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[Nigeria]Nigerian glossary

2005-08-28

More hiking near Abuja

Filed under: VSO — kevin @ 11:25

Another trip out into the bush with Alex, this time up a different lump of rock in the Mpape area.

On the way up we walked through a Fulani village (you can see it in the left-hand picture), full of cows, sheep and people. This looked like a proper nomadic village, with houses that can be packed up and moved easily. Once we got to the top the clouds rolled in and there wasn’t much of a view.
Fulani village from above View from the top of the rock, clouds rolling in from the right

2005-08-25

View from Radio House

Filed under: VSO — kevin @ 16:13

Dave, Karen, Jenny and her friend Rachael came round on Tuesday afternoon, while we were waiting for Marebec to finish work we went up to the roof of Radio House, which gives you a great view of Abuja. Here’s a (partial) panorama:
Panorama of Abuja
The full-size image is 8322×1074 pixels and over a megabyte and has some of Abuja’s landmarks labelled.

Afterwards we went to one of the Radio House chop houses for minerals.

2005-08-23

Kittens

Filed under: friends,VSO — kevin @ 10:55

Tracey left Nigeria this morning, at the end of her two-year placement in Gindiri, Plateau State. While she was there she had a cat, which had kittens just over ten weeks ago. She needed to find a home for the kittens, so Marebec and I now have two of them. They’re called Tracey and Sue (after two of the recently departed VSOs), we can’t currently tell the difference between them, I think we might have to get collars for them.

Kittens sleeping on the sofa Tracey (or is it Sue?) in the living room

On the radio

Filed under: VSO — kevin @ 10:45

I was recently asked to record a promo for one of our neighbours at Radio House. Emmanuel had written the script, I just had to read it a few times and my voice is now going out a few times a week on Kapital FM.

Here’s the promo (288KB MP3 file), so that people outside Abuja can enjoy it.

2005-08-20

Bwari Pottery

Filed under: friends,travel,VSO — kevin @ 16:22

Got a call from Alex this afternoon asking if we wanted to head out to visit Bwari pottery. Shortly afterwards he arrived with Tracey and Karen and Marebec and I joined them for the drive out to Bwari.

Bwari is one of Abuja’s satellite towns, with lots of housing and some government organisations there. The pottery was set up following the example of the Pottery Training Centre at Abuja (renamed Suleja when the new capital was created here). The buildings are of traditional construction, with grass roofs, and the site is very peaceful.

On of the houses The showroom at the pottery Karen standing in the showroom

We watched one of the potters at work and Marebec had a go with his assistance.
Potter at work Marebec learns how to throw a pot

There’s an interesting article about pottery in the Abuja area here.

2005-08-15

Tracey’s going away parties – Jos

Filed under: travel,VSO — kevin @ 09:48

Tracey will be leaving Nigeria next week now that her placement has finished. She’s organised a series of leaving parties in various places.

On Saturday morning Bob’s (heavily loaded) car left Abuja for Jos, picking up Jenny and her friend Rachael in Akwanga along the way. After a nice lunch we spent the afternoon wandering around town, doing a bit of shopping. Jos is much cheaper than Abuja for almost everything, I picked up some honey, video CDs and a thermos flask which I’m planning to use for making yoghurt.

Saturday night was great, the party was at the PW life camp. They provided lovely food (real sausages!) and plenty of drink. There was much dancing and singing until the early morning.

Festivities restart next week with a party at Bob’s place on Saturday, one at the Abuja PW life camp on Sunday and a picnic on Monday.

2005-08-12

Abacha barracks

Filed under: VSO — kevin @ 10:02

Last night I went to the Mummy market at Abacha barracks (officially Mogadishu barracks these days) with Medel and Marebec, it’s one of the best places in Abuja for grilled fish. They have an open area with the half oil drum fish and chicken grills surrounded by open-air bars.

Grilled fish stalls in the rain at Abacha barracks
While we were eating it started to rain, getting heavier and heavier with bright flashes of lightning all around. The people running the fish stalls set up brightly coloured umbrellas to cover their grills, which were lit up beautifully by the bare bulbs they use for light. It was a shame I only had my phone with me, with a proper camera it would have made a fantastic picture.

To make things even better a three-piece band were playing in our bar, the whole thing was one of those moments that remind me why it’s so good to be in Nigeria.

2005-08-11

Table

Filed under: VSO — kevin @ 10:42

Some of the bits of equipment that should have been in the house when we moved in are finally starting to arrive. Yesterday we got our table and chairs:
Marebec sitting at the table outside the house, eating her dinner

This means we don’t have to eat with plates balanced on our knees any more and we can sit outside in the evening. We’re just waiting for wardrobes now.

2005-08-10

Bad software, bad support

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 09:03

[updates below]

I’ve not written much about techy, computery stuff recently, but this morning I’m angry.

I’d been looking for a way to keep the numbers on my mobile phone synchronised with my Sony Clie PDA. SonyEricsson’s software would only synchronise with Microsoft Outlook, and I didn’t want to install that huge lump of bad software just to store phone numbers. Instead I found a shareware program called Mobile Master. I tried it out and then paid £18 to register it.

At first it seemed to work fine, synchronising my phone with Palm Desktop and so with my PDA. Then I noticed that it had subtly corrupted my PDA’s address database. All the fields were in the wrong places and people’s surnames had been replaced by some kind of ID code. I reported the problem to Mobile Master’s authors and waited for a reply.

Update: I’ve now received a reply to my problem report and an apology for how long it took. Unfortunately it’s too late as I’ve uninstalled the software and am using Outlook and SonyEricsson’s software.

(more…)

2005-08-07

Hiking near Abuja

Filed under: friends,VSO — kevin @ 16:04

After all the excitement of the Osun festival I needed something to do on Sunday (other than the washing). So when Alex asked Dave and I if we were interested in going for a walk we said yes straight away. Alex us and his friend Amy out of Abuja city, through a small town called Mpape to some local hills. It was great to actually do a bit of walking in the countryside, you could hardly tell you were just outside Abuja.

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