge instead, which had running water, hot water when requested, and was perfectly clean. The staff were lovely, and it was right in the middle of the community, so I actually preferred it to the Mountain Resort (or so I told myself, anyway).
6. Being able to eat fried yam, akara and fried plantain for dinner every night.
7. Doing very little. It was lovely to just play scrabble, read books, and be lazy. I’m not normally very good at doing nothing, but I think I was pretty exhausted as life here has been busy recently, so it was definitely time for some down time and some space from Abuja and life here.
8. Walking along the canopy walk at the Becheve Nature Reserve. I’m a wimp and I hate heights. I blindly walked onto the canopy walk before realising or contemplating that it perhaps might be called a canopy walk for a reason, and was about a third of the way across before I actually looked down and realised I was suspended over the forest. On a rickety Nigerian walk way. But it was worth getting to the end and seeing the views from the viewing platform (providing I still didn’t look down).
9. Our hotel on our last night in Obudu. This is the hotel we had wanted to stay in during our first night, so we came down the mountain a day early in the hope it would have a room available as it was mid-week. And yes they did. We wanted to stay in this hotel for one very specific reason – each room has a bath with hot running water. So after spending 20 minutes investigating several rooms, and finally settling on the one with the biggest bath, I spent a very long time lying in lovely hot water. Granted, this was Nigeria, and so making a plug to fill the bath took some experimenting, but we got there in the end (who would have thought a pot of vaseline, a black plastic bag, and a big bucket could be so useful).
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Twelve months? Really?
Where did it go? I’m glad I chose to extend, I don’t think I feel ready to go home just yet. Whilst work is going well, there’s still plenty to do so I’ll definitely need the extra few months to finish things off.
So what have I learnt in the past 12 months?
• Expect nothing, and then (hopefully!) be pleasantly surprised.
• I am able to survive in a world where I can’t blow dry and straighten my hair every day.
• I am able to survive in a world without mascara.
• I am able to survive in a world without cheese and rose wine (although I’m not entirely sure about how long I could survive without these things. I have a feeling 18 months might be my limit).
• I will form too strong attachments no matter where I go – I am not cut out for a ‘traveller’s lifestyle’ - to say I won’t be coming home empty handed is an understatement.
• I am too sentimental to live in Africa (or certainly Nigeria anyway).
• If you had asked me before I left home what I would miss the most, and what I would be most grateful for when I got back, I’d have probably said electricity and running water. But these things don’t really feature anymore. Yes, it’ll be lovely to turn on a tap and know water will come out, but what I think I will be the most grateful for at home is the support structure from our emergency services there – knowing that I am living somewhere where you have trustworthy law enforcement agencies is going to be a huge relief to me. Where you can dial 999 and trust the process and the people at the other end of the line. Where the sight of police / secret service / army officers doesn’t scare me.
• I am stronger than I initially gave myself credit for.
• Don’t spend too long worrying about things – chances are (in Nigeria anyway) they will never happen, and if they do, they won’t happen as planned – things change in the blink of an eye here.
Other news… my life here has been pretty much focused on work recently. We’re trying to get a research article published in an international journal, so fingers crossed it gets accepted, as that would be awesome for the charity. No one ever claimed Cat 2. And Cat 2 has turned out to be pregnant. Every day is a battle with my conscience when she tries to follow me home and I have to shut her out. I feed her morning and night but have to stop there, as I cannot afford to take any more cats home with me.
We had an interesting experience the other night, which helps to illustrate my previous point about law enforcement. We were walking along and Jenny had her purse snatched out of her hand. The guy ran off, but it was pretty clear where he had gone to, so we went to ask for help from a man from a certain law enforcement agency who was stationed just down the road. This man was so drunk that I almost passed out with the strength of the fumes. We pointed to where the guy had disappeared to, could he chase him? No. Could he go in the vehicle he was with? No, the vehicle was bad. Is there anyone else that could help? No, his partner had gone to eat. Wonderful. So off home we went, minus Jenny’s purse.
I keep hearing people say that Nigeria isn’t an “Africa for beginners” country. And I do agree that it’s not an easy place to live, but I also think that if you just give it a try, it’s a country worth experiencing. And now for the next 6 months. Here’s to hoping they’re slightly calmer than the last 12, and that during that time I finally figure out what I want to do with my life when I get home.
So what have I learnt in the past 12 months?
• Expect nothing, and then (hopefully!) be pleasantly surprised.
• I am able to survive in a world where I can’t blow dry and straighten my hair every day.
• I am able to survive in a world without mascara.
• I am able to survive in a world without cheese and rose wine (although I’m not entirely sure about how long I could survive without these things. I have a feeling 18 months might be my limit).
• I will form too strong attachments no matter where I go – I am not cut out for a ‘traveller’s lifestyle’ - to say I won’t be coming home empty handed is an understatement.
• I am too sentimental to live in Africa (or certainly Nigeria anyway).
• If you had asked me before I left home what I would miss the most, and what I would be most grateful for when I got back, I’d have probably said electricity and running water. But these things don’t really feature anymore. Yes, it’ll be lovely to turn on a tap and know water will come out, but what I think I will be the most grateful for at home is the support structure from our emergency services there – knowing that I am living somewhere where you have trustworthy law enforcement agencies is going to be a huge relief to me. Where you can dial 999 and trust the process and the people at the other end of the line. Where the sight of police / secret service / army officers doesn’t scare me.
• I am stronger than I initially gave myself credit for.
• Don’t spend too long worrying about things – chances are (in Nigeria anyway) they will never happen, and if they do, they won’t happen as planned – things change in the blink of an eye here.
Other news… my life here has been pretty much focused on work recently. We’re trying to get a research article published in an international journal, so fingers crossed it gets accepted, as that would be awesome for the charity. No one ever claimed Cat 2. And Cat 2 has turned out to be pregnant. Every day is a battle with my conscience when she tries to follow me home and I have to shut her out. I feed her morning and night but have to stop there, as I cannot afford to take any more cats home with me.
We had an interesting experience the other night, which helps to illustrate my previous point about law enforcement. We were walking along and Jenny had her purse snatched out of her hand. The guy ran off, but it was pretty clear where he had gone to, so we went to ask for help from a man from a certain law enforcement agency who was stationed just down the road. This man was so drunk that I almost passed out with the strength of the fumes. We pointed to where the guy had disappeared to, could he chase him? No. Could he go in the vehicle he was with? No, the vehicle was bad. Is there anyone else that could help? No, his partner had gone to eat. Wonderful. So off home we went, minus Jenny’s purse.
I keep hearing people say that Nigeria isn’t an “Africa for beginners” country. And I do agree that it’s not an easy place to live, but I also think that if you just give it a try, it’s a country worth experiencing. And now for the next 6 months. Here’s to hoping they’re slightly calmer than the last 12, and that during that time I finally figure out what I want to do with my life when I get home.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Nigerian Catnip
It’s not just the people in our compound who think I’m insane either; it’s potentially our entire neighbourhood. I’ve been trying to find who she belongs to, so I’ve put her photo on Abuja expat sites and mailing lists, and I got the vet to put a poster up in his surgery. I printed some posters out, and begged another (very kind) volunteer to come with me to stick them up. Potentially the most embarrassing two hours I’ve had since arriving in Nigeria. People just could not understand what we were doing. Half the problem was that the poster was in English, and most of the people we encountered could only read/speak Hausa, so trying to explain what the poster said was a nightmare. At one point a man at the market said “Ahaaaaaa” and I thought finally, someone understands, and then he said “you want to sell the cat?” Noooooooo!!! So the search for her owners continues. I’m trying to be practical, it’s bankrupting me just taking one cat home with me, let alone two. So I can't take her into our flat as it would be cruel to get her settled knowing that I'll have to leave her behind in a few months time. Squirt seems entirely disinterested in the whole thing, even when she can hear Cat 2 howling outside she doesn’t bat an eyelid. She’s obviously worked out she’s on the right side of our front door.
So if anyone wants to adopt a lovely Nigerian cat, please let me know. I’ll even throw in a couple of tins of top quality Nigerian cat food.
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