Last Sunday afternoon
after church, George (our resident tour guide in Jos) took a car load
of us from Challenge out to some amazing rock formations about 15mins
out of town. He saw them from the road years ago and found a way to
access them by foot. He named one 'golf ball' rock because it is the
most amazing spherical rock perched precariously on top of another
with seemingly no way of being held in place. I climbed up and pushed
it, but alas even my brute strength was not going to dislodge it! I
pray that no one will be standing underneath when the erosion process
finally has it's way. The landscape in general at the moment is very
barren and sparse. The long-termers have told me how beautiful the
Plateau is over the rainy season; everything just comes to life and
is green and lush with streams and waterfalls to visit in the
weekends. It seems like such an impossibility at present when the
earth is so parched that I'm sure it would need months of solid rain
to produce something living. But then that's Africa for you, a
continent of extremes.
It's the dry/cool
season at the moment and the Harmattan winds are blowing dust around
the city so it's very hazy and everything in my apartment gets
covered in a fine dust, I don't think I'm going to bother trying to
fight the loosing battle of keeping my floors clean just now,
especially since every single window in my apartment is open (with
bars and netting over them) and stays that way the whole day! I'm a
little concerned because it's very hot here for me (it's 36 degrees
today), but the other missionaries keep commenting about how cool the
weather has been! Hmmm, hope I acclimatise quickly! Evenings are
really nice at the moment though, I went to a missionary families
house for dinner last night and we (about 30 people in total) sat
outside till 9am (me getting eaten alive by Mozzies - yes I had
insect repellant on - I have delicious blood apparently!). One good
thing is that I'l loving how fast everything dries here!
I had my cultural
orientation to the market place and the center of town the other day.
Now I can understand how friends who have travelled and spent time in
developing nations have commented that it can take a whole day to go
shopping and to buy food! It was definitely sensory overload. The
noise, the smells, the heat, the lack of personal space, the need to
greet people everywhere you went and politely decline the offers to
buy venders wares....after a few hours I was exhausted!
My Nigerian tour guide,
a lovely lady named Kauna from SIM office, who has spent some time in
the US so understands the Western ways of doing and being, first took
me to the Baturi (white person) market. This market has things like
strawberries, apples, broccoli and cauliflower, things not indigenous
to Nigeria. Our next stop was to buy fabric for me to get some
Nigerian wrapper skirts made from. It's highly important to do this,
as it shows to the Nigerians that you're willing to learn and embrace
their culture. We entered a narrow alleyway full of cramped stores
wall to wall with yards of bright coloured fabric, I chose a pink and
green patterned number....photos will follow if I ever get good
internet speed!
I got a sim card for my
phone so I can stay in touch with people here and receive security
alerts when need be. I had to get it registered which was a bit
intimidating when they not only wanted a photo but my thumb and index
fingerprints of both hands for their system!
Next stop was the local
supermarket most of the missionaries use. I was surprised by how many
things were available, lots of american brands particularly, but I
saw vegemite, maggi stock, cadbury chocolate and even white chocolate
malteasers! Lots of imitation products of overseas brands such as
'Skiipy' peanut butter instead of Skippy and things I'll have to
slowly discover how to buy Nigerian, like the best tasting milk
powder, where to buy fresh yoghurt (Nigerian have a sweet liquid
drink they call yoghurt...nice but not on muesli or fruit) and which
meats to avoid and which are safe to buy. I then got some Nigerian
vegetables from the street venders: carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, red
onions, capsicums and cucumber. It was so cheap, for example all of
that would have cost me under $5 NZD.
After lugging all my
produce and fabric home because none of the taxi's would pick us up
due to the traffic around Challenge compound (a taxi costs 50 Naira
for most destinations; NZ 35 cents), I got home and attempted to
pre-prepare some of my food. Because our western stomaches aren't
accustomed to the Nigeria water supply (who knows what kind of
parasites could be lurking), we not only filter our water but bleach
the food we want to eat raw. This doesn't include food you can peel
such as bananas, mangos, oranges and papayas, but things like
strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes etc. must get soaked in a bleach
called Milton for 7-10mins before it's safe to eat. Food preparation
here therefore takes a lot more time and thought. I even have to use
bottled/filtered water while brushing my teeth! I try to hold the
bottle in my left hand the whole time so I don't go for the tap with
my spare hand as it is still habit to do, I've had a few near misses
and I'm positive I've swallowed shower water, but I'm not dead yet so
that's good!
Well I've been here a
week now and we have several power cuts a day. Apparently the
electricity (or NEPA as it's referred to here, stands for Nigerian
Electrical Power Association) has improved in my district in recent
months because one of the Governors' has moved in down the road and
also because there are several big banks in the same region that
obviously can't afford to be without power too long. My colleague
Kelly said they often go without power for days in her compound and
once went for 2 weeks without any power. We're very blessed at
Challenge because we have had a battery system installed. It's very
expensive to run but it's such an amazing relief to have light when
there's no NEPA simply by flicking a different switch. I did wonder
when I first arrived why there were two light switches for every
light in my apartment. One of the hard things about having no NEPA is
that there is no way to keep things cool or frozen. As I don't have a
huge amount in my freezer, I've frozen water bottles so that when the
power is off, what I have in there will stay frozen for around 40-50
hours. The key is just to open the fridge as infrequently as
possible. It's been so crazy realising how much we take for granted
in our developed country. Speaking for myself I definitely felt quite
enraged and hard done by if for some reason the power was out at
home, wether because of bad weather or servicing of the wires, but
here it's just an awesome privilege to have continuous NEPA the whole
day! I did my first load of washing the other night and the power
went out mid cycle, typical! Thankfully it came on again a few hours
later so my clothes weren't soaking for too long. That's all for now,
I'm trying my hardest to keep each blog a readable length!
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