More rain

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that the road near my office often floods when it rained, so today, much to my surprise, it only rained gently for a couple of hours, it flooded, and I got some good pictures, enjoy!

Don’t go out there, it’s raining!

When I was first in Ibadan and still staying at the luxury Davies Hotel, one evening Abdul, a member of VSO staff was also staying there, and I had arranged to go and visit Karen and Brent (former volunteers), it was their last evening in Ibadan.  We met at reception as arranged but when we got to the door we found torrential rain.  Like a true Brit, I said, “wait I’ll fetch my umbrella”, I did, but Abdul persuaded me that we couldn’t go.  If I had been alone I probably, would have tried, and got drenched waiting for public transport that never came, and would have either been forced to take an okada (motorbike taxi) and get wetter in the process, or to give up!

Since then there has been heavy rain while I have been at work, fortunately this has stopped by the time I had to leave, but on a number of occasions it has left the nearby river flowing over the road instead of under it, with cars forced to turn around, and people wading through.  Fortunately I live in the opposite direction.

On Sunday, I was enjoying an Indian meal at a fine hotel, two bus / taxi rides away from my house, it was only when we came to leave that we realised it was raining, it was also already around 8pm so pitch dark. Four of us ventured to the main road where we hoped to find a taxi, at one point ankle deep water was flowing across the road. 

We found a taxi going to Mokola or roundabout, a central location in Ibadan, from here we were due to go in different directions me to UI, and them to Bodija.  I was busy negotiating for the guy to take us all the way home, my fellow passengers were complaining, it’s too expensive we’ll just get another shared taxi, look out of the window I said do you want to step out into that lake, don’t worry about the money!   They agreed.

It’s hard to describe it now, but it was hairy, I know that cars can get stuck, float away, and people can get carried away by fast flowing water, and of course, you don’t know what is under the water, or in the water, and it was dark! 

Eventually we got home safely, and I paid the driver and entered my dry house, washed myself with running water, and was able to enjoy electricity.  It made me realise how heavy rain can be dangerous, disruptive, or just unpleasant, and if I like most people, was unable to pay extra, I could have been stranded in pouring rain until the next morning. 

The Educated Elite of Ibadan

Three times in the last couple of months I have flown between Ibadan and Abuja.  Ibadan, is famous for its university, the University of Ibadan, the oldest university in West Africa and locally known as UI, which I must say is a much better name than UNIBAD!  Most Nigerian universities are known as UNI...., it took me a while to realise that UNILAG was not a universal pipe lagging material, and UNIMAID, I thought must be something to do with milk!  Actually they are University of Lagos and University of Maiduguri.

Anyway back to my story, Ibadan is a big city, an endless sprawl, I’ve no idea of the population, but I have read of 2 million and of 5 million.  Many people daily must travel between Ibadan and Abuja, but only a few go my air.

There are two flights on weekdays, one on Saturday and none on Sunday, some planes carry 30 and some 50, its advisable to book in advance and the single fair is ₦18,000 for Overland, and ₦21,000 for Associated (about £80), I am told that both these airlines have a poor safety record, but I’m sure it is many times safer than going by road.  (90% of Nigerians live on less than $2, approx ₦300, so to fly would be 60 days of income, even for me as a VSO volunteer it would be two weeks of income, I only fly when somebody else is paying!)

So both flights leave Ibadan at around 8am, and as I sit in the airport waiting, the atmosphere is a bit like a university common room, or a school reunion, except Nigerians respect hierarchy and titles and you hear people greeting each other, “Good Morning Prof, Good Morning Doc etc”.

Waiting at Abuja airport, with passengers flying all over the country, it is less easy to identify the educated elite of Ibadan, although traditional Yoruba dress of lace, embroidery and funny hats,  is always a clue.   When flying in this direction it is only as I board the plane that I hear the academic greetings. 

Change catalyst???

One of the hardest things about being a VSO volunteer is that your aim is to facilitate change, and change is hard!  However during the last five days I feel like I have achieved more professionally than the whole time I have been in Nigeria, around 16 months.  I am very realistic change is challenging and who knows what is around the corner, so I want to post this before I find out!

Part of my role at NEST is “Organisational Development Advisor”, or OD.  OD is helping an organisation to assess its strengths and weaknesses and make a plan for developing itself, VSO is interested in this as it works through partner organisations, and VSO can more effectively reach its vision of a world without poverty, if the partners it works with have improved capacity.

During my first week at NEST, I co-facilitated an OD workshop, over two days around 20 people, comprising staff, board members and partners, assessed NEST according to about 50 indicators, and made suggestions for improvement.  These indicators covered a range of “capacity areas” such as Strategy and Vision, Board of Trustees, Management, Human Resources, Finance, IT. 

I sensed a sense of excitement to how NEST could improve and a commitment to make it happen.  It was my job to write a report of the workshop and lead the development of a work-plan.  The report was fine;  I could do that alone, but then the work-plan....

Reality was trying to get a small group of people together to turn the findings from the assessment into a plan of action.  Although I was the lead on this it needed to be done in participation with staff, or it was likely to be irrelevant, and with no staff ownership, and confined to the filing cabinet. 

We started with a mix of “big people” and “little people”, but getting the “big people” in one room and focussed on the task was a challenge, so I got permission from the “big people” to work with the “little people” to come up with a draft.  Then I found that “little people” are also difficult to get in a room because “big people” send “little people” on errands.  I became more and more frustrated and got fed up with OD.

Then I was in Abuja for a meeting, and I was chatting with a former Executive Director of NEST, who had been at the OD Workshop, he commended me on the report, and said, “if NEST implement everything in that report, NEST will go far”.  He got me thinking so what is stopping me, how do I make it happen.  The following day there was a board meeting, so I asked the chair of the Board if I could make a presentation about the OD process, he agreed. 

In my presentation, I tried to give members of the board, (some of whom were present at the OD workshop) a sense of the possible future for NEST, and to build ownership to the process, but I told them I was stuck, that the land of milk and honey had been spied, but there were giants in the way, and we didn’t want to wander in the desert for 40 years.  (Numbers 13 ff).  They asked me what I wanted, so I said I wanted my small team for 2 hours a day for a week.  I got it.

So last week, Monday to Thursday, 4 of us developed a Draft Work Plan, and I think its good, and I think that the four of us worked hard, are committed and motivated to make it happen.  Let’s see what comes next!

Give me something

There is a perception that because I am white I must be rich, and therefore I ought to share my riches, this means I frequently am asked to “give me something”.  Mostly I ignore it or laugh it off, but sometimes it really gets to me.

There is a lady in my street, who sells traditional medicine, almost every day when I come home she says “White, what have you brought for me?”  She has two lovely daughters, aged around 7 or 8, who never ask me for anything.  One evening after dark I met one of her daughters crying in the street, when I asked what was wrong she said she had dropped Naira 50.  Clearly she had been sent on an errand and was dreading what her punishment would be.  I gave her Naira 50, wondering if this would be the beginning of a problem, but nothing has changed the daughter continues to greet me happily not demanding anything. 

One day, when I was with my friend Rebecca a fellow Brit, a boy aged around 13 or 14 and carrying a biro, or BIC approached me and said “give me something”.  Our conversation progressed as follows:

Me:  “no, you give me something, how about that pen?”

Him:  “but I only just bought it, give me something”,

Me: Why don’t you ask them (various wealthy looking people) to give you something?

Him: because they are not white

Me: did someone tell you that you should ask white people for things?

Him: Yes, my teacher

Me: My teacher told me to ask black people to give me things, so give me something

At this point he walked off.  Rebecca was trying not to laugh, and asked me which teacher had told me, I replied Geography when we were learning about the world!

A few weeks ago, close to my house the children asked me for moto, (I assumed this meant motor, ie car), since they are all far too young to drive, I jokingly counted seven children and promised seven cars.  I forgot that sarcasm in humour is a purely British thing, now the mother is asking me when I am bringing the motos?!  I told her when I married a rich Nigerian I’d be able to afford it!

I mentioned this to a colleague today, she said maybe they meant toy cars, I’ve never seen one in Nigeria so I didn’t think of that, perhaps I’d better go and look for some, or will I just reinforce the stereotype that you can ask white people for things because they are rich?

Take me to your country

Take me to your country, is a phrase I hear too often for my liking, sometimes I make a joke of it, but often I ask them why, what do they know about my country and why do they want to go there?  Often I find they don't even know which country I am from, but all the same they assume that it is a land of riches, and once there, their problems will be over.

Yesterday, someone from our Internet Service Provider was in the office, he complained that I hadn't accepted his facebook request, so I clicked on it to find he was "in a relationship with" the name and photo provided.  He even bragged about her beauty, so I wandered why he was so worried about my facebook friendship.

He then started telling me how he wanted to go to Canada, when I asked him why, he said because it was quiet there.  Now that makes sense, Nigeria is a noisy place and has a population of around 150 million people.  However he went on to tell me that he needed an invitation to Canada, so I said he'd better ask a Canadian.

Then it became clear that he thought I was a Canadian, I told him I'd never been to Canada, he said but you are still a Canadian, you can still invite me!  I'm still not sure if he believes that I am not Canadian!

My first Nigerian wedding

My friend and former colleague Hamzy, invited me to a wedding; in true African style I had never met the Bride or the Groom but I had met Ismail one of the groom’s brothers. The wedding was in Lagos so I went with Mike, a Lagos based VSO volunteer, and had a wonderful day thanks to Hamzy and Ismail’s family going out of their way to make us welcome and include us in this special day.

Me and Hamzy

All I knew from Hamzy was that the wedding was in Lagos, and it was on Sunday 29th May. So off I went to Lagos, (since this coincided with the day of the Presidential Inauguration the VSO security advice was to “lie low” whatever that means). The previous day, Hamzy  texted me the address of the wedding and told me it started at 9am! I said are you serious Hamzy, 9am, he said yes don’t be late. Mike and I decided to leave his house at 9am and aim to arrive at 10

10 o'clock!

Now we get the programme it says start at 10am, not 9 Hamzy!

Bride

When we finally got the programmes we saw that the official start time was 10am, my learning from this is to arrive at least 90 minutes late to weddings in future.

Groom

So the wedding was an Islamic and Yoruba wedding, my second Islamic wedding and first Nigerian wedding. The Islamic bit was first and to my surprise a lot of the audience / congregation or whatever the term is were chatting while the Imam was officiating, even the Imam received a call on his mobile during the ceremony.

Imam

  Then the Yoruba part, first a change of dress into rather grand costumes, then we (I have become a friend of the bridegroom) had to dance our way into the ceremony. During this we had to produce a lot of money, in fact the whole currency, ie one of every Nigerian note, (fortunately the highest note is Naira 1000, about GBP 4, there are no coins) Mike had a few US dollars which helped. (Being a wedding guest is expensive in Nigeria – go with lots of money!)

Groom and mother dancing

Lots of Naira

 Eventually after dancing a lot and providing the whole currency we “made it” into the room where the groom and his male friends had to beg the bride’s family for the bride.


 








Then greeting the groom’s family and seeking marital blessings!




 Well it looks like it worked as here they are together.

Happy couple

It was wonderful to be a part of this, and to be appreciated for being a part of it. I had phone calls from Hamzy and Ismail afterwards thanking us. A little insight into another culture, and I now know how to dance like a Yoruba man! 


So thank you, Hamzy, Ismail and family, and thank you Nigeria!


More photos here