Preparing for Sallah...

Every now and then I get a craving to go shopping. An evening wandering through the Blanchardstown Centre or a Saturday morning on Henry Street. But today I had a little fix. It felt a teeny bit like Grafton Street on Christmas week - the Central Market the day before Sallah.
After a month of fasting, tomorrow my Muslim neighbours celebrate Sallah. Hence the normally crazy market is utterly insane today. Every third person is carrying a live turkey by the legs, young boys weave through the crowds with wheel barrows of shopping, women shop in huddles comparing, contrasting, conversing...
So imagine how busy Grafton Street gets at Christmas; now imagine all the shopkeepers coming out onto the street to sell their wares... each one shouting out his best deals, customers shouting back their best prices, dramatic disbelief, earnest rebuttals, slow concessions, on to the next customer... stall after stall after stall. Its a very untidy carnival, with elbows and wheelbarrows carving nicks out of your limbs, and the frenzied excitement of last-minute shopping...

Aging gracefully... ish...

It was my birthday on Thurs so I took the day off work and had my hair braided. Lots of fun! The hair salon is in Sabon Gari, near the market, an area packed with activity. Due to the heat we sat outside on the porch for the 7 hours it took. At different times I had the hands of three different hairdressers and a couple of neighbouring girls braiding my hair, several passers-by stopped to touch my own hair and check (& appraise) the work, and many pedestrains just stopped to say 'well done' for getting 'African hair'. It was a great day of people-watching both for me & everyone watching me!
Doesnt quite match getting a tattoo for your birthday (but that would just be crazy, wouldnt it!)

A happy tail...

Haven't seen my furry little housemate for a few days, so either...

1. the mouse has an iron will and can resist my tasty traps
2. he doesn't particularly like French toast served with a tangy arsenic dressing
3. he's gone

Fingers crossed, eh!

Happy anniversary to me...

I reached my first anniversary on the 15th. One year in Nigeria. So I am half way through my stay now. Which is a bit worrying because now, instead of counting time up, I'll have to start counting time down. Am suddenly under pressure to get a move on!
So how did I celebrate this momentus occassion? A big bash? Fireworks? Champagne? Nope, I took my twice-annual de-worming tablet. Life sure is glamorous here in Sub Saharan Africa...

The go-slow...

After all my whinging about everything going ‘slowly slowly’, I finally felt a bit vindicated today. I got a letter from a supplier (dated 25th September) saying 'thank you for you letter of 11th May…'

Perfect placement visit...

A new bunch of volunteers arrived in Nigeria this week (always good news). Each volunteer has a placement visit with a serving volunteer, and so Thessa came to stay in Minna for 4 days. I’m not sure how the perfect placement visit goes but I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t include your host running from the kitchen shrieking ‘a mouse… oh, my god there’s a mouse’….
So off I went to the chemist to get rat poison (I insisted on asking for mouse poison because I most definitely don’t have a rat in my house). Anyhoo, despite the fervent reassurances of 4 shop assistants the ‘rat poison’ I bought turned out to be anti-inflammatory pills. Nigerian medicine only has very scientific info on the box. Now, I certainly don’t want am inflamed mouse in my kitchen, but it still wasn’t the most successful of trips. Today I tracked down rat poison (with dead rats on the cover!) and so hopefully the little sod will be out of my kitchen, one way or the other, tonight.

Wikki warm springs...

Without a doubt, the highlight of Yankari is the Wikki Warm Springs – a long narrow natural spring of turquoise water. The spring is crystal clear and about 33 degrees – a perfect all-day bath. After spending a full day in the water on Fri it was very difficult to drag our shrivelled selves out before it got dark. A real treat…

Tammie's farewell tour...

Tammie and I went to visit Yankari National Park this weekend, as she winds up her time in Nigeria. Yankari is one of the top spots to visit here – both for the safari and the natural springs. There isn’t any public transport to the camp (about 100 km from city of Bauchi) so it isn’t really very easy to get to. But its well worth the effort.
They are currently renovating the whole place and so the camp contained mainly ourselves and a big bunch of construction workers! The park truck had given up the ghost a few days before we arrived so we were told there was no way to go on safari. A little bargaining & pleading saw us hiring out the security truck for an early-morning safari instead. Our early start was rewarded - we left the truck and approached a river on foot (yip, a bit nerve-wracking to be strolling around). We were looking for hippos, and could hear them in a distant enclosure – close enough to smell, but with no way of reaching them. Disheartened we rested awhile, and then a large rectangular face popped up on the far bank. A single hippo checking us out. He sat in the water and watched us for awhile and then took an underwater swim to find another spot from which to observe us better. It was incredible. We were also lucky enough to see three elephants a little later on. Again, our guide brought us out of the truck to follow them on foot for a few yards, but the large male turned to stare us down (at which point both myself & Tammie shrieked and ran). The elephants were understandably protective of the baby in their midst.
As well as these two highlights we were constantly reminded of the variety of creatures living in the park – an extended family of 6 warthogs wandered around the camp all day making their home in the caves by the spring; a large gang of baboons patrolled the camp for food with older baboons acting as look-outs while the baby baboons checked out chalet windows; and we saw water buck, guinea fowl, tortoises and the tracks of a lion, but not the lion itself, alas! We sat in the warm spring water while a baboon swung through the branches above us drenching us with rain from the leaves, we stood trapped on our porch for a few minutes while a gang of baboons inspected us for hidden food, we slept with one eye open trying to decipher whether each sound could possibly be elephants in the camp. Yankari was a lot of fun and I’m definitely going back some day to see that lion…

Skills share...

I helped to organise a library-themed workshop last week for those of us working in educational institutions. It was held in NTI in Kaduna where Kevin is working, and VSOs and their partners came from Opobo, Akwanga, Kano, Minna and Kaduna. It was a good chance to look at a variety of library topics – from sustainability to multimedia, from virtual libraries to manual circulation. And it was nice to be involved with some real training.

Time to go...

Three of the volunteers I arrived with – Kate, Tammie & Simon – are finishing up their placements about now, as our one year anniversary approaches. It will be very sad to see my travel buddies depart, but VSO has enabled me to meet a lot of great people - some of them just for a short time. Will have to muddle on without blogger tales of Kubwa, porridge oat and cheese obsessions, braids, pidgin/hausa lessons and all the rest. Great memories though…

Fixing the roads...

Rainy season has made the bad roads worse and avoiding potholes has become something of a driver’s art. It seems that the roads are laid with just the top layer or two of tar, and that the several layers of tar that should be underneath aren’t there (some kind Oga somewhere is no doubt investing the money in a foreign bank account to save the nation the hassle of spending it).
So the roads are full of clay red potholes and sometimes local youngsters take to filling in these potholes themselves (with more red clay from the side of the road). Passing drivers show their appreciation by dashing them. Nigeria has an amazing capacity to continue to function despite the constant sabotage of those governing it.

Three degrees of I beg your pardon...

1. Kai! (kkkkkkk-eyeeeeeeeeeee)
Ah my friend, are you sure you are not mistaken? (emphasis on surprise)

2. Haba!
No sir, I’m sure that is incorrect (emphasis on challenging the statement)

3. Uuuh? (for full effect freeze, knit your eyebrows and leave your lower jaw drop open)
Well now you’re just wasting my time, you fool

Independence Day...

October 1st is Independence Day in Nigeria and so VSO are promoting Nigerian placements on their website. Here is an interview I did with them... http://www.vso.org.uk/about/volunteers/nigeria_volunteers.asp