Caboose

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 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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I’m organising a workshop on library services with NTI and VSO. It’s challenging to get the NTI side of things organised when everything has to be approved, passed up through directors to the chief executive and then back down. Most of the directors spend most of their time in Abuja, in meetings with the Ministry of Education.

Just to make things even more fun because of Ramadan working hours are 8am to 3pm, or 1.30pm on Fridays. And Monday is a public holiday (for Independence Day, which is actually the first), although this wasn’t announced until a couple of days ago.

I just got back from a trip to visit Aine in Minna. Tammie is now on her farewell tour, so I thought I’d catch up with her there in case I don’t manage to see her elsewhere.

Minna is in Niger state (that’s Niger state, Nigeria, not the Niger Republic, they’re pronounced differently), one of the shari’a states and coincidentally also fairly backward. In fact Minna is also home to former dictator Ibrahim Badamasi “I organised the fairest election Nigeria’s ever had but didn’t like the result, so I cancelled it” Babangida, who is probably going to stand for president next year. He can certainly afford to buy his way into the presidency with all the money he stole while in power.

On the way back today I went to the motor park in Minna and joined a bush taxi there. One seat remained to be filled. The first sign of trouble was when the car had to be moved to the other side of the motor park so that the last passenger could order people to load his luggage for him.
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Apart from yoghurt there’s not a lot of dairy produce around in Nigeria. Milk comes as powder or condensed/evaporated in a tin, butter is only found in expensive supermarkets and cheese is something that comes in little triangular foil packages.

Blue Band margarine is very popular, but I don’t entirely trust a food product that doesn’t go off when kept in a warm cupboard for a year. My suspicion is that Blue Band is actually a form of spreadable plastic.

This post was triggered by me treating myself to a bottle of milk today. Two hundred and eighty Naira for one litre, so a bottle of milk costs more than a bottle of beer! I also passed by Baker’s Delight supermarket to get some imported Kerrygold butter. Nigerians really don’t understand the European fondness for dairy products (neither do Filipinos).

At first this seemed a bit odd to me, after all the country is full of cows. However the Fulani’s cows don’t produce much milk, certainly not up to the standard of European cows raised on special hormones and produced by centuries of selective breeding.

There is a cooperative dairy just up the road from NTI. On the right day they might even have something to sell. Last time I went there I bought butter, but they only sell kilogram tubs (400 Naira, much cheaper than the Kerrygold). After weeks of cooking with butter instead of oil, having bread, butter and jam for breakfast and even making shortbread I still had some left to throw away today.

I’m looking forward to cheese when I’m back home on holiday next month…

I was just struck by the thought that I haven’t heard a fire alarm in a long time.

Some Nigerian buildings have fire alarms (NTI does) but I’ve seldom seen one that showed any signs of actually working.

In fact about the only time you hear sirens or hooters here is when some big man is passing by on the road and his police escort want you to get out of the way. It’s quite noticeable that the Nigerian police don’t waste their sirens on trivial things like getting to the scenes of crimes quickly.

If you’re interested in visiting the Sukur kingdom you’ll find some background information at sukur.info, written by some anthropologists who worked there.

I put together a map of the area, based on the Federal Survey’s 1969 Madagali NW and SW sheets. It took quite a bit of effort to scan the map in, calibrate it, convert from the weird Nigeria East Belt Grid (measured in feet, of course) to UTM grid (GPS-compatible) and turn it into a nice PDF. It will print out on two sheets of A4 which you can stick together.

A few things to note:

• You should get written permission from a National Commission for Museums and Monuments office before visiting Sukur. There’s one in Maiduguri and others in Abuja and most state capitals.
• It helps if you speak at least some Hausa, many of the Sukur people speak no English.
• Getting to Sukur isn’t as difficult as the guidebooks make out, if you leave Maiduguri early you’ll be at the palace by midafternoon.
• It might be a good idea to spend the night in one of the villages at the bottom and then walk up to Sukur in the morning, when it’s cooler.
• Take something to use as padding, the bamboo beds are very hard.

To get to Sukur:

• Maiduguri seems to be the most convenient place to start.
• Take a bush taxi from Maiduguri to Bama, from the Bama motor park. Alternatively you may be able to get a bus all the way to Madagali (probably heading to Mubi).
• From Bama you should be able to pick up a bus to Madagali.
• You can either drop at Madagali or at the turn-off for Mildo (there’s a sign advertising Sukur World Heritage site). We hired a minibus from Madagali to Mildo for 1000 Naira, on the way back we took okadas for 200 Naira each.
• Go to the museums office by the district chief’s house to sign in. If the office is closed ask someone to show you to the museum’s guide’s house.
• You’ll be guided up the mountain by one of the NCMM guides. It’s not an especially strenuous hike but steep in parts and very hot if the sun’s out.

The week before last I went on a little holiday with Dave, up to Maiduguri in the north east of Nigeria and on to the Mandara mountains on the border with Cameroon.

I’ve added all the posts about Sukur to a new category: travel/sukur.

When I get time I’ll summarise all the details of how to get there.