Smitten by a kitten!

So I have mentioned Delight, my friend who sells veggies on the corner of the street where I live. Well a couple of Sundays ago, she arrived unexpectedly at my gate at 8am. Spontaneous visits are not unusual here so I just presumed she wanted to go to church with me. What was unusual however, was that after she had been in my flat about 5 mins, a kitten appeared in her arms. (How on earth did I miss that when she walked in!!!). She insisted it was "my own" and thrust her into my arms, at which point it leapt to the floor and disappeared. It seemed it was staying!

I just love the fact there was no explanation, no prior warning or even choice! It was infact "my own"! I often go to buy my vegetables on her stall and they always`dash` (extra free ones) me the odd tomato or carrot, but I never expected a kitten!

What not to wear!

Adjusting to a new wardrobe has been a slow (and slightly painful) process but I'm glad to say I'm actually starting to embrace it! We have to make a special effort not to offend the locals and therefore if we leave the house, skirts below the knee are our only option. For those of you who know me will know that the word `skirt` was not even in my dictionary a few months ago, however I have adjusted so much I hardly even think about it now. We can wear trousers for sport or at other people’s houses (basically where we will not be seen) but must wear skirts while we are travelling there. This means you often see people wearing skirts and then look down to see their jeans sticking out the bottom (kind of similar to the dress-over-trousers fashion but for some reason not as effective!!!) Once we went to climb a mountain with a group of girls and passer-bys must have been very amused to watch 6 white girls suddenly whip of their skirt, showing their trousers underneath!!! However feminine the skirts look they are not always practical. Often it is a struggle when you are trying to get on a motorbike but can't because the skirt is too restrictive, then you start travelling down the dirt road and have one hand making sure you stay on the bike and another trying to preserve your dignity as the wind is blowing your skirt in the air!

The Nigerians enjoy seeing you in their style of clothing which usually consists of a matching skirt and top in bright and cheerful material! The bright colours and patterns seem to look great on the Nigerians but for some reason don't look quite the same on me! Unlike the UK you can't just go to New Look and try on various colours and styles, instead you start from scratch by choosing the material and having it tailor-made. Considering I usually struggle making decisions about ready-made clothes, you can imagine this is quite a stressful process for me! I bought some material on my second day here (with a Nigerian) and thought I'd include a picture wearing it with my friend Delight on our way to church.

Delight and me

It has taken me three months to pluck up the courage to tackle the material stalls again and so this morning I went with a fellow Brit called Matt who lives in my compound. I think he soon regretted it as I made him and the Nigerian stall owner stand in the path and model each material as a dress to aid the decision-making progress! I'm not sure how it happened but I seemed to have come away with bright pink patterned material (not my normal colour!) and so think this outfit will certainly be something! I must be getting into the Nigerian spirit of things! I will put on a picture when it's made.

Can't cook, Won't cook!

So cooking here has been a challenge to say the least! I never thought I was a great cook but thought I could do the basic...it turns out I can't!!! I am grateful to have so many people here who invite you over for dinner as I think I would have simply disappeared by now! Each meal here has to cooked from scratch so there really isn't an easy option. I have realised that at home my diet mainly consisted of meat and cheese! Here they are two very expensive ingredients so when I first arrived I tried to live with out them both. It turns out that I can't survive without cheese in my life so I now have a rationed amount each week! I think my biggest challenge I was faced with was not having tinned tomatoes, instead they have tomato paste (tomato puree) which tastes awful on its own. Thankfully through experimenting I have learned how to make a pasta sauce and have even made my own pizza!!! Unfortunately this is still in the experimental stage as the first time I made it the dough was soggy and the next it was so hard I smashed my plate, however I am convinced that I will have cracked it next time! I had friends over for dinner last night and served lasagne which seemed to work `ok ish` so with three different meal possibilities I should survive another month before I am bored!





I have tasted quite a lot of Nigerian food so far, which often consists of rice and beans, yam or tuwo and soup made from leaves (which has a very nasty smell!). My favourite so far is peanut soup or fried yam (which I convince myself tastes like chips from the local chippy!). I haven't eaten anything too scary so far! Goat seems to be the most common meat which I'm not a great fan of and I'm just waiting to be served the bush rat and dog I've been promised!!!

Story so far (cont..)

Christmas

Christmas felt quite surreal here. There was no big build up from about September like at home, instead we celebrated over a few days which was strangely refreshing. I had to keep reminding myself it was Christmas as I was sweating in the heat, but soon got into the spirit of things by doing the usual tree-decorating and baking. Christmas trees are ridiculously expensive, especially if u are a`bature` ("white person" meaning anyone not African...3 months of tan and I'm still considered white!!!) so when I went to buy one with Jamie we weren't too hopeful. It certainly tested our haggling abilities but as a true `half indian` we manage to get a good price so that even the Nigerians were annoyed they had been charged more!!! My dad would be proud!

Leading up to Christmas we had a Christmas party at each care centre and each child received a bag of small gifts which had been donated. I had offered to help Jamie to do the gift bags before hand and before I knew it I was in charge of making sure they were all handed out to the 7 care centres because Jamie left! (Don't think I'll be so keen to offer my services again!). Sounds easy enough but turned into quite a stressful experience, trying to make sure children got the right age, gender and same as everyone else at their centre! In the end the children were very happy with them though.

`The New Westlife`!

The Christmas parties were great fun and there was a lot of dancing , especially in the village. All the girls were wearing their new matching dresses and their dancing was so entertaining to see! There was loads of bum wiggling, arms and legs flying and at one point, something that resembled `The Conga`! Some of the boys lined up on the steps for a routine and looked like the next boy band for X-factor, it was great! They literally dance for hours and it was so cute to see even the smallest ones really going for it!

`The "bum wiggling"!

On Christmas day we went into the care centre in the village to attend church with the kids and Joseph who is on my compound did a good job of delivering the sermon. We arrived early in the morning and when I greeted my friend in the village, someone brought her a gift of rice and hot chilli stew (It seems that everyone takes red stew and rice to eachother's houses on Christmas day, I guess like the biscuits and chocolate in England!). She then invited me to join her and wouldn't take no for an answer so that was an interesting breakfast! After church we had lunch with the girls which was rice and red stew again, of course, and we hung out with the girls for a while. We came back to have a more western meal with people on our compound, which also ended up being quite a multi-cultural meal because of all the different western nationalities there! Unfortunately I missed out on having rice and red stew again as that was what was on the menu for dinner in the village! It's a great meal, but 3 times in a day would have been just too much! I really missed everyone at Christmas, it made me realise how many family traditions we have without even realising it, however it was great to experience something different and spend time with kids who don't have any other family to celebrate with Christmas.

The story so far... (cont...)

The Crisis

At the end of November it was election day in Jos. It was a public holiday and everyone was advised to stay indoors all day incase any problems broke out. Well the day passed away peacefully enough and I returned home that night thinking that it had all gone smoothly and we would resume to work the next day as usual.

However when I awoke the next day I was informed that there was `trouble` near the hospital and told not to venture down there or to the market for a while. I naively thought whatever problems there were would have blown over by lunch time! Little did I know of the situation itself! It soon became apparent that `trouble` was a bit of an under-statement!

Jos is a place where Nigeria's Muslim north meets its Christian south and therefore an area where there is a political power struggle between the two groups. However the rilvalry runs much deeper than religious differences, the tension is also caught up with tribal roots.

In the early hours of Friday morning, violence had broken out in the northern parts of Jos. Throughout the day you could hear gunshots and explosions echoing in the background and the smoke-filled sky was covered over in a cloud of grey. It was easy to follow the direction of the violence as we watch the smoke doing a semi-circle around our area. Rival ethnic and religious mobs burned down homes, cars, shops, mosques and churches, causing the worst unrest for years.

Due to the location of our compound, for the most part we felt out of the way of the riots, despite them sounding very nearby at one point. The men on the compound took turns to carry out night watch duty so as to be alert to any danger. However there are two City Ministries care centres in other areas of Jos and they were in amidst the violence. The thought of children and staff so close to the riots was a big concern, especially as they had to keep watch all through the night to defend the centres. Amazingly none of them were injured despite being affected by inhaling the smoke. The violence lasted for a few days but thankfully the police were effective in bringing the violence to an end, particularly by enforcing curfews. We still have a curfew at 7pm every night to aviod any flare ups and although it doesn't help our social lives, it does seem to be keeping the city at peace. There have been many varying suggestions as to the numbers dead or injured and it is likely to be high, however there is no record. Doctors working at the time the crisis began have said that there were many machete and gun shot wounds and I have heard several horror stories from those witnessing the violence. There will be lots of psychological scars from this event and people are still tense and alert to the danger. It's just amazing how people here seem to deal with so much trauma and yet still try and remain cheerful and thankful to God.

The Story so far...

So I know I have been so bad a keeping this updating this but will promise to make a better effort from now on! This will be quite a long one so why not take a section each day!

Life with City Ministries....

I am really enjoying the work with City Ministries and have decided to spend my time in the village where we have a care centre for the younger kids. I have been working closely with another missionary called Jamie who has helped me to understand how life at the care centre works and we have had a lot of fun! I really enjoyed doing Christmas activities with her and the girls and taking them on a picnice was quite an adventure! I don't think any of the girls had even seen a sandwich, but seemed to enjoy them all the same! Now Jamie has returned to USA me and the girls are missing her lot. It's been great getting to know the girls and their situations better and already I have seen huge changes in some of the girls as they have settled into life in the ministry. The older girls are wonderrful at looking after the younger ones and they interact and play with eachother like a group of sisters. They were all very excited end enjoyed fussing the youngest member of the family as she started pre-school this week.

Taking the girls on a picnic Favor's first day at school Working on the library

As well as spending time getting to know the girls I have been helping to sort out the library in the care centre. A lot of work went into it from many people and I became involved with the final stages of organising the books and decorating the room. It feels great to finally have it finished!We now have an amazing room, full of books for the children to enjoy and they are so excited about using it. We will open it this week and I will be taking the reading sessions in there with each class.

Well I actually made it here and am settling into life in Nigeria. It has been an amazing 2 weeks and I have seen so many different sights, projects and outreaches that I can’t write about them all (saying that, this might still be quite a long blog!).

I can tell that I am becoming accustomed to life here as I hardly notice when lizards crawl everywhere I try and walk, or when old women carry heavy loads of firewood on their heads while trekking down mountains and risking your life while crossing the road, sterilising your food, greeting everyone you meet (to the point of asking some of them how their cat is!), cooking in the dark (due to lack of electricity) and having a dodgy belly all become part of a `normal` day!

So far I have toured around a lot of the ministries here and have seen so many amazing things going on. There are several care centres for children who are orphans or who would otherwise be living on the streets. They begin at a place called Gidan Bege (House of Hope) and then transfer to one of two care centres, depending on their school grade.

So far I have spent most time with the younger children, especially the girls who have just arrived. Here’s a photo of the youngest girl, who at 3 years old certainly knows her own mind and can even eat more than me!

At the care centres children are given an `aunty` or `uncle` and can begin to escape from their past; getting clothed and fed and attending the local primary school. It has been good beginning to get to know these girls by going on walks or by helping them with their reading and writing.

There are several medical outreaches where sick people can attend a clinic free of charge and a weekly trip to `Blind Town` where there is extreme poverty. Here people such as leprosy sufferers can receive medication and medical advice.

I have a lovely apartment and have running water, electricity and even the internet so at first things don’t really seem so different. However whenever I start to forget how luxurious things are, I tend to get a sharp reminder not to take them for granted in the form of a power cut or by getting brown water out the tap!

This weekend I had the opportunity to go on a weekend outreach to a village called Kagoro, where there is another care centre. The children were so excited to see us and we enjoyed `getting back to nature` by taking bucket baths and buying a live goat to eat for dinner!

We trekked up a mountain, passing waterfalls, huge rocks and cacti twice my height, but the most impressive sight was seeing villagers (several elderly) trekking down the mountain with everything you could imagine on their heads – How they balanced alone was a mystery!

Apparently they made the journey everyday to take their goods to sell at the market and lived at the village right in the top of the mountain (see photo).

That evening we took an evangelistic film to another village and the excitement was quite overwhelming when we arrived. The whole village had turned up and were screaming, dancing and singing to welcome us. There was a delay in setting up the video so we decided to teach them some songs and all that came to mind was `Our God is Great Big God`. They enjoyed it and seeing middle-aged African women doing the actions to “deeper than a submarine” was possible my most surreal experience so far!!! Thankfully technical problems were overcome and we were able to show the film!