Different worlds

I've taken to walking with Fraser to the library when he goes to work at eight in the morning and then continuing round the campus to get a bit of exercise.  In Scotland I did a lot of walking but it's more difficult here.  By 9am it's often too hot to do anything energetic and I have to take the car to get around Jos.

On Monday we arrived at the library when the cleaner was coming out.  She immediately greeted us and reached to take Fraser's laptop, despite his protestations and much to his surprise.  She doesn't usually do that.
Today we walked past an old man (retired accountant) tying up his goats.  We exchanged greetings then he asked why I wasn't carrying my oga's (Hausa term of respect for a superior) laptop and bag of books.  I think they're trying to tell me something. I don't know if Fraser will get sympathy for having a wife who doesn't realise that her place is to carry his belongings (preferably several paces behind him) or if they think him weak for not beating me into submission.

As in many developing nations in a lot of circles women are not considered equal to men although they do most of the work.  Even in the church men who call themselves Christian and even pastors and elders beat their wives.  Several of the books I worked on for ACTS dealt with this problem but it's spread throughout society, a cultural rather than religious problem.
We were talking about the treatment of women in the BRICC office earlier this week.  One of the women expressed her approval that more girls were being educated.  That's the key: with education women can see they are not inferior to men and I hope will realise that they do not have to accept the treatment and attitudes too often doled out to them.

Kids

 

Yesterday Toby was expressing great interest in something in our neighbour's garden so, trying to avoid trouble, I wandered over to have a look.  He was trying to climb over the fence to join K9 in his examination of one of the smallest kids I've ever seen, tiny and fluffy but with a voice out of all proportion to its size.  As K9 has been known to snack on such delicacies I decided that extraction was the best course of action and ended up bringing it across to our house. 
There was no mother goat in sight nor hearing but under a tree in the garden to our other side was what must have been the kid's brother, even more vociferous than my new little friend.  With Ruth's enthusiastic encouragement I collected him too.  We'd been hearing kids crying throughout the night and guessed that the mother had given birth then been frightened away by one of the many dogs that roam around the place as the kids couldn't have been more than twenty-four hours old.
What do you do with teeny tiny kids crying for their mother?   We tried feeding them milk from a teaspoon and they did take a little but things really took off once we borrowed a baby's bottle from a friend.  Meanwhile, Toby hadn't lost interest.  He was licking them even before they'd spilt milk all over themselves.  I think he wanted to adopt them too, they certainly started following him around.
In the end conscience got the better of me and I made enquiries in the police barracks as to whether anyone was expecting kids and hadn't got any.  One woman had been complaining to friends that her goat had gone out pregnant and come back with neither bump nor offspring.  I no longer had an excuse to keep "Bubble" and "Squeak" (yes, we'd already given them names: the boy was Squeak as he was by far the noisier). They were taken away amidst rejoicing but for Ruth and me, though we'd only cared for them a couple of hours, they left quite a gap.

Not all the creatures I encounter are as sweet as baby goats but at least if they die on the doorstep the ants will clear up.