Nigerian Christmas

All work stops for about 2 weeks in Nigeria around Christmas, this allows everyone to go home to the “village” for Christmas (even the most hardened urbanite is from a village, even if this village is another city). The advantage of this is we get to have a couple of weeks to explore Nigeria.

Around Christmas volunteers are very gregarious, desperately trying to avoid the nightmare Christmas of being stuck on your own, sitting in the dark as there is no NEPA with no food and no booze and resorting to snorting powdered Larium as the only mind altering drug available

With this desperate prospect in mind I headed off back to Abuja for a couple of days or R&R hanging around the British village. This allowed us to gather up all available volunteers for the 11 hour (on a good day) bus ride to Calabar, which is a city in the south east corner of Nigeria. We opted for the “419” volunteer option of a real minibus costing the princely sum of N5,000 (£20) rather than the slightly cheaper option of 8 of us piling into sweaty 1950’s station wagon with 5 seats and would be guaranteed to break down at least every hour.

Nigerian bus companies take safety seriously, which is why they keep a pastor on the payroll to bless the bus and its contents before any journey. There is something moderately worrying about a man beseeching the lord to cover the bus, its driver, and passengers in the blood of Jesus, just before you set off. Perhaps a quick check of the tyre pressure, brake fluid and oil level might have been a little more reassuring? Anyway the blood covering option seemed to work as we arrived in Calabar after 11 hours of some of the scariest driving I have witnessed to date (anything with less than 4 wheels simply didn’t exist, and all manoeuvres were carefully planned ahead in the “i’ll pull out randomly and then the other car will swerve out of my way, neatly creating space in the oncoming traffic for me to overtake” school of driving.)

The next challenge was locating the volunteer’s house we were staying in, turns out “new airport road” isn’t very near the airport, new or otherwise.

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Afi – Monkeys

Anyway after arriving in Calabar we still had a couple of days to Christmas so thought we would head up to a place called Afi where there is a Pan Drill Monkey rescue sanctuary. The place is completely in the middle of nowhere in the deepest darkest bush. Monkeys and isolation what more could you want from a holiday. The place is built in the middle of a beautiful area of rainforest, we were put up in open log cabins, with just netting round the side to keep the mossies out. We Fell asleep to the howls of monkeys and the background din of the rainforest, its a tough life being a volunteer. See below for pictures.

As well as monkeys the Nigerian tourist board (???) got some Canadians in and built a canopy walkway. This was also pretty good and there are some more very dull photos below. Spot the obligatory shower under a waterfall photo, which is the main purpose of any year off.

This place illustrates the Nigerian tourist problem, in any other country this place could command sky high prices and would attract people from all over the world. Being Nigeria there are a few people who have managed to find it by knowing someone who once met someone who told a story about a mythical monkey ranch in the hills and after a lot of searching managed to get the phone number of the people who can radio the lodge (it’s The Beach school of tourism I suppose).

Which is why Nigeria needs to develop its tourist infrastructure, but that would involve tackling both nigeria’s image problem and the corruption which makes it almost impossible to have a large scale business here.*insert standard volunteer rant here*



Calabar is quite tourist friendly, and attracts lots of Nigerians for Christmas. It also features a very non-Nigerian idea – Litter bins. The streets are leafy and clean, and there are even Christmas lights.

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Christmas day

Temp – 30°C
Humidity - Lots
Sweat amount – 2L/hour

Christmas Dinner!

Christmas fun and games. I even managed to get a bit of internet via my phone. Which I used to much protest to download the queens speech from Youtube (it took about an hour and all my laptop battery life to watch the first 2 mins, but it was worth it).

Calabar carnival
The days after Christmas there are a couple of carnivals. A kids one on boxing day then the main event the day after. Think Notting Hill with less health and safety. Also the Nigerian police crowd control techniques are more stick than carrot. Luckily most of the crowd find police bating one of the more amusing activities available and will be smiling and laughing away as the police whack them with sticks. Being cheeky we wangled our way into the empty press box, seeing a couple of whites get in lead to a rush of people also trying it on, and pretty soon a press box built for no more than five people had about thirty, but at least we could see!

We also had a wander about, see photos.....

From Dec-jan

As ever all the photos, plus some videos are at the link above.

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Nigerian Morris dancers

Look at this, spot the bells, and the hankies. Yes these are Nigerian Morris dancers! My trip is complete, even if i have achieved nothing I will be happy knowing that there are Morris dancers in Nigeria. Now all we need to work on is the production of some scrumpy.

Hope you all had a good Christmas, please leave comments as its the only way I know if people are actually reading this stuff! In response to Jon I will produce a blog post of what I actually do at work all day soon. Things are a bit slow starting here and a blog of me attending meetings with random government people, schools etc would be a bit dull (but very Nigerian, they love pictures of meetings).

Drink!

Nothing of major note has happened this week so I thought I’d use this week’s blog entry to cover a subject close to my heart, the Nigerian world of beverages.

Beer:- Comes in 60cl bottles, cost ranges from about N160 (60p) – N300 (£1.20) a bottle. On hearing I was coming to a state with Sharia law I thought drinking would be limited to the occasional overpriced hotel bar. I am happy to report that beer is available just about everywhere in Kaduna, and most of the time it’s even cold. Near every bar there will also be a suya vendor, who sells barbequed meat covered in pepe (dried hot pepper) for N100 a pop. Mmmm beer and meat.

Star (5.1%) – Budweiser’s less charismatic younger brother, contains at least 25% headache. The drink most volunteers start on.

Harp (5.15%) – Made by Guinness Nigeria, surprisingly not a bad larger and now firmly part of my evening schedule. Currently runs a promotion where you can win the occasional free beer. Being Nigeria the bottle caps have to be taken to a secret location between the hours of 10-4 on a Tuesday for possible redemption on payment of a dash. The ABV is quoted to 2 decimal places, I think this is simply a cunning marketing ploy to make it seem like it’s brewed to an exacting standard....


Gulder (5.1%)– brewed in the continental style by amstel, this is beer you have to chew. No volunteer I know drinks the stuff.



Guinness (7.5%)– Nigeria is apparently the 3rd biggest consumer of Guinness in the world. The story goes that when Guinness first wanted to launch a brewery in Nigeria they invited local breweries to submit their attempts at copying the iconic drink. After rejecting the entire first batch as universally dreadful they sent those tendering for the contract a case each of the original from Dublin to show them what they should be aiming for. The winner of the contract simply steamed off the Guinness labels and affixed his own to the bottles and returned them to the UK for consideration. Once winning the contact he continued to produce his original drink. If you want to get an idea of what this stuff tastes like, buy a bottle of Supermalt (or other malt based drink) then add 4 shots of vodka and one shot of lighter fuel. It’s sweet, strong and (in my opinion) completely unfit for human consumption.

Malt drinks: These are really popular in Nigeria, and come in numerous varieties all canned to look like beer. I find them sickly sweet and about 2 sips provides my entire years worth of maltyness. Worryingly the longer you stay here the more likely it seems that you will start to like the stuff. Also they are considered the “king of minerals” and “honoured guests” are always offered these in preference to coke/fanta/something i might want.




Minerals: This is the Nigerian name for any fizzy drink, Coke, fanta, mountain dew, occasionally diet coke etc. Come in 35cl glass bottles (N40 for the drink plus N10 deposit for the bottle), must always be drunk through a straw (not sure why but people look at you very strangely if you drink from the bottle). These provide the cheapest way of getting a safe midday drink. My teeth are taking a real pasting, and I’m sure I will need more fillings when I get back.




Pure Water:
This is a clever idea in principle. Its water in a plastic bag, rather than an expensive plastic bottle. A bag of pure water normally costs N5 (2.5p) and can be bought anywhere. The problem comes in Nigerians attitude to waste management/littering and the left over plastic bags cover just about everywhere, all roadsides, drains and riversides. Any possible scenic view will be ruined by the remnants of these bags, which I suppose is another reason why Nigeria doesn’t really have a tourist industry. The water in them seems safe enough, but to get into them you have to bite the corner off, exposing you to just about every disease under the sun.

Tap water:
Cholerary. No idea where it comes from, boil for 10 mins, filter, hold nose, hope for best.

This week I have also had a bash at making a solar oven, but at the moment it’s in test form and I’ll write some more about it another time.

Coming soon – Nigerian cuisine!

Dutch Santa

I've put some photos up of the crazy dutch santa claus thingy we had last weekend. And a piccy or two of my solar oven making efforts, which I will elaborate on in a later post.

From Dutch santa claus thingy

Hope everyone is well, and I will do a proper post tomorrow hopefully.

Kano Durbar write up

Kano is the second largest city in Nigeria and lies about 2 hours North of Kaduna, we were off there for Salah which is a Muslim festival celebrating the Abraham not killing his son and thinking perhaps god might be a bit more into a ram bbq instead. One of the advantages of being in a 50/50 country is that there are public holidays for both religions holidays, which actually means there are a ridiculous number of public holidays, not that i’m complaining.

In honour of the salah there is a Durbar in Kano, which is where all the local tribes surrounding Kano show their loyalty to the Emir by staging a mounted parade and having a quick charge at his palace, as you do.

The were two days of Durbar, the first day is the Emir going from his palace to the mosque to say a Salah prayer, a distance of about 10 yards, but in the spirit of celebration he makes a short diversion around the rest of the city first. He is preceded by the mounted massed representatives of the tribes in their traditional ceremonial get up of colourful armour and the occasional spear. Once these guys get to the mosque they have a bit of a charge at the Emir’s palace’s back gate, which is quite amusing as its a lot of people charging at a brick wall. Bearing in mind the organisational level is pretty low and the health and safety officer is on his day off there are obvious issues with the charge as fast as you can, then pull up at the last moment approach to paying tribute, and a number of times the guys at the back of the charge cannoned into the slowing horses in front smashing them into the wall. After every tribe has had its go at having a bit of a charge the Emir rocks up with his entourage and says a bit of a prayer. The entourage featured amongst other things his personal umbrella man who seems to have gone to the local pub beer garden, nicked one of the shades then sowed some sequins on it to make it a bit classy and manly.

Being White and a man with a camera i was allowed to walk almost where i liked, which was amazing if a little scary. The atmosphere and energy created by being completely surrounded by horses, crazy music and people who think that playing chicken with a brick wall is a fun Friday morning activity was brilliant. When the Emir turned up I got pulled out of the crowd and put on the end of a line of traditional bodyguards about 5 yards from the head honcho, this was slightly awkward as i couldn’t help but feel i was ruining everyone else’s photos of a traditional Nigerian cultural festival, but i just snapped away happily.

On the walk from the volunteers house to the Mosque amongst all the horses were a large number of rams (see what salah is celebrating above). The rams can only be slaughtered after the salah prayer... the walk back with a 3 quite squeamish girls, featuring one vegetarian was a giggle. There was a lot of dead ram everywhere, every household tried to find a bit of street that wasn’t too covered in rotting rubbish and the used this area as their impromptu abattoir. The smell was pretty bad at the time, what it must be like a week of hot weather later i am trying not think about.

The second day is the main event, at the palace itself. Apparently there are around 2000 horsemen (probably no horsewomen i’m afraid) involved. Im not sure if you’ve ever seen 2000 horses before, this is a lot of horses, which take up a lot of space. Parading these horses is a bit like watching the London marathon, quite exciting at the beginning, but they just kept coming and coming and coming and pretty dressed up horse fatigue kicked in. We were very fortunate in that the Kano volunteer’s work colleague, knew someone, who knew some one, who once had dinner with someone who’s mum rant the event (or something like that). This was enough of a connection for us to be sneaked in for free to the VIP bit, which gave a great view (see photos) .

Eventually the emir, still followed by his pub umbrella twirling sidekick, turned up. There was more charging, some chappy’s in red turned up and let of what sounded like portable cannon’s off in some horses faces, which had a suitably calming effect on them. The things these guys were wielding were humorously described as muskets, but these things had barrels a couple of inches thick and had enough gun powder in them to start a November the 5th style plot. Once the Emir had showed his face and everyone had a bit of a charge, it was everyone back to their houses for a bit of yesterdays burnt offering let over curry (i assume).

The event was really amazing, it was the first properly cultural type thing i had seen in Nigeria and it was nice to see something that was a spectacle, but not something artificial. I can definitely recommend coming to see this if you can handle Nigeria’s crazyness and don’t mind a someone less progressive attitude to animal welfare.

We met a guy from the British high commission in Abuja on the second day, being volunteers we instantly asked for a lift home. Being nice i let the girls have the 3 spaces in the back and went to the motor park to get a bush taxi, only when i got back to Kaduna did i find out that they got a police escort all the way, dammit.

On another note, my laptop has had its first malfunction, the left click key on the tracker pad is bugger up... grrrr. Anyone knowing of a fix or how much i would have to replace to get this fixed please leave answers below.

Here are some photos from the Kano Durbar. The rest can be found here http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rich.norman/KanoDurbar#

(i hope, let me know if it doesn't work).

I'll write up what actually happened soonish. most of it can be seen from the photos. Lots of horses and all round non-health and safety compliant fun.

and here is a video:

The demonstration school for the deaf

Last Wednesday I stayed with another volunteer placed at the demonstration school for the deaf in the north of Kaduna. Deafness is much more common here than in the UK, mainly due to untreated measles, other infections and problems during birth (which normally also occur with brain damage of some description), it is a regular sight that you see people at petrol stations and the motor park coming up to you with signs asking for money.

The demonstration school was set up by a CUSO volunteer about 25 years ago and now through donations boasts a nursery, primary and early secondary school. One of the main problems they face is the stigma of being deaf, as the reasons for being deaf are not generally attributed to medical causes, but moral/spiritual reasons, as such having a deaf child can be seen as shameful and most kids are not brought to the school until the parents have tried everything. The attitude to disabled people here is not ideal and most deaf people are unable to get jobs, hence the high numbers of beggars.

The below crazy Dutch person is the current volunteer at the deaf school and is a sucker for punishment as she has been in Kaduna for 3 years. She is modelling some of Nigeria’s finest clothing...

A typical class, most of the teachers at the school are deaf themselves and all classes are done in sign language. A real problem for deaf children is spelling, as they cannot vocalise the word in their head and work out the spelling from this. Boards with spellings and signs on are everywhere to help with this!

(Apologies about the dust on the lens)

Here is the nursery class, when you think about the logistics of teaching kids who cant heat you realise how much we take the concept of language for granted. Here they actually have to teach the idea of verbal/written/signed communication, and having access to specialist teaching early to do this is needed, but too often not the case.

Children with a new teacher acting out everyday scenarios, and being reminded to say “please”, “thankyou”, anything at all really!

I got a quick sign language lesson. I can now say good morning, goodbye (just wave) , nice to meet you, science, car and motorbike (the last 2 are quite obvious as well and have me making “brum brum” sound effects).

Some top quality government intervention below, as NEPA (electricity) is rubbish infrequent the school was given some solar panels about a year ago. Solar panels was what the government said it would provide and that is exactly what they were given, no connecting wires, converter etc . They have are trying to get funding for all the extra kit required to make them useful, but in the mean time leaving very expensive unused solar panels around resulted in a load being pinched.

This is an example of a really well run, interactive school. However this is one of only two deaf schools in Kaduna, the disability rate here is estimated to be 10%, so even if only a tiny fraction of those with disabilities where deaf there would still need to be lots more. Visiting here gives me a great feeling of things being done to improve to lives of those here, but it brings home the fact that in this country your pretty unlikely to receive a decent education if you are a boy and fully able, being disabled makes it a million times harder.

Although it would be “service delivery” which is a big no-no (its not sustainable don’t you know) i want to try and help out here were possible (mainly as it will make me feel like I’m actually helping in some tangible way). For now my role is chief assistant to the assistant chief, in charge of trying to build a solar oven at some point over the next couple of weeks and website setting up. Also I have been drafted in to teach rugby, I just need to find the correct shaped ball!

Also here are some cute photos of Monique’s kittens, experiments with pieces of string show that it is possible for kittens to get dizzy . The one at the back's son is now my kitten! (as of march 2010) looks very similar.

First week of work.

Having waited for a week for my boss to return, i was looking forward to the classic mistake made by all volunteers of trying to get something done. Most of the in country training was based around lowering our expectations of actually what we would accomplish here, and featured an unhealthy obsession with putting everything on a flip chart (its the classic workshop approach, learning only occurs if it is captured on a flipchart).

Surprisingly there was actually a lot for me to get involved in and I look forward to producing my first website (this doesn’t really count). Other than that I seem to either be solving world peace or making a lot of tea in the future. I think I at the first high of the vso process, which has been promised to last a week maximum before reality kicks in and I enter the long slow march to the depression stage.

Below is a chart of the promised stages of the first few months of the volunteering experience. If you manage to avoid depression in the first few months, the instruction is clear that this is not a cause for alarm, depression will definitely hit later in the year.



But at the moment I am happily lurking around the euphoria stage, things are going well and I am looking forward to a weekend of watching England lose to Argentina at rugby and many cold, overpriced*, Stars in Abuja.

Star is the local beer, if you want to imagine what it tastes like think Budweiser with less character, however each Star is carefully matured for some months under a source of dirty water to give it that unique rusty cap and dangerous water borne disease flavour that we have grown to love.

*250N, £ 1, 25% of a day’s pay depending on what tariff you use.

07/11/09 No fireworks

I am missing fireworks, mulled wine and the concept of having to wrap up warm. Its very hot here ~30C, this is the wrong temperature for a body expecting winter.

Arrival in Kaduna

05/10/09
Entering your accommodation for the first time is probably one of the biggest moments during the whole volunteering process. Forget achieving anything at work, whether you have running water a bed made out of concrete, and a house mainly occupied by ladies of negotiable affection will have a much greater effect on the next 12 months that a slightly greater feeling of under achievement that we have all been promised to a certain degree that goes with a placement where affecting any change is difficult to impossible.

I had been forewarned that my accommodation was nice, but after a quick look round, followed by my neighbour and the driver (who’s idea of personal space could be measured in millimeters) I was pretty pleased. The third concrete hut at the back of a pretty impressive, yet unfinished looking house was more than adequate for my needs of shelter for the year. I have 3 rooms (bed, living, bathroom) a shared kitchen but most importantly a flushing toilet (there is also a fridge and air con but with power “very infrequent” these weren’t immediately going to be all that helpful)

(grammar Nazi’s please feel free to leave comments on the correct use of affect and effect in the paragraphs above)

Abuja

The first few days was all about form filling and general admin, trying to open bank accounts and opening the magical brown envelope which in London we were told under no circumstances-except -on-pain-of death should we open., to which the Nigerian vso office’s reply was “yeah yeah, it is fine to open, you can open it”.

I remained in Abuja for the whole week, but I have been staying between Crystal palace hotel (“the Buckingham palace of Abuja”) and the VSO flat, which doesn’t have internet (hence no updates). Crystal palace is quite nice and has free internet, aircon and flushing toilets.

The big event was going to see a Nigeria match in the u17 world cup which is being held in Abuja at the moment, they were playing Honduras. It was everything expect from a African football match, loud music, loud enthusiastic support and a sweaty close heat which resulted in my glasses steaming up anytime i became at all excited. There were some familiar points, queues for toilets and dodgy unidentifiable meat products which would have made cut my own throat dibbler proud. In the toilets most of the queue was caused by people trying to use the hand wash area as a free rare chance to bathe in running water. As for the food, I thought I had a sausage roll, made from the pinky look of it, as if it was either pork or the kind of beef which makes up new York “Kosher” hotdogs, it turned out it was made of fish... yuk.

I have been to the British council offices (no spies seen as yet) and the British village. The main reason to go to the British council offices (apart from free email access) is the rooftop cafe, where we can spend 3 days pay on a beer and a pizza. Abuja is actually very low rise in the most part, so you need to sit a couple of floors up to see most of the city. From the breezy rooftop you could almost be anywhere in the world (which has palm trees). Luckily we were with David’s (my current volunteer guide) friends who work at the Irish embassy and they insisted on paying for our shwarma and giving us half their pizza (made with real cheese). I’m sure in a couple of months this act of kindness would bring tears to my eyes.

The British village is little oasis of tranquillity where the embassy staff live. Luckily it is open to vso’s to use the pool and bar. After the obligatory quick dip in the longest pool I have swam in for years (~25m), we mainly used the visit to play monopoly and eat pizza (1800N - £7 - 2 days pay). A bunch of penniless volunteers in the most expensive surroundings in town, playing a quintessential British board game was brilliant (plus I won, although I think people now realise I am slightly prone to bouts of competitiveness).

The British village is only a short walk on from the British council building, as such only a 20min walk from the Vso flat. Sunscreen would have been a great idea, even a hat would have sufficed, I used neither, I was quite red. Comfortingly every volunteer has a story of being really burnt, even the ones who have been here for years and should know better.

Also after a strict diet of pizza and top end shwarma my insides have resumed normal service. This may be due a switch away from the Crystal palace omni-buffet* or all the bacteria in my gut have regrouped and developed a resistance to doxycycline.

*omni-buffet – a buffet which serves the same food all day, every day, “hey that’s the same bit of goat meat I didn’t want at lunch” mmmm healthy.

The journey begins...

Well I have arrived in Abuja, I have all my luggage and there was someone to pick us up from the airport at 4:30 in the morning. So all in all day 1 of the adventure has gone very well (and nowhere near as scary as my mind was thinking on the flight in).

We left the airport at about 5ish at which time the weather was very cool and pleasant, since then it’s only got hotter and sticker, which i feel may be a feature of the next 12 months. The hotel has free internet access and air con so I think they are easing us into this gently.

We are here for the next week and a half before we head off to our placements, so we have a week of 24 hour electricity and cold beers in Abuja. From what we’ve heard from the other volunteers this may not last once I get to Kaduna....