Monkeys, carnival, blankets and haloumi cheese

If I think about Christmas, I think about snow, about long dark nights and staying inside, away from the cold. You can imagine, Christmas in Nigeria is not exactly like that…

This year I celebrated Christmas with a road trip (which turned out to be an off-road trip for some parts) to the south east of Nigeria. Final destination was Calabar, a city close to the border with Cameroon. And it is a totally different world. Of course, this country is huge so differences should be big. But they really are. What makes it very interesting to travel!

Drill monkey

The first stop we made was at Afi mountain, close to Cameroon as well. Here, a NGO is working with/for drill monkeys and chimpanzees. They take care of them and the final goal is to release the drill monkeys back into the wild.

It is a very beautiful place, in the middle of the rain forest (sweaty!). They have power through solar panels, but no phone network for example. So you feel like you are really far away from the city. If you are looking for nature, don’t look any further!
Although we really enjoyed our stay, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the project as well. They aim to release monkeys back into the wild. I think releasing primates is very difficult. But I really believe that if you want to make it happen, you have to treat the animals as what they are; wild animals. They are not pets, they should know how to look for and catch or find their own food. They have to be aware that humans are their enemy (especially in a place where bush meat is very popular). I am afraid that this is not what monkeys learn when you feed them every day at the same place. They told us they have the fifth generation of drill monkeys now which live in their premises. I am just not sure how a fifth generation monkey, so used to being fed and used to humans being their friends, will be able to survive in the wild.


Rainforest

At the same time, I admire their effort and I also agree we should try to preserve the drill monkeys from extinction. But if it turns out to be pretty much impossible to release them, maybe that idea should just be given up? Another NGO in the region, working on similar things, are now trying to find funding for a PhD student to research how to release primates back into the wild. I really hope that will happen and that research will bring some good ideas.

Calabar Carnival

After Afi, we travelled to Calabar. I am so used to Ilorin now, that I got very excited to see green grass fields, in front of schools for example. Amazing how green everything is down there!

Christmas in Calabar also means carnival time. We had a great time at the cultural parade. As our car had diplomatic plates (two friends with who we travelled work at the Greek embassy), we got a real VIP spot, next to the governor and the ambassador of Rwanda. Somehow, they thought our friend (with blue hair!) was the ambassador as well. But well, this confusion led to the perfect spot to see all the traditional dances from all over Nigeria. Really nice! When I see this kind of things I feel so sad being Dutch, where we only know things like polonaises…
After this, we enjoyed a Christmas dinner at our friend’s house. Very nice to celebrate Christmas with a group of people. But no, the white landscape and the cold were far away. Although dark nights are very common here, especially without power of course!

Carnival!



Obudo Cattle Ranch

After a few days in Calabar, we travelled back north again, making a stop at Obudu Cattle Ranch. This place is now mainly used as a conference center. There is a big resort, which is a bit old but still very popular. If you are walking around there, you don’t believe you are in Nigeria. There are mountains, a cable cart and good quality roads. We stayed in a lodge very close by, much more basic but nice.

As the ranch is pretty high in the mountains, it gets quite cold there. After ten months in Nigeria, often without a fan, I was really freezing at night. I think temperature dropped to 15 degrees Celsius, but I really needed two blankets and was still kind of cold. (I will suffer when I come back to the Netherlands!).

We travelled back and celebrated New Years Eve in Abuja. We had a lovely dinner, cooked by our Greek friends. So, no ‘oliebollen’ but haloumi, Greek salad and much more.

Now I am back in Ilorin and ready to go back to work. Excited to start a new year, full of new adventures!



Sunset at Obudo