I've now been in Nigeria for a few weeks, and it's still taking some getting used to. I'm based in Katsina, a town in the far north of the country, about 30k from the border with Niger.
I spent a few days in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, a couple of weeks ago, for my induction into Save the Children, for whom I'm volunteering in Katsina. Abuja is a strange place. It is a purpose-built capital created in the 1980s in a religiously and ethnically 'neutral' part of the country and, as my boss put it, 'it's not built for mortals', but rather the international governing classes. Criss-crossed by enormous expressways and very expensive, it's not ideal for the budget-conscious visitor on foot (me) and unless you know the city it's hard to find things to do. Luckily the World Cup was just kicking off so I was able to watch a few games, including Nigeria v Argentina.
I'm slowly learning to speak Nigerian. I'm not talking about Hausa, which is the local language (and is itself proving a challenge), but rather Nigerian English, which has a rhythm, syntax and vocabulary all of its own. Verbs are proving a particular challenge: 'pick' means 'pick up', 'on' and 'off' are verbs, 'to fill' means 'to fill in', i.e. 'update'. Combined with strong accents, this means I often find Nigerian English harder to understand than, for example, Malian French!
I'm now back in Katsina, where I'll be based until I come home in early August. Katsina is an odd place, perfectly friendly but with very little to do. It's hardly tiny (it's a state capital, with a population of over 300,000) but conservative Islam and sharia law don't make for a party town.
The work with Save the Children is definitely teaching me a lot about development work. We're not in the implementation phase yet, but rather in the process of setting up a nutrition project (a pilot really) that will work in a couple of districts in the state. Dealing with organisational dysfunction across the board really slows things down, and this project is supposed to be done largely through the Katsina Ministry of Health which doesn't make it easier. People skip meetings, produce outrageously padded budgets and don't keep to commitments. Yet the project is moving forward and it will make a difference - malnutrition is a really serious problem in this part of the country, despite the oil money that continues to pour in to Abuja.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Thursday, 3 June 2010
A quick comparison
I went to the American Cultural Center in Niamey, the capital of Niger, today, and my experience there has prompted me to do a little comparative exercise.
In all of the other capital cities I have visited there are the French equivalents. My experiences in these have been somewhat different to the 'American' experience:
In the French cultural centres, there is always a bar, and I've eaten at the one in Ouagadougou (an excellent sandwich). There are frequent concerts - I saw an excellent Dutch-Burkinabé jazz group in Bamako, and a very entertaining local group in Ouaga. The atmosphere is very friendly, if expat heavy, and they seem to be genuine social centres, involved in the cultural side of city life.
During my visit to the American Cultural Center, I was put through a metal detector, asked to provide identification, told to leave my bag with the guards and then denied entry to the building proper. Over the phone from the guards' booth I was given details of the (minimal) activities offered by the centre and the very short opening hours of the library. As I left I took a photo of the exterior of the building - I was promptly summoned back inside and forced to delete the photo while they took my passport and made a report of my misbehaviour, presumably with my name and passport number. I was then allowed to leave.
This is not meant to be an anti-American rant. For a start all the staff I dealt with at the Center today were Nigerien (although every other Nigerien I've met, including police and soldiers, has been much friendlier). All of the staff at the US embassy in Niamey (I got my US student visa here today) have been very helpful and friendly. Furthermore, I can understand why such precautions are necessary - it's not as if American embassies and other symbols of the country haven't been attacked in Africa before. Nonetheless, the contrast was so stark that I can't help but comment.
In all of the other capital cities I have visited there are the French equivalents. My experiences in these have been somewhat different to the 'American' experience:
In the French cultural centres, there is always a bar, and I've eaten at the one in Ouagadougou (an excellent sandwich). There are frequent concerts - I saw an excellent Dutch-Burkinabé jazz group in Bamako, and a very entertaining local group in Ouaga. The atmosphere is very friendly, if expat heavy, and they seem to be genuine social centres, involved in the cultural side of city life.
During my visit to the American Cultural Center, I was put through a metal detector, asked to provide identification, told to leave my bag with the guards and then denied entry to the building proper. Over the phone from the guards' booth I was given details of the (minimal) activities offered by the centre and the very short opening hours of the library. As I left I took a photo of the exterior of the building - I was promptly summoned back inside and forced to delete the photo while they took my passport and made a report of my misbehaviour, presumably with my name and passport number. I was then allowed to leave.
This is not meant to be an anti-American rant. For a start all the staff I dealt with at the Center today were Nigerien (although every other Nigerien I've met, including police and soldiers, has been much friendlier). All of the staff at the US embassy in Niamey (I got my US student visa here today) have been very helpful and friendly. Furthermore, I can understand why such precautions are necessary - it's not as if American embassies and other symbols of the country haven't been attacked in Africa before. Nonetheless, the contrast was so stark that I can't help but comment.
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