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 25 September 2011

All quiet on the western front

I’m sat here on Sunday night realising that I have been especially quiet this week. Actually I don’t know where this week has gone it has literally flown by. After the excitement of seeing Jimi last Friday the rest of the weekend was fairly quiet so not much to report there. The week at work was also fairly quiet in that no one seemed to be around much so I plodded on with proposal writing regardless.
Some vaguely exciting things that happened this week, I found a ‘Spar’ close to where I work, it’s the most like a supermarket at home that I’ve found here but I can’t really afford anything inside, good times bad times.

I went to the clinic on Wednesday and whilst I was there I asked to be weighed (first time ever) and I’d lost 32lbs. I was over the moon, that’s in just over ten weeks so pretty good going I think. Definitely good times.

We went out on Friday to some new places and had a great night but I woke up on Saturday with the mother of all hangovers having not really drank that much, good times bad times.
In my hungover state I then had to go and meet a VSO volunteer who had picked up a parcel for me from Calabar. Think blazing heat, pounding head, getting into a moving vehicle (with a driver that had no idea where he was going), and general nausea, bad times. It got a bit worse as when we finally arrived at the 'National Library' that actually looked more like an apartment block. I had run out of credit so couldn’t call to say I had arrived and there was no sign of Henry who I was supposed to be meeting. Thankfully there were three security guards one of whom kindly took me to find credit and actually ended up going on a proper mission to get it for me as the first guy was out of my provider. Bless him, he probably took one look at my ashen face and realised I might keel over at any given moment. When he came back I was taken to a nice bench in the shade to sit down whilst I waited for Henry to appear. I could quite happily have had a little kip but I’m not sure what they would’ve made of that although you do often see people having a little nap in the shade, all part of the integration.
I hoped for a quick getaway as I really needed to lie down but Henry wanted to show me the school that was hiding inside the National Library building and then I had to try and be professional and talk VSO type business with a nice lady who gave me a notebook and talked about training (I think). She has my email address though so I’m fairly sure she will be sending me the details of what we discussed.  After this I found myself a drop and went back to the flat and into a vertical position under the fan and pretty much remained there for the rest of the day. I promise to try and be more exciting this week.

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