Bad bank...

Queuing. Still bothers me. And while I am not in favour of the death penalty....
The worst offenders (and in my opinion all queue jumpers should be tarred and feathered) are the 'keep my spot' brigade. In a Nigerian bank it is considered perfectly acceptable for a person to join the end of a queue, say 'I am here' to the person in front, and then go and sit down. For the hour/hour and a half it takes to queue. Then when you are nearing the top of the queue, it suddenly stops moving. So for 30-40 minutes you stand and watch as the people sitting down return to their spot in the queue (in addition to the regular queue-jumping ogas and chancers).
I dont want to be irrational about this - but shouldnt these people be tortured. Slowly and painfully.

Good bank...

My bank is ahead of its time. When I visited about a month ago they were renovating. All the interior walls had been knocked and the whole place had an open-plan feel. I could watch the manager work & observe every customer in the place, but at least I couldnt see the vault. Fair enough... a bank without walls... all very forward-thinking
But then I returned just before Christmas. The renovation continues - only now they were knocking chunks out of the exterior walls to remove the burglary proofing. (Remember that joke from when we were kids about building a new jail - keeping the old jail open until the new jail was finished, using the materials of the old jail in the new jail). We now have a roofless bank, with significant holes in the exterior walls. Withdrawing your money on a construction site didnt feel quite as dodgy as it should have... maybe it was time for a holiday after all.

Time...

When I visited the key-cutter (below) he was not on seat so I took the shop keepers number to call later. When I called I was told to 'come now' and (more fool me) I responded to the urgency. 5 mins later I arrived as instructed, and 3 hours after that I left.
'Come now', I should know, is a relative statement. Probably more accurately meaning 'come today'. The key-cutter did look a little stunned that I turned up when I said I was going to. I think he'd have been a lot less surprised if I turned up Tuesday week.

Enterprise...

I love the ability of Nigerian businessmen to grasp an opportunity. Many people associate corruption with Nigeria but I have only seen this at higher levels (where money is available). On the whole access to money is extremely limited for the vast majority of the population...
... I needed to get a key cut before I came home and I had passed a sign for just that a couple of times. When I approached the sign it seemed to be pointing at a little shop but the key-cutter wasnt on seat. I was told to come back later. When I returned I thought the sign had disappeared, but on proper inspection I found that it had just been moved a few shops up. It now sat (more accurately) outside a little office. Upon entering the office (which was, like many Nigerian offices, entirely empty except for a table & chairs) I found a young boy dusting under the instruction of the shop-keeper.
So my key-cutting requirements were explained in an appropriate environment, and a business was re-established. There is a huge difference between grasping an opportunity and grasping wads of cash (that belong to someone else)...

Nigeria moments...

Was reading about the planned introduction of coins to the Nigeria next year. At the mo we only use notes (for instance €1 = N160). So when they re-introduce the kobo next year they will have to make it from a special metal that can't be melted down. Kinda puts in perspective just how much it'll actually be worth...

I met a girl called Marvellous last week. Isnt that a great name...

Was sitting having my hair done when a chap passed by me to leave his bicycle in the alley behind. When he returned he had a live hen in his hand. Now I've seen okada passengers carry live poultry (and every other animal up to live goats) but I was a bit curious about how a person carries a live hen while riding a bicycle. Turns out you tie him upside down by the feet to the handlebars. Just in case you ever need to know...

Flippin' flashing...

Not sure if I'm just out of touch but has the phenomenon of flashing reached home yet?!? (don't mean dodgy geezers in trenchcoats...)
Flashing is calling someone's phone and allowing it to ring once or twice before hanging up. Its a greeting, and greeting is a serious business here in Nigeria. Flashing is an ingenious solution to those 'difficult-to-greet' moments. It's 7am on a Sunday morning and the person you wish to greet is asleep behind a locked door, no problem just flash them.
Its a wonderfully imprecise communication method that requires you to guess what the caller wants - to say hello, to call them back, to turn on the tv. A colleague flashed me late one evening recently and I took it as a greeting (I always take it as a greeting cos Im too cheap to call back someone whose too cheap to call me) . Anyway, turns out there was an interesting programme on tv and he flashed to check whether I was watching... think the radio waves were interfering with my physic abilities... or maybe its the lack of sleep-ins.

Patch meeting...

The volunteers in the north west of Nigeria gathered together for a patch meeting & skill share this weekend. Our patch has a lot of new volunteers so it was great to spend some time getting to know them. Here’s Thessa at Abacha Barracks, and Rafael & Charlotta. Abacha Barracks is known for its barbecued fish… hmmm…

Frustrating times...

I was involved in organising our patch meeting/skill share this weekend, and organising the hotel was a bit of a frustrating experience! I guess I should have expected it – when I rang up the hotel mid-week to enquire about booking a meeting room I was told that the manager was not on seat, and I’d have to ring back. Okay, so I asked the Receptionist if he could tell me the average price of breakfast, lunch and dinner in the hotel. No he couldn’t. Just pick up a menu, I asked, and have a look at the prices for me. No, no he couldn’t do it. His job was to write receipts, he couldn’t possibly tell me meal prices.
Staff in Nigeria seem to be very disempowered. They are not willingto venture outside explicitly defined tasks. (In fairness, I can see that Ogas are incredibly quick to point the finger of blame and so this would be a gamble). We had oranges after lunch one day (13 whole, peeled oranges) and the chief bill-writer decided that we had 13 fruit salads and was charging us N150 each (N150 for an orange that would cost N10 in the market). After 2 days of me refusing to sign the bill, and him refusing to engage in a logical argument (the Oga sets the prices, just sign, the Oga isn’t here and hasn’t been here for days, just sign, your organisation will pay, just sign, I don’t make these decisions, just sign, just sign, just sign…) he finally rang his Oga and scrapped the fruit from the bill. I explained that I was perfectly happy to sign for N150 – N200 for the oranges but this wasn’t a possibility. I presume this is because fruit salad is a recognisable item on the menu and oranges aren’t. There can be no deviation from the recognised pricing patterns. No spontaneous decision making. No authority to make a sensible decision. No common sense.
It’s a frustrating and common occurrence here that staff members are disempowered, unable to make decisions, unable to deviate from established norms. From school children to adult workers the prevailing philosophy seems to revolve around doing the least harm rather than doing any good…