Caboose

Had a very early start, the taxi was booked for 4:30am. Dave was convinced that the driver wouldn’t come, in the end he was a little late because he’d got lost in the dark.

We got to the airport before check-in opened and had some breakfast. After check-in there wasn’t much to do, so we headed on to departures. Marebec was quizzed by immigration for a while, I’m not sure why there’s an immigration check for leaving the country. Marebec and Dave were a bit worried about Nigerian and Ghanaian immigration after their experience with the blatantly racist Egyptian embassy refused to give her a visa.

More distressingly, security confiscated Marebec’s bottle of Coke.

The flight, with Virgin Nigeria, was fine. The sandwich was better than the ones British Airways throw at you on European flights these days.

Kotoka International Airport in Accra is fairly small, maybe a little bit bigger than Abuja. This meant that by the time we’d changed some money at arrivals our bag was on the carousel. Ghanaian immigration were fairly rude, not quite up to USA immigration standards but they’re obviously trying. They wanted to know VSO Ghana’s phone number for some reason.

After laughing at a few obvious ripoff taxi drivers we managed to get a taxi into town for ¢50,000 (that’s Ghana cedis, not USA cents). We got the taxi to drop us on a street with plenty of forex bureaus. I changed some pounds into cedis at a rate of ¢18,200 to the pound. Marebec and Dave changed dollars, ¢9300; to the dollar.

While we were changing money I heard a radio advert informing people that in July the Ghanaians are introducing a new cedi, with 1 new cedi equal to 10,000 of the current ones. This being West Africa they had a catchy little song to convey the message. After stashing our envelopes full of money in our bags and around our bodies we wandered back out onto the street. The largest cedi note is ¢20,000, you get quite a lot of them in exchange for £300.

[Technical note: There is actually a separate symbol for the cedi, Unicode code point U+20B5, but very few fonts contain it so I’ve stuck with the cent symbol. Otherwise you see this: ₵]

Our next stop was to buy SIM cards for one of the local networks, we chose areeba, bought some credit and then went to a nearby bar to rehydrate.

We walked up to the Kokomlemle Guesthouse, where we were told that a room is ¢80,000 compared to the ¢40,000 mentioned in the Bradt guidebook. The manager said we could leave our bags while we tried other places but that Kokomlemle is the cheapest, of course we didn’t believe him. After a long, hot trek around the area we realised that most places were full and more expensive, so we took a taxi back to Kokomlemle and checked in. I had a double room to myself, sharing two toilet/showers with Marebec and Dave and two single rooms.

The Kokomlemle Guesthouse is clean and comfortable and the staff were helpful. The windows all had good mosquito netting and the fan was very powerful.

Dave decided that the guesthouse was too expensive for lunch so we wandered along the ring road a little bit. We ended up having lunch at a chophouse. Dave and I both tried banku, which is a fermented maize lump. Neither of us liked it much. It turned out that food at Kokomleme Guesthouse would have been cheaper!

In the afternoon we set out to find the VSO Ghana office. I’d got the address from the VSO office in Abuja and wasn’t too surprised to find out that it was wrong. VSO Ghana had moved during the year, some helpful people in the neighbourhood gave us directions to the new address.

At the office we met a few VSOs, including Karen and Juliet who we joined for drinks and then a long walk to find the perfect Chinese restaurant. We ended up at a new and expensive place called Noble House. The food was great and Juliet treated us to wine. The place is run by an Indian guy and has an Indian restaurant upstairs.

During the evening we’d been in touch with Leo and arranged to meet him the next day.

I’m in Abuja just now, on my way to Ghana with Marebec and Dave.

We’re picking up our visas from the Ghanaian embassy in a couple of hours then taking the bus to Lagos very early tomorrow. On Monday we fly to Accra with Virgin Nigeria.

Updates will depend on how often I have internet access in Ghana and when I can tear myself away from beaches and nice food.

Hope everyone enjoys Christmas (at least, those of you who celebrate it).

Got up well before the crack of and took an okada to Kawo motor park. I’d expected other people to be leaving early but I was the first person in the car (at six) and we didn’t leave until 6:30.

They insisted on squeezing four people into the middle row, normal on most routes but not on the Abuja-Kaduna run. I argued but the other passengers all meekly accepted that they “always” have four passengers in the middle, a blatant lie.

A couple of hours later I arrived at Jabi motor park. The road into Abuja was being dug up so I had to walk up the road a bit to get any transport. The bus touts insisted that there are no buses going to area 10 but then they tend to lie a lot too. No buses appeared, so maybe the routes have changed. Instead I entered a shared taxi.

As we reached the ring road the passenger in the back with me said he wanted to drop but the driver refused. The driver then started asking what was inside the back passengers bag (in the boot), the reply was “dollars”. A weird story followed, about an employer he’d worked for for three (later eight) years who’d sent him with the money.

After a bit more questioning from the driver and the front passenger it was revealed that the bag contained one million dollars and that the back passenger had stolen it from his employer. It seems the employer was involved in oil bunkering (illegal smuggling and theft of oil). The back passenger then begged not to be taken to the police.

At this point the driver and front passenger started negotiating over how much the back passenger should “settle” us to not take him to the police. His first offer was $10,000 but they preferred that he keep half the money and we split the rest between us.

This all seemed highly dubious. Even if the story was true I wanted nothing to do with the stolen money and I suspected it was a trick to get me in a position where they could extort money from me. I told them to drop me where we were and then had to get another taxi to Radio House.

Later in the day I took my passport and paperwork to the Ghanaian High Commission. It seemed to me that all the staff there are recruited on the basis of sullenness. I didn’t get so much as a grunt in response to my greetings.

I had a busy end to last week, with a huge crowd of VSOs descending on NTI for the northeast Nigerian patch meeting. These meetings are an opportunity for volunteers in each of the four ‘patches’ (NW, NE, SW, SE) to get together and discuss issues affecting them. In this case it was an opportunity for me to meet some of the new volunteers who arrived just as I was heading off to the UK.

We got some security information from VSO, mostly what they were planning to do in the run-up to the presidential election, and passed on our concerns on some things. It was also Jenny’s opportunity to pass on the mantle of being the patch representative. Due to some interesting rules only two of us were valid candidates and I was elected, interesting to see that Aine has also been lumbered with the job.

I’d had an especially day on Thursday, with Jenny and Irma arriving at lunchtime and a reception for Prince Charles in the afternoon. I managed to direct Jenny and Irma to the market and then it was time to put on a tie and hang around waiting at Arewa House. Prince Charles did the wandering around shaking hands and talking to people briefly, then there were the speeches. It has to be said that the Emir of Zazzau’s entourage (at least twenty of them, in very colourful outfits) were much more impressive than the Prince’s Special Branch escort.

The rest of the weekend was good fun, getting to know the new people and seeing old friends again. Even more fun was trying to get a party of twelve to fourteen volunteers around Kaduna by public transport!

I got back to Nigeria on Sunday night and it’s actually good to be back.

Arrival at Abuja was relatively trouble-free, a longish queue at immigration but nothing too bad. Some random airport employee demanded that I let him see what was in my bags, so I checked his ID, established that he wasn’t a customs officer and said no. The real customs guys greeted me, peered in the top of my rucksack (mostly full of socks) and waved me on.

It was quite pleasant wandering about Abuja on Monday, Harmattan has come earlier this year and all the dust in the air reduces the heat a bit.

I immediately felt at home, but then that tends to happen wherever I am.

Back in Kaduna it’s almost like I was never away. The weather has obviously changed, it’s now cold enough at night that I need a blanket. I picked up an electronic thermometer at Schiphol, so I’ll have to update this with the current max/min temperatures.

I spent most of yesterday wandering around NTI handing out presents (lots of nice National Trust calendars) and greeting everyone. Everyone was asking about my family and expressing horror when I told them about the cold and darkness in Scotland at this time of year.

Anyway, I’ll stick up some pictures from my trip back home once I’ve got round to downloading them from the camera.

It’s always interesting coming home from overseas, to see what you notice as being different and what ‘everyday’ things seem strange.

Things are going OK on my holiday, although I’m finding it a bit weird to be in places where almost everyone is white! I went down to London last week for a lunch at the Tallow Chandlers’, who are sponsoring my VSO placement.

London was quite overwhelming, although it was fairly quiet. It seemed so inhuman and unfriendly. Wandering the streets of a Nigerian city it’s impossible to feel isolated from other people because people are so friendly, in London you might as well be invisible. This could just be part of having to get used to not being noticeable because of the colour of my skin but I think it’s also related to cultural differences.

Back home in Stirling things are less strange, I’m enjoying spending some time relaxing and visiting friends and family in the area.

I’m still on holiday back in the UK. Lots of friends and relatives ask how life is in Nigeria and are surprised when I tell them that I enjoy living there. The difficult part is explaining why. It’s easy to list all the bad things about the country, but much harder to describe what it is that makes up for them all.

This article on the BBC website tries to explain.

The best way is to come to Nigeria and experience it for yourself.

After arriving back in Scotland and spending a couple of days with my family (including Dad’s 60th birthday) I’m now down in Cambridge visiting old friends there.

It’s slightly weird to be back in Cambridge. I’m not having any serious culture shock or anything, just a kind of mild bewilderment. One of the oddest parts was flying down to Birmingham and collecting a hire car, it’s a while since I last drove and British roads now seem incredibly orderly to me!

Everyone has been talking about what a mild October it is, while I’m feeling the cold.

On Wednesday evening I’ll be heading through to Norfolk to visit my grandparents.

After more than 18 months in Nigeria I’m going on my first holiday back home.

I’ll be flying out of Abuja later today, arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow, coming back to Nigeria in about six weeks time.

It’s kind of a strange feeling, even though I’m not going away for long I’m feeling sad to be leaving Nigeria as well as excited about seeing family and friends after such a long time.

Abuja’s a bit strange too now, since the okada ban (BBC news) there are many more people walking.

Some big buses have appeared, but they only serve the satellite towns, passing through the city on their way. There are no routes within the city itself. Taxi prices have shot up and there are rumours that the ordinary taxis will be banned soon, leaving only the expensive Abuja “green cabs”. One ride in a green taxi costs slightly more than half a day’s VSO allowance, for many people here it’s much more than they earn in a day.

Just imagine if all public transport in London was banned, leaving only black cabs that cost more than you earn in a day. That’s the situation in Abuja now. Of course the people who make these decisions never used public transport, riding around in air-conditioned cars paid for by the government, with police escorts ensuring that they’re not even bothered by inconveniences such as traffic lights.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying a lot in Nigeria is the music, even if a few songs do get played just a little bit too much.

On Wednesday we were all (that’s all the VSOs attending the workshop) having dinner in a very busy local chophouse, I noticed a poster for a concert at the NAF Club in Kaduna. It was to be the launch of a local band’s first album but what caught my eye was that Zule-Zoo were playing (they’re one of my favourite Nigerian groups).
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