An action packed weekend in Abuja!

Admittedly this is yet another bulletin completely non-work related but I just wanted to give you a quick update about the weekend. I went to Abuja for another get together at the army barracks which is the local gathering point if you want good fish and chips!

Later we ended up with some friends at a posh house with a full sized bar in the front room and I felt like I was in a surreal film set....But that was nothing compared to the party we went to the next night. It was in a house with a life sized model areoplane on the roof, taking up the top storey...anyone who has been to Abuja will know where I mean! A friend of mine knew the Lebanese family throwing the party so a group of us went along. It was very ornate inside, but the apart from the delicious food ( as much hummous as I could imagine !!) it was great to try out lebanese-style dancing ! Everyone was very friendly and we were all encouraged to bop away...The worst part was that I have never felt so under dressed for a party in my life. I only had my scruffy trainers with me in Abuja so i borrowed a friend's top but had to make do with my sporty trousers and trainers when everyone else was in cocktail dresses and high heels!! When I noticed the film crew filming us dancing , I was particularly aware of my outfit, but by then it was too late for me to care too much!! In fact the whole weekend was very surreal as I ended up sunning myself at the Hilton by the pool on Saturday...for free this time. Managed to get away with it!

Back to work today though. Lots of planning to do for another workshop and I was going to do another evening of making resources but I have had a nice excuse to go out for a meal....my gas canister has run out and I can't even boil water or cook at the moment!! I should be getting a new one in the next couple of days.....We shall see...!

Some pictures from the hike in Kagoro

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...!

Recent weekend pictures...and my house!

Working hard!

From most of the posts so far I have probably given the impression that I am permanently on holiday. Let me reassure you that this is not the case. It's just that I am sure you would find it incredibly dull if I kept on posting pictures of the school. I had a hectic week last week with a visitor with me every day, either other VSO volunteers or other interested parties! ( ie a german girl working with an NGO here who is interested in doing speech therapy as a career) It's always good to have other people around to bounce ideas off, and also as an extra pair of hands when you are trying to work with a group of children! We are one staff member down at the moment so it's all hands on deck, especially with the little ones.

I have now done two workshops for the staff at school, and this time we managed to rig up my camcorder to the newly purchased TV which proved very useful not only to show certain therapy techniques ,but also the staff loved watching themselves, as I filmed them on the school trip to the wildlife park.( I had not been able to show them until now!)

Since word has got out that a speech therapist is in town, I have now ended up going out to a mainstream school to assess and work with some children there, and I am also working with a 46 year old man who had a head injury last year and has lost most of his speech. So any of you adult therapists out there, any tips please? I am trying to remember back from Uni days, with no equipment bearing in mind! But its working so far as he is responding to using photographs of his belongings, and we are making a communication folder for him. He gets incredibly frustrated that he gets stuck on a word and keeps repeating it, even though he knows it is not what he should be saying. I am working in conjunction with the teacher in the reading clinic as he is using Hausa with him, so at least its not all down to me!

Anyway, sorry this is a bit full of work news. The photos show my visit to Akwanga last weekend for a friend's birthday, luckily only 1 1/2 hours away. We visited a few local villages where the people are incredibly friendly, and at least here I can go back and give them the photos that I take of people. I also went hiking in the hills near Jos again which looks even more stunning now its rainy season...luckily only raining in the late afternoon at this stage. Not looking forward to the constant rain expected in July and August!

The worst thing about the rain is that generally it means that there is no electricity afterwards, so it's candles all round and if you had planned an evening of laminating ( oh the joys!) , it just isn't going to happen! Actually last week I had quite a few evenings out as I had plenty of visitors...always a good incentive!


Arrgh! This computer won't let me download the photos.....I will have to do that later!!

Back to school.

It’s been a hectic few weeks since Easter. The elections passed smoothly but I suppose the real test will be when the government actually hands over at the end of May. I spent the rest of the Easter break visiting other volunteers at their placements , and in Abuja, the capital but headed back to Jos in time for the start of term last Monday. Mind you, I am not sure that anyone told the parents as only about 5 kids turned up on the first day! We don’t operate normal term times as its as NGO and offers year round provision for children with special needs but parents generally assume it’s the same as government schools. It was a good job their weren’t many kids last week though as I was busy planning my first workshop for the staff at the school and a few extras who wanted to come too. I knew I would be doing something for the staff development day last term, but it wasn’t until last week that I found out that I was doing the whole morning’s presentation for 25 or so people!

I also had to move house last week as my room was already booked for a family for the next two months, before I arrived. The new place is sweet though. It’s surrounded by mango trees and has a country cottage feel to it. It’s in a much larger compound than the other place and a big bonus is that there is a nice hotel nearby where I can get nice food and drink if I’m in the mood for some luxury! I am getting used to the lack of running water and electricity and have been getting back into the art of water conservation. As soon as it starts raining I immediately put a bucket outside to collect rainwater….comes in very useful to flush the toilet and doesn’t waste the "good" stuff!

It’s been good to get back into work again, and the workshop went well despite a few teething problems….basically I tried to cram too much info into one morning. But as you can see from the photos , people seemed interested in it and I tried to make it as interactive and practical as possible. I even did a fancy PowerPoint presentation but rather regretted it as we needed to put the generator on to power the laptops which ended up being too loud and distracting. Next time I will either try to borrow a projector or give up on the idea! I borrowed some extra laptops and copied the workshop onto each one, but then as each laptop was slightly different, it was a bit of a nightmare trying to get everyone to move the slides on at the same time, and swop between mini video clips and back again! I tell you, technology is not always a good thing! But it added interest and a bit of reality to the whole thing, as I was supposed to be showing the staff how to do PECS. ( the Picture Exchange Communication System ) …which is basically teaching kids to exchange a picture for something they want, and then making sentences using pictures to talk about all sorts of things. You wouldn’t think it would take over a morning to explain, but trust me, it’s more complicated than it sounds!

I have been with other volunteers a bit recently which has been fun. There was the dutch party at the Dutch Embassy in Abuja at the weekend for Queen’s day, where we all had to dress up in orange , and then various volunteers have been visiting my place to do placement visits. It’s always good to have visitors and it encourages me to check out all the Jos highlights! I also saw a bit of Nigerian culture the other day as one of the guys at school invited me to see his dance group performing traditional dancing...a bit like a African version of Morris dancing!!

A magical Easter Experience!

The school trip to the wildlife park went well but I didn’t take any digital snaps ( as they call them here) as I recorded it on my video camera in the hopes that I will be able to work out how to put it onto a dvd some time!! I might have to make use of the contact I made at the Nigerian Film studio down the road …someone I met on the road to Abuja. But it was great to see the children getting so excited about seeing the animals, despite the less than perfect conditions. Some of the animals roam about as you would expect in a wildlife park, but the majority are kept in cages near the entrance; the sort of cages you expect in a run down zoo to be honest. The greatest entertainment seemed to be in giving the gorillas a carton of drink as they are able to drink through straws it seems! Oh yes, and the moment one of them hurled a rock through the cage seemed to cause a bit of a stir amongst the kids…not sure health and safety regulations back home would cover that kind of thing happening in a children’s zoo!

I have just got back from an Easter trip away to Sukur, a UNESCO world heritage site up in the Mandara Mountains on the border with Cameroon. Kevin, another VSO volunteer, visited it last year and told us all about it…it’s somewhat of a hidden secret in Nigeria and it must be one of the least visited UNESCO heritage sites in the world!
Quoting from the first tourist magazine I have seen on Nigeria, Sukur is the “extensive remains of a former flourishing iron industry and a cultural tradition that has endured for many centuries”. It is still a kingdom in its own right and is home to over 3000 people, with 27 clans and 13 elders with regal titles. The king himself , Gizik Kinakakau, is the 13th Chief of the kingdom as it is today, and the royal palace he lives in was built over 500 years ago. Something about the place reminded me of the Inca trail near Cusco, Peru. For a start, the track up the mountain is paved with stones and there are stone gates to the kingdom, again all dating back to the 16th century, around or just after the time of the Incas I think . And the structure of the society, based around worship of gods associated with the natural environment who only the king can answer to, has similarities with the Incas too…But that’s just my observation, I am no anthropologist! If you are interested, there is a website at http://www.sukur.info/ which tells you more accurate info!!

I will get back to describing the trip and explaining the photos!
It took 11 hours of travelling, but as there were 6 of us (all VSO volunteers), it was easy to charter a “bush taxi” for ourselves rather than wait for them to fill up with other passengers as you have to do if you are travelling on your own. The others came to meet up with me in Jos, and I put them up for the night, before we all continued on the next day to Madagali in eastern Nigeria.

People are so friendly here. When you arrive in a village and ask about accommodation, everyone tries to help out, and even if there isn’t a guest house, you know you will be able to stay with someone. They are also very curious to see you as oyibos/ baturis ( as foreigners are known) don’t usually venture out of the major cities. So we ended up staying in the spare rooms at the Priest’s house next to his church , the first night. Very appropriate for Good Friday! Some of us went to some of the mass too, but as it was in Hausa and was stifling hot in the church, we didn’t manage to stay for the whole time!

The next day we got up early and the priest drove us to the foot of the mountain ( after a minor puncture incident) and found us a guide/ interpreter for our expedition. This involved the usual rituals of greetings with the local village chief and chairs being found to sit us all down and find out what on earth we are doing there and for us to seek permission to visit the kingdom, before we could continue on. Siv, the only male amongst us, was always assumed to be our “leader” and all negotiations had to go through him; something we just had to get used to despite my feminist instinct!

After a steep and stifling climb up the mountain with enough food and water for two days, we arrived in the kingdom and the King was asked to come out and greet us. People rushed to find plastic chairs for us to sit on, and I have to say I was very glad of it, especially in the shade! Our arrival definitely caused a stir, and swarms of children surrounded us, clearly intrigued! Then we went through a series of ritualistic greetings, thanks and procedures, via Raphael, our guide from the local village who could speak English and the local language of the Sukur people. Every time he spoke to the king, he had to bow and bend on one knee. We presented him with a gift of photos that Kevin had taken when he had visited. You can see a photo of some people looking at them, and they were clearly pleased. We said we may return for the festival next year and bring back more photos from this visit. We were shown round the royal palace, which is partly ruins now, but there are still living quarters for the present king and his family. The iron smelting tradition lives on as you can see in the photo. Later on we wandered around the main village, visiting the school and church ( a recent addition but the elders still believe in traditional worhip). I felt like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn , as everywhere you walked a trail of small children would follow after you! They loved it if you chased them though!

There was even a local bar with some beer imported by foot from Cameroon ( the other side of the hill) and everyone was very keen to chat to us, via Raphael and lots of gestures! Later there was some sort of festival involving drums and lots of marching, but it meant we could dance ( well wiggle our hips) much to everyone’s amusement!
Anyway, I will finish before this turns into an epic novel or something, but it was one of those trips that I really had to write about. Although I have been on treks elsewhere in the world, I have been to few places so untouched by tourism and it made the place so real, and so genuinely friendly.
I can see a place for tourism there as the people are very hungry ( the way the kids went for our pasta leftovers was heart wrenching) and the small kids are very malnourished, Tourism may even help to preserve their traditions, but I hope its done right, and doesn’t ruin the magic of the place.