I was asked by Stepping Stones to do some Maths training in Imo. Now that I have resigned from my school in the UK I was able to say, 'Yes'. It is only for a week but I am very excited to be going back!
Crazy but wonderful. Nigeria I had forgotten how you make me
smile! Seven hours waiting for a delayed Arik plane from Abuja to Owerri on a
hard metal seat I wondered what I was doing. Necessity drove me to the toilet
which was clean but had no lock! I was constantly informed of flights taking
off to places such as Lagos, Enugu, Maidguru by a very dramatic female voice
who ended every announcement with a very throaty drawn out ‘Thank you’. As more
and more flights left with Arik I wondered about my suitcase (or I should say
‘load’) and hoped it had not been put on any of those planes by mistake. I was
amazed it had got this far without any comments as it was full of scissors,
dowel, bottle tops for my maths training. With no phone card or Nigerian money
all I could do was sit and wait. Finally I heard the word Owerri and leapt to
my feet. We walked out to the plane, dodging passenger buses and walking round
planes. I need not have worried- there was my load by the plane. I indicated it
was mine and got on the plane. I was the only white person on the plane but
there was a distinguished visitor on board so I escaped much attention. The
usual juice and cake were served and in no time we landed. Owerri seemed so
green compared to Kwara and there were many trees and crops growing. As we
walked to the terminal I followed the distinguished visitor until I realised I
was about to go out the exit. As a mere mortal I had to go back for my load.
Outside I waited as the truck brought the loads to where we all stood. There
was then a scuffle to get the bags as it was hard to see which part of the
truck they were in! I then went to the exit where my luggage receipt was
checked-foolproof system I need not have worried.
Godfrey, my driver, was waiting. What a great, kind person
he was. He took me to some Hausa people so I could change my money and then
phoned a friend to arrange for me to get a sim card for my phone. I had a tour
of Owerri. It felt like I had never been away. The bright colours, the
bargaining, the dusty roads, the ditches, all the churches and the heat all
greeted me. There were a lot of tuc tucs , drivers with no respect for any
driving rules and the ‘road safety’ police were busy taking money.
In my hotel I was very grateful for a nice clean room. The
phone rang a lot but the line was empty when I answered-it took a while for me
to realise it was the phone in the bathroom and the one by my bed didn’t work!
I went to investigate the conference room and was told the training had started
at 8 and finished at 4 last week (actually it had started at 9). I was also
told they knew nothing about card, masking tape, etc. A frantic call to Naomi
and I was told these things were in a cupboard. I gradually relaxed and got
into Nigerian mode-everything works out in the end! Mr Fred came to visit me-he
was to be my assistant the next day. Then I met the chef (pronounced ‘shef’).
He said he would make me food other than on the buffet if required. I helped myself to ‘potato’ soup(tasted
suspiciously like chicken but the waitress assured me it had no meat-she did
not like the look of it, she said but white people ate it!). Then I had beans
and vegetables which were nice and paw paw. Finally after 24 hours I slept!
The next morning the teachers arrived at 10am! However all
seemed to go quite well. I had to slow down a lot as they found it hard to
follow my accent. We had a lot of fun singing counting songs and making dice.
They have a lovely uniform which is a dark blue suit, white shirt and red
flower. On Fridays they are allowed to wear their own clothes.
After the training I tried to buy a slice of cake from the
bakery-I ended up with enough cake to feed a family of eight. It was good to
have a cup of coffee-even with powdered milk. I have a hotel porter outside my
room all the time which is very reassuring and everyone is very polite and
smiley-even when telling me there is no internet connection. After another meal
of beans (Simon, the chef is going to make me spaghetti tomorrow) I left the
restaurant. My waitress asked me if I could teach her to spell! She wrote out
the alphabet on a scrap of paper and looked at me expectantly. What could I do?
She is going to write a story about herself for me to check tomorrow.
It is quite noisy as the hotel is near a roundabout but
somehow it doesn’t matter. The smiling, the greeting, the happy faces and the
rousing ‘God’ music makes it impossible to be down or anxious for long! I would
like the internet to come back though......
