On Monday, 1st of April, at 0730, I left my keys and a note on the table, and set off barefoot down the beach on a journey to circumnavigate the world.
I left behind my little house by the shore of the Coral Sea in Australia, with its perpetual smell of Indian food and Indian music (courtesy of my housemate) and flew west to Africa. After 24 hours in Dubai and another (unintended) 24 hours marooned in Cairo (flight delays), I arrived in Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria.
My first impressions of Abuja had been that it "smells like a hedge." Others have expressed surprise that a capitol in Africa might smell so decent, but Abuja is, after all, only thirty years old. A planned city built in a previously undeveloped rural area in the center of "9ja" (as "Nigeria" is commonly written there, or "Naija" if they're feeling a bit more elaborative), to replace Lagos, which is in the south-west corner of the country and does NOT smell like a hedge.
The local "Zuma" people who were living in the area of Abuja were relocated, and, I assume, probably not consulted.
Nigeria is made up of three major ethnic groups, the Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo, which can be further subdivided into over 500 smaller ethnic groups. I'm told there are over 200 different languages spoken, some only used in a few villages. As such, English is the only nation-wide language they have in common.
Most local villagers don't speak English, but national news and newspapers are in English and people who are involved in nation-wide business and many people in the cities do use it regularly. Regularly enough that they've developed their own way of speaking it.
During my first project there in February 2012, speaking to a group of beekeepers in the city of Ibadan, I had an interpreter ... who interpreted my English into English THEY could understand. No matter how clearly I tried to speak and enunciate, my English was apparently unintelligble to them, though I could understand Dayo, the interpreter, and apparently so could they.
Sometimes the confusion worked the other direction, though, such as the time my driver said we needed to get foil for the car before we went to the project site. "Um..." I asked "Foil? Why do we need foil for the car??" I soon realized that "foil" is the Nigerian pronunciation of "fuel."
Another time, he asked me if I had put the "pig milk" in my tea. "Pig milk?! I didn't even know you could milk a pig!" I exclaimed in surprise. "what? No? Not pig milk, pig milk! peeeg milk!" he explained. I was no closer to understanding until he showed me the satchet of powdered milk that said "Peak Milk" on it, which apparently means it's whole milk or something.
Another interesting thing about Nigerian language is that they love to write in "textspeak." Billboards advertising things that have utterly nothing to do with texting might "welcome u 2 9ja" for example. 1337speak of course more than carries over to texting and facebook statuses, to the degree that sometimes to be understood in written form I'd find myself trying to figure out how to say something in textspeak.
Casual conversation is often conducted in 9gerian pidgin English, which is a mix of English words and words from the various Nigerian languages.
For example "U don chop?" is "have you eaten?"
"How u dey?" is a common way of asking "how are you?" I thought it was "How's your day," but as Dayo explains to me "dey" is the continuous tense of "do," ie "doing."
"I dey" means I am okay, but I preferred to answer with "I dey kampe," which means "I am well and strong!" This enthusiastic response always seemed to amuse them.
Having arrived in Abuja, I was delayed another day getting back out to Ibadan, as my luggage had failed to arrive with me from Cairo. Having left my house in Australia on Monday morning, I finally arrived in the village of Shaki on Saturday evening.
Arriving in Shaki I was informed "the king of this land has been looking forward to your arrival for months! ...but he died yesterday."
So I didn't get to meet the king, but a certain Nigerian princess has been enthusiastic about trying to teach me pidgin.
Even in these remote towns, I find that nearly everyone seems to have a smartphone, even if they live in hut. And they make fun of my "dumb" phone! I often find after I travel to a village and do a training program there, several people will ask if they can add me on facebook!
Dayo, my interpreter from my first assignment, has been my facebook friend since then, and I often enjoy asking him to explain to me the finer points of the status update he just made in pidgin. They are often prefaced with "na wa ooooo!" and regard the latest soccer match. I always imagined him jumping from his chair exclaiming this, though when I asked him for usage tips he explained that most times he says it calmly -- I'm rather disappointed.
After two weeks in Shaki (not nearly enough time!) I rushed back to Abuja and flew to Cairo to begin an assignment there, only to be told I had to wait around for two days until the weekend was over (na wa oooo!). And then I had to start learning a whole new set of phrases!
But Egypt will have to be another entry entirely.
Continued west to America, and in two weeks or so I'll complete the two month circumnavigation and return to exile in Australia.
Pictures!
Nigeria I
Nigeria II
Nigeria III
And a dictionary of pidgin phrases that's rather interesting to peruse.
Saturday - You will recall where we left off I was bored out of my mind and being tortured by excessively loud music. Here's a picture that should have gone along with that:
See the speakers on the far side of the pool? See the window peaking out from behind the roof over the speakers? That was my window. d:
An hour or two after I wrote the last entry I couldn't stand it any longer and sent a text to Mike, the Winrock country director in Nigeria, asking if there was another volunteer we could visit or ANYTHING other than stay there. He called me shortly later and we agreed I'd return to Abuja (terrorists or no!). He said he'd call Blessing (who happened to be lodged across the hall from me but I hadn't talked to him about it because he seemed to oppose any deviation from his idea of what the plans are). Blessing came to my room a few minutes later and greeted me with "are you packed??"
It's hard to tell if it was really a two questionmark intonation, since everything he says has an intonation that seems to hit its greatest emphasis on the second syllable and plateau there.
He then told me we shouldn't leave yet because Ango had not yet returned from Obe with information I had requested from him.
"Ango has a phone though" I reasoned
"His battery is dead" said Blessing
"Well then he can call us with the information tomorrow" I knew Blessing would have excuses but these were pretty flimsy. As it happened Ango did turn out to be back already so we met up with him briefly before returning to Abuja.
In Abuja I checked into the Rochview hotel. The hotel has a security guard posted on the landing of every floor, and I was once again on the second floor, and was surprised to find Anthony, the very same guard who had been there in February, still posted there. He expressed a strong desire to find another job (he works 8+ hour overnight shifts standing there and apparently isn't allowed to sit down, it sounds awful).
I also met another Winrock volunteer who had just come in that day and was staying in the same hotel, Jim. Jim spent his career as an adjunct professor of Agricultural Economics at none other than UC Davis (my alma mater) and a commercial farm manager. Like all the winrock volunteers I've met he was extremely friendly. He has 20 volunteer assignments under his belt with various organizations.
Jim, Blessing, Mike, and I went to dinner together. Returning to the hotel I found the internet not working there either (now on day 3+ w/o any internet!). So I went to talk to Anthony for awhile, since the poor fellow always seemed bored out of his mind. We talked for awhile and he asked if I wanted to come with him the following morning when he went home to see the famous Zuma Rock, since he lives right next to it. It's a 45 minute journey into Niger State on public transit (Niger is a neighboring country, a Nigerian state and a river that runs through both). He told me to come out to the landing at 0700 when he was getting off (it was presently 11:30pm).
Sunday - at 0700 I popped out of my room to find Anthony... exactly where I left him. I'm not sure if his shift was 2300-0700 or what but I think it was 0800 by the time he was finally relieved of his post.
He went to change out of his uniform and when we reconvened he had also rustled up a taxi to take us there and back. Taxi driver initially wanted 7500N ($47.47), but on being informed I only had 3000N on me he settled for that ($18.99). So off we went to Zuma Rock!
The aforementioned rock.
Zuma Rock is pictured on the 100 niara bill. I think "zuma" also means "honey," though why that would be the name of the rock is beyond me. The first hotel in Abuja was built next to the rock (remember Abuja is a very new city), but thirty years later it is still abandoned. Apparently they can't shake the belief that the spirit of Zuma Rock haunts the hotel -- people won't stay there and employees won't work there.
At the base of the rock a family was relaxing and eating fresh mangoes from the trees that were right there, and they waved us over and gave me two.
Anthony also knew a nearby place to get palm wine, which I henceforth had failed to find and try, so we went there next (it was pretty much just across the road). There I ate my fresh mangoes under the shade of more mango trees (after first washing them with my bottled water) and had my first taste of palm wine.
Palm wine is relatively clear with a milky tint. As you bring it up to your mouth it kind of smells like it's about to taste bad but isn't half bad.
Anthony hadn't asked me for anything in exchange for showing me around so I bought him a container of palm wine, and off I went back to Abuja.
A little later Jim and I went visit his assignment, which is an irrigation project just a half hour or so out of town. A fellow there has built an ambitious dam and reservoir, here's a picture:
(left to right, Mike, Jim, the entrepreneur behind the project)
Aand then on Monday morning I was off to the airport for Ethiopia!
( Pictures From Friday )
( Pictures From Saturday )
( And the complete photo set from Nigeria!
Blessing: "We need to leave a little early so I can get foil"
Me: "Foil?"
Blessing: "Foil for the car"
Me: "Foil... for the car??"
Blessing: "Yes after driving to Farin Ruwa yesterday the car is almost out of foil"
Yes, Nigerians (who, for those of you just joining us, speak English as an official language, along with over 200 local languages) pronounce fuel as "foil," as in "aluminum foil." I found this to be one of the more baffling differences in pronunciation I've encountered in my life but I suppose if you looked at the word "fuel" spelled out and hadn't the slightest idea how to pronounce if "fuy-el" might result. I even saw a fuel truck with the word fuel spelled "foiul" on it.
Blessing: "The hotel didn't have any tea (making hotels with tea 0 for 2, but they always have nescafe), so I went out to the street and got you some tea bags, sugar and pigs milk" (And while the hotel couldn't rustle any up I'm sure it took him 30 seconds to find those materials from street venders out front)
Me: "Pigs milk?? I don't think I've ever had pigs milk before!"
Blessing: "You haven't had pig milk? You haven't been putting the milk in your tea back at the hotel?" (back at the hotel we're staying at (this was at a hotel in a different town (Garaku) where we were to have a training sessions) they bring us an omelette, nescafe, powdered milk, and hot water, every morning, complimentary since we're staying for two weeks. We had to buy our own tea though.)
Me: "I don't usually put milk in my tea, but if I knew it was pig milk I might have tried it!"
Blessing: "In the United States they don't put pig milk in tea???"
Me: "No they put cow's milk in tea, I didn't even know you could milk a pig!"
Blessing: "Oh. Not PIG, PIG. PIG." He points to the satchet of powdered milk, which I hadn't examined closely, and I realize it says PEAK on it.
"Peak milk" I guess is like half and half or whole milk? You never realize how similar a G and K sound are until you meet someone who pronounces them as halfway between eachother.
And so when we went into a cybercafe to use the printer I was not terribly baffled when the attendant told us "okay, just a minute let me get some foil." Not surprised they needed foil to run their own generator to run the printer, though perhaps a bit surprised that we're already two hours into the business day and they haven't made sure they had foil on hand for the possibility a customer would want to use the printer.
And on the subject of energy shortages when you want to run electronic devices I think I figured out why on two occasions I had my camera battery charging all night only to find it deader when I put it in my camera than it had been when I took it out.
When we ran out of foil during our training session at Garaku, one of the beekeepers plugged his phone and charger into the powerstrip. I thought it was an odd time to decide to charge his phone, but then the projector came back on and lasted another minute and a half. I don't know, I'd always assumed electronic devices had safeguards so the power would not flow backwards, but apparently not, at least here. He was able to run down his cell phone to power the laptop, and I'm sure while my battery charger was plugged in, when the power went out, as it inevitably does (right on cue it just went out), my camera battery proceeded to power everyone's AC (and the heinously loud music outside) for another .5 seconds.
Thank goodness I think my laptop battery at least doesn't flow backwards. I think that big boxy thing on the middle of the cord may have some magical properties that prevent this (I assume it is filled with voodoo charms).
The internet's been out here for at least three days now. When I start to feel bitter about that I tell myself "first world problems, firt world problems." And that it'll probably be good for me to be unconnected for a bit. But then another voice in my head says "but I have things I want to DO with the internet dammit!!" Such as, for example, in two days I go to Ethiopia. They're at a more advanced stage of beekeeping, with a central processing facility exporting 3000 TONS of honey every year, and they want me to, among other things, help the individual beekeeping operations with a "template business plan" and "out-grower schemes." There's two other volunteers in Lafia here, one of whom is from Sri Lanka and working on business development. I asked him what "outgrower schemes" are and he had no idea. I NEED THE INTERNET! I'm sure if I had two days of internet access I'd be a god damn expert in outgrower schemes by the time I get there. And I wouldn't mind boning up on the ins and outs of business plan writing either.
If you're reading this, it means I finally got some intertrons. Presently I'm writing it offline.
I'm not sure why, but training ended Thursday, giving me two days of "rest," "and to write the reports" (which took me about half an hour). I was skeptical about the utility of scheduling two days of nothing but Blessing has his ideas about what should be done and there's no budging him. It's presently Saturday, Sunday we drive up to Abuja and Monday I fly to Ethiopia.
I could have used maybe one full day to prepare for Ethiopia... but I can't do that without the internet.
Yesterday the other two volunteers (Ali, the SrI Lankan, and Yuan, a chinese Canadian with a Nigerian fiance (not present) whom she met in Malaysia) were going to Obe, a quaint village of thatched huts where there's always a pleasant breeze, and they were going to spend the night out there (The YMCA Training Center is there and has guest rooms). Being as we had nothing planned for today and yesterday I asked Blessing if we could go do that as well but he started talking about foil costs and how it's not in the scope. I said they were going anyway but he said they were taking public transit, and anyway he seemed so prepared to barrage me with excuses I decided not to push the issue (I could have offered to give him money for the foil costs myself, but I got the distinct impression he did NOT want to go). So instead of enjoying a pleasant breeze surrounded by thatched huts, I'm cooped up in my hotel room learning why they sometimes blast music to psychologically torture people.
You see, every day from sometime early in the evening until at least midnight they blast music at high volume here. Usually it's out by the pool and even with my windows closed it's so loud that for example when I tried to talk to Kori on skype I couldn't hear her even with computer volume up to full. Sometimes they do it in the bar downstairs,
which is almost worse because then the floors and walls reverberate. At least it's not N Sync or Shania Twain, I'd probably have offed myself by now if it was.
Back when I had internet access I posted a facebook status complaining about this, and a "friend" commented on it "white boy problems." Incidentally the girl who posted this is a white girl with dreadlocks. I'm baffled how the neighbors and other hotel guests can stand this music, but I don't really see how objections to not being able to hear myself think before midnight has anythign to do with the gender/race/entitlement issues the comment seems to imply. Another of my friends "liked" the comment so I messeged her for explanation. She was surprised I was offended and said she just thought it was a "cheeky" way of poking fun at me. I perfectly understand the phrase "first world problems," since it implies I'm bothered about something that only someone from the first world would feel entitled to (wifi for example), but her phrase implies only a white boy would feel entitled to a non-audial-barrage environment? Am I missing something here? In conclusion I think the comment was deeply insulting and I'm going to de-friend the original commenter as soon as I get online again (didn't do it immediately due to a standing policy to never do anything "in the heat of the moment").
So all day Friday and today I have nothing to do all day. Yesterday morning we ventured out to the aforementioned cybercafe and visited the local YMCA HQ (YMCA is the local host organization) to say goodbye. Then I wrote my reports, which took about half an hour, swam some laps aaand... spent a lot of time in my hotel room. I can't leave my hotel by myself and even if I could it's not exactly pleasant to walk around out there, because everyone just tosses their trash out the window there's trash on every surface and the air is diffused with car exhaust. At least while the music isn't playing outside I can read a book. Last night, unable to sleep or read or do anything else I had to resort to something I don't think I've done in over twelve years -- I turned on the TV and flipped through channels until I found something watchable. In this case the music wasn't so loud I couldn't turn up the TV enough to hear it. (And it turns out the movie Lost Boys isn't completely awful, "Death Sentence" is surprisingly deep, and "Shooter" is a delightful example of the "shooting and explosions" genre)
In conclusion I'm going freaking stir crazy here with nothing to do. I wish we could go back to Abuja, but Abuja is on lockdown due to Boko Haram (the local terrorist group) threats to bomb hotels Westerners stay at (great) and/or the US Embassy (what did WE do? No seriously this time I think we're relatively innocent -- it's local politicians who are exploiting the oil [and say routing it to a refinery they own in Sao Tome & Principe rather than local refineries] and Boko Haram's complaints are only about "Western Education" [which I think means me ;) ]). It's a terribly shame because in Abuja I CAN walk around by
myself and the internet usually works. Damn terrorists are having a negative impact on my life! ):
Friday Night - It rained so hard I felt like I was in a typhoon. I was sitting on the hotel balcony watching it come down, but wind was causing the rain to come down at enough of an angle I was concerned about getting water on my laptop so I retreated to the hallway. There I was still getting blasted with wet wind though so I had to withdraw all the way to my room.
Saturday - We (Blessing (the Winrock driver), Ango (the YMCA Agric Director), and I) left the hotel in Lafia around 0900 and drove to "Mada Hill station," a town and stop on the train route (which, as I mentioned, hasn't run in ten years). There we parked the car and waited under some mango trees for some motorbike drivers to be rounded up. It was really quite pleasant. The air was cool from the previous night's rain, and on the benches under the trees it was thoroughly comfortable.
Once three motorbikes had been found, we proceeded on the lengthy trek up the hill. first it was past small villages and huts and their surrounding yam fields and then we started climbing the hills. In places we had to get off the bikes and walk them up particularly steep rugged parts of the trail. About two hours later we reached the village. I'm informed motorbikes only reached the village in October of last year, and other than that the only vehicles to reach the village were some range rovers in 1956.
Most of the honey collected in this village (called Ogabi or something like that) is from honey hunting, ie finding colonies that have naturally occurred in hollow trees or crevices in rocks and stealing the honey. There also appeared to be a number of traditional hives in use though -- hollowed palm logs hoisted up into trees. Honey is harvested at night without a bee suit and the entire colony is taken. They (or at least the one of them that could speak English) seemed to understand the benefits of a topbar hive but appeared intimidated by the task of putting it together. In particular he was "waiting for zinc" by which he meant the corrugated metal they put on their roofs (is that really zinc? I'd probably call it tin though I don't know if that's correct either. I'd have guessed it's aluminum). He was in fact skeptical when I tried to dissuade him from using corrugated metal (the rain makes a huge racket on it, which can cause the bees to abscond), but I showed him some pictures of hives with wooden lids or wood covered in plastic or tarp and he seemed persuaded he didn't need to wait for his zinc.
They had one hive near the village that had inhabited a cute little granary hut, and so they let it stay there for harvesting. Opening a hive during the day was something they had to see to believe, so they had me suit up and open it. If I didn't know better I'd say the young fellows were actually laughing at me as I suited up (okay I think they were). They didn't have a smoker and I hadn't brought one, so I just used the traditional bundle of reeds. Unfortunately this doesn't allow you to blow smoke into the hive BEFORE you start, so the bees ended up getting a bit riled up and everyone who had been crowded around in a 30 ft radius or so went running for their lives. I examined the comb and determined that none of the honey was capped, ie it was not ready to be harvested, so I closed it up and walked to a clearing a little ways away and waited for the bees to stop following me so I could join everyone else without bringing bees with me.
Blessing came and shouted to me to set fire to the surrounding brush (presumably to disperse the bees), a suggestion which I didn't really appreciate, being as that would make the whole thing a big fiasco and my whole goal is to show that beekeeping can be simple and easy. While the bees were a bit angry they still weren't even as bad as some "Africanized" colonies I've encountered in California. After a few minutes I was able to take my suit off and rejoin the others.
Another thing to note is whenever I tell anyone here who does beekeeping or honey hunting that they should NOT harvest honey that is not capped they about roll their eyes acknowledging that they know this. BUT for example on this occasion when I reported it wasn't capped so I didn't take anything out, the English speaking villager (who had earlier also acknowledged that uncapped honey should not be harvested) seemed frustrated and said "yes but it might be gone later, or it will rain and water it down." So I explained that the bees will only cap it once they've gotten the water content down to suitable levels. If you harvest uncapped honey it will not ferment and go bad. I explained that he'd be better not selling any honey than selling that uncapped honey because it WILL go bad and he'll get a bad reputation for selling bad honey. I'm not sure I convinced him though.
And then we had the long trek back down!
Sunday - Oh dear god. So. Despite the locks sometimes being really hard to lock or unlock (I've had to call maintenance twice), and the AC frequently not working, and various other similar problems, I've been telling myself this is a third world hotel cut them a lot of slack. But today they had music BLASTING all day long down by the pool. So loud that even in my room with the windows closed when I tried to talk to Kori on skype I couldn't hear her (and the volume on my computer was up as high as it could go). Oh it was horrible and I had nowhere to go to escape (we didn't work today, and it's unsafe for me to go into town by myself, and I don't know where I'd go all day anyway). And music blasting all day like that is not a problem I can chalk up to lack of developed resources such as the AC, power, and lock problems. 
Nigerian dogs are in general very small, but here's a tiny little pup!
( Other pictures from Saturday's trek )
Friday - Today we drove two hours or so to a town called Garaku. There we met with probably two dozen beekeepers and eight or so honey marketers. Once again the overwhelming majority of the beekeepers use the traditional bees-in-a-log hive.
Amusingly, when I asked what a typical honey price here was there was a hubub and finally someone informed me "the beekeepers are shy to name a price with the honey marketers here." So I told them just name a price they'd be totally comfortable selling it to them for or something. Finally I was informed that the beekeepers couldn't afford to sell their honey for less than 15,000 niara / 20 liter jerrycan ($94.94) and the marketers wouldn't buy honey for more than 10,000 niara per ($63.29).
I tried to dispell their awkwardness by pointing out that in the US, beekeepers sell their honey directly to the consumer for $6-8/lb (and I've seen it in the store for $10-12!), or that which they don't have the time / market to sell directly they sell to bulk honey dealers for appx$1.70 (this number goes up and down like the price of gas but it's generally in that range).
After converting liters to gallons to pounds (honey = 12 lbs / gallon) to dollars to niaras we figured out that would be 16,116N for the jerrycan at the bulk rate and 56,880N at $6.
Anyway the group had many questions for me and ended up asking if I could come back another day. We have a lot of communities to visit though so I don't know.
Leaving there we stopped by the village to meet my host (the YMCA Agg director)'s aunt. This was fun because I'd never really been in a village before. There were lots of interesting things to see in there, like a grane silo-hut-thing I don't even know how to describe (but fortunately got pictures).
Down one street we saw a crowd and someone appeared to be dancing about in a head-to-toe costume of feathers with a mask on, which I was excited about but Ango hurried us the other direction. I don't know if he was just in a hurry and didn't think it was interesting or actively didn't want us to see it.
Another interesting thing I learned today is that while there are traintracks crisscrossing Nigeria, the trains haven't run at all in over ten years. Similarly, while Nigeria is a major oil producer and exporter, they're also a major oil IMPORTER because all of their refineries are run down. And I've seen a lot of seemingly abandoned not-terribly-old construction equipment sitting with flat tires getting overgrown.
At least in the case of the trains, I'm informed the trucking companies are all against the trains being revitalized.
Pictures from today
I had taken the time to write a caption for each one and then when I hit save the browser borked and lost them all. Argh. Well I'm not rewriting them tonight. d:
Thursday - Today we drove out to Farin Ruwa about three hours away. I was rather irked because one of the tallest waterfalls in the world is in Farin Ruwa but we didn't have time to go visit it. I saw it at a distance but it was so far away and indistinct that I couldn't even get a picture to come out.
There were about 15 beekeepers in this area, many of whom had been doing beekeeping for many years (7-20), and had dozens of hives. And yet once again they had ONLY ONE SUIT between the lot of them, and only one smoker. Nearly all their hives are traditional log hives up in trees. They hoist them so high up in trees that it's a lot of work to get them down again I guess. But they have major problems with theft so I guess that's one countermeasure. But that and the fact that the log hives can't be opened to be inspected means its kind of a shot in the dark whenever they do decide to pull them down, whatever the condition they harvest them at that point. And speaking of shots in the dark they do it at night so the bees are flying about stinging less.
So once again I think the emphasis here is going to be on making equipment. One beekeeper had some hives that were near the ground so we went there and inspected his hives.
Bees were once again pretty docile and I was able to take off my gloves and veil right next to the opened hive.
I believe we're planning on returning to this location, and I'm crossing my fingers we can work a visit to the falls into the plan!
In unrelated news, it pains me that it is the ubiquitous practice here to throw trash on the ground. Plastic bags, bottles, whatever it is, out the window it goes! When I finish I bottle of water I've taken to trying to smuggle it safely to a trashcan without being noticed and told to just drop it. I'm not really sure where the trash cans empty to (it's been a mystery to me for awhile. Recall that the entire city of Ibadan with over a million people has 11 trash trucks), but it gives me piece of mind. Today we were out in the forest where the beehives were, and there was no other trash in the area. Someone tried to discard a plastic bag on the ground there and I just had to surrepticiously scoop it up and put it in the car. I'm sure they thought I was being weird. d:
( Other Pictures From Today )
Wednesday - Today we drove out to the training site, which was about two hours away. There were many adorable thatched huts along the way AND MY CAMERA WASN'T WORKING!!
I'm really kind of baffled -- last night it was NOT out of battery but I decided to charge it, since I don't have a spare I can't risk running out of battery. So I charged it. And I didn't look at the battery status when I pulled it out of the charger but when I tried to use my camera for the first time today it informed me the battery was completely dead. It hadn't even been dead when I put it in the charger!! O:
So no pictures today ::weeps::
Anyway the YMCA training site teaches all different kinds of agriculture. They have several beehives but only one bee suit, no smoker, and no gloves. It's hard to imagine how they get by working their hives with that, much less teach anyone when they only have a single bee suit!!
It kind of reminded me of the apiary unit at the college I visited last time. In theory they are to teach beekeeping but they're just.. obviously not trying very hard. You don't need me to show up to teach you how to make a bee suit and smoker. I mean, I don't even know how to manufacture those myself but I know if I tell someone with garment making skills to use mosquito netting and whatever clothing materials are available to make a bee suit they can do it, and your tin-smith or blacksmith can make you a smoker.
I think that might be a major goal of this project though, to teach the trainees how to either make the necessary equipment themselves or to get it made for them. Having the right equipment after all is as important as anything else I can teach them.
Maybe I was spoiled by the other two hotels I've stayed in in Nigeria, but this one seems kind of crappy to me. My AC didn't work in the room I was in last night, and in the one I've been moved to it only works sporadically. I had to call reception twice because my door lock either wouldn't open or wouldn't lock. Shower doesn't have any hot water, not that I terribly miss it around here. Oh and the refridgerator kept making a banging noise every 45 minutes last night till I unplugged it. And they have a serious no outside food or drink policy?! Aaaand my internet just went out again. Guess they don't want me complaining ;)
I think this project is going to be good though. Okay time for bed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pictures again!!
Unrelated Picture of the Other Day
They have ZIPLINES in public parks in Nigeria. FOR KIDS. WHY DON'T WE HAVE THESE???? Okay I know why but still. Stupid litigious society...
Dear Kris,
My name Phil Kefauver – Senior Recruitment Associate at YourEncore, Inc. I am contacting you because1 one of our Clients2 is seeking a consultant who is experienced in the areas of honey manufacturing / production, marketing, health (safety & regulatory) and who has business insight and basic technical knowledge.
YourEncore is an expert technical services provider that recruits and manages an extensive network of scientists, engineers and product developers. Our network is open for anyone to join at no cost to them. YourEncore then matches our Experts3 with consultations and part-time project assignments from our Client3 Companies3 according to their skills and expertise. We have about 50 Client Companies most of whom are Fortune 500 companies. I would also suggest you visit the YourEncore website at www.yourencore.com to obtain more details of our Company. Included in the website are FAQs that provide specific details of how we operate.
I hope that this opportunity sounds appealing to you and that you would like to work through YourEncore to work on this assignment. If you do, please respond back to this email with a copy of your resume’, at Philip.kefauver@yourencore.com and let me know. I can then share more details about how to enroll with YourEncore and provide you with our Confidential Information Agreement so that we can share more information about this assignment.4
If you could recommend someone, that would also be most helpful.
Phil Kefauver
Senior Recruitment Associate
YourEncore, Inc.
10925 Reed Hartman Hwy, Suite 114
Cincinnati, OH 45242
Philip.kefauver@yourencore.com
www.yourencore.com
Saturday - Flight from Orange County to Atlanta was unremarkable. In the Atlanta international terminal they have some interesting displays of goods they've confiscated from people returning from Africa.
On the 10 hour flight from Atlanta to Lagos I lucked out to an extreme degree, no less that TWO seats beside me were vacant so I was able to curl up across them and have only mildly extremely uncomfortable sleep. International flights these days also let you watch any of two dozen or so movies for free, which is nice, but between last trip and this one I think I've already watched every movie they have that I have any interest in seeing.
This time I watched Appaloosa and Drive. Both were relatively unremarkable examples of their genres (western and crime/car-chases respectively), with the added observation in the case of Appaloosa that Renee Zellwigger can ruin a movie all by herself by the power of her being incredibly unattractive and irritating. Seriously why do they ever cast her as a romantic interest??
Landing in Lagos, after I picked up my box of beekeeping supplies a uniformed officer stopped me near the door and asked me what they were, and then was asking me to open the sealed box. I wasn't terribly excited about this. But then he noticed the chieftaincy beads on my wrist and asked if I was a a chief and what my title was. On being informed it was "soyindaro" (which means maker of honey into wealth) he looked at me with a bit more respect and asked "so you are an expert on honey? okay you can go."
To get from the international to the domestic terminal in Lagos required a taxi ride of 3000N ($19), which was kind of irritating. Then I find out my flight to Abuja has been cancelled!
Fortunately though the airline got me a new one on a different airline that left around the same time.
Arrived in Abuja amid a lightning storm. Saw a news headline that a woman had been hit by lightning in Abuja the previous day. Also in the news this day (Sunday) there was another bomb blast in Kaduna, the state just north of Abuja. The bomber's vehicle had been refused entry to the street on which his church target was so he drove away and detonated in a busy intersection.
As I'd find out shortly, the previous day (Saturday), Winrock staffmember John had been robbed in Lagos. He'd gone there to meet up with his fiancee who was returning from abroad, and armed men stormed the hotel. He was relieved of his laptop and other valuables at gunpoint. But don't worry the Nigerian police are on it -- they've arrested all the hotel staff.
Monday Winrock Nigeria country director Mike took me sightseeing around Abuja with his family. His family had lived in Kaduna but he recently moved them to Abuja because it is safer. The highlight of my day though was seeing some birds called Quelea or "weaver birds." They were bright yellow and fluttering all about this palm tree that had filled with their woven nests. I took a heap of photos of them.
Tuesday (today) we (the winrock driver Blessing, John, and I) drove three hours or so to Lafia. At the hotel here the AC doesn't presently work (they're working on it), so all I have is a ceiling fan. It is QUITE hot. African party music is blasting from the DJ stand out by the pool (which also, incidentally, is just outside my window), it is 11:30 in the evening, and there's not a single person out there enjoying the music.
I asked John why the largest note in the Nigerian currency is the 1000 niara note (about $6.30). He said the economists are worried that if they introduce larger bills it will devalue the currency, pointing out that when the 1000 was introduced the 1s and 5s fell into disuse. It seems to me this is mistaking cause and effect, but in the mean time paying my hotel bill with a fat wad of 100 1000s strikes me as rather inconvenient.
Otherwise, met with the YMCA (host organization) leaders today and tomorrow the fun begins!
Hello once again from Abuja, Nigeria! Before I get started on a whole new Nigerian adventure though I want to FINALLY finish with my notes from last trip. The following will be my notes on the remaining days of that trip in brief.
Day 2 is as far as I got last time with detailed daily accounts. Oops
Day 8 is far as I got with brief summaries. I'll include below some notes that got left out of that.
Day 3 - Leafcutter ants in trees, red headed lizards, furry tailed mice, and a "bush cutter???" [later found out its a "greater cane rat," a rodent the size of a watermelon], KFC [was down the street from my hotel. Had about two items on their menu (fried chicken or chicken fingers)], scarification [scarification of the cheeks (such as the fellow on the left in this picture is sporting) is a traditional means of tribal identification. I'm informed it used to be only the high class people that had it, but then during colonization those working for the colonial government didn't have it done, so now those who still do it are not necessarily the high class any more. Reminds me of star-bellied-sneetches]
Day 4 - The Boko Haram terrorist group raids a prison just down the road from the other beekeeping volunteer's site, and released 103 inmates. My ride arrives on "African Time" (an hour late) [and proceeds to do so every morning]
So at the government headquarters when I asked if I could use the restroom someone went off apparently to get permission for me to use the chairman's toilet. I don't know what everyone else used, apparently this was special. Presently the person would return and escort me to the chairman's anteroom, and a moment later I'd be let in. Then there's be another five minute wait while the correct keys and/or permissions were found and finally I'd be given a key and directed through a curtain in the back of his office and to a door leading to a bathroom back there. The first time I did this I then went to flush the toilet and found it wouldn't flush! Appalled that I had just broken the chairman's super special toilet I took the lid off the back, saw that the plunger had become unhooked from the flush lever, and fixed it. The second day they explained to me that the toilet doesn't flush... I think they just didn't know how to fix the only flush toilet they had!
Day 6 Delicious popovs! [I still don't know if these things when pronounced in a way familiar to me would be "puffpuffs" (like some recipes we've found online) or "popovers," but they're delicious. Fried little doughballs with chili in them!]
Day 7 (Sunday) - Was given my first traditional outfit. Went to church with Yinka, then returned to her place with Hattrick among others, and they taught me how to make amala. Unfortunately they decided as a special treat for me on this occasion they'd make it with mackeral. I... hate.. fish. d:
And then we went to the zoo. They had a "domestic horse" in the zoo!! And army ants just casually hanging out not in an exhibit, and they tried to eat my foot.
Day 8 - I don't actually have any notes from this day, making it the day that never happened? But looking at the pictures, this is the day they made mead the traditional way. They mixed ground up honeycomb about 50/50 with water and put a lid on the bucket. 3 days later it had fermented!! I taught them my way, mixing it 3:1 water to honey, adding yeast, a ventilation-lock (made from a tube with water in it) and letting it sit for 6-9 months. They thought that sounded crazy.
That evening Hattrick, Whale (pronounced Wall-ey), Yinka's sister and I went to a restaurant that had some Western food, and I introduced them all to their first pizza. They thought it was really weird - see their thoughts on it in video.
Day 9 - Exploring Nigerian farmland. Honey: 2600N [$16.46] per liter (up from 2000 [$12.66] before recent gas subsidy upheaval), hives produce 10-12 liters per year. A rectangular topbar hive costs 7500N [$47.47], the better Kenyan Topbar Hive (KTBH) costs 6500N [$41.14], the modern langstroth hive costs 35000N [$221.52]. university meeting. kola nuts. pitcher plants. explaining to hattrick why I can't eat certain things (after he ixnayed my order for cane rat meat saying he didn't think my stomach could handle it). in the car way too long.
Day 10 - Snake in a hive! giant snails! Papaya candles [the stalks made really good candle molds]! Mead [their mead was done already]!
Day 11 - Review and conclusion day. Went to a bar with Hattrick, Whale and Nigeria Winrock director Mike.
Day 12 - Closing Ceremonies! Horsewhip -- I noticed my driver had a horsewhip on his dashboard. I asked if this was a symbol of drivers or something, was informed no, police and military usually have a horsewhip, he's not either but if he has one on his dashboard people might think he is and give him more respect. I also noticed that I hadn't seen anyone smoking in Nigeria this whole time. Was informed that people do but it's considered a kind of shameful habit, so people smoke in the bathroom and then wash up to try to get rid of the smell before going out into public.
Day 13 - Return to Abuja. Flight out of Ibadan airport had been overbooked, despite having tickets we were told there was no room on the airplane. Instead we drove down to Lagos. Mike commented that the traffic we were running into outside of Lagos was probably due to "sanitation day." "Sanitation day?" I ask. Apparently every locality in Nigeria has one day a month designated as "sanitation day," wherein everyone cleans up their neighbourhood. Did I also mention Ibadan, a city of over a million people, has exactly 11 trash trucks?
Flight out of Lagos was delayed because the flight waited for a half hour to try to sell more tickets!
Days 14 & 15 - In Abuja finishing up paperwork and hanging out with fellow volunteer Doug, who's assignment happened to exactly coincide with mine so he was back in Abuja as well. The End.
And now I'm back! More on that later!
I only have about five hours left here in Nigeria. Currently in the capital, Abuja. Met with the USAID officials this morning for debriefing.
Altogether I think my mission has been successful. I taught the Igbalode Beekeepers Association members some ways that should really improve the quality of their product, increase production, and make better use of wax. Per hive production can be increased to a certain degree but I really hope they increase their per person output, as any one of them could be running as many hives as the entire 25 person membership of the association currently runs in their one bee yard.
There are two principal impediments to them increasing their number of bee yards. One is simply giving the less involved members of the association the confidence and knowledge they need to go out and run a bee yard on their own. The other is a greater problem -- that most farmers in Nigeria fear to have beehives anywhere where they can see them from their field. There's lot's of open space but from the typical farmer's point of view, if they can see the hive, it's too close. This mentality is hard to address.
Last week I found myself in what felt like a UN summit meeting. In a large relatively nice hall there were about 20 of us around a U shaped table, on the bend of the U were the top administrators of the Oyo State Agricultural College in fancy suits, and in the middle of the U several photographers snapped photos. Myself and the college apiarist (fancyspeak for "beekeeper") were across from eachother and thouh ostensibly the entire meeting was so we could talk to each other I could barely hear him over the fans whirring behind us.
Many of the future farmers of Oyo State go through the agricultural college so if the apiary is up and running (it currently sounds like it's kind of flopping) I'm hoping it will not just train beekeepers but train the crop growers in the value of pollination. In the United States beekeepers get 70% of their income from pollination and 30% from honey sales. And you know farmers aren't going to be paying beekeepers more than is cost effective for them. That 70% that beekeepers get from pollination is because it increases the value of the farmer's crops to a greater degree than that value. A project proposal is currently being written up that would send a volunteer, presumably myself, to the agricultural college to get that program up and running as soon as possible.
The other conversation that then ensued at that meeting was from some of the Igbalode beekeepers asking why the college is using the more basic "kenyan topbar hive (KTBH)" and not the modern "langstroth" hive. Apiarists were saying the langstroth hive is too expensive for the common farmer and therefore not practical and therefore they weren't interested in it, but some of the beekeepers clearly didn't agree.
Reading some of the "end of project" reports from previous volunteers I noticed some of them talked about "the need to get people to use the right kind of hive" (which they don't elaborate on but I think they mean langstroth?) and promoting langstroth hives. The langstroth hive is definitely seen as the "developed" way of doing things here in a "developing" country that earns to move forward.
And even as I spelled it out for people I could see sometimes I was accidentally selling them on langstroth hives. I'd lay out that a KTBH costs about $15, and a langstroth costs about $170.. the KTBH makes 10-12 liters of honey and the Langstroth makes about 25. They can make $150 a year with a KTBH, or $350 on a langstroth. And I get to that part and the person's eyes light up and they exclaim "25 liters?! 65,000 naira (the Nigerian currency)?!? How do I get one of these???"
And then I just want to facepalm. Because if something costs ten times as much, and produces twice as much... you're still way better off buying ten of the cheap version!!!
Granted the langstroth SHOULDN'T cost so much to make, but it's a bit more complicated carpentry to make and is not currently being mass produced here. So first there need to be enough competent beekeepers to make the investment worthwhile, and then enough langstroth hives need to be ordered from the same place to make mass production make them cheaper. You can't just import the wheel where there are no carts, you must reinvent the wheel ;)
In other news, at the closing ceremonies of the training program, they conferred upon me the title of "chief!"
Since then I've been trying to figure out what that means exactly. It's definitely a very real, official, and legitimate thing. Apparently it was also announced over the local radio. I think it's kind of like an "honorary doctorate," except "honorary" isn't in the title, apparently I am a Nigerian chief now.
"Yes but I wouldn't go around telling everyone that" advised my dear associate Koriander from back home. Well they gave me a beaded necklace to wear that apparently is tantamount to "going around telling everyone," because in my entire trip from Ibadan to here I had countless people very respectfully refer to me as chief.
And that trip, btw, was a bit interesting. The flight out of Ibadan they had sold too many tickets so even though I had a ticket in hand there was no room on the plane. And it was the only one leaving Ibadan that day. Not too weird really, airlines in America oversell their flights too. So we drove two hours to Lagos to catch a plane there. But THERE the flight didn't leave for about an hour after it's scheduled departure because they were waiting for more tickets to be sold!! What is this a bus??
I've also been informed that some people spend millions to try to buy the title of chief, and when they succeed they throw a huge party and henceforth insist that everyone always call them chief (don't worry I'll forgive you if you forget some times ;) ). And then I met a prince who happened to be shopping in the grocery store (you know, where you usually meet princes), and he bowed to me and called me "your majesty" and explained, if I follow it right, that because princes hold their title by virtue of their father being a king (btw there's not just Nigerian princes, but Nigerian kings too!), but chiefs hold their title in their own right, and so are more honored than princes.
And then I met a honest to goodness princess:
She was working in the hotel lobby selling property in Dubai (?!?!?!). Nigeria sure is a weird place.
Pictures! (Many more still to upload)
I'd like to start with an apology, I meant to keep daily updates this past week or so, but I've been a bit preoccupied -- I'm in a third world country! This will assume you haven't read the ones I did make though.
Today I was party to a dead serious conversation about whether or not picking certain leaves will cause rain to fall, whether or not fire breathing dragons are real ("I think they're in South Africa or maybe Arabia, Kris do you have them in that big zoo you said there is in San Diego?"), and whether millipedes can make themselves disappear and by extension be used by a person with magic to make you invisible, and later everyone who was in this conversation busted out their laptop. Welcome to Nigeria.
Exactly oen week ago I arrived by a six hour flight directly from Amsterdam to Nigeria's capital, Abuja. It was 34f and snowing in Amsterdam at 3pm, it was 90f and humid in Abuja at 9pm. Altogether I'd been traveling for 27 hours since I left Southern California.
My first thoughts on Nigeria as I entered the warm dark night was that it smelled very Earthy. A bit like a hedge. As my driver (First name "Blessing.") drove me the thirty or so miles from the airport into town I was actually surprised by how well developed the apartment blocks we passed were. They weren't soviet concrete monstrocities, they weren't bare brick piles like in Egypt, they weren't in abject disrepair like I've seen in Mexico, they were nice and decorative and looked like something I might see in Orange County! Well Santa Ana anyway.
Another interesting cultural insight on that ride into town was when we passed cars driving the wrong way on our side of the highway median.
"Uh is that normal??" I asked Blessing
"Oh certainly, but not during the day. Only now that the traffic police aren't on duty" ...soo the traffic police don't work nights it seems! In unrelated news a few minutes later we passed a smashed car on its side in the fast lane.
My hotel was nice, and had security looking under cars at the front gate for bombs and a uniformed guard at every landing of the stairs.
Day 2
In the morning I met Doug, another beekeeping volunteer who had also arrived the day before, in the lobby. He was an older fellow who had done a lot of volunteer assignments before. He had just come from Ethiopia where he had trekked through a sandstorm to visit a remote volcano, had visited sulphur springs, and the lowest place on the Earth. At the latter they still harvest salt by camel, and apparently a bunch of tourists had been gunned down just two weeks earlier ("but it's okay, we had the army with us and a bunch of villagers with kalishnikovs!"). He was a very cheerful fellow who was constantly making people laugh.
Blessing picks us up, we go meet the folks at the Winrock Nigeria field office. While we were talking to Mike, the country director for Winrock, he received a text that a bomb had gone off in Kaduna state just to our north.
At a local market Doug and I noticed that all the honey on the shelves came from America, WTF!? We don't even have honey from America in America!! (Well okay that's a slight exaggeration, but I think literally a greater proportion of their honey came from America as does the honey on our own shelves)
Seeing the town by day it doesn't quite measure up to Santa Ana but Abuja isn't straw huts or decrepid shanties either. To exchange my money we went to the money exchangers, which consisted of people who lurked on the curb outside the sheraton. Mike negotiated with them with the assistance of current exchange rate information on his smart phone. Couldn't reach and agreement with the first guy and made a deal for a second one for 159 naira to the dollar, which was pretty much right on the exchange rate.
Doug drove (well was driven) down to Kogi state while I caught a 40 minute flight to Ibadan in Oyo state in the south-west. Ibadan, one of the largest cities in Africa (and yet I bet you've never heard of it!) DOES look like a third world country, The road in from the airport was lined with hovels, and we even passed a dead body lying by the side of the road. Host organization's office is about the size of a closet, but my hotel here is nice.
Day 3
Wednesday the host organization (PASRUDESS) team picked me up and we drove to the local government headquarters. For the headquarters of the administration of a quarter of the city and 300,000 people, it was a shockingly shabby looking place! Unpainted concrete, broken windows, a broken down flat-tired grader in front of it on its grounds.
I met the local government chairman, a very nice fellow in traditional garb, and then we all attended a very nice opening ceremony for the training. A meeting hall was nicely and colourfully decorated and at least 100 people packed in. There were speeches and was a performance by ... a dancing fire-breathing holy-man of the local traditional religion.
After the ceremony there were many photograpghs taken, such as this one:
I came back into the hall to see Mike from Winrock sitting at his laptop looking serious.
"Kris, there's been an incident with Doug's team"
I feared the worst in the pause that followed. Kogi state is not entirely free of the boko haram terrorists who are specifically opposed to "western education."
"His driver hit a woman. She's in the hospital in serious condition, the driver's in jail, and the car is impounded." Yikes! Thank god it isn't boko haram but what a nightmare way to start the project!!!
Next we bundled into our own vehicles (a car, an SUV, and a van packed with people) and headed out into the countryside to the bee yard. It took about forty minutes to get there. We went through two villages and lots of lush fields of shrubs. Unfortunately no thatched huts except for one small cluster that my Nigerian guides were quick to tell me were Togolese. Villages were typically small cinder-block cottages with corrugated metal roofs.
It took about an hour and a half to get to the bees. And when we got there were didn't have any beekeeping equipment -- we'd driven all that way to just look around. Hives were a rectangular topbar style that is not the best. Was surprised by how little bee activity I saw at the entrances.
Back at my hotel that evening I was filled with stress over the idea that I'd be expected to teach about bees 8 hours a day for the next week and a half to the same people. How could I possibly fill that many hours with bee lessons????
Day 4
My panic grew more acute the closer the beginning of class came, until I was actually sitting in front of everyone and kind of wanted to shoot myself. Class was held at the local government center under a corrugated metal awning in a corner. There was a lot of background noise.
Attempts to figure out where to start / fill some time by having everyone introduce themselves weren't terribly productive since most of the beekeepers barely smoke English and stumbled through a few basic sentences.
So I began at the very beginning, talking about the three castes of bee in a beehive and their life cycle. It quickly became apparent they didn't understand me so a young fellow named Dayo ended up being my interpreter, translating what I said in English into.... English. Somehow no matter how slowly I talked and carefully enunciated, it was greek to them, but this fellow, whom I could understand perfectly well myself, also was perfectly understandable to them.
We also quickly developed a system of them passing notes up to me with questions, and thus I filled the entire day with lecture along the lines of a marathon Q & A session.
The next day I planned to talk mainly about bee diseases, as well as how to make lotions and creams from wax, and queen rearing.
After class I was take to the state government buildings where I met the state agricultural commissioner, some important people in the education department, and was going to meet the governor but he was busy with the Chief Justice. Meeting the governor is still on the agenda at some point. Considering Oyo state has a population of over 7 million, more than many countries, that's kind of like meeting a president!
That evening, however, doing a little more research on bees in Africa, I found out that diseases aren't really relevant to beekeeping in Africa. The bees take care of themselves here! There went my lesson plan out the window!!!
Day 5
Another day of panic about how I was going to fill up the time! But questions about the two remaining topics actually kept us talking about them unil an acceptable ending time in the afternoon. Whew, survived another day!
Day 6
On Saturday we went out to the bee yard with the equipment and had a productive day working through the hives and talking about ways they could improve what they were doing and addressing some misconceptions. Another day successfully filled with training and I had Sunday off!
Day 7
Did stuff on Sunday but this isn't about that ;) this entry would be humungous if I strayed from my theme of the stress of filling up each day with training. So just so you know, there's a LOT that isn't in this entry. Tune in to my regular entries if interested.
Day 8
This morning, like every morning, my car was extremely late (has been more than an hour late twice and 45 minutes late twice). Being as the class members had been sternly warned "we aren't running on 'Africa time,' you need to be here ON TIME, we're starting at 9 on the dot" I've been feeling rather irked to be coming in half an hour late myself as the teacher, all because my ride apparently DOES run on this 'Africa time.' Fortunately this morning, unbeknownst to me, the start had been pushed back to 10 at some point so I wasn't even late.
First I spent a little over an hour talking about my observations from our working the bees on Saturday, and then responding to questions. After that we:
(1) made mead their way -- by mixing ground up honeycomb (with honey in it) with water to a 1:1 ratio, putting a lid on it, and letting it sit. Allegedly after three days it's all fermented and ready to go! My brewing experience tells me this is madness but apparently it works for them!!!
(2) made mead my way -- by mixing honey with water to a 1:3 ratio by volume, adding yeast, putting a lid on it with a tube in it with water in a bend, so carbon dioxide can vent without air coming in. This is supposed to sit for several months until the tube is no longer bubbling. Unless it goes off like a rocket like theirs???
(3) made candles out of beeswax
(4) made lotion out of olive oil and beeswax. While they had their own method of making mead and candles, this was a totally new concept to them and tehy were extremely excited about it, as making lotions and creams out of wax will provide them with very marketable use for their wax.
Altogether everyone seemed to really enjoy today's "lab work" and it was just a really fun day. It felt like a great success.
The Future
We're going out to another bee yard tomorrow and hopefully I'll have more of an opportunity to work with the less experienced members of the bee club, since I was mostly working with the most experienced the first time we went to the field.
After that the local university's agriculture department wants me to stop by their apiary to talk about some problems they're having with their hives.
Wednesday I believe we're going out to another bee yard?
Thursday we're having a general review session.
Friday, closing ceremonies!
The end is in sight! I think I've survived! Not only that, but I think somehow I've done well, they're talking about having me come back and modeling other classes after the way I taught this one!
Now I need to get back to cramming up on queen rearing. I really shouldn't be getting preoccupied right now with writing LJ entries.
Pictures!
Reading the morning paper, we find that yesterday the Director of Finance and Supply for the Information Ministry, Pastor Isuwa Kiforo, was shot at the Kaduna state Government House. Shot by the main gate guards after he didn't stop for security. Kaduna is a state just north of the capital.
Down in the hotel lobby I found the other beekeeping volunteer who'll be in Nigeria at the same time as me. He's not going to be near me though. Doug's an older fellow who likes to crack jokes with Nigerians. Immediately prior to his arrival here in Nigeria he was adventuring in Ethiopia. There he trekked through a sandstorm to a remote volcano, visited some sulphur springs, and visited the lowest place on earth, where they mine salt with camels ... and several tourists were gunned down only two weeks ago. "But it was okay, the army was there and lots of villagers with kalishnikovs!"
He's also done a number of beekeeping training projects already in various countries.
Our driver, Blessing, picked us up to take us to the Winrock offices. Like all offices in the neighbourhood, the building was surrounded by a wall and the gate had an attached little gatehouse, in which a 15 year old boy seemed to be employed to open the gate as needed. The small winrock field staff were all very nice. While we were talking to the director he got a text from a friend advising him that a bomb had just gone off in Kaduna (he has family there).
Despite Kaduna being in the zone of violence, Doug wants to visit there because there's a lot of beekeeping work that's been done up there.
While getting breakfast at a little cafe in the back of a grocery store we checked out the honey selection, and what did we find?? Honey from America?!?!?! Even in America honey isn't typically from America!!!! Oh also garlic honey?!?!?
Visited the money changers, which consists of pulling up to the side of the road across for the sheraton, where some sketchy looking characters are lurking about. When you pull up they approach you and begin haggling an exchange rate. Got my money exchanged for 159, which was pretty good. As of this moment the exchange rate is 158:1 so... I just earned six bucks.
Doug proceeded with a driver down to his assignment in Kogi province and I got on a domestic flight with the winrock country director and we took a 40 min flight down to Ibadan.
In Ibadan we visited the host organization (Pan-African Development Council, or something)'s local headquarters, which was about the size of a closet, and the local government headquarters. The "local government" administers a quarter of the city of Ibadan, and about 300,000 residents. The headquarters building is made of concrete, unpainted, seems to have a perpetual throng hanging out in front (a very happy seeming throng though), and a construction grader is "parked" in front of it with four extremely flat tires. Met the local government chairman, who is treated with a great deal of respect.
After that, checked in to my hotel. Tried to take a shower immediately, since it's very hot here, but found the showerhead had no mount and had no water pressure if held higher than three feet above the tub.
Due, I suspect, to this, the hotel management decided suddenly to upgrade me to a sweet friggen huge suite. In this one the shower works fine. Also in all three rooms I've been in now, the hotel staff showed me to the room, turned on every light (the light switches are hidden all over the room like Easter eggs) and turned on the tv. In the case of this last room, they turned on both TVs. Then they depart leaving me to figure out how to turn the TV off.
Also this day was valentines day. It is celebrating in force in Nigeria, being mentioned on numerous signs and throughout the day on the radio. I'm told that in Nigeria girls are not impressed with flowers but expect to be bought jewelery or clothing. Such sauce!
Next Time in Nigeria: Finally meeting the bees and "there's been an incident with Doug's team"...!
It seemed like a bit of a bad start. I got "randomly selected" for special security screening, which I pretty much expect (and they just did this weird thing where they swabbed my hands and ran the swab through a machine??), but as I went to put my boots back on, the zipper pull tab completely broke off. I was moments into my two and a half week adventure in Africa and bam I already had a broken boot that would henceforth be really difficult to zip up.
Flights were unnoteworthy. Every seatback has a television monitor in it. From Orange County to Atlanta Delta wouldn't show anything for free but from Atlanta to Amsterdam everything was free. Watched "Horrible Bosses" which was pretty lackluster, and Ides of March, which I found really disappointing (really slow to go anywhere and anticlimatic when it gets there).
Having left OC at around 0845am, I arrived in Amsterdam around the exact same time (but I'd lost 9 hours of my life to time changes). Had a six hour layover in Amsterdam but when I asked a security guard if I could leave with no European visa I was informed I couldn't. I've been since informed this was a filthy filthy lie. Was exhausted by this point anyway (it is IMPOSSIBLE to sleep on an airplane flight, apparently, unless you've drunk yourself silly on wine like I did last time), so just found a seat I could curl up in and slept for a few hours.
It was about 33f in Amsterdam and outside everything was covered in snow. Another six hour flight later I landed in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, and it was 90f at 9pm. On this flight I watched "Hangover II," which was also disappointing and suffered severely of sequelism (trying to be exactly like the original and yet somehow different); and a movie I'd never heard of called In Time which I actually liked a lot. It takes place in a dystopian future where everyone drives cars from the 70s and dress kinda like they're from the 20s. Oh and they stop aging at 25 but the amount of time they'll live after that is used as currency, and they only start with a year. Shenanigans ensue.
But enough about movie reviews, we both know if you're still reading this it's because you want to know everyone's biggest question about Nigeria -- is it really filled with millionaire princes who want to wire you all their money???
Well, the big sign pictured above is about the first thing you see when you get off the airplane. And it would have you believe that fellow busting some kind of gangtsa self-hug is not actually my millionaire uncle who died in a plane crash but a scammer!
So now you know what the guy behind those emails looks like ;)
But then again, I DID get wired thousands of dollars to travel to Nigeria ;)
After over 27 hours in transit I was in Nigeria. Spent another hour going through passport control.
Outside the airport I noted the place had a very earthy smell. Perhaps a bit like putting your nose in a hedge. The Winrock driver who picked me up was named "Blessing," (Nigerians apparently have a tendency to choose English words as first names that we wouldn't normally consider naming material, such as President Goodluck Jonathon for example). It was about 30 miles into the city. Highway didn't have lane markers on it, cars just kind of swarmed around eachother. There were also occasionally SPEED BUMPS on the highway. And then we saw lights headed towards us on our side (a pretty significant median separated the two traffic directions), and we slowed to avoid a car going the other direction.
"Uh, is that normal?" I asked Blessing
"Yeah, just not during the daytime. During the daytime they'd get arrested for that, but at night there's no traffic police out"
Oh, okay. A few minutes later we passed another vehicle traveling the wrong direction (Blessing hypothesized they had to get somewhere off this side of the road, and the median being more or less impassable they'd just done a U-turn somewhere where there was a hole in the median and backtracked). Then we passed a totally smashed car sitting on its side unattended in the left lane. Well of course it hadn't been cleaned up and taken away, if the police are off for the night...!
My hotel was pretty nice. Bed was rock hard but felt like heaven after airplane seats. At the gate to the parking lot they looked under the car with a mirror on a pole for bombs, and I took note there was soldier in uniform at the top of the stairs on the floor my room was on too.
And thus ends day 1! I'm actually at the end of day 2 here in real life but you'll have to wait to hear that exciting story of explosions, blackouts (the powergrid kind), dead bodies, ministers shooting ministers, and everything else! (:
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