2013

In the last days of the year, it is the time to look back. So, what did 2013 bring?

• People! This year was a year in which I met so many wonderful people. Fellow volunteers in Nigeria, colleagues, national volunteers, people in the street. It is always nice to come back to Ilorin after a trip. It takes me at least 15 minutes to get home from the main junction (normally less than 5 minutes away) as every shop owner on the way wants to have a chat and a dozen of kids run to me to hug me.  
• My parents in Benin. Never expected, but they made it, and they loved it. And I loved showing them around in this part of my life.
• Education. I learnt so much in this year about education in Nigeria. I have seen a lot of challenges and hopefully also a lot of opportunities. It is not always easy to prepare volunteers to teach hundred children. Or to support them in teaching practicals with no materials. I hope my colleague and I can help them a bit to improve education.
• Volunteers. I am so proud to see what a big impact the national volunteers make. I hope to contribute a little, but they are the ones who do the job. So I am very proud of them when I hear that instead of 40% now 95% of the students in a school is passing exams. Or to hear from school principals how big their impact is on students but also on colleagues.

But also,

• Corruption. Especially crossing the border, it is an ongoing frustration.
• Heat. I really remember my first night in Ilorin. No power all night long, so also no fan all night long. Welcome to Ilorin!
• Lack of water and power. An ongoing issue in our house. I get used to the lack of power, but being without water is still difficult.

 

Maybe I can just sum up 2013 in one word: Nigeria. Nigeria is a world on his own, with so many nice people, so many people who want to improve the country, so many smiles, so much support, so many hugs, so many remarkable moments, so much to learn. But also, so little light, so much corruption, such bad roads, so many oga’s on the top with not much capacities for their jobs, so many jobless youth, so many children out of school.  I am happy to support the positive sides and feel really blessed to be able to do that with my colleague. I hope we can make a difference for some people together.

So, that’s the resolution for next year. Together with my counterpart, our national volunteers, VSO and everybody else who wants to help, continue to work for a better education in Kwara. I hope 2014 will bring us more visible results and a better life for at least a few people in Kwara state. I belief that all together, we can make a difference. Will you join us?

 

*I will be travelling in Nigeria over Christmas and New Years. This was most likely my last post for 2013. I wish you all a merry Christmas, but especially a very happy, healthy and delightful new year!*

 

 

Twins

The people in Kwara state are mainly Yoruba. The Yoruba of Nigeria are getting the highest number of twins in the world. About 4,5% of all babies born have a twin brother or sister. (In the Netherlands this is less than 1,5%).

Twin brothers are immediately recognizable by their names. The one who is born first is called Taiyewo (or shortened to Taiwo or Taiye for example). This means ‘the first to taste the world’. According to the story, the second one born (Kehinde or Kenny) sends Taiyewo to check out if life is ok. By the way he cries, he is supposed to inform Kehinde about the situation on earth. The reply determines if Kehinde will be born alive or stillborn.

In traditional Yoruba religion, it is believed that twins share one soul. So, if one of the two dies young, the balance of the soul is disturbed. In case one of the twins is passing away, a wooden figure is created to symbolize the dead child. In case both children die, two figures are made. The figures are treated by the parents as if they are real children. Rituals and prayers are performed for the child's birthday and other celebrations or festivals.

I am not sure how many people are still making these twin statues, treating them like real children. But, I can see a lot of Taiyes and Taiwos and Kehindes. So, the Yoruba seem to still get a lot of twins. People here tell me it is because of the yam they eat.

This sounds a bit strange, but I found some articles on the internet that says that a specific kind of yam is having something in it what resembles a fertility hormone used in the west. And in western countries, people who use fertility drugs do get a higher percentage of twins as well. So, it might not be as strange as you would think at first! (Especially as it seems that the number of twins among Yoruba’s who left Nigeria is pretty similar to the rest of the population of their new country).

Anyway, I decided to not take the risk and not eat too much yam!

Theo en Geertje in Benin

Een bijdrage van mijn ouders:


Voor het eerst naar Afrika, naar Benin. Wat een ervaring! Als eerste was het natuurlijk heerlijk om Esly te zien. Van te voren vroegen wij ons af, of we zouden kunnen gaan snappen, waarom zij helemaal verknocht is aan West Afrika. En wanneer je haar zo ziet, ziet hoe zij met de mensen in Benin omgaat, dan snap je het direct. Ze laat zich niet als blanke behandelen, ze is 1 van hen. Ze kletst met iedereen, en iedereen kletst met haar. Er wordt gelachen en ze pakken elkaar vast. Want de mensen daar hebben veel warmte te vergeven. We hebben bovendien niemand horen klagen, niemand! Mensen zijn tevreden met het weinige dat ze hebben. Ze zijn gelukkig op hun manier.

Toch denk ik dat er dingen zouden moeten veranderen. Onderwijs is gratis, maar zonder schooluniform kom je niet op school, en soms is dat beetje geld er gewoonweg niet. Ook de gezondheidszorg zou verbeterd moeten worden en ook denk ik dat er vuil geruimd zou moeten worden. Het gekke is, dat er geen woningnood is, althans volgens henzelf. Maar wij hebben plekken gezien, waar een hoekje in de natuur was afgezet, soms van steen, maar soms ook alleen van palmboom bladeren, en dat was dan hun huis...

Tijdens het bezoek aan het slavernij museum voelden wij ons schuldig. Toen we dat noemden, werd er simpel, maar recht uit het hart gereageerd; daar kunnen jullie niks aan doen toch... En men ging verder met de orde van de dag. 

Met kleine dingen lieten mensen ons voortdurend voelen dat ze ons

Eten op straat

respecteerden. Door heel veel mensen werden wij mama en papa genoemd. Dat is een eretitel, en zo klonk het ook. En wat werd het gewaardeerd, dat wij gewoon op straat in een "restaurantje" iets wilde drinken of eten. Net als iedereen, en niet enkel op zoek gingen naar de super de luxe plekken. Want die zijn er ook. Maar die zijn niet voor de gewone man te betalen. 

Kortom; we hebben het fantastisch gehad. Ik zou een ieder dan ook aanraden ooit zo'n reis te maken, maar zorg dan wel dat er iemand is die je de weg kan wijzen, die weet waar de bijzondere dingen te zien zijn. En ga vooral met de mensen op straat in gesprek.

After eight months...

When I was participating in the trainings VSO is offering before your placement, they were telling us that the first six to twelve months it is very hard to get anything done. Now that I am in Nigeria for eight months I do definitely agree. The trainings we did with our national volunteers in the first months were nice and useful. But if you look at the higher level, nothing was really happening.

It is only now that I can see things starting to move. On the one hand it is because the ‘oga’s on the top’ of the Ministry are getting more and more aware of the program. They see what is going on and how we try to help them. At the same time, I also see that I start to understand more and more of the program, the Ministry and the situation in Kwara.

I can see more and more challenges in secondary education here, but also more and more possible ways to do something against these challenges. I don’t have the illusion we will solve it all. But if we can solve one problem for a few students, teachers or even one school, that is quite something!

Personally I find it very useful to live as a ‘normal’ Nigerian, in a house with often no light, a street that floods when it rains and so on. I saw a company from Lagos presenting new educational methods to the Ministry this week. Their program looks great, but it needs a digital whiteboard. I have seen quite a few schools in this state, most of them are happy if they have an old-fashioned blackboard and chalk. Many schools have no light, there are no teachers or textbooks. And then you want the Ministry to invest in digital whiteboards and expensive software?

Hopefully, as a VSO volunteer, working very closely together with my Nigerian colleague, we can think about some projects which will really work well, and will be easy to copy to other schools. So, projects which don’t need elaborate technological materials or big investments.

But to make anything happen, we will need more time than the four months my initial contract would still be. So, most likely, I will extend my placement here and stay in Nigeria. This will mean my colleague and I can continue working together on the future of the Nigeria Graduate Volunteer Program, and we can support VSO and the Ministry in developing more projects in the state. To be continued!

Training on inclusive education

In the past two weeks, we had six days of training of volunteers. We travelled out of Ilorin to train NYSC corper volunteers. And we had two days of training with our National Volunteers.

It is always very inspirational to work with the volunteers. They are the ones on the ground, they are teaching and they get confronted with many challenges. I hope we managed to give them some tools to deal with all the challenges they experience.

One of the sessions we did in each training was on inclusive education. We discussed with our volunteers how you can make sure every child in your classroom gets the opportunity to learn. We discussed about differences between equality (treating everyone the same) and equity (creating the same result for everyone).

After some theory, we discussed some examples. Children can be disadvantaged in so many ways, there are slow learners who are seen as a burden by the teacher, girls who are ignored by the teacher, poor children with no money to buy whatever needed to go to school (sometimes including breakfast), children in a wheelchair or children who moved from another state to Kwara and can’t speak Yoruba.

One example was about a 15 year old girl who lost both her parents from AIDS. She has to care for two younger sisters and a younger brother, what is not easy to combine with going to school every day. Besides this, her classmates don’t want to sit next to her because they know her parents died from AIDS.

I found it interesting to see what suggestions people give to deal with this situation. Every group was saying you as a teacher have to sensitise the classmates (and maybe also their parents) about HIV and the fact that even if she would be HIV positive you will not get infected by sitting next to her in class. Many groups also said they will try to support her, council her, help her in planning her days or seek help from family or NGOs.
So far, so good. But, how about the suggestion: we have to test the four children and if they are HIV negative we have to share their status with the entire community. Maybe my idea of privacy about this kind of things is very European, but I am not convinced this is the best thing to do. By testing them, and only them, I think you stigmatise them again. Especially if you are fifteen years old, you are very likely to have classmates who are sexually active and might have gotten infected as well. So, even though we said in the beginning you don’t have to treat everyone in the same way to reach the same result for everyone, I think in this kind of cases you have to treat them all the same.

Looking at the very positive reactions we get from the school principals, it seems like our volunteers are learning a lot during all our trainings. I hope also this time they learned a bit about how to deal with all the different individuals in their classes. And no, it is not always easy. If you teach eighty or even more than hundred students at the same time, it is of course difficult to make sure everyone is carried along. But I am sure they will at least do their best to teach in a child centred way and to be aware of problems children might have and how to deal with it.

Volunteer's impact

This week, the sixth team of National Graduate Volunteers in Kwara is starting their service. Twenty people will be teaching mathematics and science subjects in schools in the rural areas of the state. Their impact is much bigger than you might think. Look at these examples from last year:

One of our volunteers has been teaching physics and chemistry in a rural secondary school. He says: ‘Before I was sent as a volunteer to this school, there was no qualified teacher for physics and chemistry. The teacher for these subjects only had a secondary school certificate. He did not teach practicals, I am not sure if he was able to do that himself. But the secret of chemistry and physics is that if you don’t pass the practicals, there is no way passing the subject’. Students are performing much better now. Before about 40% of the students passed the external exams in these subjects. Now about 90-95% passed. This is a great result, especially if you keep in mind that the equipment available for teaching practicals is very limited.



Soap making workshop

A group of volunteers have been teaching soap making to a big group of students in a girls school. One of the volunteers says: ‘Recently I was at the market and a girl started shouting at me; Aunty Aunty! I was looking who it was and asked her if she knew me, shouting like this. The girl said; yes you taught us how to make soap. And look, I went out to buy the materials and I produced soap and I sold it for fifty naira!’

These two examples are showing very direct impact the volunteers have on the students with who they work. But what do you think about this:

 

A volunteer is teaching in a very rural school. She says: ‘My school is facing a lot of challenges. It is very far out and teachers don’t want to go here. They are business minded people. I try to convince them that the children in the school are more important than business. They find it hard to understand that I volunteer. I work very hard but earn much less than they earn. I hope that I can inspire them to give priority to the students. Assisting others is a gift and hopefully our efforts will bring real changes’.

I hope the new team of National Volunteers will be able to have at least as much impact as the previous team. Because all together, we can bring change!

Sounds of a Sunday

The sounds of a Sunday morning are different all over the world. This is what happens in Ilorin:

At 5AM the mosque is calling for prayer. This happens every day. There are two mosques within hearing distance of my bedroom. They both call for prayer, just after each other. Recently, they became louder, sometimes we can hear the entire prayer. Unfortunately it is all in Arabic.

Then, around 6 the first church starts. No bells like in the Netherlands, but the drums of the church and the enthusiastic singing and praying of the people are loud enough. I can’t understand every word, but I can easily recognise Amen and Hallelujah. On a Sunday morning, this all goes on till the afternoon, or even longer. There are a lot of churches close to my house, so you can always hear one.

Next is the family of the security guard who wake up. He plays his radio very loud, their little girl is crying (her name is Obedience, I can think about only one name which would suit her less than this; Patience). He might talk on the phone. The dog might bark.

Outside the gate, life also starts. You hear some goats, maybe a dog. A lady is passing selling groundnuts: ‘buuuuuy groundnuts!’  I can’t see her but I know she carries her business for the day on her head. Her change might be in the corners of her wrapper skirt.

In our house, life on Sunday starts later than in the rest of the street. But, you can still hear the sounds. In case there is light, you hear the fridge turning on. Power might be too low, so it also clicks off again. This can go on for hours. I can hear Stacey trying to make tea. As our stove is sometimes a bit problematic I hear the clicks of the stove when you try to light it without success.

As soon as you go out, you can hear the children: ‘Oyibo!’ and the other neighbours: ‘Happy Sunday!’. Maybe this is something we should try in the Netherlands, wish everyone you meet a Happy Sunday. I am sure you will enjoy your day much more!

Adventures on the road

Travelling in Nigeria is always an experience. Long distances or just within the city, you never know what will happen. The quality of roads, cars and driver is a guarantee for adventure. But, many more things can happen. Let me give you two examples from last week.

I spent last week in Abuja, the capital city. Contrary to Ilorin, Abuja has an expat scene. So after going out, we were invited to an expat party. (Yes, at a swimming pool). We as VSO volunteers do obviously not have our own transport. So the ride offered by some other people was very welcome. We were one person more than seats in the car, so one girl offered to sit in the trunk of the car. You see many Nigerians doing the same.

But of course, a car full of white people gets some attention from the police at various road blocks so in the end we got stopped. To sum up the long discussion in a few sentences, our driver got accused of treating his wife as an animal, putting her in the trunk. Some policemen were pretty relaxed and were making jokes with us. Others were more stressed and one of them jumped in our car and told the driver to go. In the end, people from the other cars, working in embassies and the marine, came and told the police we were together. The girl had to sit in the car, but putting four people on the backseat, or two in front, is no problem. So in the end we made it to the party.

This situation was a bit scary, especially as the VSO driver with who I came from Ilorin said at some point; if I see these people with guns and no uniform I feel safe, I know what they are doing. If I see police I feel unsafe because you never know if they are really police and what they want.

 

Second example is totally different. Nothing scary, but pretty annoying. Travelling back from Abuja to Ilorin takes 7-8 hours. At the moment we leave the car park in Abuja, the woman next to me (who claimed the seat in the middle of the car) told us we have to pray. This is nothing special in Nigeria, so she started praying out loud that the road to Ilorin was covered with the bloooood of Jeeeeeesuuuuus. This took about five minutes. But then, when we really left Abuja, she started talking about God. For 7 hours. The two ladies in the back were Muslims and she was telling that she did respect Muslims, but well, they don’t know the love of Jeeeeesuuuuus. I tried to sleep, but her voice was too loud. The lady at her other side tried to read her book, the two ladies in the back were just talking to each other. And she was just talking. I had a hard time not asking her if her husband was very happy every time she travels to Abuja so he has some rest for a few days.

I thought it was just me getting annoyed, but after she dropped the other passenger and the driver said; we have a headache! She is just talking talking talking! And so loud! And only about herself and her relationship to Jesus…  For seven hours, can you imagine! (Yes I can, I was sitting right next to her, remember?).

 

Big advantage of this trip, I was extra happy to arrive in Ilorin. Not only that we made it safely again, but also because I could finally escape the preaching lady!

Cotonou, c'est aussi chez moi!

The Lonely Planet for West Africa summarises what each country in West Africa is famous for. According to Lonely Planet, Benin is mainly famous for Voodoo, slavery, the kings of Dahomey and Angelique Kidjo. Nigeria on the other hand, is famous for corruption, email scams and writers. This gives you a very different first impression of the two countries. And believe me, it is true!


View from my hotel room

I visited Cotonou for the first time in three years. It was amazing. It is really weird to realize the big differences between two neighbouring countries. Simply the atmosphere is incomparable. It’s hard to define the difference, but I can really feel it when I am there.

And of course I loved seeing my friends again. It is amazing how the little baby who was just born last time I saw him, goes to school now and speaks better French than me. I loved eating pizza at the beach, enjoyed a great buffet with loads of Lebanese food and shopped in the new hyper marché. Of course, Cotonou is the economic centre of the country and I should not be surprised I can find more western products and food than in Ilorin. But still, it was great!

 

It was interesting to see how Cotonou is developing. In some areas, so many new building arose that I hardly recognised it. New roads and fly overs are making the traffic easier. Power is much more reliable than it was some years ago. My friends told me there are still power cuts, but they last only a few hours and are not on daily base. Compare that to Nigeria where we often have no power for a day or more. (And keep in mind that Nigeria exports power to neighbouring countries).

It seems like the government in Benin is doing a quite good job, while in Nigeria things seems to slow down. For example, a company has been assigned to repair the road between and Ilorin and Abuja several times. So far, nothing has happened.


With my good friend Armand

I think I understand what the problem is. When I crossed the border between Nigeria and Benin, at the Benin side the most heard words were: Bon Arrivee! Welcome in Benin! Only one official tried to get money from me.




Travelling back to Nigeria, the officials stamping my passport at the border were ok, but as soon as we passed the border, problems start. Here people don’t say Welcome in Nigeria, they say; what do you have for me? And the poor taxi driver had to pay. All the time. Within 500 meter he got stopped probably 10 times, not by officials but by normal people. They have a kind of a golf club with nails in it and if you don’t stop they destroy your tires. So, what can you do? Telling them you just paid 10m before (what the guy saw of course), doesn’t help, you have to pay. The police sees it and the only thing they say is; ‘Anything for us?’ so you have to pay again.

When I was living in Benin in 2006 I never expected to go to Benin to be in a ‘normal’ and ‘developed’ country. Or that I would go to Cotonou because of the variety of food. Or the great condition of the roads… But now… Spending months in Ilorin changes everything! So, hopefully again in September. It feels like home. Because, well, Cotonou, c’est aussi chez moi!



Pizza at the beach

This is Nigeria - about traffic and visa

Travelling to Abuja should take 7-8 hours. We left Ilorin at 6.30 so we would be in Abuja in time and I could go to the embassy of Benin Republic to apply for visa. But well, this is Nigeria! So, no, I didn’t manage…

Just outside Ilorin, our driver started to drive in a weird way, stepping on the brake all the time. After 3 hours he stopped to ‘repair something on the brake’. It took him 15 minutes or so and all passengers were ok with it. Our halfway stop took one hour instead on 30 minutes as a mechanic had to ‘repair something on the brake’. People started complaining a bit, but not too much. Then, we drove 30 minutes and the driver stopped again. Then it turned out the car was really broken and we could not continue.

This is Nigeria, so of course people try to fix it (failed), try to fix it again (failed) and try to fix it again (failed). After 3 hours, the passengers told the driver he had to arrange us another car to travel. To shorten the few hours of waiting and discussion into a few sentences; the driver arranged us another car, and offered the driver half of the money. What the driver agreed with. But, he had to pick the money in Abuja but the new driver has no permission to enter Abuja so he could not go there. The bus company said they will arrange something to solve this and then switched off their phones. So we ended up paying extra to the new driver, to be dropped somewhere outside Abuja. In the end, we made it to the hotel at 8 instead of 3. In case we forgot it, this is Nigeria!

 

My visa application had to wait till next day. But I had to give training first, so could only make it after the training. And this is Nigeria, so…

‘A visa? Now? At this time? It is already 4!’ The simple fact that the embassy should be open till 5, doesn’t change anything, there is no way to get a visa ‘at this time’.  It took quite some time to find the embassy in, the address mentioned online is not the address of the embassy and the phone numbers don’t work (no, they just closed the lines so you can’t call them, this is Nigeria). But now that I made it, it seems like I can’t apply for the visa.

I explain the security guy that I live in Ilorin (Ilorin!? Really? Why?) and that there is no way to get to Abuja in the morning from there. So in the end, he gave me two forms to fill in and bring the next morning (At 8, ok, what time does the embassy open? At 8.30... I think…).  

Visa is ready

So next morning I arrived at the embassy at 8.20. The same security guy tells me no-one arrived yet and that it might be late before anyone arrives (remember, this is Nigeria!). But I can leave all my documents with him and call him later that day to see if my visa is done. As I did not really have other options, I had to give training at 9 again, I decided to do it like this. And well, apparently this is a normal procedure (it’s Nigeria in the end) and at 4 I could pick up my passport, with my multi-entry visa for Benin!

Interesting fact; they also stamped a visa in my passport which they cancelled. I expect some questions at the border! Hopefully the story that Jean Claude van Damme is my uncle (don’t I look like him?) will do the trick again.

But now, finally, I can make it. I plan to travel to Benin in a few weeks. If nothing happens in between, in the end, this is Nigeria!  

Pray pray pray

Gifts from the Netherlands!

'Happy belated birthday!’ My birthday was on a Saturday this year, so most of my colleagues see me only on Monday again. They heard it was my birthday. So, like, in the Netherlands, they congratulate me. But, different from the Netherlands, one of my colleagues immediately adds; ‘Let’s pray for her!’ So I find myself in an office of the Ministry of Education with two colleagues praying for ‘Sister Esly’ who is so far away from home but is at home now in Ilorin.

God makes so many extra hours in Nigeria. I really doubt if He has time to pay attention to the birthday of an Oyibo. And even if He has, maybe He should better focus on some of the real problems in this country.

Food

But well, anyways, it’s been my first birthday where people pray for me. Also on Saturday, during my actual birthday party, my Nigerian friends prayed for me. Every time I love the fact that my Muslim colleagues pray happily along with the Christian prayer (and that goes the other way around as well). Everyone says Amen at the same time, Muslim or Christian, doesn’t matter. I can only hope the rest of this country, or even better, the rest of the world, will take this as an example of how two religions can live together.

 

Something else happening at the moment is my planned trip to Benin. I really want to go there in July, just for a few days. But I found out that it is not as easy as it seems. There is an embassy in Abuja and I also managed to find out that I need a visa. But I can find a lot of different phone numbers online and none of them work. So I can only hope (or go the Nigerian way and pray!) the embassy will be open Wednesday afternoon so I can apply for my visa.

If it works out, I will be visiting Cotonou soon again. I’m very curious how it changed since the last time I was there (2010). That time many things changed since 2008 so I am really looking forward to see what happened since. And of course, I’m looking forward to see my friends again (and to enjoy a luxury hotel with 24 hours power, hot water, AC, TV, a swimming pool and a restaurant where you can eat other things than rice and chicken).

 

Birthday gift from my housemate Stacey... Very true!

But, before I can go to Benin we will have training in Abuja next week with the partners and then the last training with the volunteers in Kwara. And then we have to start thinking about next year’s program. We started recruiting NGOs who want to take a National Volunteer next year, so I hope we will manage to form two separate groups of 10-15 volunteers, one with teachers and one with people working in NGOs. So, let’s do it the Nigerian way and pray it will work out!

Work

My work is totally different from what I was used to in Enschede. There, I was working so many extra hours, so many nights. Here, my working days are from 9 till 4. Also work load is not comparable, I really feel like a civil servant here.  The first few weeks I was pretty bored, I am not so good in sitting in the office doing nothing. Fortunately, I have some more things to do now.
 
 
In the past two weeks, we did two trainings. The first one was for the National Volunteers in Kwara.

I always enjoy working with our National Volunteers. The training we did was so nice again. We did sessions on motivation, communication and inclusive education. Besides this, we encouraged them to share their experiences, their challenges and solutions. This worked out very well, their discussions are very lively.

Who would you save? Session about inclusion

Inclusive education is an important issue for VSO. UNICEF is defining inclusive education as the 'recognition of the need to work towards 'schools for all' - institutions which include everybody, celebrate differences, support learning, and respond to individual needs’. You might immediately think about education for children with a disability. But inclusive education also means that you pay as much attention to the girls in your classroom as to the boys, or that you enable also slow learners to keep up with the class instead of leaving them behind.

Most volunteers have experienced somehow that girls were not treated in the same way as boys. Also, I can very well imagine that if you teach eighty students, it is not easy to give enough attention to slow learners. So I was very excited to read in many evaluations of the day that our volunteers are more aware of this now and will at least try to be more inclusive in their teaching. This raising of awareness is the first step to improvement I would say!

 

Special session for the NGO volunteers

The second training was in Abuja for VSO desk officers. There is a similar NGVP program in Kano. But Kano is too dangerous for us as International Volunteers to travel to. Therefor we had to train the staff so they can cascade the training to the volunteers. My partner Moshood did also take part in this train-the-trainer session.

In Nigeria, a teacher is a lecturer. They can easily talk for hours. In our trainings however, we expect the trainer to facilitate, to enable sharing among participants and let them think for themselves. This is a totally different technique which is not easy for them. But hopefully they learnt something. We will most likely have another training for NYSC volunteers in 1,5 week, so Moshood and I can do a session together to get some real experience as well. I am sure it will work out totally fine, especially because he is willing to learn.

 

NGVP Kwara
 

Oyibo and excitement

As a white person (an Oyibo) I am quite an attraction for the people of Ilorin. The kids in the streets are still going crazy every time they see a white person. When I walk through the neighbourhood I constantly hear children shouting Oyibo! Oyibo! Sometimes you don’t even see them, but they see me! It feels like being the queen, you just wave to everyone.



My new haircut

Recently I had my hair cut at the neighbour’s house. This was the event of the year for all of them I think. Before she started there were five adults and about fifteen little girls, all touching my hair and saying that my hair is so soft and straight. Then the neighbour started cutting and all the little ones were just watching, holding the hair that was falling down. They were extremely excited, an Oyibo in our house!

This weekend I (finally) bought a bicycle. Might be very Dutch, but I love the idea of freedom the bike gives me. For the first time in my life I now own a kind of mountain bike. Something different from my ‘omafiets’ back in the Netherlands! But Ilorin is pretty hilly, so this bike seems to be fine. Even the gears are functioning.



There is water!

As an Oyibo I am an attraction. But an Oyibo on a bicycle, that’s even a bigger attraction! I am afraid the number of traffic accidents in Ilorin might rise in the next few weeks. So many motor bikers and drivers don’t pay attention to the road because they are looking (or better, staring) at me.  

For Nigerians, a biking Oyibo seems to be the most exciting thing ever. For me, different things are becoming exciting. For example; having power for a few hours after each other, or the possibility to take a real shower (don’t even think about a hot shower) instead of a bucket shower. You learn to value the small things overhere!

Igbo wedding

This weekend we travelled to the south east of the country to attend a wedding. Paul, a fellow Dutch VSO-er in Ilorin married his Nigerian girlfriend in her village. For us as VSO-ers, the perfect chance to go to a traditional Igbo wedding.

Saturday morning we left our hotel with two minibuses. As the wedding took place in a state where they do sometimes kidnap foreigners, each bus had a policeman with a huge weapon on board. At the wedding some guys in army uniform, also with weapons, were present. So we were well protected! In general, the people who get kidnapped in this area are mainly the oil workers and contractors, the people who are rich. It is a way to generate income, not to make a political statement. So as volunteers, we were pretty safe.

The wedding itself was a great event. An uncle explained it all to us. Kola nuts seem to be an important element in weddings for the Igbo. As a religious scientist, it was interesting for me to see how old and new traditions are mixed. The kola nuts are for sure a tradition that goes back to far before Christianity arrived in Nigeria. Now a priest is blessing the kola nuts, so here the old and new beliefs simply mix into something new!



palmwine

After the final negotiations among the men of both families, the ceremony started. First the mother of the bride was entering the party, together with her sisters and friends I suppose. She was dancing around all the public who were throwing money to her. After she made her entrance, the bride came in together with her sisters and friends. Again they were dancing around and people would spray money on them. Also Paul and his brother and friends (us) had to dance around. Then the bride came again, in another beautiful dress. She was carrying a cup of palm wine to offer her husband. After he accepted it, the father of the bride was officially marrying them. Then they had to dance and it was our turn to spray money on them.

Just like at a Dutch wedding, the couple also has to cut the cake. It looked like a big jar of palm wine and kola nuts again. Also here, the new tradition of the cake is matching the old one of kola nuts and palm wine. I love this mixture of old and new traditions. I suppose I will see much more of in the next months.

Cake!





Four weeks of...

Today it is exactly four weeks ago that I arrived in Nigeria. So many things have happened since then, it feels like I spent much more time here already. At the same time, it does feel like I just arrived, that I just left the Netherlands. The same things goes for work, I am still struggling to find out what is happening and what is expected from me. But also, I did already quite some things.

Last week, my colleague and I organised a one day training for the National Volunteers about project management. VSO is giving them small grants to execute a project in the community they are volunteering. After the first applications, it turned out that the form used did not really ask for the right information. So I improved the form and in the training we discussed about some of the questions. Like; if you buy computers for your school but the principal is not giving access to the students, is it sustainable? Who is your main target group? How can you make sure this group has access to the activities you organise? How can you measure your results?  The discussions were very good and I was very pleased with the feedback the groups gave each other as well.

While they were filling in the new form, the newly recruited NYSC volunteers arrived. My colleague Moshood did a great job in receiving them and informing them about their future roll. The next day they were placed with schools and left for their placements. Quite exciting! Moshood and I will go to visit the schools where the volunteers (the old group and the new group) are placed in the beginning of May to monitor how things are going.



Groupwork!

 

So, what else has been happening? I went back to Abuja for the real In Country Training. Stacey, my housemate, also joined. We travelled to Abuja on a Saturday, we were informed that transport within the city would be limited due to local elections. But we were not aware that they would simply close the town for incoming traffic. That meant two hours traffic jam, the Nigerian way. We just sat in the shadow of a van, people were selling water and food. But we made it in the end!

I went swimming a few times and got so badly burnt that my colleagues were really worried about me. I did not really feel it that much though, and I don’t have a proper mirror, so I was not aware that it was that bad. But when I saw my pictures from the training (few days after I burned) I could imagine the shock of my colleagues. Now, I started peeling (‘like a lizard!’), so it should be better soon. I hope...

About gay rights

Reading the Dutch news, I see a lot of discussion going on about the Dutch official delegation for the winter Olympics in Russia. Many people say sending the king, the queen and the prime minister is too much. They refer to the human rights situation, especially regarding gay people in Russia. And to the fact that many other countries don’t send their political leaders. (The US is sending three homosexual ex-Olympic athletes, quite a cool statement!)

In the same week, President Goodluck Jonathan signed a new Nigerian law. This law makes homosexuality illegal. People who break this new law risk up to 14 years in prison. Supporting gay communities can bring you to prison for 10 years. (Just compare, raping a woman or a child can make you end up in prison for maximum 7 years). In northern Nigeria, it is even worse and gay people even risk the death penalty.

I think the consequences of this law can be so huge. Nigeria has the second population of HIV+ people in the world (about 4% of the population, 3.4 million people). Among men having sex with men, the percentage of HIV+ people is estimated on 17%. What will a law like this mean for AIDS prevention? The more illegal it is, the more difficult it is to reach the people I would say.

Being Dutch, it is hard to imagine that this kind of laws make it through the parliament. What is maybe the worst part for me is that the vast majority of the Nigerian population seems to agree with this new law. Most people are very clear that they want homosexuality to be illegal. Even the most liberal people I know here say they want homosexuality to be forbidden.

I am in doubt now. At the one hand, gay rights are human rights and we have to fight for human rights. At the same time, who are we as Europeans to tell the Africans what to do? Can you imagine a group of Nigerians coming to the Netherlands to tell us what to do? Let’s say they will tell us we are not allowed to have homes for the elderly and children should take their parents in their house, care for them, pay everything… I am sure our politicians and many Dutch people will ask what a Nigerian has to say about the way we treat our old people.

If we want to change this law, I believe we have to try to convince the Nigerians, not their politicians. I have discussions once in a while where I explain how things work in the Netherlands and how I look at things. Some people are not ready to listen, but with others you can discuss. Maybe this is a beginning.

I saw the new Pope doing so many great things in 2013. Maybe he can also fight for gay rights. I think he will be able to reach a lot of people all over the world. And in a country like Nigeria, the words of the Pope will most likely have much more influence than a king and queen from a small country in Europe.

Besides that, let’s hope football players and Nollywood actors will be open about being gay and supporting gay rights. This kind of people can hopefully (slowly) start a discussion which goes deeper than; I am against it because I hate it.

Till then, let’s support organisations like AMSHeR and try to discuss human rights and gay rights issues. And, being in Nigeria, let’s pray the situations for gay people in this country will improve and that change will be led by Nigerians instead of Europeans. My VSO ‘oga’ Jaye is one of these Nigerian people who try to bring the change. Read his great contribution here.

NYSC

We are in a village about one hour drive away from Ilorin. There are more than 2.000 young Nigerians, all dressed in a white shirt, white shorts, white shoes and white socks with two green lines (the Nigerian flag!). These 2.000 people are the new group of the National Youth Service Corps. In Kwara state (where I am working) there are three batches a year. They are placed in different projects in the state and will serve for a year. The start of this year is a three week camp in this village.

We recruited here twenty new National Volunteers. Until now, the Graduate Volunteer Programme in which I work was only open for people who finished their year in the NYSC. But now we could recruit and select twenty people who can participate during their service year.
I am happy that we managed to recruit twenty young and enthusiast people who will be placed in schools in the rural areas to teach. They will get the chance to do small projects in their communities and will receive training. The first training is already given in the camp. I was very impressed by two young Nigerians who delivered a training on teaching skills. They have been in the programme for two years and did a great job in this training. Everybody participated very well and was very excited after the day. So I am very much looking forward to working with them again.

The newly recruited volunteers

I have been out for a few days, but I did get a tour through Ilorin last weekend from my housemates Stacey and Aswini. Ilorin is a big city (for Dutch standards at least) but also pretty quiet. My house is nice and quite spacious. The electricity is not always very reliable, (as expected). Our guard dog (Strong) is very funny but needs some training. The poor dog will be multilingual I think as I try to teach her Dutch, Stacey teaches her English and the guard speaks Yoruba to her I think. But so far she seems to listen to none of us, so no matter which language you use.

The neighbourhood is nice and the kids are extremely excited that there is even one more white person. Every time I get home all the kids are shouting and cheering and I get walked home by a lot of kids. As Stacey said; they are our daily Prozac dose, they are so happy to see us that you lose your bad mood immediately.


Next week I will be in Abuja for the In Country Training. After that, I will deliver training on project management and then I expect that everything really starts running. It seems like there is a lot to do and I am really looking forward to work with the National Volunteers.



My room

 

Our house

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome!

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! According to the VSO Nigeria Country Director, there is no country as welcoming as Nigeria. Wherever you go, people tell you that you are very welcome in their country. And it is true; so far everyone is extremely friendly, nice and, indeed, welcoming.

Now that I am here, I really realize how valuable my experience in Benin is for living here. People are happy that I eat the local food (‘that moimoi was pretty spicy and you did not even blink!’), I am not shocked about the traffic (I even miss the motorbikes which are banned out of Abuja centre), I am not amazed about people selling small items at every traffic light. Last night it rained and this morning I could really smell Africa when I woke up. Some mixture of rain, heat and emissions. At the same time, Abuja does not feel like Africa to me. It is a very new city (built from scratch in the nineties), it is pretty clean, most houses look good and the distances are huge. So I can’t wait to make it to Ilorin, what will most likely feel more like Africa.  

Regarding the work, the VSO course is postponed as the third volunteer arriving did not manage to get her visa in time. We just got a crash course on VSO in Nigeria. For example, for some African countries, development aid makes a big part of their BNP (up to 60%). That gives a lot of power to international organisations. For Nigeria, it seems to be only 1% of BNP. So, Nigerian government is in charge, if foreign aid stops, they will hardly notice it!

Part of the course is also meeting the employer. We met briefly today and we will meet again tomorrow. He seems to be a nice person. The poor man even went to my new home yesterday after work to put my bed together… I guess we will make a good team. He has a lot of experience in teaching but is looking for knowledge about things like volunteer management, fundraising and project management. For me it is just the other way around.

On Thursday I will head to Ilorin. I hear so many positive stories about my project that I really can’t wait to go there. I am really looking forward to meet my housemates, the other VSO people there and, maybe even more, the national volunteers with whom I will work!

 

PS my Dutch phone number can receive SMS messages, but I am not on whatsapp. If you text me, I will most likely reply from my Nigerian number.