Posts from November, 2006
November 26th, 2006
I’m really beginning to have a lot of fun with my camera here. I believe that any one of my shockingly numerous friends with digital SLRs would find that the number of photo opportunities here would strike them with an aneurysm. There’s simply so much crazy shit going on, so many activities and artifacts and combinations thereof to which there is no corollary in Canadian life, and the novelty of these items gives rise to visual compositions that are tasty, new and delicious. I know too many photofiles not to be aware of this. By the way, Father/Katie/Adam/Trevor, I’m trying pretty hard to impress you here — I hope it’s working!
Witness my latest photo shoot — “Things That Involve Fire That Go On At Night.” I’m coming to realize that while the activities of my days on a macroscopic level may not be terribly interesting (wake up, go to work, come home), the minutiae of my existence are downright captivating. There’s literally a year’s worth of writing material in detailing activities such as brushing my teeth and doing laundry — cuz it’s all CRAZY and DIFFERENT over here.
So let’s talk about fire. I do two things that involve fire. Both also involve kerosene. I’ve got a kerosene lamp that I use when the power goes out which is frequently/always. Really, even when the power is on, the amperage is low enough that an overhead lightbulb generates a level of visibility equivalent to wearing a blindfold in an underwater cave. Luckily this lamp is awesome — not in terms of the amount of light it creates, which is itself somewhat negligible, but in terms of the fact that when I carry it around I look totally hardcore. This is like a serious movie-pioneer lamp, the kind with a handle on top so that you can bring it with you outside at night when coyotes are attacking your livestock. Except there are no coyotes out here, so I guess giant spiders maybe (tangent: There are two kinds of spiders here — the normal kind, and gigantic meaty sons of bitches with visibly huge mandibles/pincers. I call these fuckers “hunter/killers.”)
Then there’s the kerosene stove, which is simply a small box upon which I do my cooking. Every time I want to do so, I have to lift off the grill, remove the cylindrical “element”, light the ring of wicks with a match, and then replace it all. On the plus side, there’s no waiting for things to heat up, because fire is hot right away. In fact it’s hot enough to consistently coat the underside of my pots and pans in delicious, delicious ash, which is I guess just the fuel residue. Anyway, I certainly now see the virtue in gas stoves.
By the way, this stove, which measures 1 foot by 1 foot in diameter and represents technology from approximately five hundred years ago, is the most technologically advanced item in my kitchen, unless you count my box of instant noodle packages, which is I guess pretty impressive in its own right. This is quite a far reach from toasters, kettles and microwaves — I’m going to be using a mortar and pestle to make my own peanut butter, folks.
Although, I need to remember to call them groundnuts, because that’s what they’re called here. Oh, and the oranges aren’t orange, which throws my entire worldview into question. (What colour ARE they, you ask? Stay tuned to find out!)
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November 20th, 2006
My apologies for the lack of recent updates; last weekend I travelled to Kabba in the west, and this past week I was laid up with some nasty Nigerian bacteria. In lieu of an actual “real” post, though, I’ve uploaded about 25 pictures to my flickr account, and the descriptions for those cumulatively total a fair amount of written content. Here’s a highlight!
I live in the pink house, but I want to live in the mountain! I hear the vice-president lives in there. He’s building up nuclear armaments and he has a lava dungeon. He got the money for it by embezzling the entire 2002 GDP of the country. This act is in fact the primary component of his platform for the upcoming election — “Hey guys, I stole less less money than all my opponents!”
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November 14th, 2006
Welcome to another episode of “Holy Shit, I’m Living in Africa.” In today’s installment, I move out of my transitional accommodation and into my permanent housing solution.
When I first arrived, I got to stay within the main house of the Fantsuam Foundation compound. It wasn’t much: small room, living out of my suitcase, tiny bathroom with no running water. But there was a luxurious living room, overhead fans, and a housekeeper who prepared meals and generally kept the house.
Last night, the usual occupants of the house returned from their travels, so I decided it was time to take the great leap… about 20km down the road, to the village of Kagoro. My new house has 3 bedrooms, and other volunteers will be joining me… eventually… probably.
The house is not spectacular. It is in fact a “hovel.” But I’m living in a developing country, and this is actually pretty decent by rural Nigerian standards, and I’m not particularly surprised. It’s quite spacious, because it’s meant to hold 3 volunteers. And the living room is again pretty decent, with, like, chairs and things. But the floor is dirty (and in the bathrooms, flat-out disgusting), the kitchen consists of a table and a sink, and there is no furniture anywhere to store anything inside. Running water and power are intermittent at best.
On the other hand, Kagoro is a pretty nice place. I have to commute everyday to Kafanchan, but it’s not like I personally have to do any driving, you know? The population is much less than Kaf, and the surroundings are gorgeous — I’m living at the foot of a mountain. And it’s quieter. And by quieter, I mean that the night is not filled with an orchestra of catastrophic nightmare sounds like it was in Kaf.
In Kaf, I would go to sleep, and wake up at around 4am while some preacher dude with a set of speakers wailed some morning prayers extremely loudly — and these were not just morning prayers, but incredibly annoying morning prayers, that sounded something like:
YARRRRRBUGAGENOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAHAMSUAM! (x16)
That’s what it was like at first, anyway. As time wore on, this voice was eventually joined by two or three others, independently doing the same thing at approximately the same time, but slightly staggered, thus creating a surreal choral effect. After they had done this, of course, all the animals in the town would be awake. There are scads of animals here, but the purposes of this exposition only the chickens and the dogs matter. Do you know what it sounds like when hundreds of dogs and roosters simultaneously wake up and starting shouting? It sounds like the fucking apocalypse, complete with a nightmare army of three-headed snake demons coming to eat your brains.
These things do not happen in Kagoro. Plus, I hear they have a *killer* New Year’s Festival.
Advantage: Fono.
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November 8th, 2006
Here I am! I am alive and well (I think.) The parasites and bacteria may have already invaded my system and may be already preparing a coup — it’s hard to tell during the incubation period. Life is an adventure!
The purpose of this post is basically just to say that I’m going to start posting now, with the exception of this particular post. I do, however, have the obligatory “solemn looking african child” photo for your viewing enjoyment. It is a rule that if you go to a developing country you have to take a closeup of a solemn looking child.
The basic summary: I am living in a rural suburb (Bayan Loco) of a village (Kafanchan) in the middle of Nigeria, about 200km from the nearest place with things like sidewalks and 2-story buildings. The population here is over 1 million, which in Nigeria qualifies you only as a “village.” I’m working at an NGO called the Fantsuam Foundation, which has a huge smorgasbord of projects, mainly revolving around microfinance and ICT. I’ll have to go into more detail later. I’m similarly assigned to a whole smorgasbord of tasks, but in reality it looks like I’ll be working on a web design course and microfinance banking software dev’t for the next while.
The blog is fundamentally operational, but is still under construction. It’s taking a lof of time because I’m doing some serious wordpress-hacking in order to have a fully customized personal view (mobilefono.com) of what is in fact a shared blog (mapunta.org), and this is apparently really difficult — especially with slow, intermittent internet access!
Mapunta.org readers, the technology is now in place for you to have your own personal view (and domain name, if you’re willing to shell out a few bucks), simiar to mobilefono.com. I have no idea if any actually intends to use mapunta ever again, I’m just using it because I already paid for the webspace.
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