A weekend in Kagoro

It's Democracy day today. The day of the handing over to the new president. Which is exciting mostly because its another day off! ( And also that it is the first handing over from one democratic government to another as democracy has not been around here for long...some would say it still isn't but that's another story best left to world news reporters!...)
Yesterday was Children's Day and the outgoing president Obasanjar decided to make it a public holiday but failed to tell us until last Friday. My boss had to make last minute notes to send home to the parents to let them know that suddenly the children had 2 days off this week. It suited me fine as i was going away this weekend ( again!) and I didn't have to rush back on Sunday. A group of 14 of us ( VSOs) converged on my friend Hiromi's small pink house in the beautiful but tiny village of kagoro, only 1 1/2 hours away door to door.
It was her last weekend in Nigeria so we made the most of it with a hiking trip up her nearby mountain culminating in the obligatory trip to the local bush bar as a reward when we returned.On sunday, the few of us who stayed on joined Hiromi at her NGO's party for Children's Day where local children's drama groups performed small sketches and songs on a stage outside.They were amazingly talented, and even did the sketches in two languages for our benefit. Suddenly the rains descended and an army of small children were herded towards two small dark rooms ( no electricity of course!) with barely enough room to turn around. As I said I worked with children in a school I was told to entertain one group of children whilst my teacher friend Siv took the other lot. I decided to fall back on the old favourite of impromptu action songs, and went through a number of verses of " If you are happy and you know it" and " the hokey Kokey" before almost losing my voice over the sound of the rain! Luckily it didn't last and later the children were able to continue with the sketches.
It's back to work tomorrow so I had better go and do some planning!...
Pictures are taking ages to upload today, so watch this space...!