Nick the.... mountain climber?

Something that had been bugging me for a while here in Ife is these two hills that overlook the university. If you know anything about the geography of the campus (and possibly the town), you would always think about these two hills. Day after day I look at them and tell myself I'll walk up them one day. But it had been 5 months since I got here, and no climbing. So in a rare moment of spontaneity I decided the next day I would try.

Therefore, one sunny Sunday afternoon I set out for a walk, hopefully up the hills, however I actually had no idea if there was a path up them or how to approach them. They are of surrounded by bush/jungle/farms.

I tried one dirt road but it just led me between the two hills and far away through some small village and then to a giant expressway. I enjoyed the walk but had no success of hill climbing. I think I really scared one group of locals. I passed them on this dirt road, and then after deciding I'd gone far enough and turning back, passed them again. They must have wondered where this mysterious white man had come from and didn't take their eyes off me for a second (in fact they stopped and let me go past so I wasn't following them anymore).

It was only when I walked back and was almost home that I saw one small inconspicuous path and thought I might try as see if it led me up the smaller of the two hills. 15 minutes later I was at the top! I needn't have worried about the finding a path. Good old Nigerians. They managed to turn my afternoon’s adventure into the unknowns a religious experience. There were signs all the way (in Yoruba) and at the top a PRAYER GROUND.

Also, I met one guy on the way up. He told me that I should have taken my shoes off at the bottom of the hill because it was a holy place. I hinted that I might just ignore this custom.

Furthermore, there was a man who seemed to live up on the top of the hill as a kind of caretaker. Though he didn't bother me. He was praying (out loud at the sky) the whole time of my visit. There was a largish tent where he appeared to live, a marked prayer area, and a whole bunch of oils and water bottles for who knows what.

Needless to say, the highlight was the fantastic view of Ife. The red roofs almost reminded me of Sydney, except of course that the roofs here are red because of the rusting corrugated iron, not clay tiles. I learned that there seemed to be one large body of water on the university grounds which I never knew existed.

Next week (this weekend) I managed to find my way up the bigger of the two hills, but not without some difficulty. Initially there was some bush-bashing involved since I couldn't find an established path. Eventually I found my way with the help of one young gentleman who had escaped halfway up the hill to have a smoke (of the more illicit variety). His rambling was amusing, and he was a bit clingy, wanting to tell me about he "we (Nigerians) are suffering in this country" (by the way that phrase is really common amongst people I meet), but he managed to point me to the path (which I would have found 10 secs later anyway).

This hill too, was quick to climb. But it wasn't as great. The view was obscured by long grass and trees at the summit. Still, I achieved my aim, and got some half-decent exercise.

News flash!

If I'm not mistaken, as of this Friday, I am a graduate! Yes that’s right. I’m not longer just a wannabe. I’ve switched from a Graduand to a Graduate.

Unfortunately, I've missed the ceremony, being some few thousand kilometres away from the actual event. But hey, it's official. Just to show off and to bore the pants off you I'll give you my official degree title (the extra, extra long version).

Bachelor of Science (Advanced) with First Class Honours. Majoring in Immunology, Pathology and Microbiology from the University of Sydney, Australia.

Whoo hoo. Go me!

The Rains are Out

I think that is kind of self-explanatory. But yes its well and truely raining now.

The weather in this part of Nigeria is hot all year round (well warm to hot). But splits into two halves. One dry, one wet.

I think I like rain here. When it rains. It rains. No drizzle. No wondering if its going to rain. Typically it will be bright and sunny. 10 mins later it'll be hell's fury with dark clouds, roaring wind, some lightening, and buckets of water. Then if your lucky 30 mins later it will all be over. 2 hours later and you might not even know it had rained.

Its bad because one can never predict in the morning if its going to rain that day. So always take and umbrella. But good because if it is coming down, you can generally wait 20 mins and it'll have stopped.

But I'm told this won't continue. We'll soon hit a new phase of almost daily rain.

Something amusing about this time of year is the flora. It grows like nothing else. Grass needs to be cut continually. In fact I am amused and kind of freaked when I visit schools these days. And see 15 kids, all wielding machetes, marching out to do grass cutting duties.

More Meat

I think its time I revisited the food issue.

I think now, I've tried most things Nigerian. Or at least those I've heard of. And from this region anyway. I've said before meat is not big on the menu here, mainly because of cost. But I'll elaborate on some interesting points/stories.

I told you Suya is good. Now I've been to the north of Nigeria I was able to try something just as nice (maybe better) called Kilichi (spelling?). It seems to be dried beef flavoured with pepper and maybe onion. Its a bit like eating a spicy beef jerky. Quite good.

Yesterday, at my boss's house they were pounding chickens! What I hear you say. What is pounding?

Pounding is where one takes a substance, usually say yam or cassava, and puts it in a giant mortle and pestle and bangs the life out of the food to make it into a kind of paste. I've only ever heard of one doing this with yam or casssava but yesterday at our house two chickens were killed (first time i've seen that too!) then de-feathered, then mashed up (bones, innards and all) with various spices and additives to make a kind of medicine for arthritis. It was all supervised by a family friend who is a professor of pharmacy here at the university but is also nicknamed the "village chemist" because he has an interest in traditional medicines. I pities Seyi who was doing the pounding because its tough work and he was at it for hours.

In other meat news....

I've discovered that since meat is scarce, they make good use of their surrounds to err... increase one's meat intake. This has included:

1) A man walking in front of me stopped, took of his sandal, threw it as something. When I walked past I saw he'd killed a squirrel and he took with him.
2) Was told about a student who used to weekly get a gun, shoot 3 or 4 bats (there are lots around this campus), make a stew with them and eat it for the rest of the week
3) My boss tells me now the rains have come one can roam around picking snails up
4) On a highway trip, there was a clang on my bus. It screeched to a halt. Reversed 100 metres up a blind corner on a dangerous road to retrieve the pidgeon it had just killed. Lunch for the driver and conductor!

Need I go on?

How does my hair look?

I've told you before that Nigerians are fashion conscious. And I mean very, very fashion conscious. But something they also really care about is their hair. Especially the ladies. Let me explain.

How often does one get a haircut in Australia? I would say maybe once a month. And what are you options when you get your hair done. For girls I guess you can get it coloured, or perhaps curls or straightened. But really I don't think there is that much variety, at least not compared to here.

Girls here are known to visit the hairdresser once a week or fortnight. In between they can get their sister/aunt/cousin/mother to make changes. Even poorer people still make time to get their hair done. Plus there seems to be a competition to come up with ever more new and often ridiculous styles. I think yesterday I saw something that one might name "the electrified Einstein look".

For those of you in Australia who've ever visited a Chinese cafeteria style eatery you know that you can look at photos of hundreds of dishes and as for a "number 54". That's what it's like with hairdoes here. You can pick a photo of what you want your head to look like from a signboard.

Favourites include your basic weaving which I've tried to have done to my hair but it just doesn't have the same texture as african hair. Now that its longer it kind of stays. A favourite with high school girls is the "pineapple" style. I wish I could show you photos. Oh how you'd laugh.

The other day one girl told me that at her school on Friday afternoons they used to tell the girls which hairstyle to come with next week and they ALL had to comply.

I could go on.

Anyone out there?

Now, I was never sure if anyone was actually reading this blog. Mainly because most of you slackers out there never post comments. But I've learned that is mainly because you have to register to do that. Incidentally, if you DO want to comment that would be nice. Even just to say hello.

I've tried to satisfy myself by taking the time to attach a Stats program to this thing which actually makes for very interesting reading. Firstly that my readers are mainly from the US, then UK, then Australia. Then I laugh when I get some random country like today - St Kitts and Nevis (sorry if you are from there, I'm sure you wouldn't consider your country random).

What I love most is reading how people came to be at my site. No its not my millions of friends wanting to see how I'm doing, but mostly I suspect Nigerians and others is these countries (excluding Australia) looking up stuff about Nigeria. (I.E. going to Google and typing in Nigerian Wedding, Nigerian names etc. (and even today I saw someone had typed in Nigerian Escorts, but I swear I don't know why my site would be associated with that). It's scary actually how much information about people accessing this site I can get. And I'm not even particularly IT savvy in this respect.

I anticipate a few more Nigerian readers now. For I actually hadn't told any Ife AIESEC members about my little blog but someone found it and then spammed the community to tell them. Thanks Gbenga!

A Good Night Out

One thing I love is a good night out with friends. What's even better is good night out with friends that costs nothing. That is what I had the other night.

I had been anticipating a good night out with some Aiesec friends to take palm wine, but the place had run out so we had an early night. I headed home. When I got there, I could hear music coming from somewhere nearby, but thought nothing of it. Then a friend, who lives nearby suggest we just go over and join the party.

Now, in Australia, I would never go to a party uninvited. It's just not the done thing. But here - no problem. So we strolled over, took a seat, met some new friends, drank beers, got served some delicious food, and all the time we didn't know anyone there, or who the party was for. And the best part - its not like we were doing anything wrong!

On the Road Again

Now for a more regular and serious posting I think I'll give you some stories about travelling in Nigeria in general. This is actually, I think one of the few amusing but also worrying things for me here. For several reasons.

The makeup of cars on the road here is odd. At first one might think - what's with all the luxury cars? (there are many Mercedes, BMWs etc.). It's all because Nigeria is a bit of a retirement home for European cars. Particularly those from Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy, and Austria. Why do I know this? Because they leave the EU stickers on the cars of course. The road is also full of lots of terribly UN-roadworthy trucks and buses, they are always by the side of the road being repaired with goods often scattered. Incidentally, buses here are more like converted minivans that what I would normally describe as a bus (in Australia.

Driving on intercity highways is a little frightening. Especially when one keeps seeing fatal and horrific accidents. On my way to Lagos this last week I think I saw a dead body for the first time hanging out of one terrible accident. I know I try to reassure people that everything's not so bad here, perhaps on the roads is one unsafe place.

Then there is another issue that's yet to affect me (And I damn well hope it never will), but affected my friend last week. He was also travelling to the conference in Zaria. Not with us, but on a public bus. Anyway, his bus got held up in a jam somewhere. Then people started running for their lives past his bus. So he too got out and ran into the bush. There he and others hid for hours as they heard gunshots and saw people running scared. Turns out there were armed robbers on the road. So my friend did not make it to Zaria, and indeed had to go back home and wait to collect his bag (the driver and bus disappeared from the scene). I'm not suggesting this is typical, but its damn well never going to happen in Australia is it (unless things have changed significantly since I left).

So needless to say, I’m always a little anxious on the road, though its not really going to stop me going anywhere I think.

My first Nigerian National Conference

Yes I know it's been a while… again. But the reason this time was also a conference. This time, my first Nigerian national conference. It was great, for several reasons. I'll give you gist.

Got my first chance to travel up to the north of Nigeria - to Zaria. It was a hell of a ride, but fun because myself and 10 other Ife Aiesecers all hired a bus that took just us all the way there (like 12 hours on the road. There was a whole lot of sleeping on the way (I spent a good portion of the trip acting as a pillow), and singing by Busola and Fisayo. Unfortunately, because we were late leaving we had to travel and arrive in Zaria at night, which is not the best, but our driver was quite good and made up decent time on the way.

Arriving in Zaria and the conference site was somewhat of a shock for me. All these busloads of Nigerian aiesecers all arriving at the same time. To be honest I even felt a little intimidated. Now I know what it's like to be a trainee at a national conference. But I wasn't entirely alone as Ife now has a new trainee – Dinesh from India. He is loads of fun and I'll be seeing plenty of him hopefully (only problem is his traineeship is in Lagos). But he promised me some good Indian cooking (including butter chicken) at his house in Leki as soon as I get there.

Now, Australian aiesecers you'll laugh at this. Our national conferences are not cheap if you’ll remember, not less that about $350 Australian each time not including transport and other expenses. Well this national conference was the equivalent of …. drumroll….. $8 Australian. Yes that's right. We ate and slept and sat in sessions and partied for 8 dollars. Sure, us 9 boys were sleeping in the one room - 4 on bed, 5 on floor, sure the food was fairly basic. But really who can complain for that price.

Unfortunately I didn't get to meet all the delegates at conference because there just wasn't the time. It was only a 3-day conference (the national planning conference). But of course it was loads of fun and I did meet some very interesting people from all over Nigeria. There were delegates from Kano, Zaria, Jos, Benin, Port Harcourt, Awka, Enugu, Lagos, Ilorin, Abeokuta, Ibadan and of course Ife (though of course I suppose these names means little to anyone but a Nigerian).

Parties were very non-Australian. As in there was not much chatting, very little drinking, and almost 100% dancing. But they were amazing to watch and experience. One could stroll through the cool night air (it's damn hot up north, but cooler at night), and then step into the party room to be engulfed by the sauna that was created from the seething mass of bodies dancing to West Africa's finest music. Yours truly was of course again very hesitant about this, being the terrible dancer that I am, but on the last night I managed with the help of one fine girl who took pity on me. The politics of the dance floor I found quite amusing. Mainly because there are more guys than girls. And since the two go together dancing, there is a continual push by some guys to cut in on others. Ahhh it's hard to describe, but quite amusing. Ok I think that's as much as I can spit out now. Back to normal programming soon.