My Last Blog Post

The Ebola crisis in West Africa hit Nigeria a couple weeks ago with the death of a Liberian man. This was around the same time I left to visit South Africa. Unfortunately in the time since I left Nigeria several cases of Ebola have appeared and late last week 21 people were being held in quarantine in Enugu, which is the city I live in.  On Saturday the organization that sent me to Nigeria requested that I come home and if possible directly from South Africa. So after five months in Africa I will be returning home. I’m sad to go, but happy to see my friends and family again. I would be lying if I said it has been an easy five months, but I still was not quite ready to leave. I will miss the young students in the elementary school, the girls in the boarding house, the teachers that have shown me great kindness, and the sisters that have welcomed me into their home. I wish I could have said goodbye, but the risk is just too great. Before I go I have included a blog post below that I wrote and never posted.

The school year has come to a close and with that comes graduation. The nursery 3 students, primary 6 students, and high school seniors celebrate graduation. The first to graduate were the nursery 3 students and primary 6 in the same graduation ceremony. My body has the worst timing and decided to come down with Malaria and Typhoid on the day of graduation. Fortunately a doctor happened to be the head of ceremony and scribbled down a prescription for me on some scratch paper (a bit different than the United States). Graduation was a full day event. Every grade level did a presentation and the entire school compound was filled with parents and friends of the school. I wish I had been able to take more pictures, but I had to rest for a lot of the ceremony.

The little graduates in their caps and gowns.

The compound was filled with tents and every chair was taken. 

They wanted their photo taken, but I couldn't get them to stop getting so close to the camera. The little girl in the center frequently finds me at school and tries to mimic my American accent.

There were photo booths like this one set up all over the compound. The little girl is Ijeoma. She is one of the dancers in the Cha Cha Slide that I taught some of the Nursery 3 students for graduation. Unfortunately, the teacher that I asked to record the Cha Cha Slide for me didn't really understand my instruction as to how the camera works, so I have a couple short video clips. The kids did a great job! All of their hard work and all my yelling paid off. 

While we were dancing, parents were throwing money at the children. This is a common custom in Nigeria anytime someone is performing a dance or a song. I have seen it done in church, school, and at a funeral. The money is a donation to the school.

I didn't get to see any of these students perform at graduation, but I did get a few photos of the rehearsal. 

This set of photos are from the secondary school graduation. I didn't stay for too much of this graduation, as I was still sleeping off the malaria. From what I could see it was quite the event. There was dancing, a fashion show, guest speaker, a cake cutting, and I'm sure many other things I missed. All of the teacher and staff were given fabric to make into an outfit for graduation, so Kaitlin and I are seen above in our new Nigerian clothing. 

I look forward to seeing you all soon. I'll be home in just a few short days. Thanks you for your letters, prayers, and support throughout this journey! 

Good News and Bad News

 I'll start with the bad news. This past Thursday was the graduation for the Nursery students (kindergarten) and the primary 6 students. It's a very big day for the school and the day my nursery 3 students were set to perform the dance I have been teaching them since May. I woke up not feeling very well, but since my nutrition is not what it should be I assumed that was the problem. So I ate a good breakfast and went off to school. After a couple hours I began to feel very cold, which NEVER happens here. I had a fever and all the aches and chills that come along with it. At home I would probably have just taken some medicine and seen a doctor tomorrow when graduation festivities would be over, but in Nigeria that can be very dangerous for an American. The assumption is made with all fever illnesses that you have Malaria. Fortunately the father of one of our families at the school is a doctor. He happened to be there and was able to scribble me a prescription on some scratch paper to be filled immediatley. I began the medicine immediatley and after one bad night of a high fever, headaches, chills, and generally achiness I began to fill a little better. The next day I made my first trip to a Nigerian hospital to be tested for Malaria and Typhoid. Since we know the doctor I was able to get straight back without having to wait at all. I felt very fortunate, because so many people were there. The tests came back today and I have Malaria with a trace of Typhoid. Fortunately I'm better now, but it was pretty miserable. 

On to the good news! We have a seven week break from school that started Friday. It's a long time to be here with absolutely nothing to do, especially since Kaitlin and I are very isolated and don't get out much. So with the help of my trip planning mother, my brother and I will be spending the first three weeks of my break in Cape Town, South Africa. I leave tomorrow! It will be so nice to spend some time with my brother, eat some delicious food, and not be so isolated. 

Book Club

In the compound where I live, there is a boarding school for girls from approximately 7th to 12th grade. They lead extremely structured lives and spend a great deal of time praying and studying. Kaitlin and I wanted to do something educational, but also fun with them. So a few months ago we came up with the idea for a book club. With the help of my mom and a donation from my church, we were able to get four different sets of books. We choose books that are also movies, so after reading the books the girls could see the movie and compare the two. It took a while to get all the books here so we were only able to do the book club with one group of students this term. We decided to start with the SS1 and SS2 students, which is approximately 10th and 11th grade.  Tuck Everlasting was the book of choice for this group.  It was a huge success! They all hated the ending, but loved the discussion. We also discovered that they love reading! They started asking for more books like this one. I gave them the few we had brought from the U.S. and went to the school library for some more. They finished these books within the day. It is pretty impressive. Last night we finished Tuck Everlasting and started the movie. They loved it! I'm so glad we did this and I look forward to reading the remaining books with the girls next term. 

A Few Photos

Working on our Math 

Daycare kids love my camera phone

Too cute to get in trouble for climbing on the table?

I was asked to teach the kindergarten students an American dance for graduation. I'm not much of a dancer, so we will be performing the Cha Cha Slide where we can do exactly what the music tells us to do. I will post a video after a few more practices.

I know I'm not suppose to pick favorites...

More math practice

Dinner?

I don’t consider myself to be a picky eater at home. There are very few things I will not eat. Well, in Nigeria I am a very picky eater. I actually feel really bad about it. I wish I loved everything, but I just don’t. I’ve tried a lot of new things and some I have really come to like and others I never will. Dried fish is commonly eaten here. It is often put in soups and other dishes and I just can’t handle the fishy taste or all the bones. People also eat a lot of carbohydrates like rice and something they call swallow, and I am more of a vegetable eater. I am adjusting to the change, but will be happy to have a nice big salad when I get home.

It is now rainy season, which I love. Most of the nights are cool and windy. I can actually sleep with a sheet covering me! The days can still be pretty hot, but not unbearable. With the rain comes new insects. The last few night I have noticed these large flying creatures that gravitate to light. They have huge wings and are very loud. The first night they got through the holes in the screens on my windows and were loudly flying around my room. I quickly learned that it was better to just be in the dark, so I turned my lights out and the creatures stay away.  In the morning there are wings of these insects everywhere. They loose their wings very easily and continue to crawl around.  Yesterday, I saw a large bowl of these insects on the kitchen counter.  I asked the sister cooking this week if we were going to eat the bugs. She did not respond.  That night for dinner we ate the bugs. They are known as termites, nothing like the termites we have in the United States. They fry them and then eat them like a snack. In an effort to not seem so picky, I tried one. If you can get past the mentality of eating a bug, they are actually not too bad. They are very crunchy and kind of have a chicken like flavor.  I later found out that it was rude of me to call them bugs. The only insect referred to as a bug is a bed bug, and those would never be in the kitchen.  These creatures are only referred to as termites. Below I have included a picture of the fried termites. Don’t you wish you could try one???  

Immigration

The last two week have involved a series of frustrating conversation, confusion, and a lot of over thinking things! I arrived in Nigeria on a three month entry visa with paperwork to extend my stay for up to year. We were told before leaving that everything we needed was in this packet and we would just need to bring it to immigration when we arrived. Upon arrival we wanted to take the paperwork within the first few days, but the sisters assured us that it could wait until closer to the three month mark.  I totally understand this now, because it cost around 400 dollars to extend the stay and they wouldn't want to pay it and then have us decide to leave two weeks in. As it got closer and closer to the three month mark, we continued to ask to return to Abuja to get them renewed. Finally, a week and a half ago we arrived in Abuja confident that we could get the visas renewed and be back to school by Friday. One of the sisters, appointed to be in charge of this process, took Kaitlin and I too immigration. Upon arrival we searched out the correct office in a building filled with government employees, many of whom seem to be doing a lot of nothing. Once in the right office the sister called the lady they have worked with before. She was traveling and would not be back until later in the week.  My immediate thought was why can't someone else help us, but sister got very quiet and said we should leave now. Once outside the building she explained that we have to be careful when it comes to things like this, you can't just let anyone help you. She went on to explain that if you just ask anyone they will take advantage of you, possibly seize your passport or visa paperwork and charge you to get it back. Scary! So we waited until the following Monday. When the lady opened our sealed packages, she discovered we were missing several necessary papers. With our visa expiring on the 18th, we began the rush to get all of our papers. We had to go to the bank and get an application, write letters, and get letters from the diocese. It was an extremely stressful, expensive, and confusing process. We spent so much time worrying about whether this would be completed before our visa expired. Would we have to leave? Would we be deported? Ridiculous, I know. We were also told by several people that we would be expected to leave our passports with immigration for up to eight weeks. Well, we got all the paperwork, handed over our passports, and were told we could have them back by the weeks end. So the bad news is we have to stay in Abuja for another week and miss school, but the good news is we will not be deported or without a passport.

I imagine dealing with visas and immigration is a confusing and frustrating process in most countries, including the United States. I have very little experience with the subject, but I find it a bit sad that people have to spend so much money and jump through so many hurdles to spend an extended amount of time in another country. Why can't we make this easier??? I'm sure there are reasons, but I just don't understand.

Video from the Nigerian Road Trip

Below I have attached a video from my road trip mentioned in my last blog post. Warning! If you get motion sickness easily you shouldn't watch this video.

Nigerian Road Trips

I am currently in Abjua to renew my visa.  I came here on an entry visa, which expires after 3 months.  To get to Abuja we took a public 15-passenger van. You don’t book a place on the van before you arrive. On the day of the journey you just show up sometime early in the morning and buy a seat on a van going to your destination.  The van will not leave until all the seats are full. This can take 30 minutes or 3 hours. In my first journey from Abuja to Enugu, when I first arrived, it took almost 3 hours before the van left. For this journey we waited about an hour. The van was packed full. There was not an empty seat and all additional space was filled with people’s belongings.  There was of course no air conditioning, so I chose a window seat. I have always been able to ride all the spinning rides at the amusement park and never have a stomachache. Motion sickness was a foreign concept to me.  Well I now know how others feel when they talk about nausea after a bumpy car ride or the Scrambler at the local amusement park. Fortunately I never became sick, but I sure didn’t feel well.  I have people ask me what side of the road Nigerians drive on and the British sister in Nigeria told me she always responds to that question by saying  “the good side”.  There is no better answer to that question. Technically they drive on the same side of the road we do in the United States, but between the giant potholes, construction, stalled vehicles, and ponds that form during the rainy season people will leave one side of the road and start driving on the other. This of course causes major traffic jams. It is absolute chaos! On the way to Abuja we got stuck in one of these awful traffic jams. The worst part about these jams is that when the van is not moving it becomes extremely hot. Since I was sitting by the window not only was it hot, but I was also beginning to get sunburnt. I felt like I was actually baking in the sun. The cars drive within inches of each other, so as we were sitting in this traffic people in the car next to me were actually apologizing to me because I was clearly melting and they felt bad for me.  So next time you are sitting in your car stuck on some well-paved interstate with your air conditioning and cold soda think of me and maybe it won’t seem so bad. If that doesn’t help think of the Muslim women making their living by selling snacks to people in the vehicles from the side of the road with only their faces visible. I can only imagine how hot they must feel. 

The van finally arrived in Abuja, but our journey was not yet over. We now had to get in a car and get to the convent. We found a driver within minutes and for 200 Naira (less than 2 dollars) a person he would take us home. So Kaitlin and I climbed in the backseat thinking we would now be able to spread out a little after the crowded van ride. We couldn’t have been more wrong.  The sister climbed in the back with us and was followed by a man who would also be riding with us. In the front seat were two additional passengers. This was a small car only meant to hold five legally and four comfortably and we were a car full of seven. And of course when you put seven people in a car meant for five you don’t wear seatbelts.  Seatbelts are a rarity in this country. I struggle with this as I think most Americans would. As I was sitting in this over crowded vehicle, I couldn’t help but think how much easier and safer this journey would be if I just paid the extra dollar and a half to only put three people in the back seat. I know this is very American of me and something I can’t do here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think about it.

My Favorite Place in Nigeria

It has been a rough week for me in Nigeria and it's only Tuesday. The students are doing their midterm tests, which is extremely boring and very frustrating. I saw several children hit today with the cane for bad behavior and for not getting answers correct on their exams. I see this all the time, but it is ten times worse during exams.  It's hard to watch and I am so frustrated with the system here. I just don't get it. At the end of the day on the verge of tears I decided to pay a visit to my favorite place in Nigeria...DAYCARE! The school has a daycare class with children between the age of one and two, because this is the end of the school year most students are approaching two. When I first entered this classroom back in March they were terrified of me. They wouldn't speak to me or touch me. Now I have to give almost everyone a high five or a handshake and the more verbal ones will tell me good morning and sing songs or tell me their numbers. Their teacher is very kind and I think unlike many people she enjoys working with the students. They found my iPhone today, so I showed them the camera. I thought they might think it was fun to see themselves. They were very excited, so we took few selfies. 

It's pretty hard to cry when you're surrounded by these sweet faces!