A trip to Kaduna, and a look at the real Nigeria.

A few days into our in-country training, we were sent off to visit existing volunteers in their placements. I went with Anne, to visit Richard in Kaduna, Shmriti travelled with us to visit Marsje also in Kaduna
I feel like I am in Nigeria now, Abuja is a strange and rather sterile city, now I have seen a busy market, rural villages, eaten rice and stew in a tiny café, and ridden an okada.

Okadas are motorbike taxis, an important way of getting around outside of Abuja, and quite comfortable as long as you don’t think about “what if?” Nigerians seem to drive as though they can achieve a stopping distance of 0m however fast they are going.

So in Kaduna, we killed two rats, (with Richard’s recently acquired rat trap, imported especially from the UK).  We visited the charity Hope for the Village Child and went to visit a community where they are going to start some microfinance work, the meeting was called by banging a “gong” hanging from a tree.
Kaduna market was amazing, especially the engineering part. We walked along narrow paths surrounded by welding, aluminium smelting, hammering and so on, and definitely felt the need for a hard hat, safety glasses and a pair of steel toe cap boots

Kaduna pics