Caboose

I just spent a couple of days working in Bauchi. My colleague Niyi and I had to install some software and set up some computers at the North-East zonal office, as part of the plan to decentralise some of NTI’s enormous data entry activities.

We took a bush taxi from Kaduna on Monday morning, making the mistake of choosing the back row. Along the (atrocious) road to Jos my head kept banging off the roof. Getting to Jos took quite a while because of the many police and army checkpoints, each one requiring the usual twenty Naira dash before allowing us to pass. After Jos the road is much better, so the rest of the journey wasn’t too exciting (I’ve become quite casual about ridiculous near-death overtaking manouevres).
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It has been a long time since my last weekend in Kabba, so I was glad when the Kabba Boys got in touch to invite me again. A large group of VSOs, Irish embassy staff and various others descended on Kabba for conversation, beer, crazy golf and even hungover hiking.

The Kabba Boys are moving to Bauchi later this year and their final Kabba party will be after I leave Nigeria, so this was probably my last weekend there. The next few months are going to be full of “last”s, building up the combination of sadness and excitement that comes with finishing something.
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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 I originally made it yellow but changed to magenta so it would be easier to see in print.

Hiromi will be leaving soon so she organised a leaving celebration at her house in Kagoro, in the south-east of Kaduna state. I didn’t have my camera with me, but Aine, Julia and Thessa should have some pictures.

Twelve of us appeared from various parts of northern Nigeria on Friday afternoon, meeting up at a hotel in nearby Kafanchan for dinner and drinks. Lots of people I hadn’t seen for a while were there, so it was a chance to catch up.

Hiromi had even arranged for a minibus to collect us from the hotel and take us back to her house. A few of us then made our way to a nearby bar for one last beer. We then managed to find somewhere for everyone to sleep, using the available beds, spare mattresses, karrimats and sofas.

Hiromi’s new housemate Nathan had only arrived in Nigeria the evening before and already his house was full of VSOs and one of them (me) sleeping on a mattress on his bedroom floor.

The next morning we were up fairly early, with most of us heading off into the nearby hills to visit a little village there. It seemed fairly cool when we started but we were all soon soaked in sweat. The start of the walk is along a viaduct built in the 70’s by the Kaduna water board, it carries the pipes from a spring/pond to the waterworks. After that it’s a fairly rocky path, levelling out and getting less rocky towards the village.

As usual, we were being passed regularly by local women and children carrying enormous loads up and down the hill.

Once we got up to the plateau at the top and passed through a natural arch of enormous boulders we were in the village of Dutse. The name means “mountain” or “rock” in Hausa and is a very common place name in northern Nigeria. It’s also very difficult to pronounce correctly, the “ts” is actually a sound that doesn’t exist in English, a sort of explosive, glottal-stop “s”, there’s a guide to Hausa pronouciation at UCLA’s excellent Hausa site.

We spent quite a while sitting in the sunshine in the village. There’s not a lot there but the views down on to the plains below were beautiful and the local children seemed to find us amusing. We could have bought fresh honey but nobody had brough anything to carry it in.

Going back down was much easier. Thessa, Nathan and I went via the market to pick up some akara for lunchtime snacks. Hiromi had managed to arrange (from up in the hills) for some water to be delivered so we could wash off all the sweat.

Hiromi also cooked for us, rice with Japanese and Korean curry sauces, a nice change from our usual food here.

In the evening a few people went out on reconnaisance missions to locate somewhere with cold beer (there had been no power for most of the day), eventually most of us made our way to a nice little local bar for a few bottles of Gulder (or Star). Beer always tastes better after an exhausting day.

Yesterday’s trip back to Kaduna was a little trying. We had to hang around in the motor park at Kafanchan for ages while the car filled. The driver wasn’t very good and seemed to have a disagreement with the staff at the filling station. Then we broke down not far out of Kafanchan.

We were glad when he managed to fix it, some problem related to the carburettor had been making the whole car stink of petrol. We then refuelled again along the way, with bitter complaints from the driver about the price of fuel.

It seems he was so unhappy about the price that he didn’t bother to buy enough, so we ran out at Maraba, just outside Kaduna. By a stroke of luck we were close to a filling station and they had fuel. More complaints from the driver.

By the time we finally reacher Kaduna I was hot and tired, so when the driver started taking both hands off the wheel to gesture while talking to some passengers I was maybe a little too forceful in requesting that he stop driving like an idiot.

On Saturday I finally got round to starting another one of my little projects: making a Kaduna bus map. Around 11am I set off from NTI to take each of the bus routes around the city and log the stops on my GPS.

I think quite a few of the drivers and conductors were fairly bemused by this baturi sitting in the front of the bus, scribbling notes in a little black book and occasionally pressing buttons on an odd blue device wedged under the windscreen.

Before I boarded the first bus I was hanging around at Kawo and saw a train approaching, with a single goods van behind the locomotive.

In the end I visited various parts of Kaduna I’d never been to before and gathered enough data to make the map. Now I just need to spend some time drawing it.

The last trip of the day was out to the end of Mando. I strolled back through the edge of town and had some suya for dinner. As I was walking along the road I saw this sign:

Just what everyone looks for in a bank: orangeness!

I just got back on Sunday from a two-week holiday back home. This was partly to get away from the elections in Nigeria, partly to attend my nephew Joseph’s first birthday party and also just as a holiday.

The KLM flight from Abuja to Amsterdam (via Kano) was comfortable enough. They have video on demand in economy on their new A330s, so I could occupy my night by watching films and TV shows. I’d used the online check-in to choose an exit row seat, so I had plenty of legroom.

Mum and Dad were waiting for me at Edinburgh, along with my niece Eve. She was a little bit shy at first, but remembered me from October and was soon chatting away.

I spent the first week in Stirling, at Mum and Dad’s. The pictures of Eve and Joseph are from the day Mum and I took them to a wildlife park. Eve is wearing a hedgehog mask on top of her head and Joseph is very good at serious looks.

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I got a text from Aine last week with details of what to do on arrival in Minna. I texted back and asked if she’d meant to send it to someone else. It seems that she had asked me at the St Patrick’s celebrations the week before if I wanted to come through and I’d said yes, maybe too many Guinnesses had been consumed.

After the usual bouncy and dusty trip from Kaduna I arrived and met Aine, Thessa, Jenny and Pete at Mr Biggs for breakfast. Then we headed out to Gurara Falls to cool down in the waterfall. Julia was a bit delayed coming across from Jos, so met us at the falls.

We had a lovely time, although the rocks and sand were a bit too hot to spend any time lingering at the side of the water. As there hasn’t been any rain for quite a while now there wasn’t much water, so you couldn’t really swim but it was marvellous just floating and cooling off.

After a while a group of small boys appeared (they always do) and alternated between doing their own thing and watching us. Doing their own thing seemed to mostly be paddling and catching very small fish. The watching was especially intense when we were leaving and the girls were getting changed, there’s no link between staring and rudeness in Nigerian culture.

In the evening we had a few beers and some suya at the barracks, about the only place in Minna to get alcohol. The heat was terrible, even after the sun had gone down.

I was sitting in the front seat of the minibus, so I had an excellent view as the motorbike veered across the road in front of us and we hit it. I saw the bike’s driver and passenger clearly in the headlights during their brief flights and felt the motorbike scraping under the front of the bus.

My immediate reaction was to jump out of the bus and check that the driver and passenger were OK but then remembered the VSO training and stories from expats: if you’re involved in any kind of road accident get out of there as soon as possible.
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Marion and I popped up to Zaria on Sunday to see some of the VSOs who are at the Theatre for Development workshop up there. A few of us then went into town for lunch and a stroll around the old city.

The traditional houses in Zaria often seem to be brightly painted, the Emir’s palace (on the left) was the first of these we saw. Strolling through the old city we came across several more in a similar style and also some traditional buildings with more modern uses.

There would have been more pictures but my camera has developed an intermittent fault. Sometimes it seems to be getting no signal from the image sensor, giving all-black pictures. I’m hoping it lasts for my remaining time in Nigeria.

Thessa organised a trip to Yankari, partly to celebrate her birthday and partly as a send-off for Pete and Mary.

Most of us met up in Bauchi motor park and then chartered a minibus to take us to Wikki camp, where the accommodation is. The journey wasn’t too bad, the park is currently being renovated and this includes surfacing the road from the entrance to Wikki. The accommodation and facilities are a bit run-down but we were lucky and managed to see quite a few animals.

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