Me I no be gentleman at a-all, me I be Africa man original!

To the tunes of Fela off we went into the bush, or rather to Akwanga, a small town in Nassarawa state, some 2 hours journey from Abuja. This was to be our placement visit – to get an idea of a VSOs daily life and surroundings.

The trip was preceded by some commotion – the same day as we got our placement visit destinations from VSO, the news appeared on BBC that the bird flue virus had been found in Nigeria and more specifically in Kaduna state.

As fate would have it I was going to go to Kaduna to visit a volunteer who lived in a compound with about 30 chickens. Granted, the head mistress of the school had texted him that they were going to slaughter the chicken, but knowing how seriously Nigerians seem to take the threat of the potential pandemic, somehow this did not reassure me. It has been all over the news that Nigeria is failing to contain the disease: farmers are not getting enough compensation for slaughtering the birds, their livelihood, so instead they rush to sell them on local markets before officials get there. Naturally, those I have talked to within Nigeria have great faith in their officials and say that the virus will be contained because people have a high awareness.

I am not so sure about this. People in general have very little idea about the importance of hygiene in order to prevent disease or stop it from spreading. A not uncommon sight on the markets are traders in dirty clothes resting on their goods, or relieving themselves right in front of their market stall, be it a meat or vegetable stand. People eat their pounded yam with their hands, and greeting is of huge importance so they will often take your hands and hold them, shake them warmly, this way also effectively passing on potential germs and virus.

It is not surprising that such a blaze attitude prevails regarding the bird flue. Life in Nigeria is full of in-your-face, instant risks, and people are just used to it. The threat of an epidemic, that has not taken any human life as of yet, is just simply not scary enough when thousands are dying of AIDS and malaria, and that is a fact. Taking precautions and planning for the future is also not a mindset shared by most Nigerians. How could it be, when most of them do not have a pension or any kind of insurance? This is also why one sees abandoned cars by the roadside - if they stop working, they will just be left there, no point trying to fix them as it will cost more than getting the next road-unworthy vehicle.

But back to our trip… I raised the bird flue issue with a nurse at the British High Commission clinic and she advised everyone who was supposed to visit Kaduna to go somewhere else given that there are no testing facilities in Nigeria and certainly no available stocks of Tamiflu. So this is how I ended up in Akwanga, together with Roseanne and Monique, a Kenyan and a Dutch volunteer. We visited Karin, also Dutch, who works for the College of Education. Her counterparts were very enthusiastic about the work she is doing, conducting teacher training, and one of her colleagues, Mr. Sharia, became our self-appointed guide, taking as all around the college to show us the lecture halls, offices etc.

The building containing administrative offices was very well maintained, air-conditioned and had lots of people around that did not seem to do much apart from being gate keepers to higher ranking admin staff. We got to see the provost, the leader of the college and that was interesting. The staff kneeled down to him when addressing him and his room was huge with his gigantic desk at one end and plush armchairs all the way at the other. He had a golden sign listing all his different titles centrally placed on the table and various women were summoned to get us drinks, as the provost himself would obviously not stand up from his desk to serve us. Sitting right at the other end of the room we felt like we were in front of a judge and we took turns to approach the provost when summoned. Mr. Sharia, who had been jovial and relaxed up to this point, now started in on a long and officious speech about how great the provost was and may he serve the college for a long time.

Next, we got to see the main conference hall, empty, with all the chairs still in plastic and every table with microphones on it. It looked unused (apart from the adjacent bathrooms that were the only decent ones around the college) especially when compared to the basic buildings where the lectures were held, with students crowding outside of the class rooms due to lack of space. On campus there were a few unfinished buildings, but these had already been taken up for lectures as well – at one point one student fell out of a wall-less first floor lecture room and for a while they stopped this practice, but as the memory of the accident faded they’d started occupying the hazardous buildings for classes once again. Karin told us that in many administrative offices there were big TV sets, totally pointless, or even counter-productive in a college, but this was apparently a favoured purchase to spend sparse college funds on. Talk about priorities!

I am quite intrigued by the phenomenon so here is another excrement-related observation – walking from the staff quarters to the college campus one pretty soon hit the shit belt, basically a stretch just by the main road where students frequently relieved themselves. The sight of people pooing just wherever is quite common, in fact in central Abuja, which is rather well organized, I saw three perpetrators during the same taxi ride through town.

We also had the opportunity to visit a demonstration primary school. There were a lot of kids and I was impressed that that the teachers managed to keep such order during assembly… but that got its explanation once I saw the staff breaking off twigs from a nearby tree and enforcing their power through spanking the children who did not conform. I started taking some pictures and pretty soon I was surrounded by a crowd of giggling boys and girls shouting “Auntie, snap me, snap me”. So I obliged and tried to get them all in the picture only to realize that more and more youngsters started pushing in, excited by the prospect of being photographed.

We sat in on a Maths class and observed some interesting teaching methods: The teacher asked “How much is one times one?” And got the answer “Two”. So she repeated the question and asked almost everyone in the class. The children got bolder and bolder and cried “Two” more and more confidently. In the end the teacher gave up and proclaimed “Shame to you” and gave the right answer. I wonder how pedagogic this approach is… I suppose Karin does have her work cut out for her.

I did want to spend some time, talking about all the nice food I bought and cooked, but now three days and an ongoing diarrhea later I am not as poised any more. I was very excited at the time to buy garden eggs in the market, which are like light green aubergines, slightly more bitter… to find basil, called curry leaves over here… and to realize that melon seeds are very similar to pumpkin seeds and if you roast them they make en excellent salad topping. I was also proud and pleased that we managed to cook some delightful dishes without any running or clean water. And it did work well indeed up until my last day in Akwanga, when I had some eggs and started feeling quite ill. Luckily, I only had to endure a 2-hour drive back to Abuja, squeezed into a Peugeot with 11 other people! Because of my stomach I missed out on another school visit, to a more rustic country school than the demonstration school earlier in the day. But the others went… and returned with a huge papaya that was presented to them as a gift from the school. Africans and Nigerians really are hospitable and generous even when they barely have anything to eat themselves. And they are very helpful and concerned. I think in the end everyone at the hotel knew about me being sick and one of the porters even called up to my room to enquire about my health.

I have to admit though, being ill brought my spirits down -I envisioned not being able to eat anything for the next two years and the thought of rice and stew just made my stomach turn. In my darker moments I also fretted over the disorganized state of things in Nigeria: how when you go to a store or chop shop and you order you get one thing out of three and then they take ages with the rest, how in the motor park there are no scheduled departures to any destination, you just have to wait until a Peugeot fills up and then you haggle about the price, how it is never quite sure whether the taxi you booked actually does arrive or not… Eventually, all these things do get sorted out, but not in an efficient way and after wasting quite a lot of time. I guess this is what they call ‘Nigerian’ time. So to all of you who have in the past called me a time optimist, I dare say I have been outclassed.

I'll be back with a Lagos update soon! And there will be new pics on Flickr...