Since We've Been Back

We have had quite an eventful week back in Abuja.  Our return home began with lost luggage, which resulted in items being stolen.  These items included some things purchased for other teachers and students, as well as our new camera.  We are still in the process of filing a claim with Delta, but we're not very optimistic about a refund. 

The first week of school was as expected. The students, of course, were on the wild side, but nothing out of the ordinary for the first week back.  It was difficult to return after a long 3 week break, but luckily the week went by fast.

Unfortunately, we have been experiencing an increase in mosquitoes.  You would think that the dry season would not cause an increase in the number of mosquitos, but it has.  We did not notice mosquitoes in our house until Monday night.  We were rudely awaken and disturbed the whole night by their bites and buzzing.  After asking around, we decided to fumigate the whole house with Raid.  Since then, we have been mosquito free.  We have not contracted malaria; at least not yet! 

When we came home from school Thursday, we noticed that a couple of our ceiling tiles in the bathroom had fallen down, and we now have a leak coming from the water pipes.  It turns out, the upstairs neighbors have a leaking pipe as well as us.  So, the next week, our bathroom will be in shambles as plumbers fix the pipes.  Chris and Lauren, who lived in this house last year, had the exact same thing happen last April.  I guess it's par for the course around here. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll have a working bathroom again.  

While we were gone for break, the gas shortage got much worse.  One of the teachers who stayed here said that he saw a line 3km long.  People in Lagos couldn't even get black market gas.  Things are getting a little better, but there are still gas lines.  We're suspecting that some of these gas shortages are due to the government climate in Abuja right now.  Yar'Adua, the Nigerian President, has been sick for many years and flew to Saudia Arabia for treatment over 50 days ago.  Protestors who marched on capital this week were demanding the Vice President take power.  The constitution declares that if no one has heard from the president in 50 days, then the VP takes over.   Coincidentally, that same day, Yar'Adua called into the BBC and announced that he was doing fine.  Nigerians have mixed feelings about the BBC report.  Some believe it was Yar'Adua and that he's doing fine.  Others believe that it was not him and that   either he's nearly dead or altogether dead.  Something that makes teaching in Nigeria interesting is that Jessica has both the president's grandson and the VP's son in her class.  

Random pictures of Abuja

As we get ready to leave Abuja for a couple weeks,  we decided to post the random pics we've taken since our last posting.  The rural pictures were taken on our way to Bwari Pottery, just an hour outside the city.  

The last pictures are of the downtown Abuja mosque.  It was built in 2006, but they ran out of money before completing the inside, so we've been told it's very bare inside.  Most mosques are well decorated and have great detail inside, but this is just a cinderblock room.  (Just an interesting side note)

Tis the Season...

...for gas shortages.  Since we have arrived in Abuja, we have experienced 2-3 small gas shortages which usually last no more than a couple days.  During these gas shortages, we've always been able to get gas and have never had a major problem.  This week, brings us new experiences.  On Sunday, Jordan went to get gas and realized there was another gas shortage.  The gas station was actually out of gas.  Before work on Monday, we went to a different gas station, but they wouldn't be open until 7, so we couldn't wait for gas.  Tuesday, on the way home from school, our gas light popped on.  We passed three gas stations, which all had a line at least 1/2 a mile long.  Not only was the line long, at the front of the line, cars were trying to cut in from different directions and there was a mob of people fighting over who was first.  We are now taking taxis to school and carpooling home.  The bad thing about taking taxis is that they have doubled their rates due to the gas shortage.  We have heard there is gas, but the government doesn't want to sell it yet.  They want to raise prices, first.  We've also have heard that the truck drivers are on strike.  So, who knows when this gas shortage will end.  Some of the teachers that have lived here a long time, say they've never seen a gas shortage this bad.  We might be taking taxis the rest of the semester!

Thanksgiving Break

We finally got a couple days off from school, so we made the most of our time.

Thursday:

A couple of us from school had some fabric that needed to get made into dresses and skirts, so Dusty Rose had her tailor come over and fit us.

For Thanksgiving dinner, all the staff made a dish and brought it over to the Saleem/Borodenko (Kristel, Khalid, Lauren and Chris) household. About 40 showed up, so there was quite the spread. We enjoyed eating and conversing. We thought we would be able to get a turkey from the US Embassy, but at the last minute they changed their minds and wouldn't let us buy one from them. So, instead of turkey, we had a lot of roasted chicken.

Friday:

Deanna, the other first grade teacher, and her husband Bruno, invited us to play poker at their friends house. For our first time playing poker, we didn't do so bad. We ended up losing $14 dollars or N2100.

Saturday:

The last Saturday of every month is Sanitation Saturday which means no one is allowed to drive from 6am to 10am. Once we were able to get out and drive, we picked Chris and Lauren up and drove out to Bwari Pottery. Bwari is a small village, 45 km outside Abuja. Bwari Pottery is known for having wonderful pottery. In fact, Katie, Jordan's CC advisor, knew about Bwari and had told us to visit whenever possible. We finally made it up there this weekend. Bwari Pottery is truely Nigerian. The clay and the paint pigments all come from the village. Chris and Jordan have been molding holds for the climbing wall, so we brought them and gave them to Stephen (owner of Bwari Pottery) to fire in the kiln.

Chris found his perfect drinking mug

The kiln

A potter's wheel

Later that night, Kristel, Lauren and I went to the Berger Bazaar.  We enjoyed shopping and eating bratwurst flown in from Germany.  The boys decided to skip the bazaar and stay home to watch Watchmen.

Sunday:

The last day of our Thanksgiving break was very busy. This break from school was also to celebrate the Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, so our friends, the Blazeks, were able to get some meat from a sacrificed ram. They invited us over to have curried ram. We were a little leary of the whole thing, but it ended up being a delicious meal. Sunday night, we invited Coach Emmanuel (the other basketball coach) and his family over for dinner. It's always nice to talk to local Nigerians. We always come away understanding a lot more about the culture.

We are back to work, but only three more weeks until we're home and on vacation!

Radomness

The sun during the Harmattan

Chris' birthday at Chopstix

Just finished his climb around the wall

 holes are filled in with big blocks of concrete

A Little Piece of Heaven

This weekend, we found a little piece of heaven...right here in Abuja!  A few of us decided to catch an afternoon movie at the new theatre in town.  Amazingly enough, Abuja has a couple movie theaters and they are not to shabby.   The movie theatre is located on the fifth level of an almost completed mall.  Once we arrived on the fifth floor,  we forgot where we were.  The Silver Bird looked just like Tinseltown...the crazy carpet, the smell of popcorn and even an arcade.  Khalid, Chris and Jordan decided to go see Inglorious Bastards  while Lauren and I went and saw Julie and Julia.  Even though Nigeria is known for their power outages, the movie was not interrupted once.  We all felt very rejuvenated after our stint at the movies. 

After the movie, we walked around the mall and we were amazed to come across a book store.  The best part was that is was open.  Abuja has no bookstores, so this was very exciting to us all.  The store was amazing.  It had a wide selection and had reasonable prices.  All it was missing was a coffee shop. =)  

The afternoon turned out be a very pleasant experience and left us feeling hopeful of Abuja's future.  

Out with the Rainy, in with the Dry

The dry season has come! We knew it was just around the corner, but we were still not ready for the heat. The harmattan, small grains of sand from the Sahara Desert, has come and the heat is rising. On Saturday, Jordan and I helped out at the school Halloween carnival. We were lucky enough to be stationed at a booth outside. When we arrived at the school it was 97 degrees with humitidy.

These pictures don't do the harmattan justice, but if you look close enough, you can tell that it is very hazy