Welcome to Nigeria!

Finally I've arrived to Abuja, capital of Nigeria! I had many preconceived ideas.

But guess what!? Rather than a rickety airport and potholes on the road into town I was greeted by a very modern and clean airport facility, efficient immigration and customs and a shining pickup truck that wizzed us to the hotel on large, well-maintained roads. We paraded past the seemingly biggest sights in town: a humanguous Christian church sturcture (unfinished) and an equally impressive but in style minimalist mosque, apart from its golden dome that is. These two monuments aside there were many concrete structures reminiscent of Communist buildings everywhere in the world, containing government offices and banks. No real centre to speak of and certainly no pedestrian areas - this is not a town to explore on foot.

A striking feature of Abuja is vast areas where half-demolished buildings stand or that are entirely without any architecture. This due to the Nigerian governments crack-down on illegal housing, or rather buildings built without a permit. They are now all destined to go, leaving thousands of Abujans homeless. And real estate is expensive in the capital so poorer people are as a result pushed out to adjacent shanty towns, turning Abuja into an upmarket yet soul-less copy of western capitals. Actually the process is quite reminiscent of mayor Giuliani's project to clean up New York, transferring poverty and crime to the boroughts of Brooklyn and Queens instead.

On my first day, after some rest that only made me very groggy, I decided to shake some vigour back into my battered body and joined some serving VSO girls for an African dance class. And WOW! I am so thrilled I did. We ended up under an African-style palapa in the garden of a cultural centre and had a 2-hour intense booty-shake, courtesy of our teachers Didi and Chinedu. This was the real thing: barefoot, sweating in the heat, trying to keep up with the beat of the live drummers and wondering if one would have to reincarnate as an African in order to get those moves and grooves in. What body control, gracious yet powerful movements, muscles playing under ivory black skin - when it comes to dancing they really are in a whole different league...

Nevertheless, I got complimented on my dancing (can you believe how chuffed I was) and after a conversation with the teacher we decided that I will try to get some other people (VSOs and expats)interested in taking classes, and if I could get a few together the teacher would come to Lagos and carry on instructing us. This may never happen of course, but it was a fun start to my adventures and a surreal experience. Certainly beats practicing tribal moves in a basement gym in the West!

Nigerians have a funny way of using pidgin English - sometimes it is confusing, like when they talk about using the machine, which basically means the motorbike. Rudimentary restaurants are chop shops and soft drinks minerals and a mobile network is called a line. Pretty simple, if you know how to decipher these expressions that is! The food here has been a pleasant surprise - some of it is tasty and certainly very spicy. Especially the fruit has been a blessing: sweet melon and pineapple as well as papaya. I have not yet been to a market, as most meals we have eaten in the hotel and there is nowhere to cook until I get to Lagos on the 16th, but I am very much looking forward to sampling the local produce, as I have heard that it is now mango season and they also have fresh ginger and avocadoes. I think I will be able to cook quite nicely for myself and hopefully vary the diet a bit more, as it is very very starchy right now. Pounded yam, cassava, polenta, rice and beans, plantain, these constitute the main fare, especially for a skeptical meat eater such as myself. I did have some catfish though and I have also tried the egusi soup made out of melon seeds. The seeds actually look nothing what you'd imagine but have a consistency and colour of scrambled eggs!

Quite an experience so far - stay tuned for some more news from Panniland.