Things I love......

I have felt very convicted by an email my Grandma sent me the other day saying “I hope to see a blog soon with “Things I love…..”. It got me thinking and wondering if the way I’ve been writing may seem as thought I’m constant complaining and infact hating Nigeria, which is as far from the truth as possible! So, I’ve decided to include a little tribute to things I LOVE about this country, the people, my work and living in the third world.

I love that every day is different, every day is an adventure, every day I’m discovering new things, every day I feel increadibly challenged (mostly in my patience levels!), everyday I laugh and am made to reflect.

I love the crazyness and that nothing makes sense, I love the heat (altho this may change come hot season!), I love the noise, I love the way you are greeted by everyone just walking down the road.

I love the kids, their smiles, their energy and excitement, I love when they fight to hold my hand, I love when the write me letter saying they love me and want to be my ‘bestest friend’, I love how they appreciate the smallest things (like having their nails painted or having their hands and feet massaged with moisturiser).

I love doing clinics, I love feeling like my skills and knowledge is valued and that God is using it to heal physically and teach people how to live healthier lives to better glorify Him. I love how the smallest piece of advice can make huge changes in someones life.

I love the friends I’ve made so far. I love the social nature of life, living in a connected way and doing things in groups and being so involved in people’s lives.

I love the food. I love pineapple, watermelon, mango, papaya, banana and strawberries for breakfast in the morning. I love trying new foods I’ve never eaten before, new textures and flavors.

I love the culture, I love the inclusive and communal lifestyles of the Nigerian people, the fact that as a cultrue they don’t live to purely better their own situation but they pool resources and when one is in need, all contribute to help. I love the friendly accepting way people welcome you.

I love the church, I love the faith I see, the courgae amidst persecution, and I love the joy and thankfulness I see expressed despite the apparent lack of material blessings.  

I love Nigeria!

So now on to what has been happening lately. I started my first Hausa class the other night. George (who has lived in Nigeria 23 years and has fluent Hausa) offered to teach a group of us some essential conversational basics. It’s going really well and we’re aiming to learn about 20 new words per week. I’ve been practising hard with the guards at the gate and the women who sells frut and vegetables on the corner. It’s a really fun language to learn, lots of words said with different accents mean different things and can be used in many different occasions eg amazement, discipline, sadness and happiness. But I’ve found the key is speed and animation, I’m still working on being able to greet back and forth faster but as long as you use an animated voice they know ‘you are trying’ (a common encouragement here).

A group of us went to a pool after church last Sunday called HPC. It was beautifully cold and surprisingly clean but the absolute lack of pool saftey made me laugh. It would have been an occupational health nightmare in the West. They had interspaced slippery tiles with paved rock along the sides of the pool and the one railing over the end of pool was loose and wiggling as we climbed over it to jump from a height. I also couldn’t see the logic in putting the beach chair recliners on gravel….but hey it was cold water and fun company!

We took a trip out to a village an hour out of Jos last Tuesday to visit a missionary dentist who works out there at a retreat center. I went as moral support to a friend from Challenge who got his front tooth knocked out at basketball. Miango was a perfect example of a normal little African village, dusty dirt roads and wooden concrete shacks….we found a ‘restaurant’ on the road (recognisable by a woman cooking outside on a fire and a lace curtain covering her door), walked into the entrance to find plastic tables and chairs spread out. Usually places to eat on the side of the road can be recognised by a sign saying ‘Food is Ready’. Thankfully we had George with us who could asertain what was on the menu that day and knew how to order.  We had various combinations of Tuwo shinkafa (a dense ball of starch, can be either pounded yam, some maize porriage but that day we had a rice ball) with Draw soup (okra or melon seeds cooked until they thicken) or as the missionaries call is ‘snot soup’. It was delcious but ha the most bizzare consistency I’ve ever tasted in my life, the texture was actaully accuratly discribes when compared to runny snot! One of the guys had boiled yam and red stew (very popular and delicious) and it all has to be eaten with plenty of pepe (a hot red pepper based sprinkle on seasoning). My favourite Nigerian food so far are Masa, hard to explain but is made from permented rice and fried (as is most of the Nigerian cuisine, and usually eaten with Suya- a meat kebab coated in ground peanuts and chilli pepper babrbequed on a stick) and groundnut soup (peanut soup).

Speaking of food, I made sushi for the compund the other night! I was having a moan about missing my favourite foods the other day and George casually said he had seaweed wraps, wassabi  and salmon(which he’s picked up on holiday in the UK a few months back)…..he didn’t need to tell me twice! I must admit, the sushi rice wasn’t exactly authentic (I had to make my own rice vingegar) but all in all it was a good effort if I do say so myself!

I attended a seminar the other day about ‘Living in High Stress Environment’. It was a really interesting lecture, they discussed the physiology and manifestations of long term stress on the body (all very depressing really…I’m aging faster than all you back home!) and recognising burn out leading to depression. Even though I feel I already have effective stress relief techniques (I wouldn’t have lasted very long in my last job in ED without them!), it was helpful to hear perspectives from long term missionaries and see the link between stress and your theology.

I also attended a Community Health Evangelism course last week which was really encouraging. It aims to train people to be able to go into villages, negotiate with the people there about what their health needs are, where the gaps in education and health prevention may be, and how a programme can be developed to pass on knowledge and dispell wrong and unhealthy cultural and spiritual beliefs, particularly around maternal and infant health.

We had a formal dinner out at the nicest restaurant in Jos (by Western satndards) with the Challenge Compound crew last Saturday which was great fun. The idea to dress up came from a comment made about how fun it would be to buy one of the outrageously coloured and textured, puffy sleeved, ruffled dresses we see everywhere in Nigerian shops, so Fiona and I went down to a shop run by three sisters who hang their wares in a tree! I must admit it was mainly so I could say I’d ‘bought a dress out of a tree’! The guys made us corsages of roses and we felt like real pricesses for the night. I think that’s about all to report this week. Hope you are all well.