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!

Something Familiar

Today has been great day! Great days don't happen all that often here, so I decided to write about it. One of the sisters took Katlin and I to the shopping mall today. There was no school today, because the country is celebrating a holiday called Children's Day. She dropped us off at the mall where we stayed for about four hours. This is the first time we been able to leave the school compound without a sister escorting us the whole time. It was nice to have a sense independence, even if it was just for a few hours. The sisters and the most of the people in country do not visit these malls very often. They prefer to buy food, clothes, and household items at outdoor markets. The shopping malls are considered to be for the wealthy or young people who want to hang out with their friends. We spent the day there buying groceries and looking at clothes. I think the most exciting grocery store find was probably canned hummus. I haven't tried it yet, but if it even resembles the hummus I eat at home it will be wonderful. The best part of the adventure was the food court. I ate most of this vegetable covered pizza pictured below. 

It was really very good. And full of vegetables and cheese, two things I miss a lot. The second great thing about this food court needs no introduction. 

I ate the whole thing. It was amazing. Cold stone and KFC are the only two chains I have seen since I arrived. I was pretty surprised to see a Cold Stone. I enjoyed both of these treats with cold Pepsi Lights, the only diet soda I can find. It was like being at home for a few hours. Did I mention the store is air conditioned? Amazing! 

The day ended with the arrival of a package from my mom. It was filled with candy, brownie mixes, almonds, granola bars, a few surprises, and many school items I requested. It was a lot of fun to see all the things she had collected for me. For a minute it was like she was here with me.  I couldn't have asked for a better day in Nigeria. 

What Does Your Name Mean?

I love my name. It was given to me by parents and it is what my friends and family call me. But what does it mean?

Anytime I introduce myself to someone new in Nigeria they want to know what my name means. I always explain that it has no meaning it was just the name my parents liked.  To the people of Nigeria that is just ridiculous. Everyone’s name has a meaning. Nigerian children can be given many names.  Everyone gets a name in their native language and a baptismal name, which is in English and often very European.  They can also be given names by certain family members.  The names given to the children in their native language always have meaning.  Below I’ve listed just a few examples of Igbo names and their meaning.

Tochukwu (Praise God)

Chukwuebuka (God is Great)

Chijindu (God holds the life)

Ezinne (Good Mother)

Ijeoma (Safe Journey)

Chukwudumebi (God lives with me)

Ngozi (Blessing)

I really like how the names have meaning. Some people do go by their English names, but the majority use their native language names. It has made learning student names almost impossible.  I’ve learned 10 student names in 9 weeks and they are all in English. Needless to say I have a lot of work to do! I was also given an Igbo name by the church women not long after arriving. They gave me the name Chioma. It means good God.

A Few Random Photos

One of the sisters does some catering in her free time and cooks for the boarding students occasionally. This is a wedding cake she made. I have tried the cake and it doesn't taste anything like the cake we eat in the States. It is not as soft and moist. It is more like a bread with raisins. The cake does not have icing, just a layer of fondant. I do like the cake, but I don't really consider it to be cake. I think of it more like a bread I would like to eat with my coffee in the morning. 

This is a calabash, the traditional Nigeria wedding cake. When a man wants to marry a woman, he must bring a calabash of palm wine to her family. 

This is a cashew fruit tree. If I was ten it would be the perfect climbing tree.

 

This is a cashew fruit. The yellow part is an extremely acidic fruit unlike anything I've eaten before. I don't really like it. The green part on the bottom is where the cashew that we eat in the U.S. comes from. You cook it and take the shell off. 

This is a jack fruit. It kind of tastes like bubble gum. I like it, but it's very sweet so I can only eat a little bit. I have heard that you can find it in the U.S., but I've never seen it. 

We attended a meeting with all the sisters of this order in Nigeria. It lasted for  four days. This is were the cook and the postulants (girls preparing to be sisters) cooked the meals for approximately 80 people. We tried to help, but weren't really given much to do. 

This is the cook grounding crayfish to go in one of the many dishes Nigerians use dried crayfish. It is one thing I don't think I could ever learn to like. 

This is their version of a taxi. It is called a  keke. It's pretty inexpensive, but a little scary to ride in. There are regular taxi cars, but they are not as easy to find and I think they are expensive. 

I wish I had been able to get a better picture of this, because it was pretty impressive. The man in the picture is carrying a giant stack of books on his head. People commonly carry things are their heads. It's an impressive skill that I just don't have. 

52 Days and Counting

Today marks 52 days in Nigeria. In some ways it feels like I just arrived and in other ways it feels like I’ve been here forever. We arrived in Nigeria at a really awkward time due to the visa delays.  The school is year round, so they have three trimesters. When we arrived all students in the nursery, primary, and secondary schools were taking their final exams for the trimester, so basically all we could do was grade exams. I was able to do a couple “Get to Know the American” lesson, but I wasn’t able to get started with my regular role here. Easter Break was essentially the whole month of April. I was extremely bored, homesick, and felt very isolated behind the walls of the compound.  Many days started with tears and most ended with tears. It has been so much harder and so much different than I expected it to be. I feel like I’ve learned more about myself and what’s important to me in 52 days than I have learned in 25 years.  My expectation of the year, the school, the country, and the sisters is very different from how the experience has actually been. This is a public blog, so I won’t go into detail about all these things. I mentioned some of the struggles in previous posts and some just shouldn’t be written here.

On a more positive note school did start Monday. The students and teachers have returned and I am very grateful for this. It helps with the feelings of isolation and loneliness. I’ve made friends with a couple teachers and find myself spending free time throughout the day talking to them. I am working mostly with the Nursery 3 students, which is equivalent to Kindergarten in the states. I teach math to small groups in each of the four classrooms. Teaching to the whole class is just about impossible. I tried and failed. The students struggle to understand me and so do the Nursery teachers. I find that in the small groups I am able to do interactive math lessons and the students can understand me. I am also working with the reading teacher. She is responsible for teaching reading to approximately 380 students, so she can use all the help she can get. I don’t really understand the reading program they use here, but right now I feel like the only thing I can do is support the teacher. Hopefully in time I can introduce some new ideas to the reading program.

Kaitlin and I have also started working with the students that board. There are approximately 80 girls in middle and high school that live in the compound. We have spent a couple nights this week doing tutoring there and will continue to do so in the coming weeks. We have some exciting things planned for them that I will share at a later date.

Things are improving here.  Obviously the boredom has decreased significantly. I still miss home and all the people there more than I could ever have imagined possible, but staying busy helps. All the emails, comments, or text messages have helped. Thank you for your support!

Finally, I have had several people ask me about the recent kidnappings of the girls from their school and bombings in Nigeria. I just wanted to let you all know that as of right now all of these things are happening north of the state I live in. I feel safe here, but am following the stories carefully.