Hazel drinks capuccino twice in one week

Good afternoon readers!

Our week of travelling is almost an end and it will soon be time to get back to the grindstone. But it's been fun while it's lasted.

After one night in Abuja on Saturday, we made the four-hour journey to Jos, a city located on a plateau giving it a much cooler climate than the rest of Nigeria. Hazel even had to wear a fleece at one point but, then again, Hazel would wear a fleece in a furnace! Our guide for the week was a man called Tom Gata, a geologist working for an NGO called TASTE. This organisation uses specialist equipment to drill boreholes, giving communities access to clean water. They also train local people to maintain these boreholes.

Our visit to Jos took in the zoo and the wildlife park. In both of these establishments, knowledge about or concern for animal welfare was sadly lacking. We also had the opportunity to visit a hydroelectric power station. This was established in 1929 and the machinery hasn't changed since then. NESCO, as the company is called, provides electricity at half the price of Nigeria's mainstream power company, NEPA, experiences far fewer power cuts and is much less damaging in terms of climate change. Critics would argue that the station and accompanying power lines are a blot on an otherwise beautiful highland landscape but I would say that's a price worth paying.

On Wednesday, Tom took us to Kano, the main city in the north of Nigeria. This heaving metropolis is noticeably hotter and dryer than the south of Nigeria where we are based, a situation made worse by the traffic fumes. The main difference between the north and south is that life is dictated by Islam rather than Christianity. We arrived in Kano at the start of Ramadan so we had to wiat until after sunset for our supper. Fortunately, we were able to get breakfast despite being up much after dawn. Thursday was spent exploring the old city originally surrounded by a mud wall, some of which is still intact. The most fascinating part of the old city was Nigeria's oldest market, a labyrinth of narrow alleyways in which traders were selling traditional crafts (souvenir-type shops are actually very rare in Nigeria). Hazel bought some beads while I rummaged through some old West African coins.

We're now back in Abuja with our British friends, Polly and Julian, and their son, Fin. We are just about to go to our second supermarket of the day where we hope to stock up on essential supplies for the coming months. We return to Abia state tomorrow.

training with a difference

I went to the federal psychiatric hospital with my two OT students to deliver some training on activity analysis to the OT technicians there. There is a real life OT Nigerian there, and i am enjoying supporting him.
It was great that Philip and Emma were able to organise the training, as it meant i did not have to and could just sit down and watch.

As our driver is not regular with project comfort, he turns up when he feels like it! We decided to go the night before to Enugu and stay there as the hospital had offfered accomodation.

We travelled by public transport, there were huge cues and few buses, it was an experience for Philip and Emma but i am used to it, so we got there late around 6:30pm.

To find they had placed 4 leather chairs out for us to sit in, and had booked us into the most expensive hotel in enugu, each with our own room, and told us to order food. I had wondered what trouble they would go to.
People view "whites" as power. But i view it as a waster of money. so much money gets spent on public relations for those who already have.

We delivered the training, and i was impressed with what the OT technicians asked and there knowledge, Mr OTi the OT had done a good job training them. Although they struggled with grading. I feel that the training was well recived and will be well used.
They gave us a lunch from a fast food restaurant, fried rice. I am not sure if there was more rice or fat!!

Then we participated in there therapetic dancing, good fun, and this time i had no men who were sexually inhibitted (unlike last time!!!!)

It was time to go home, and theywould not let us get public transport but insisted on us going by their vehicle for the 3 hour jounrney.

Imagine spending NHS money like that.

It feels strange to have so much power, and how they treated me differently from my OT students.

We are now in Abuja and our host has made us cake and coffee!!! we are enjoying.

More reflections from the rainforest

It's early September, it's still raining and I've left my umbrella at home. I hope that by mid-October at the latest all this wet weather will be behind us and we can start complaining about the heat again.

The words "customer" and "service" are two words that Nigerians don't seem to understand when put together. I have been trying to open a sterling bank account through which we can have money transferred directly from our partners in London, and it's driving me insane. We still haven't been able to make the first transfer so it looks like I'm going to have to go to the bank again, a place where such things as orderly queues, smiles, courtesy and getting the right information are in short supply. At least the place is air-conditioned.

Anyway, I'll stop whingeing for now. I'll leave my complaints about the food, the roads, our leaking roof and police corruption for another day. We are due to go on a much-needed holiday from this Saturday. Back to the incredibly dull but refeshingly clean and ordered Abuja (the capital city where you can get such luxuries as fresh cheese and cream cakes) on Saturday before travelling on to Jos on Sunday. Due to its relatively high altitude, Jos is probably the coolest city in Nigeria and therefore very popular with the "whites". From there, we hope to explore the north of the country, Hausa territory where Muslims outnumber Christians.

Thanks for all your lovely comments. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers. It may seem that we're having a really tough time out here but it's not so bad really. Besides, it is good to experience what living in poverty actually feels like - it makes one much more determined to make poverty history. Jesus swapped heaven for thirty years in first century Palestine which seems like much more of a raw deal. Nobody's threatening to crucify us (yet) so we have to count our blessings!