Caboose

I recently spent a couple of Saturdays riding around Kaduna with my GPS and a little notebook, puzzling and confusing many bus drivers and passengers. The results are now ready: The Kaduna Bus Map!
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If you want to print a copy you’re better off using the PDF version, it prints out nicely on a single A4 page. I had terrible problems finding a business centre that had a colour printer, ink and electricity all at the same time.

Update 13/6/07: Corrected a typo in the map legend, it’s “Tudun Wada” not “Tudun Wasa”. My original version would mean something like “hill of dancing/sports”.

Update 18/6/07:Corrected a colour mismatch between the “Tudun Wada” route on the map and in the legend. I originally made it yellow but changed to magenta so it would be easier to see in print.

I just travelled down to Abuja for tomorrow’s VSO Leavers’ Forum. They’ve still not quite explained what it’s for and what we’re going to be doing (helpful as apparently I’m facilitating) but it’s a good excuse to meet up with lots of people.

The journey down was uneventful and I was having trouble staying awake, as usual. It is always amazing to see the change in scenery caused by the little rain we’ve had so far. Bright green grass is starting to cover the deep red soil and the dust has washed off everything, making it all look fresh and new.

The bush taxi journeys have been more enjoyable since I got back from my holiday in April. At Schiphol I bought myself a set of noise cancelling earphones (Sony MDR-NC22, review), the idea being that I can listen to my iPod without having it turned up to ear-destroying volume. I was surprised to find that they actually work really well in cars, given that they’re really designed for use in aircraft. The tight-fitting earphones block out a lot of noise by themselves and the active noise cancellation circuitry is very effective at reducing the wind and road noise.

Abuja is changing rapidly, I think I notice the differences more since I moved to Kaduna. New road junctions, construction sites for new buildings and a rash of new street signs and signs indicating the way to major landmarks. Somewhere in the city there’s even a building site that’s the beginning of Abuja’s rail mass transit scheme.

While I was writing yesterday’s post I had to sit out on my doorstep to get a decent wireless signal. As I was typing away one of the conference centre staff strolled past to the grassy area opposite my house, stripped off and started having a shower. Seems odd given the huge number of empty rooms in the place, maybe management won’t let staff use them or maybe he just prefers showering outdoors.

Marion came round on Thursday night. I’d been out to the market earlier and had managed to buy some sheep-meat, so we had a mutton stew with potatoes and rosemary.

After that I thought we’d watch a film. I’d just put it on when NEPA took light. It had just started raining at the time, so this wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising was when water started pouring down all along the front wall of my living room. I fetched the mop and bucket and we tried to keep it back but there was a lot of water coming in.

I went to reception at the conference centre and managed to get one of the maintenance guys, who came straight back with me without any arguments or “I am coming”s. He looked at it and agreed with me that the gutter was probably blocked, so he went back to the main building to fetch a ladder. In the meantime Marion was still mopping furiously and moving everything away from the deluge.

When the maintenance guy got back he climbed up onto the roof and started poking at the gutter, there was a sudden rush of mud and leaves followed by a huge amount of water pouring down through the pipe. It must have kept pouring down for a couple of minutes. The water immediately stopped running down inside my house.

I gave him some money, to thank him for coming out so quickly and being willing to climb up a very rickety home-made ladder in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Afterwards Marion and I managed to get rid of most of the water through a combination of mopping and sweeping it out the front door with a brush. A towel across the doorway had kept all but a trickle from going through into the bedroom.

The problem was a combination of a lack of maintenance and poor design. I’d love to know who thought it’s a good idea to have a mostly sloping roof but with a large flat enclosed area at the front. There’s a big pipe to let water out but if that blocks the water builds up and eventually overflows inside the house. The “gutter” can probably contain a few hundred litres of water before overflowing.

All the other “chalets” at the conference centre had their gutters cleaned at the start of rainy season, but there’s always a bit of confusion over who’s responsble for maintenance of mine. It might be NTI’s estates department, who are unlikely to ever disturb themselves by doing any work, or it might be the conference centre’s maintenance staff. As a result the work wasn’t done.

If you think I’m being a bit harsh on the estates department, these are the same people responsible for the cooker that still gives me electric shocks after their utterly incompetent alleged electrician fixed it (after I’d waited weeks) and the disastrously bad plumbing in my kitchen (one tap has never worked and the other has water pouring out all around as well as out of the spout).