Hi everyone! I realise if you're reading this you will most likely be my family and friends (and therefore obliged to) but just in case......I am a volunteer for VSO and this is a blog about my experiences of life in Nigeria, first I was briefly in Calabar and now I'm in Abuja the capital city. You may also find some random references to uses I find for the tools on my Swiss army knife as well as my reflections on my everyday life as a VSO volunteer, just go with it.




Sunday 31 July 2011

Corned Beef and Gordon

On Friday a number of exciting things happened, sadly none of them work related but I have high hopes for this week. Anyway after work Sarah and I decided we would go to a ‘supermarket’ not in the style of your Sainsbury’s or your Asdas that much I knew but I had been told of the possibilities lurking inside ‘Favourite Supermarket’ across town from us and so off we went. Firstly on the bus on the way there I got to sit in the front and got my own seat AND a seatbelt. Double excitement. Although this did also mean I got to see up close the shall we say erratic nature of the other road users which is never a good thing, all of the vehicles here have bumps/dints, cracked windscreens or some part of them hanging off or just missing. Best not to think about it really and here in Calabar there are so many vehicles and speed bumps everywhere you can never build up any speed to do any real damage, that’s what I tell myself anyway.
After getting out of the bus and wondering if I’ll ever be lucky enough to get the front spot again we made our way from Marian Market to the supermarket. It’s basically like a giant corner shop stacked so full of stuff it’s pretty hard to move around, most of it looks like it’s been imported from the middle east but is brands that we would recognise from home. The excitement levels were pretty high for both Sarah and I. Sarah is from Uganda and is also not loving the spicy food or meat markets so was just as happy as me to be going on this trip. Once inside I found an array of things that made me very happy indeed, they included pasta, corned beef, hob nobs, laughing cow cheese triangles (the closest thing to cheese I’m actually going to see here) and Gordon’s Gin. The best thing about the gin is that it was actually cheap! Just about everything else was probably either on a par with back home or a tiny bit more expensive and therefore for us on our allowance quite pricey and so we had to show restraint. They sold wine too but it was roughly the same price as the gin so for me it was a no brainer, I can make the gin last. I realise that last comment may have caused some of you to scoff, Kasia making gin last? Yeah right! I can though, two reasons for that, they didn’t sell tonic so I’m having to drink it with bitter lemon which is ok but it’s no G&T and even though it’s ‘cheap’ compared to back home, at 1800 naira a bottle (roughly £7) I still have to budget carefully on my allowance. Things like my internet modem and having credit for my phone come way higher on my list of priorities than gin. Surprising I know.
Next door to Favourite Supermarket is the High Quality Bakery and this provided yet more joy to us. Sam had told me about the bakery as all of the bread they sell in other places here is white and sweet and not my cup of tea at all. HQB however sell bread made with salt and an array of other bakery type items you might find at home. The funny thing is it was packed, you would think if it was so popular that more people would’ve cottoned onto the idea as people here are very enterprising from what I can see. Anyway I got to buy a loaf of lovely soft brown bread and when I got home I had a corned beef sandwich and gin with bitter lemon for my tea. A slightly strange combination but I was like a child on Christmas day who wants to play with all the new toys at once. At least I didn’t cook some pasta and eat hob nobs too.
So the weekend started well but as seems to be the pattern at the moment I felt very down on Saturday morning. It’s quite strange because I can be feeling fine one minute and then out of nowhere I’m just feeling quite teary and everything is too much. I know it’s still early days and I’m still adjusting so it’s all part of that and I just need to ride this bit out because when I’m happy I do feel grand, still quite uncertain of things but getting more and more confident each day. Doing tasks like your washing when you’re feeling like this is probably not the best idea, hand washing a double sheet became quite a trauma I can tell you.  All of these things however will make me appreciate just how easy life is back home.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, I got to Skype with my sister and niece in the morning it was just so lovely to see and speak to them. They really managed to cheer me up and hearing someone tell you that you will be fine really does help. Skype is probably my favourite thing ever at the moment. I’ve had calls this week with my Dad and then I got the video working and had a video call with my Mum which has been really lovely and makes them seem less far away. I showed Bonnie my Mickey Mouse draws and she told me to grow up (with some encouragement from Rachel), I think she’s just jealous of them of course. You can see for yourselves as I’ve added a photo of them in all their glory. I’ll be taking my camera out with me this week in an effort to show you some of my surroundings which may be of more interest than my furniture.
So it’s Sunday morning right now (I don’t think the clock on the blog is ever correct) and today we thought we might go for a bit of a walk around where we live to see what’s around us as bar the couple of streets near our house and the main road we haven’t seen much. Sunday’s are church days so relatively quiet in that mostly everything is shut until at least very late afternoon anyway but we’ll see what we can see. Until next time….

Friday 29 July 2011

Transport

Not the most thrilling blog title I’m sure you’ll agree but I thought I would share with you all the joys of public transport here in Calabar. My daily journey to and from work thankfully involves walking the latter half, although I’m sure when the weather heats up this will become less of a joy as this bit is all up hill, well on the way home it is anyway. In the morning our route to work is something like this…..
We leave the house and lock up the compound make our way along the dirt road that leads from our house to the main road picking a route between the puddles and general wet patches. Then we walk a little to the nearest junction where we stand on the side of the road and shout “Watt”, this is in reference to Watt Market for google fans (or goggle fans if you’re Nigerian). Whatever transport happens to be passing that is heading to Watt will then stop if they have room for you. Our options are as follows;
a)      A shared taxi which will take up to six passengers, 4 in the back and 2 in the front passenger seat – really not very comfy at all and costs 50 naira, my least favourite option.
b)      A ‘bus’ (think camper van with rows of seats inside) which will take a vast number of passengers crammed in like sardines – again really not very comfy  but generally the door is open so at least you get air coming in and costs 40 naira to Watt
c)       A trike – a bit like a tuk tuk  but doesn’t seem to go quite as fast – these are my favourite as they only put three in the back and one in the front and are of course like gold dust, they cost 50 naira
There is also the option of a ‘drop’ in a private taxi but this is likely to cost about 300-400 naira and is reserved for things like coming home when it’s dark only as our allowance just won’t stretch that far. The buses and shared taxis have set routes that they take so if they aren’t going your way they wont stop or will only take you so far before you have to get out and find the next mode of transport. I have discovered that the buses run a really good route from where we get on in the mornings which will take me to some key places in the city so that is at least very handy and makes the budget stretch a bit further as generally the max for any journey is 50 naira, if only I could always guarantee myself a seat on the edge near the door every time I’d be happy. My heart sinks when they shout “Enter!” and direct you to a seat/tiny space at the back of the bus. The only good thing is they are so frequent that I have in fact refused to get on one once when I was directed to a tiny space right in the in the back and the next one that came along  right behind it was nearly empty. The claustrophobe in me point blank refused.
Once we alight at the market we navigate down Edem Street towards the river and into the Bayside Community. I think they will get used to seeing me but at the moment I am still a novelty, especially to the school we pass halfway down the hill. They know we’re coming now and the children have taken to waiting by the windows and shrieking when we pass, I always wave and smile at them which results in much shouting, smiling and waving back, if I’m feeling a bit low it never fails to make to make me feel happy. The walk from the market to the office probably takes about 10 minutes and the entire journey from leaving the house, just over twenty which was about the same as my commute in Newcastle but the difference between the two is unreal. I wonder if this will ever become normal to me?
I will try to take some photos of everything I’ve just described and add them to my page next week. For some reason I can’t upload photos to my blog as it takes forever but I can upload them to my picasa page so I’ll just update that from time to time.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Lessons

I suspect there will be MANY lessons to learn throughout my time here, lessons about the cultural differences in Nigeria and Africa, development lessons and lots of lessons about myself. So far this week in the office I am learning that I will have to be very patient if I am going to survive here. Patience has not always been one of my strong points so this will do me good and probably be a relief to those that know me. On day two in the office we had hoped that we would get the long awaited induction we had been promised (remember I had a week stuck in the house where the induction to the office was bandied about as if to give me hope). However on day three in the office, I’m now writing my blog because after many hours of being sat (patiently) at my desk this week bot all has happened. In our pre departure training we were advised that in the early stages a lot of sitting around can happen and you’re best to use this time to talk with your colleagues and try to get to know them, fine I think to myself only there’s no one here to talk to.  
So to fill in the time I have made myself a calendar on my laptop showing the breakdown of my time here, I have filled out an incomings/outgoings spread sheet for my finances back home (probably should’ve done that before I left), I have started a list of local, national and international funders based on the information from the proposal we were working on on Monday and I have added even more questions to list I had about what the purpose of my role is here. Hmmmmm.
I even jokingly questioned yesterday if they actually need us to which the response was to laugh and then just return to what they were doing leaving us VSOs sat in the corner making up jobs to do. We did finally get a sort of staff meeting yesterday at the end of the day where we were gathered together and asked to introduce ourselves. I mentioned my work background, my football team (standard information) and my family. I neglected to mention my marital status and was then questioned about this. Following this every member of staff was introduced and also stated their marital status and whether they were looking or not. It began to feel a bit like a dating service and I wish I had stated that I am categorically NOT looking for a husband as it was mentioned a number of times that Nigerian men are wonderful, very generous and that I would be very happy if I settled here and would soon forget my home country. I should point out that at aged 29 in Nigeria I am firmly about to enter spinsterhood and the point of no return, so I suspect they feel they need to find me someone urgently before it’s too late.
Despite that it was nice to find out a bit more my colleagues and what they do,  most of them appear to be Arsenal fans, there’s one Man United fan and a couple of Barca fans too just to mix it up. No Torquay Fans though, other than me obviously.
Other things I have learnt so far, ‘Keep away from already dead Chickens and Birds!’(on the back of a colleague’s t-shirt), good advice unless you find them in the chiller cabinet of the supermarket (ha!), the meat in the markets here still scares me, so much so I’m thinking I might just become vegetarian for the duration of this year.
Synchronised swimming proved to be a proper fascination on the office telly. I was trying very hard not to laugh at the exclamations of “wow, this is beautiful” from the males I hasten to add.
I will find moments of this very hard, a child came in from the street and asked to watch the telly yesterday. He was covered in dirt and very emaciated, a cartoon happened to be on and clearly this was the best ten minutes of his day. This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the reality life here for some of the children but it tugged at my heartstrings to see how much happiness it brought him. In the meeting Pastor Vickie mentioned that in December they have a special food drive to make sure the local children are fed at Christmas time and that they collect toys and go out dressed as Father Christmas to give them out. Things like that will be very rewarding but I will no doubt be an embarrassment and shed a few tears at the sadness of it all too!

Monday 25 July 2011

How do you solve a problem like Nigeria?

During our ICT (In Country Training) we were briefed on many aspects of life in Nigeria and given a background to the development context. I had done some research before my placement as this a key part of the preparation that are expected to do and indeed anyone going to live in a new country would want to do. Some of the information wasn’t new to me but some of it was frankly quite startling. Below is a small fact file of some of this information so you can see the sheer volume of development issues that Nigeria is facing:
·         Nigeria has a population of approximately 158 million people and is classed as a middle income country but is placed on the HDI at 158/177 countries
·         More than 100 million people live on less than $1 a day
·         1/5 of Africa’s population live in Nigeria
·         1/4 of Africa’s extreme poor live in Nigeria
·         10% of the world’s children that are not in school are living in Nigeria
·         Nigeria has 25% of the global malarial cases
·         Nigeria has the third largest number of people living with HIV and AIDS
It’s quite daunting at the start of a placement to think you are battling in this kind of development environment, not that you are expecting to solve all of these issues of course. VSO has a vision of a world without poverty and my placement is some small way aimed at working towards that. Big task eh?
My organisation, Neighbourhood Care Well Foundation works in a very deprived part of Calabar called Bayside. They work in the local community helping women and OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) access healthcare and education. They also work to educate men and influential people in the community such as faith leaders about HIV and AIDS issues to reduce stigma and encourage healthy behaviours, the prevalence of HIV and AIDS is on the rise in here. The reach of the organisation is much wider than I can grasp at the moment and I have much to learn over the coming months. I am excited to think that I will be able to contribute to their achievements whilst I am here, I’m not exactly sure how yet as we are yet to agree my objectives but hopefully this will all become clear. Although I have already been working on my first proposal which had a deadline for today so fingers crossed for that one!
Swiss army knife aficionados out there….well there might be someone? I got my first injury this morning trying to prise the lid off something with the small knife in the semi darkness because it was still very early and surprise surprise there was no power. I might even get a small scar on my thumb! Special.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Oyibo Oyibo!

This is the chant that follows me pretty much wherever I go in my new home. In Abuja I think they are used to seeing a few white people around in the city but here we are definitely more of a novelty. I am beginning to understand how it must feel for an animal in the zoo only I’m not in a cage, everyone stares at you, some with smiling faces who are just excited to see you and some with what can only be described as terror. I have taken to handling this by smiling and greeting people with the customary “Good Morning/Afternoon.” The strangest thing I have found so far is the people that want to touch you, it’s happened a couple of times, the first was a child in the market who was so surprised to see me he jumped off his stool and stroked my arm, possibly to see if my freckles would come off, I am a strange Oyibo indeed with my freckles.
I’ve been here a week now, and I’ve taken to a rather dangerous practice of counting the days that I’ve ‘served’ (350 to go). It sounds like a prison sentence doesn’t it? I would hate for a prospective VSO to read this and be put off but this is just my honest reaction to my settling in phase. It has and continues to be difficult but it is getting better I promise. I have been able to explore Calabar with the other VSOs based here a bit this week and this has helped hugely, getting to know the place you will be living in so that it becomes familiar to you is the best way to start making things seem normal. We went out for a couple of beers on Friday night and that was great, one of the places we went to even had proper chairs not the plastic patio style chairs that you see everywhere here. Then yesterday we went to a hotel that has a pool where you can pay as a non- guest to come in and use the facilities, it is expensive for us on our allowance so it will be an occasional treat but sooooooooo nice to know it is there. It was a little slice of heaven hidden away (they didn’t even have a sign) off a busy road not far from the airport. We lounged by the pool reading magazines and it felt a bit like being on holiday then at the end of the lounging we moved to the bar where they have a flat screen TV and there was football on! Later they were doing a review of the Premiership season and Leroy Rosenior was one of the pundits involved, I nearly jumped off my chair with joy at seeing a familiar face on the telly, he used to manage my boys Torquay United for those of you not familiar with his talents.
The best thing about the bar though, which I probably shouldn’t be saying when I’m here to try and integrate into a new way of life is that they served western food! Cheeseburger and chips! This was only my second proper meal of the week ,  I haven’t really been eating properly since I’ve got to Calabar. I’ve lost my appetite in the heat (which won’t do me any harm let’s face it) and haven’t been getting on too well with the local spicy food generally since arrival in Nigeria. All part of the adjusting I guess.
Last night my housemate Sarah finally arrived and I am really happy to have company in the house, I already feel a bit more relaxed just knowing there is someone else here. Bless her she was exhausted and I’m not entirely sure she was loving the house but at least she arrived when there was some furniture in it and a stove! She seems really lovely so I think we’re going to get on just fine. The only downside is she doesn’t like bugs either, I was totally counting her to be the resident bug catcher, back to the drawing board and finding a bug spray that actually works,  at least we can be scared together rather than me being pathetic by myself.
So here I am wondering what next week will bring, I get to finally go into the office properly, it will be nice to do this with Sarah and be newbies at the same time. We can also buy some things for the house together and explore a bit more of our local surroundings although I already know my dude to get credit from for my phone, and my dude for supplies like loo roll and indomie noodles (a VSOs staple food I suspect, cheap and tasty). To sum up, I’m getting there, not there yet but I’m getting there.

Thursday 21 July 2011

Culture Shock?

More like ‘Culture pick you up by your feet, swing you around by your ankles, bash you off a few things for good measure and let you land with an almighty bump’ (in a near derelict house in Calabar). It might sound a bit dramatic but that’s probably the best way I can sum up the feeling on arrival at my new ‘home’. The bubble definitely burst.
I’m not really sure where to begin or how to best sum up the last few days without this sounding like sort of desperate plea for help/an air lift out of here, but trust me when I say things are looking better now. The first few days here in Calabar were incredibly tough, picture much sobbing, pining for home and general patheticness. The patheticness was so special that when I saw David Cameron, who is not one of my favourite people on the local news on the office telly on Tuesday because he was in Nigeria, I actually thought “maybe he can take me home with him?”. I can laugh about it now but I was close to tears at the time planning my quickest exit from the country!
Let’s go back though, to the journey from Abuja to Calabar. To be honest I’ve tried to erase this from my memory but fear it will cause nightmares for years to come. For a claustrophobe such as me the thought of spending even 10 minutes crammed into the bus that was to be our steed to Calabar was a troublesome proposition. I knew I had at least 8-9 hours but more likely 10+ hours to endure. I was lucky in that I had leg room as there was no seat in front of me but the bus is of a type that you cannot even stand up in it and you are almost on top of the person next to you. Turns out our journey was 12.5 hours, this was accompanied by a soundtrack of Nigerian music (enjoyable), Eminem (also enjoyable) and Celine Dion (totally not acceptable under any circumstances).
Other things to note along the way, I received what I think was my first marriage proposal (VSO and VSO Nigeria warned us about this as we are seen as a good prize/visa). This proposal however, did not come how every girl dreams it might do, as this was from an armed police officer who had stopped the bus, spotted the Oyibo (white person) and said rather menacingly through the window, “You! My Wife!” I wasn’t sure I was in a position to refuse given his gun but thankfully the driver chose to move on as another officer waved us through.  We were also subjected to a search at a military checkpoint and of course they wanted to know what was in Oyibo’s bags. Bizarrely they opened with “You are welcome.” This is a standard greeting here but nothing of what followed made me feel welcome. They demanded I opened my bags which had been unpacked from the bus along with everyone else’s but they were only interested in mine and of course so were the rest of the passengers on the bus,
“What’s this?!”
“A laptop cable”
“Where’s the laptop?”
“In my hand luggage.”
“I want to see it.”
So I duly show him my laptop and he then goes back to my rucksack and spots my surge protector,
“What’s this?!”
“A surge protector, to protect my laptop.”
He considers this for a few seconds, decides I’m not lying and then demands I open my other bag, so I unzip it and he looks at the contents and points to the bottom of the bag.
“What’s in there?”
 “Shoes.”
“Hmmmm. Let me see.”
At this point I’m rapidly losing patience but realise it’s best not to argue, so I show him and the entire bus who have gathered right around my carefully packed birkenstocks and activity/Jesus sandals that are at the bottom of the bag and we all await his verdict.
“OK. You can go.”
No weapons of mass destruction, we’re good to go just the small matter of repacking the bus first. Finally on arrival in Calabar, with the best part of the last 5 hours on non roads  (our potholes haven’t got anything on these bad boys!) I got to meet my new boss. She and her husband seemed lovely which was of course a huge relief and they took Mandela who had accompanied me and I back their house for a meal of catfish and rice in a sauce that thankfully wasn’t too spicy. I gulped down water, having been too frightened to drink properly on the journey for fear of nature calling and knowing we only stopped once, whilst Pastor Vickie (the boss) told me all about how the house wasn’t really ready yet, but they hoped I would be comfortable there. I tried to listen but it was such a lot to take in and I was really only thinking about bed at this point. I should’ve listened.
The house itself is very safe in a big compound with one other, high walls, barbed wire big gates etc. But my house was more of an empty shell and the very first thing I saw on entering what they had determined to be my room by torchlight (no power at this point) was a HUGE spider. For anyone who knows me well you will know that I have a rather large fear the 8 legged beasts. I must have yelped because Vickie laughed and then promptly killed it for me. She also showed me my ‘en suite’, now don’t go getting any grand ideas, and there was another HUGE spider, also promptly killed for me. At this point whilst looking around by torchlight at the concrete floor and empty shell of a room with only a bed in it and a ‘table’ (few planks of wood nailed together) I was desperately trying not to cry. They showed me the rest of the house which didn’t get any better but assured me that lots of work was yet to be carried out. I kept telling myself to be grateful based on the living standards of the people we had seen along the roadside this was a palace, however when you have lived in a developed country and never experienced anything like this, no matter how much you try and prepare yourself there’s nothing like reality to give you a good slap around the face. I then had to lock myself into the compound and into the house all by torchlight and go back to the spider infested room. Joy.
My first night was spent with me wrapped up under my mosquito net (note to others it’s not really supposed to come into close contact with your skin, especially your face). I literally tucked it under the mattress and then instead of sleeping all night wept, sweated, probably rocked a bit and jumped at the slightest sound because I had no idea if it was in my compound/house or not.
On the upside I made it through the night, furniture arrived on the Monday so now in the lounge it actually looks vaguely like a lounge. I have a plastic patio type table in my room and randomly a fridge because there’s already one in the kitchen, this is now full of water and products. I have since been taken to the market and bought some plastic storage draws which are clearly meant for kids as they have mickey mouse on them, but they make me smile (important) and also think of my niece as she loves Mickey Mouse Club House. A stove top and gas canister arrived at some point so I can now cook, although I haven’t yet. Most importantly on the Sunday night the electricity was connected. Now power here is not constant, but knowing that I couldn’t have it at all was a problem so getting it sorted on the Sunday was a joy. This actually happened when Sam who is another volunteer was leaving having looked after me by taking to the market to get some essentials like water to drink and buckets so I can wash, along with another VSO here Jenny. Just as Sam was going and I was getting ready to lock the gates Vickie and her husband were spotted driving along the dirt track that leads to my house. They had come to check on me, Vickie asked if I was ok and I started crying. You’re always ok until someone asks. Anyway she called the landlord, who called an electrician, who arrived within about 10 minutes and 10 minutes later I was connected, even better there was power so the ceiling fan in my room was working!
I’ve learnt very quickly to make sure I have a torch handy in case the power goes off and to quickly plug everything in to charge it up when the power comes back on. Twice already my phone has come close to no battery and it’s funny just how panicky that makes you here. The water isn’t constant either and on day two my neighbour Patrick thankfully went to fill up some buckets for me so I could at least have a bucket shower and be able to flush the loo! I can just tell you are all so jealous of me!
I think I’ve probably rambled enough for now, I will just finally say that I feel a bit daft at how happy I was to get my modem sorted out, I actually cried although this time with happiness because I could reconnect with everyone. I wonder If could have done VSO even a few years ago pre this technology?
One final comment, I have used my swiss army knife LOADS today, cutting the plastic off my new mattress (thank god the other smelt like I’m not sure what), screwing parts of my water filter together, and scooping melted ‘solid’ shampoo out of its container!

Friday 15 July 2011

The bubble

I have to be honest, I'm feeling a little scared right now. All week I think we've living in a sort of bubble. By that I mean the 'newbies' have all been together and been shepherded about to and from our training. We've had a current volunteer with us to help us navigate around and answer any questions we might have which has been great. Yes we've had to start negotiating with taxi drivers and the like but essentially we've never been left on our own (apart from the minor incident on our way out to dinner one night this week). So whilst I feel quite happy at the moment and that life here isn't going to be that scary, I really haven't been challenged by it yet.

Tomorrow is the day I suspect the bubble bursts and it'll be interesting to see how I cope. We leave at 6 in the morning for the 8/9 hour bus journey, from what I can understand the buses only leave once they are full so we could be sat there waiting for it to fill up for a number of hours. That's after we've hauled my bags in a taxi that we will have to flag down from outside the hotel to the motopark of course. The only good thing is that when I told the representative from my organisation that I had two rather large bags and another smaller one as well as the water filter and mosquito net that the VSO office gave us today, he did say we'd need to buy two extra seats which I suppose will help to fill the bus up quicker! I think I will be really pleased when tomorrow is over.

Don't get me wrong I am really looking forward to getting to my placement, I'm just worried about the actual getting there part and leaving the nice safe bubble I'm in at the moment.

Thursday 14 July 2011

Stiff upper lip, uptight and conservative.

Amongst other things that's the opinion of the other nationals of the UK and its population. I think if any of the participants in this particular session had witnessed the incredible amount of tears I've shed during my many goodbyes over the last few weeks they'd realise stiff upper lip is very far from the truth! The exercise was part of a session on the culture of Nigeria and things we need to be aware of, it was very interesting and I'm pretty sure I'll still manage to make a cultural faux pas on an almost daily basis, but I'll do my best not to. We also heard from one volunteer about a friend of hers who at the end of his placement was presented with two 'wives' as gifts to take back to his own country. Uh oh.............................................

Moving swiftly on, I got to meet someone from my organisation today which was great. He seems very enthusiastic, especially about my 'resource mobilisation' skills. I have to say I was relieved when the programme manager for my area did point out that I can't do magic and that they have to have realistic expectations of me. We will sit down together with my line manager (I'm not clear if this is the person they have sent to collect me or not) and agree my work plan on arrival next week so at least it's a partnership between us rather than a pre determined set of goals. The other volunteer who will be living me will also be working at the same organisation but she hasn't arrived yet, they think she'll be here at the weekend but we'll travel to Calabar without her as she will have some kind of induction process and then he will have to come back for her. I don't envy him having to do this journey twice as apparently it's a 8 or 9 hour (I'm adding a couple on) bus journey one way with all of our luggage to manage, just wait until he sees my bags he might be less enthusiastic then.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Beep Beep

Or should I say toot toot? Either way that is pretty much the constant sound of Abuja. There is no real highway code to speak of here, or if there is one it is pretty much totally ignored. Having spent a day in the 'car of death' in Tunisia I didn't think I would ever again experience such an exhilarating/unnerving car journey ever again, but just about every time I get into a taxi here (at least 4 times a day at the moment) I get that familiar feeling. The only difference here is that the drivers toot their horns when they are annoyed at other drivers performing highly dangerous and possibly illegal manoeuvres, as well as when they are about to perform one themselves as a sort of warning, it goes a bit like this: Toot toot! - I'm about to pull out across 3 lanes of fast moving traffic
Toot toot! - I'm really annoyed that you did that but I'm about to stop here without warning/do something else incredibly stupid. Lets just say it's very noisy in Abuja.

In other news we had an audience with Andrew Lloyd yesterday, not of Sir Webber fame but of British High Commissioner of Nigeria fame. It was a tad surreal on day two in Nigeria to be sipping on cocktails in a house with a grand piano and a dyson hand dryer in the downstairs loo. The event was part of some other VSO volunteering that's taking place at the moment with some youths and because we were there a week later than originally planned they let us tag along too. The bona fide guests were however late and as we had arrived on time we had a good chat with Andy (as I like to call him). He was very nice and he mentioned something about being there to look after us and making sure we helped ourselves to drinks etc. Vonnie and I thought it might be nice if we moved in so we could be looked after properly and in style but I'm not sure that's what he had in mind. We did leave eventually if not a little reluctantly.

Andrew talks to the 'youths'

A group photo in the garden


Well he'd be a rubbish diplomatic type if he didn't have some royal things, there was even picture of Liz on the wall.

Then today, rather sooner than hoped for (well I never hoped for) I had to visit a clinic here. Fear not parentals I'm not ill or injured but VSO Nigeria simply must know my blood type, so another volunteer and I had to go get it checked. It was a rather long drawn out process that finished up with a visit to the 'bleeding room'. I'm pleased to say I didn't faint but if I'd known I definitely needed to have this information I would've got it checked at home!

Sunday 10 July 2011

Abuja via Lagos....

I'm finally here, nearly a week late and then just for added fun with a 'via lagos' thrown in at the last minute. We left Heathrow slightly late waiting for Vonnie's (fellow VSO) pencils to be loaded on the plane, thankfully for Vonnie at the other end ALL of her luggage had made it on to the plane and not just the box of pencils. She could have drawn herself some clothes I suppose. I was also pleased that both of my bags arrived as I may have wept, especially after the packing hell of the last few days. I'm sorry for the tantrum mum and you dealt with it very well.

The flight was diverted because of heavy rain at Abuja taking out some of the landing lights on the runway. After circling for what felt like an eternity whilst the engineers tried to get them working I have to confess I was willing the pilot to just give it a go and try landing in the dark. I'm sure he could've done it but he wussed out and diverted to Lagos to refuel and wait for it to get light, it looks so easy on the Krypton Factor. There was some kind of paperwork issue at Lagos with the refuelling and so by the time we actually got back to Abuja and off the plane we were about 5 hours late, to say I was feeling hanging and going stir crazy was understatement.

On the upside VSO were there to meet us (hooray!) and Vonnie and I said goodbye to Sam a fellow volunteer who had been home visiting her family and was also on our flight back to Abuja. She's based in Calabar where I will be heading after I've finished the in country training. She answered lots of my stupid questions at immigration like, do we need this bit of paper? What do you write in here? Is this bit supposed to be signed? I think my brain might have got off at Lagos.....Anyway Sam headed back off to Calabar and it's a relief to know there's other volunteers there who I can have a beer with at the end of the week and by that I mean every single working week not just this week.

On the the subject of beer, I've just come back from my first visit to a Nigerian bar with Vonnie and Ingrid who is a volunteer already out here and is with us for the training. It was a great finish to the day and I think we've learnt some important lessons and the training hasn't even started yet! All in all I'm feeling very happy and ready for what this next week brings, which will no doubt include more conversations with the locals about my football team not being in the premiership, or even the championship.....

Sunday 3 July 2011

Where's Kasia?

Don't worry folks I haven't taken to wearing stripey jumpers and hiding myself in crowds of similarly dressed people waiting for someone to find me. This post is in reference to the fact that right now I should be sat on a plane on the runway at Heathrow feeling nervous/excited and wondering how long it will be until they roll the drinks trolley out after take off ( it's always too long). I am however still in sunny old Somerset and will be for another 6 days.

In case anyone is wondering this is not down to my own ineptness but due to visa delays with volunteers coming from other countries. So they decided to delay us all by a week so that we weren't arriving at different times as the training is supposed start for everyone on the same day. Makes sense really, but it's difficult when you've psyched yourself up for something and then suddenly it doesn't happen. On the plus side I had as usual left myself with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much to do in the last few days, so I can at least chill out a bit.

So what I have been doing with my extra time so far? Well in no particular order.......

a) realising I will have to do some serious culling in my luggage
b) lounging on a deckchair with a cocktail and catching up with the Brandwoods
c) having very strange (I'm hoping larium influenced) dreams involving giant penguins
d) marching in the garden with the family led by Sergeant Major Bonnie Mills

I'm sure I really should be researching all those tools on my Swiss army knife.