Caboose

Rainy season starts a bit later here in Kaduna, the first rain was a few weeks ago but there have been long gaps between rain. It seems to be getting more frequent now.

Here’s the view from my kitchen step a couple of weeks ago, taking while it was raining. On the right is the same view today, it’s amazing how quickly everything has turned green.

I’ve not been updating this site much recently because I’m quite busy at work.

I spent last week at the VSO office in Abuja, updating the “Welcome Pack” that new volunteers get on arrival in the country.

Some of the materials inside were in serious need of an update, especially the guide to Abuja which had been written over five years ago. Abuja has changed a lot in the last five years, particularly in the last year or so with all the demolitions.

It was slightly worrying when I asked for an up-to-date list of volunteers in country and was given a list that included people who left weeks ago and others who haven’t arrived yet! The electronic copies of welcome pack documents were scattered all over the network, making it difficult to be sure I had the most recent one.

While I was doing this work I was living in the VSO guest house, a small building on the VSO compound. This was obviously originally intended as the servants’ quarters (“boys quarters” is the local phrase) for the house that is now the VSO office. There are two small bedrooms, one used for storage, a toilet and shower and a filthy kitchen.

Bob and Karen were very kind and invited me round to dinner three of the nights, so I wasn’t even tempted to use the kitchen.

On Friday a group of us headed up to Jos, to meet Fathers Noel and Leo (the Kabba Boys) at the PW camp. It was Leo’s birthday, so we celebrated with a few beers.

On Saturday we had lunch at AfriOne in town and then half the group stayed to do some shopping while the rest of us went back to PW to watch Munster beat Biarritz in the rugby.

Nicole had bought some plastic “Hello Kitty” tennis rackets, various people tried to play but Ronan and Noel managed best:

That evening we went to a restaurant owned by a German called Walter, who had been at PW on Friday night. The restaurant, Felak’s, is in the bush just outside Jos and the food was fantastic. We had leek and potato soup, chicken with lovely deep-fried aubergine and cake with cream for dessert. There was also plenty of fresh bread and cottage cheese to go with it all.

The next morning Noel and Nicole went hiking, while the rest of us lazed around or attended Leo’s Mass.

After a lunch of pizza and pasta people started heading back home, Bob gave me a lift to the motor park and I then had what seemed like a very long journey down the incredibly potholed road back to Kaduna.

Today I’ve been wandering around the NTI campus with my colleague Isaac, trying to solve some problems with our wireless network. This has involved using a laptop to take measurements of signal strength, as you can see in the picture:

On Friday night we met up at the usual place, PDP. This was apparently once the local secretariat for the dominant Nigerian political party but is now a bar. It’s one of the few bars in the (largely Muslim) north of Kaduna city. It was a bit of a special occasion because Janita was leaving us, travelling back to Abuja and then home to the UK.

Here’s a picture, Janita is in the middle of the group next to Victoria (headmistress of the school for deaf children):

Here are some pictures of my house in Kaduna. I moved in on the 7th but since then I’ve been busy with a combination of work and another dose of malaria. The house was originally just another one of the suites at the NTI Conference Centre but they’ve built a kitchen and refurnished it.

This is a panorama of my living room. The front door is to the right of the fridge, the door to the kitchen is to the left of the TV, then the bathroom door and the door to my bedroom. The tiles are new, I requested that the carpets be removed as they’re impossible to keep clean in this climate.

This is my kitchen, all new and with a nice gas and electric cooker.

Last of all is my bedroom:

The house is very nice and the few teething troubles are gradually getting sorted out. The most irritating thing is the poor water supply, the conference centre’s plumbing is very bad so I only get water for a couple of hours each day.

Sunday 19th March

I arrived into Abuja at around 8pm but the heat was still almost overpowering as I stepped out of the horribly air-conditioned plane.  The immigration desk officials were efficient and very friendly (thank god the Americans haven’t been training them!) and I was soon collecting my luggage and meeting Kevin.

As it was dark I could not see much as we drove into Abuja and to Radio House where we would be staying with Marebec for the night.  I met Marebec and Russell before gratefully heading to bed although 5am alarm call had been set!

Monday 20th March

Up very early and off the Jabi motor park (which is actually called some other name which no one actually calls it) to get a car to Kaduna where Kevin now lives.  My mum and dad had prepared me for the state of the cars and I think being half asleep made me distinctly relaxed about the safety of these vehicles.  We got a car quickly and were soon heading off.

We headed to NTI when we reached Kaduna and greeted the many security guards before dropping off the rucksacks in Kevin’s room before a greeting tour of all the staff in NTI, many who appeared to be asleep.  We then went into Kaduna for a look around the market and the city itself.  It was overwhemingly busy with people and traffic everywhere in no apparent order, not at all like British cities.

That evening we met some of the other VSO’s in the Air Force Club for a few beers and then for some dinner in the form of suya, which was unbelievably spicy, so much so it brought tears to my eyes!  It was then a white knuckle ride on the motorbikes to get a car back to NTI.
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I haven’t updated this site for a little while because I was away. I had a VSO conference in Abuja for a few days and then my little sister came to visit for a couple of weeks.

She’s going to be writing about her visit to Nigeria here and I’ll also be putting up some pictures of my new house, which I moved in to on Friday.

Jan joined me on Saturday morning for a walk in the bush behind the NTI campus. It’s quite nice up there, very peaceful given how close to Kaduna and the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway you are.

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After months of people complaining that these days you don’t get Harmattan’s like you used to, the Harmattan has come.

Yesterday evening the wind picked up and the air became full of dust. This morning it’s just the same, as you can see in the picture. There’s a definite chill to the wind as well.

I decided shortly after moving here that a bike would be a good way of getting around the local area and going for trips into the bush. Last week I wandered into town to find the one shop that sold bikes with gears. Unfortunately it had vanished and people at several other shops insisted that bikes with gears don’t exist in Nigeria, I had obviously imagined the other shop.

After a while I found a little bicycle shop tucked away beside a motorbike shop, with a little old Hausa man who spoke very little English but managed to show me what thay had, including the magnificent Hamilton Storm 18-speed mountain bike. He refused to negotiate on price, but NGN 13000 was a good price anyway, so I bought it.
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