Tis the season to be jolly

Well it’s supposed to be the season to be jolly and all that other Christmas related stuff but frankly it has felt anything other than Christmassy this December. It’s not for a want of people being lovely and sending Christmas things from home (thanks mum and Rachel and those of you that tried to send snow even though it’s potentially hazardous!) and I even had a lovely Christmas Day with some friends I met at the British Village but it just didn’t feel like Christmas this year. Was it because it was too hot? There was a major lack of family of friends to celebrate with? The decorations were weird/non-existent? There was no Christmas music on repeat driving you bonkers? There was no crazy busy high street to do battle with? There was no Christmas works do to go to and get totally trashed at? Or all of the above? I have to admit it has been nice not to have the stress of Christmas to deal with but I actually missed Christmas more than I thought, even the music on repeat, I mean where’s Noddy Holder when you need him?

Here in Nigeria they are obviously either not interested at all or big on the religious side of things. Bizarrely at midnight there were loads of fireworks going off just like there is at home for new years and everyone was stood outside watching, even the kids. Makes it hard for Father Christmas to come and deliver the presents I suspect and probably scares the reindeer, poor things.

It was incredibly sad to wake up on Christmas Day to news of more bombings in Nigeria, the people here are finding it increasingly hard to understand why this is happening and the tensions seem to be rising. Security is increasing around the city, but what can police in cars do against determined terrorists with explosives?  

The increased risk of living here makes me feel more relieved that in just a few days I will be returning home. It is not the reason that I have decided to come home early, my family and friends will already be aware of my reasons and of my impending return but I have to be honest and say I probably will feel more at ease once I’ve touched down at Heathrow. It’s not that I walk around in a constant state of fear, but there are the reminders that there is a very real threat, roadblocks, cars being searched in the city near important buildings and now churches, police and army vehicles outside the National Mosque. Armoured vehicles and armed men are a sight that I’ve just got used to. As I sit here on New Year’s Eve reflecting on what 2011 has brought for me in terms of lessons and changes to my life and thinking about what now lies ahead in 2012 I can’t help but wonder about what lies ahead for Nigeria, sadly I think it will be in the world news next year more frequently than it has been this year.

That seems like a very gloomy note to leave this blog post on, so I will finish by wishing everyone a Happy New Year, I hope that 2012 is good to you all.

Nigerians behind the lens

A rather amazing set of photos I found on the BBC website today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16053483

A very happy visit to the Kaduna Demonstration School for Deaf Children

On Tuesday of this week I found myself on the way to Kaduna, a city about three hours north of Abuja. I was visiting a school for Deaf Children carrying out a needs analysis for a placement on behalf of VSO before a new volunteer is due to arrive in February next year. I had been asked to do the visit by the Education Program Manager as the placement was very similar to mine and quite different to the normal placements in the Education Program area. A great way to utilise volunteers in country if you ask me.

To say that I enjoyed the day is somewhat of an understatement. The school was amazing, the principal Victoria was so motivated and inspiring and meeting those children in that environment was really lovely. I haven’t seen such happy and hardworking children since I’ve been here, the teachers were brilliant, it was all about child centred learning and you could see how much it has impacted these very lucky children. They were proud of their work, they wanted to show it to me and ask me if they were doing it right. Their work was on the walls along with affirmations and posters, it was a lovely environment for them to learn in.

The school however is run as a charity and it desperately needs funds to keep running and to become self-sustaining, hence a volunteer is now going to be placed there to help with fundraising. I can’t deny I was jealous of this new volunteer, theirs will be such a rewarding placement, getting to work in the school and learn sign language (I managed to learn good morning, how are you and thank you) so that you can communicate properly with the children and directly see the impact that your efforts are having in helping to keep the school running. Without this school these children would have nowhere to go, there isn’t the provision for disability like there is back home and it’s not taken into consideration in mainstream education meaning children like this are excluded. Here they can enter the school at nursery age where they can learn sign language so they can communicate from an early age and get an education like any other child. They even offer signing lessons to the parents at weekends so that they are able to communicate with their children.

I can only sum up by saying I loved, loved, loved my day there and that I wish all the schools here could implement teaching and learning like this.

Nursery 1: Half the class work the teacher

Whilst the other half read, then they swap!

Nursery 3: Half of the class doing some writing work

Some maths in the Primary classes

Here the teacher was asking the children to demonstrate different types of movement, they took it in turns to have a go.

A science lesson in Junior Secondary

The alarming incident of the cockroach in the night time

Cockroaches have made an appearance my blog before, in a slightly bizarre was I losing my mind in having a conversation with one fashion. This time I was not having a conversation with a cockroach, I was being rudely awoken by one on a night where I was not getting much sleep anyway. Normally my fan is on at night (power allowing) and as such I probably sleep on blissfully unaware of the beasties that prowl around in the dark but because it’s cold at night due to harmattan at the moment my fan is off so you can hear every little noise.

Anyway there I was finally drifting off to sleep somewhere around 4am when a nasty scuttling noise brought me back round like a flash, then it got a bit closer to my bed, then it sounded like it was actually in my bed!? No surely not, but I was sat up in a panic with my reading light in hand when I realised that a roach was climbing up my mosquito net, I made a funny sort of a ‘meeehhh’ noise and tried to bat it off from the inside with said light. Hardy little buggers though aren’t they and he took a few bashes before he fell between the bed and the wall and quick as a flash (or a Kash) I was out of the netting the other side and reaching for the can of raid. My lungs may not have thanked me but I was ever so relieved when he came to a sort of half dead stop, just close enough to the edge of the bed for me scoop it up with a hastily devised cockroach scooping device (Notebook and old plastic bowl for catching leaks in rainy season). Not bad for four in the morning eh?

I don’t think I have ever been so pleased for my mosquito net, apart from maybe that first night in Calabar. After disposing of the interloper I obsessively checked to make sure the net was tucked in very securely just in case there were any more lurking around waiting for me to turn the light off before striking and got myself back into bed. Weirdly I managed to sleep. Maybe it was the high concentration of Raid in the room?

Harmattan

Something very strange happened last night, so strange that for a brief moment I thought I had somehow been transported back home. I was cold, not just a little bit chilly but properly cold. We had gone out to meet some other VSOs for a drink and were sat in an outside bar called ‘Circle Gardens’ in Maitama. There we were enjoying our drinks (shockingly in my case a sprite) and it was like being at home in the summer when you’re in a beer garden on an evening and the sun has long since disappeared and you really should go inside the pub because everyone is shivering but damn it you're British and this is summer so you suffer on. It’s the first time since leaving home that I’ve been properly cold, even with air con in the office.

There is an explanation for the cold which is that currently we are experiencing the Harmattan a wind from the Sahara that means it’s hot in the day but cools down quite a bit at night. I should point out however that it was probably still in the mid-twenties temperature wise so not exactly freezing . I’m going to actually FREEZE in January and I can’t wait!