Happy Christmas

The sun is shining, there's a slight nip in the air (it is only 20 degrees Celcius) and I'm woken by the sound of carols at 4:45am - it must be Christmas Day.
There have been lots of firsts this year; here are a few Christmas ones.

• I picked oranges from the tree in the garden to put in James and Ruth's stockings instead of buying them from Tesco.
• A box of Kellogg's bran flakes is a special treat for Christmas breakfast.
• At church this morning we were invited to stand up and dance and everybody did, rhythmically.
• We went for a post Christmas lunch walk in shorts and t-shirts.
• I'm wished "Merry Christmas" by armed soldiers manning the checkpoints with big smiles.

These are some of the firsts but what's most noteworthy is the thing that never changes - the amazing fact that the Creator of the universe put aside his glory to become a human baby and be born in the degradation of a stable simply because he loves us too much to spend eternity without us.  Jesus, "born to pay a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay".

Happy Christmas everyone.

Christmas Eve

Not a penny spent - can you tell?

Christmas Day

BRICC Christmas

What do you have for your school/work Christmas dinner?  Yesterday I went to the BRICC meeting room to share in the jollof rice prepared for the Christmas celebrations there.  It might seem strange to have Christians and Muslims having a lunch for Christmas together but it's all part of building relationships.  At the end of Ramadan in August there was a lunch for the Muslim festival and yesterday was the turn of the Christians.  It's great to see respected members of both communities coming together to share food and accounts of how BRICC has helped them.  Siddique the education co-ordinator told of how at the start the classes would be obviously split with Christians and Muslims extremely wary of each other.  After a few weeks he saw a Christian boy and a Muslim boy leave together, walk along the street then shake hands before parting to go to their own areas.  "That's what BRICC's all about," he said. 

Joseph, another Nigerian in the management team, spoke of how he took a group into an area from which they thought they'd never return alive.  These others had believed rumours of how members of their faith would be killed if they ventured in that particular region.  They all came back safe and well and with a better understanding of the other community.

One man, principal of a local school, was there for the first time but he too got up to speak.  At first he'd thought he was far too busy to get involved in anything else but people told him about the peace-promoting work of BRICC and now he's signed up to voluntarily teach one of the classes.  His comments on Toby (American co-founder of BRICC), Ruth (Irish) and me were quite humbling.  He pointed out how we'd all left our families and the wealth of our home countries to come to Jos to help heal a wound that we'd had nothing to do with.  Toby is now the doctor; Ruth and I nurses!

It wasn't just the adult co-ordinators who were there, four boys from the football teams had been invited as a reward for their efforts on the pitch.  They're the ones most affected by the violence and they are the ones who can spread the message of reconciliation and relationship among their peers.
It's a great privilege to be a part of BRICC and be welcomed into the lives of the people involved.

Sleeping dog

Everybody needs a teddy.

Instructions for cooking rice in Nigeria: first open the packet and pour into bowl. Next pick out the weevils merrily crawling over the grains, then add hot water.  Any weevils you've missed can now be easily scooped out as they float to the surface.  Proceed with cooking according to your favourite method and don't tell the children.

Extreme gardening

What do you think of when the word gardening is mentioned?  Alan Titchmarsh, Percy Thrower, older ladies in straw hats gently clipping off flowers to put in their baskets? How about the slash and burn of extreme gardening?  Francis, a Nigerian who appears only too happy to come and set our garden in order, today introduced me to horticulture in Africa.  There is a rumour in certain circles that I am a not so closetted pyromaniac.  Today there were enough flames to satisfy even me.  The land needs to be cleared before we can do anytihing with it and this is the quickest way, even if it did provoke a text from another ex-pat to Fraser - "Did you know your garden's on fire!"  I was relieved that Francis had cleared a fire break near our new fence before he torched the place.

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to grow enough to have some food to give away.  Many of the TCNN students struggle to make ends meet and if we can help by providing a little extra it'll be a good way to show our appreciation that we've been given such a lovely place to live.

Besa meets a refugee from the flames

Sunday

The chapel at TCNN is a very striking building, inside and out.  The services can be equally of note.  I've often heard music or preaching at our house during the week as with open windows and the Nigerian fondness for volume any service or practice is quite easily heard across the campus.  Yesterday I attended the Sunday service for the first time.

After struggling to arrange a suitable headcovering with a piece of cloth which matched my Nigerian outfit though was too small for easy tying, we walked across to the chapel.

The building is large and airy, the windows wide open -  we picked our seats at the back for coolness.  The service was lively and not too loud (that could have been because the sound system did not seem particularly reliable) but the music was good.  The whole thing was led by one of the students and the place was packed, predominately with men but there were a fair number of women and children too.  Most of the children had attended Sunday school, 7:30-8:30, so were excused the actual service and either went home or played quietly outside.  Three choirs participated, two with beautiful African-style acapella music, the third with guitars, keyboard and drumkit sang Majesty which brought back memories of DEC in Scotland although with rather more harmonising.

A one point there was a request for anyone worshipping for the first time to stand up.  Fraser, Ruth and I duly stood (James, though better, was recuperating at home).  We were then welcomed by the whole congregation and worship team singing and embellishing a chorus that centred round the words Worship the Lord and Welcome to TCNN chapel.

Collection was taken with a difference too.  Instead of sitting and quietly waiting for a bag or plate to be passed round, we were prepared by being told how good it was to dance before the Lord.  We were even given some tips on dance steps and then invited to dance down to the front to present our offerings.  Unfortunately our offering was only in one note so Fraser alone could go along the aisle.  I didn't notice him doing much dancing but I'd better not say too much as it'll be my turn next week.

Later in the afternoon Ruth and I decided to climb the hill up to the huge water tank that overlooks the college and supplies most of Bukuru.  It was a beautiful afternoon and a spectacular view from the top across the rock formations and flatlands of the Plateau. We've been in Nigeria for nearly four months now and thought we were pretty much acclimatised but just those extra feet knocked us both for six.  We felt dizzy and headachey with the altitude and had to climb down sooner than we'd intended.  Perhaps it'll take longer than we expected to get properly accustomed to living nearly 4000 feet above sea level.  Ruth did see a bluetailed skink on the way down which was rather exciting, especially as at first we thought it was an exotic looking snake.

One of the delights of moving to TCNN has been the clear night sky, especially when there's been no power.  Recently the view hasn't been as clear - the harmattan is bringing in the dust and the stars are often fuzzy.  It's also drying everything.  I feel as if my brain is shrivelling (no cheap remarks please) and my skin certainly is.  The challenge now is to get the children to drink enough so they don't dessicate too.

Life in Bukuru

Last month when little Ellie Fitzsimmons was ill I sympathised with her mother, Angie, when she had to sit up with her.  Now I too know the delights of sitting up with someone who's ill when the power goes off in the middle of the night.  I enjoy candlelight but it becomes somewhat worrying when there's less than an inch left, I didn't find a shop that sold more yesterday and I have a son who can vomit into a bucket when he can see where it is but has yet to try when the lights are out.  All part of life in Nigeria.  We're just hoping it's something he ate and not a bug that will sweep through the family.  At least if the water tank starts overflowing with no warning at 2am this morning I'm already awake to close off the pipe.

Apart from some teething troubles life in Bukuru is pleasant.  We do have an issue with hot water pressure but we have cold running water in the house and the leak in the mains which, when the water is actually flowing, provides us with our own stream does not appear to affect the filling of our water tank.  There are no mosquito screens on the doors which means we can't have them open to let the breeze in but we do have fine mesh on the window screens.  There are large gaps under and around the doors and there was a mouse in one of the rooms but then it could run under the door and outside again before I could catch it and had to decide what to do with it next.  We can't use the garage because of a beesnest in the walls but we do have tangerine, avocado, mango and cashew trees in our huge garden.  Above all, the weather is lovely and we know that God has put us here.

Moving in

Yesterday James and I were at school for 7am to prepare for the 8th grade pancake breakfast.  By 12:30 we were moving in to our house at TCNN.

Our house

It still looks like a builders' yard outside and there are plenty of things that need fixing inside but we slept here last night are enjoying finally being able to get all the suitcases unpacked.  It's been about 5 months since we moved out of our home in Dingwall, James hasn't been in a proper bedroom since but now he no longer has to sleep in a tent or  utility room.  It's going to take weeks, if not months, before everything's sorted out - the maintenence department at the college is not known for its speediness or efficiency, but we can make do.  Having said that, we were taken by surprise when all the lights went out in the evening.  We shouldn't have been having lived in Nigeria since August but we've been spoiled by the generator at our previous compound and I hadn't fished out the torches.  We managed and it was a good opportunity to see the beautiful night sky.  After the tall trees, security lights and high walls of the compound in Jos, we  truly felt we were in Africa as we walked home from tea under the stars and the smiling crescent moon.

View over police barracks from back door

View from back door

View over TCNN from front door

Living room

We've been struck by the warmth of the welcome of the college community.  Two families came to welcome us yesterday, another invited us for tea for which I was extremely grateful as we have hardly any food in the house.  In fact, apart from breakfast, we don't have to prepare a meal until Tuesday by which time I should know my way around better.  Even the dog is settling in.  After a scary experience yesterday with the exuberantly friendly dog next door, today they have made friends.  I think there's even a slight case of hero-worship going on.

Besa and his new friend K9

Piping

View from the school

This morning we had an even earlier start than usual as James had been asked to play his bagpipes at 7:30am at the school run by the Mashaiah Foundation (where women, children and orphans affected by HIV/AIDS are supported).  The school had been reading a book featuring a Scottish boy who wore a kilt and played the pipes so Mary Beth Oyebado took the initiative and invited James to demonstrate.

Waiting for the pipes

At 7:20 we arrived to find most of the children enthusiastically singing whilst they waited.  Their volume easily rivalled that of the bagpipes but even so a few still put hands over their ears when James started to play (his playing was actually very good).  I sat there proudly and somewhat moved as the sounds of Scotland rang out over Jos and seconded the shout of "Yes" from the children when asked if they wanted to hear more.

James asked me not to post a photo of him actually playing so here's one of Ruth in her outfit for the school Crazy Dress Up party last week.

Football again

About a year ago I attended my first football match.  My abiding memory, apart from the warm welcome and hospitality from Ross County, was of absolutely freezing feet.  Although I'm a bit concerned about setting an annual precedent, this morning I attended another - James' second match for the Hillcrest Middle School team.  Comparisons can be invidious.  Suffice it to say that today I was sitting in a sleeveless dress enjoying the warm harmattan breeze instead of being wrapped up in a thick winter coat with long scarf, hat and two pairs of gloves.  Unfortunately the score for James' team was not as favourable as it was for Ross County a year ago (1:1); Hillcrest lost 4:1 but then they were playing high school boys.

The tension!

Apart from watching football I'm working away at my Hausa.  I'm at the stage where there are so many words fluttering around my head it takes a while to catch the right ones, put them in the correct order and then attempt an approximation of appropriate tone and pronunciation.  It will get easier with practice and teacher Jummai is a very patient, good-humoured and wise woman.  At the moment I can say a few things that I've done, the same things that I shall do but not what I'm actually doing.  The excitement for next week will be learning the present tense.

Another excitement (apart from the grade 8 pancake breakfast on Saturday morning) will be moving into our house in Bukuru.  If all goes to plan we hope to be sleeping there next Saturday night.  All the major work has been done, it just needs to be cleaned.  We're also intending to build a fence around the property to keep our dog in, other dogs out and to separate us from the police training school right behind.  This may not be finished before we move next week as we're looking at alternatives - even in Nigeria it costs an awful lot to put up a fence.

Bricc arts

Today James played in the Middle School football team's first match against a different school.  Fraser and Ruth headed over to support him but I had somewhere else to go.  BRICC's football match was last Saturday when Christians and Muslims met on neutral ground.  This week, more attractive to those of us who aren't that keen on football, was the BRICC arts, poetry and music session.

One of the benefits of living in the Highlands of Scotland is the Gaelic culture.  This afternoon reminded me very much of the traditional ceilidh when anyone who wants can get up and do a turn, although here the theme of peace ran strongly through the programme.  Poetic Oracle (aka David in the lime green shirt) was leading the activities and in true Nigerian fashion announced that we would all introduce ourselves, or rather would have to talk to the person next to us and introduce him (at the start Ruth Beattie and I were the only women there and white at that so we did stand out somewhat).  My heart quailed but I found I was talking to a very interesting artist called Rotimi.  He teaches art in his studio and many of the paintings on display this afternoon had been created by his students.  Peace work to him is similar to the process of producing a picture.  You take many different colours and use them together to make something beautiful.

In our pairs we went up to the front to talk about our new friend.  I was quite surprised when Poetic Oracle then held my marriage up as an example of peace work in action.  Fraser's Scottish, I'm English: to him we married outside our own cultures and so have proved it's possible to build bridges between different peoples.  I've never seen it like that but am quite happy to be used in any helpful way.

After introductions we split into groups to discuss the meanings of the words each group was given.  Mine got Trust, Trauma and Peace.  No peace can be built without trust and the right attitude of heart that focusses on healing peace and not on divisive trauma.  Listening to these Nigerians, some of whom have been driven out of their neighbourhoods by the crisis, talk about working together for peace is very encouraging.

"The Chairman", BRICC stalwart and my group's leader

Finally, after reporting back to the whole, the first acts of rhythmic poems on peace and Jos were performed.  Others brought up their guitars, one man had a stringed gourdlike instrument which made the most beautiful sounds as he sang hauntingly to it.  You did not need to understand the words to hear the longing for healing, rebuilding and peace.  It was much better than a football match.

Back to school

On Monday James and Ruth returned to school after the mid-semester break and so did I.  Ten years after I started learning my last language (Gaelic) I'm back in the classroom attempting to learn Hausa.  I'm extremely grateful for all the prayers supporting my progress as I'm sure my great age has slowed me down a little.  Not only do I have to contend with vocabulary and grammar but Hausa is a tonal language so for many words I have to remember which tone I should be using.  At times I can hear it but not reproduce it, at times it's difficult even to discern but then today is only my third day and I'm sure things will get easier.

The classes are run by Bilhatu, a lady who worked as an accountant for the federal government for many years until she felt God calling her to get involved in her church's Hausa ministry.  Initially she was helping local women learn to read and write in the language but one day she was asked to take one of the classes for expats who wanted to speak Hausa.  She never looked back and most of the missionaries in Jos have been through her course and loudly sing her praises.

The classes are held in an area of Jos that used to be mixed until the crisis of a few years ago.  Now the Muslim familes have moved out and I drive to the school past houses destroyed in the violence. Bilhatu runs meetings for Christians and Muslims to get together and look for peace.  Both sides have suffered and both are very wary but they have come for talks and even held a three-day football tournament with mixed teams and compulsory peace training which culminated in a procession through the Christian area which Muslims had been afraid to enter since the trouble.  People are seeking peace and we pray that both sides would continue to get involved and find true peace.

I'm hard at work back at school but on Tuesday the government announced public holidasy on Thursday and Friday for sallah, another Muslim holiday.  Coming from a country where public holidays are announced a year in advance, it takes some getting used to only having two days' notice.  James and Ruth get another two days off school so they are quite happy.

Abattoir Field Trip (I go to the nicest places)

WARNING: Some people (especially vegetarians) may find the photos in this post disturbing.

Some of the things we take for granted in the UK but are difficult to get in Jos are decent cheese, ham and bacon.  Apart from keeping a cow (perhaps when we move to TCNN) there's not much I can do about the lack of cheese except save up to pay the large amount it costs to get the occasional chunk.  However, bacon and ham are another matter.

Ali Robinson (out here with Wycliffe and whose parents actually led some of the courses Fraser and I did when we were at the Wycliffe Centre in the 1990s) has been experimenting with curing her own ham and bacon.  She's an abattoir veteran and kindly agreed to take a group of us on a field trip to buy pork and then cure it at home.  We tried curing it a few weeks ago but the ham started to go green after a couple of days.  Deciding that discretion was advisable, I gave mine a decent burial, unlike some other hammers who cut off the green and ate it anyway.  Obviously I haven't been out here long enough yet.

We decided we wanted to try again and this time do it from the beginning.

Once you've been to the meat market you'll never look at a butcher's shop in the same way.  There a single fly in the sterile environment of a shop with refrigerators is cause for concern.  On the stall, as long as you go in the morning when the meat hasn't been sitting in the heat all day and there isn't a swarm of flies you feel OK.

Every single part of the animal is available, from the horns to the heart to fillet steak (if you know how to identify it).  Ali is greatly practised in poking and prodding and telling the stall holders which particular bit of the carcase she wants.  It was a real education and all cuts of meat cost the same - N800/kg (about £3.40).  There was a pig area, beef area, goat area and sometimes a lamb area, although pigs are only slaughtered on Saturdays. It's one way to ensure your meat is fresh; it doesn't come much fresher than being alive that morning.  I did feel sorry for the solitary cow tethered to a tree.  It looked rather concerned and with good cause.

With our meat packed into the ubiquitous black plastic bags we left.  I still had curing salt left over from the previous unsuccessful attempt so I took my pork (and the fillet steak for tea which I couldn't resist) back home.  The hardest part of this process is trimming the meat.  I felt a great sense of achievement that I only had to call for the first aid kit once.  Sharpening knives makes a difference, it was a good clean cut all the way through, just have to hope it doesn't get infected so my finger drops off.  The rest of the family had better appreciate what I went through so they can have bacon butties.


Now the bacon is in one bag in the fridge and the ham curing in another.  It'll be two weeks before the ham is ready but we'll be able to eat bacon next weekend.  Needless to say I'll be keeping a close eye out for any colour changes this time and be praying that there's plenty of electricity to keep the fridge running.  Next time you simply buy a packet of bacon or some slices of ham at the supermarket I hope you truly appreciate it.

Our beef stall

The buckets are for rinsing the innards

Ali (dark hair) checking the pork

Wildlife Park

It's the "mid-semester" break this week (hooray!) so we went on a family trip to Jos Wildlife Park.  Sometimes we like to splash out on excursions so today we thought nothing of the £2 it cost for us all to get in (and that included a 200 naira fee for permision to use the camera).  After the health and safety consciousness of British wildlife parks the one in Jos is very refreshing, although Fraser did feel somewhat unsettled at times when all that was between us and a carnivore was a twenty year old chainlink fence.  There were no signs saying don't climb on the walls - some of the enclosures positively encouraged climbing up to look down on the crocodiles or snakes.  Parts of the park were like a secret garden of fallen walls and overgrown paths, many of the enclosures were not as big as we might like but the animals looked cared for and the staff were all friendly.    It was a refreshing change to wander round a wildlife park without freezing to bits (the last one we visited was Edinburgh Zoo) and instead of grey squirrels raiding the litterbins there were monkeys making off with titbits.  I did wonder if the black cattle wandering about were kept to provide food for the carnivores, especially when we saw the lionness and her cub gnawing at a jawbone after the meat wheelbarrow had gone round.

Not only did we see monkeys, chimps, tortoises, crocodiles, an elephant, hyenas, ostriches, a lionness with her cub and many other creatures but there was also a museum.  The Pitt Rivers in Oxford has nothing on the Jos Wildlife Park museum.  You enter to see an elephant head staring at you.  Go behind it and all the gruesome bits are still there.  There were creatures of all sorts preserved in glass jars, stuffed, dessicated and skinned.  Unfortunately many of them were moth-eaten and suffering from the effects of too much dust but it was certainly an experience.  I'm sure we'll be back.

Bee hives: the honey in Nigeria is much stronger tasting than in the UK

Whose family?

As usual we went to chapel at Hillcrest this morning.  The preacher was a Nigerian church leader who spoke about Abraham and God's promise to him of a son and then led into our adoption as children of God.  The comment that struck me was that, as friends of his in America are jumping through all kinds of hoops in order to adopt a child and give that child the right to bear their surname, so we are able to add the name "God" after our first names as Jesus has given us the right to be called children of God. He also suggested that whenever we meet or are introduced to someone we should drop the title "son/daughter of God" into our profile and watch the reaction. 
 
An odd thing happened at lunch today.  We had David Rowberry with us (Wycliffe & Glasgow) and I was wanting to have a steamed  pudding (cinnamon and mock apple aka green papaya).  Easy to whip up you might think. Yes if there's power to work the electric beaters, too much like hard work if there isn't.  I planned ahead, prepared the pudding on Saturday night when the generator ensures electricity, put it into my trusty Lakeland pudding basin (see earlier post) and pressure cooked it for 10 minutes, intending to give it the remaining cooking time today.  In the morning I was glad I did as there was no power.  I lifted the lid to check it, it had risen nicely so into the cooker it went to finish steaming.

Pudding time arrived and I opened up my basin ready to tip it onto a serving plate.  I don't know what chemical reaction had occurred (suggestions please) but any sponge-like qualities had disappeared leaving a gooey (delicious) mixture which could only be spooned into bowls.  It was my ideal pudding - just like the raw cake mixture I enjoy so much but with the reassurance it had been properly cooked.  I probably couldn't produce it again but we certainly enjoyed it this time.

A wellie tree

I now know where they get wellies from in Nigeria.  They really do grow on trees.

Mashiah Foundation

 I’ve found another worthwhile place to spend money.

Leaving our car still with its insides scattered on the ground and no sign of the mechanics who’d promised to come back this morning, I happily went with Mary Beth to the Masiah Foundation in the Tudun Wada area of Jos.  Within huge grounds the Foundation runs a clinic, school, home for orphans and HIV positive women, sewing workshop and outlet for the handicrafts the women produce.  There are even a few geese to act as guards.

It was my first trip round a Nigerian school and I enjoyed seeing the attentive pupils in their cheerful checked uniforms.  It’s actually housed in a building that will become the expanded clinic once money has been raised to build a new school.  All of the AIDs orphans attend the school but it’s also open to the community and has expanded to about 180 pupils from 2 years old upwards.  The centrepiece is the very welcoming library.  I could have spent a long time in it and one of the problems the school has is getting the children out of the library when it’s time to go home.  There’s a good selection of games, commonplace in the UK but far rarer in Nigeria.  Many children have never come across boardgames or jigsaws until they appear in a school lesson.

The football pitch & possible site of a new school building

I was impressed by the school and delighted by the beautiful handcrafts in the shop.  Now I know where to get large beanbags, cushions, quilts and rugs when we finally get to our house at TCNN.  They even sell floppy hats but I’ll wait until it’s time for a trip to the UK before getting one of those to embarrass my children by wearing.

Each product has a label with a little of the story of the Masiah Foundation.  I’ve reproduced it below.

A poverty stricken woman with HIV received free medicine from the Masiah Foundation clinic, however one thing was still disturbing her.  She met Pastor Bayo and pleaded, “The doctor told me I have to take this medicine with food but there is no food in my house.”  Bayo handed her a few hundred naira but knew that handouts would only help for a day.  He believed there must be a way to help these women earn money to care for themselves, after all, many of them were strong and capable of earning a living if they only had skills.

Bayo had often seen his wife Mary Beth making quilts.  In 2003 he asked her to start a sewing programme for the women.  Today Women of Hope is a distinctive shop featuring the creative work of over 100 women and orphans who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.  The women testify that earning money through creating handcrafts has given them strength and purpose to go on living.

A good place to spend money – and I even got a complementary cloth bag.

Testing times at BRICC

Over the past couple of weeks the ladies on BRICC's skills' acquisition course have been assessed on their abilities.  Each of them had to produce bread and doughnuts to be marked by a selection of hungry volunteers.  They passed with flying colours and are now ready to set up their own businesses.  At the side of most of the roads you find pots of oil on top of open fires and women peeling potatoes to make chips or frying doughnuts to sell to passers-by.  It's an important source of income for people who have few opprtunities and can make all the difference to a family's finances.  The next skills course will be on how to make beauty products.  I don't think they'll be as many men offering to assess that one.

When Besa has misbehaved we put him in the bathroom to calm down and reflect on his naughtiness.  This morning he discovered the toilet paper.  Think Andrex puppy.

Shopping

Shopping in Jos is somewhat different from popping down to Tesco every week and coming home with all that you need.  There are only a couple of shops that I've found that actually display their prices.  Go to any of the small stalls or kiosks and you have to ask.  The price will depend on what you look like, if you're a regular, how business is going, how the stallholder feels that day and how well you can haggle.  

Yesterday I went into town to buy fruit, vegetables, fish and a printer cartridge.  Most of the time I enjoy the hustle and bustle of the streets and markets, being able to stop the man with the huge dish of plantains on his head and bargain for what I need (I haven't yet tried it with the man with the live hens on his head).  This time it was different.  At every kiosk and stall I went to I was charged an exorbitant markup - baturi price, worse than on any previous shopping trip.  One young woman shamefacedly admitted that she had asked too much for her tomatoes because I was white after I queried the cost.  It all leads to an ethical dilemma.  I fully acknowledge that as a foreigner I do have a far higher income than most Nigerians and definitely the ones at the stalls, however, it goes completely against my sense of fairness to accept being ripped off.  What should I do? I don't mind paying a little extra but I suppose it offends my pride to be taken for a fool.  It may be because we want to do good on our own terms.  Giving a gift of money that's greater than any extra charged for a bag of tomatoes somehow seems more acceptable than being asked to pay over the odds for it.  It's all to do with power - who's in control?  We were glad to be able to help one of the gate guards with transport costs for himself and his wife to go to her home village for the funeral of her sister but that was in response to an open request.  Perhaps it's also the feeling of subterfuge that irritates me.  In the end I was so fedup that I retreated to Flourish, an actual supermarket, small by UK standards but with non-negotiable prices clearly displayed.  It tells you something about my state of mind that I was seriously contemplating buying a packet of Foxes chocolate chunk cookies for nearly £3.  I did resist and got a packet of banana chips for 20p instead (last of the big spenders!) - it's all about good stewardship.

I don't know if anyone's been affected by the recent flooding in England.  Benue State in Nigeria has also had floods but with added complications.  I do feel sympathy for the people in England whose homes have been ruined by dirty flood water but the experience of one poor Nigerian who'd fled his home as the waters rose puts things into perspective. As he told reporters, Wuese Jirake had returned to his house to find it already occupied.

“This morning I visited my house. It is still inundated with the flood waters above my waist. There is now a hippopotamus in the house,” he said.
He said he had reported the situation to the authorities.
“I hope that when it is tired, it may leave my home. If there is any other way of dealing with the problem, the authorities need to pursue that because it is beyond my abilities.”

 Other houses have been taken over by snakes and crocodiles; at least the affected residents of England don't have that to worry about.

Cloth

Celtic-Nigerian Fusion

One of the pleasures about being in Nigeria is the vibrant and original clothes.  I am rapidly finding it harder to resist buying cloth (as a piece of material is called here) and getting it made up into a dress or skirt and top. When I saw this piece at Iffy's stall in the main market I knew it was destined for me.  How often do you find Celtic knotwork in Africa?

Update on the driving licences: Makeji paid the fee to the bank as directed but was then told the money had ended up in the Plateau State Government account instead of the vehicle licencing account it was meant to go to.  Have you tried retrieving money from a government?  At least we have multiple copies of documents which show we're trying to obtain Nigerian licences while we wait for the mess to be sorted out. In some ways it doesn't really matter as the biometric camera in the licencing office is not working so we wouldn't have been able to get official photos taken anyway.

Independence Day

Today Hillcrest School celebrated Nigerian Independence Day.  The country will have been independent for 52 years on October 1^st but as that day’s  a holiday the school celebrations were held today.

Chapel

All pupils and parents were encouraged to come to the morning chapel service dressed in their Nigerian finery.  It was quite a sight to see people of all ages in the beautiful vibrant materials and fashions of Nigerian dress.  There was even a fashion show with pupils representing some of the different tribes of Nigeria in their characteristic clothes.  With the music led by a local band, it was sometimes more like a rock concert.  Nigerians are not a quiet people.  Coupled with the American contribution, at times I wished that I’d brought my head-tie just to protect my ears.  It was a joyful celebration including a short dvd of pupils talking about why they loved Nigeria.  I’m sure I saw a future president, now in elementary school, on the screen. 

Chapel was rounded off by a talk from one of the parents, an economist who runs his own business.  He was contrasting the great advantages Nigeria has in its people and resources with the faulty system that allows for corruption and mismanagement.  We hope and pray that many of the pupils at Hillcrest will grow up to become leaders in their country, full of integrity and Christian love.