Where the Heart is?
on Sabo -Oke (Nigeria), 19/Sep/2011 09:50, 34 days ago
We have just returned from Abuja where we have participatedin a workshop devoted largely to the enhancement of skills of the SchoolSupport Improvement Teams in‘ESSPIN’ states within Nigeria.The course was most useful and it has been nice to meet with other VSOs andeducationalists whose names had become familiar through emails but to which I can now place a personality and a face. It has also been a relief to spend some timeout of the spotlight. Westerners are not quite the novelty or source of comment andattention there that they are in Kwara.   We were accommodated in the grandest hotel I have yet toexperience in Nigeria– though I have only experienced two. Our room could haveaccommodated the entire population of a small African state; an Olympic eventcould have been staged within its walls. The bed if fitted with a sail, couldalmost have been used to sail single-handedly around the world – I say almost, the mattress being so dense I doubt it would have floated. So, it was a big room.Unfortunate then, that the size of the TV was not to the same scale. Viewingits screen, trying to follow the progress of the Barcelona v AC Milan matchfrom the comfort of the bed was impossible without the use of field glasses.   Our first morning excursion to the restaurant threw up(unfortunate phrase) an unexpected problem: We were required to sign againstour room number to indicate we had taken breakfast, but while Caroline’s nameappeared on the register, mine did not – though I was required to sign too. Itseemed difficult for the girl or the system to cater for the fact that we werea married couple sharing a room though actually taking part in the same courseand had successfully registered with reception the evening before. Apparentlythe system could only cope with a single occupancy concept: one room = oneoccupant = one breakfast; any deviationfrom this caused consternation and a‘scam’ was suspected!Anyhow, after several anxious minutes during which I refusedto pay for my breakfast, I was left alone to my three thousand nairahard-boiled egg while investigations proceeded. On subsequent mornings there was no such problem– clearlythey gone into emergency mode, flown in IT boffins from Microsoft HQ with their sonic screwdrivers  and rectified the situation!Flying back to Ilorin was hassle-free. I used the phrase‘going home’ , almost choked on the phrase and then reflected on what led me to say it. Obviously it is not myreal home and yet in some strange way it felt as though it was. In spite of themanic roads and environmental degradation, as we drove into Old Cemetery Road,now even worse having had itssandy surface scoured by recent torrential rains,I felt that comfort of being back where I sort of belong. Yes, it is physically grim,but we have nice neighbours who are usedto us being here and we have made ourhouse our home as far as we can.It is now Sunday morning; the gospel choir is in full voice– a Ginger Bakeresque drum solo combined with Aretha Franklin-style vocals that couldpenetrate Earth’s mantle ; the childrenupstairs calling out in those tones thatsuggest they are completely pissed off with each other - and their mother’s voice suggesting thesame only more-so; the occasional cockerel feeling the need to belatedlycomment on the morning’s weather; the cheery ‘ekaaros’ of the guards; even thewhistling vigilantes out in force last night - it all seemed to slot back intoplace in my emotional jigsaw and appear normal – a picture of simply what it’s like – not too scary somehow,lively, industrious, friendly - home, albeittemporary.I think perhaps in a small way Nigeria is starting to get tome– ooooer! I won’t be applying forcitizenship just yet, however! No doubt my next trip on a bus or an okada willrestore my sense of reality!!