Martha

At one of the sites where I work - the one where Simon and I have our own office - there is a horseshoe of one-storey buildings (containing all of the offices). Where the horseshoe opens is where you'll find a big double gate as the entrance to the site, and by the entrance there are usually a handful of women selling food, snacks and cold soft drinks from large tubs.


One of these women is called Celeste. I started chatting to her one day because she had three beautiful children, so I asked what their names were. The little girl was Janet, the boy Emmanuel and the baby strapped to her back was called Martha. Since then I've been talking to her when I pass or buy a drink, saying hello to the children and once even having a quick hold of Martha who was fascinated by trying to grab my earrings and glasses.


Celeste disappeared for a while, but that's not unusual - we had a sallah public holiday and normally it takes quite a while for people to come back to work here after a holiday. When I came into work on Tuesday I was pleased to see her again, and asked her how she'd been. "Fine" is the obligatory and ubiquitous response to that question in Nigeria. I noticed she didn't have the baby strapped to her back, so I asked, smiling, where Martha was, expecting to hear that she was with a relative or something. "She died".


Martha died on 9th October. When I asked Celeste why, she simply said "She got sick". I assume she couldn't afford healthcare, or not the sort of healthcare which could have accurately diagnosed whatever life-threatening (life-taking) illness she had.


I know that death is a part of life, and an even bigger part of life in developing countries. I know that that's the reason people traditionally have large families here and I know that people - children - frequently die out here for unknown reasons. But this really took the wind out of my sails. 


Celeste looked more drained than usual, but there were no tears in her eyes. I had no idea what to say, apart from 'I'm so sorry'. Maybe the lack of tears are because the grieving process has to be over more quickly out here, where people die all the time and if you don't get back to work, your family doesn't eat. Maybe. Maybe the unquestioning, all-consuming belief in God and an afterlife helps. I don't know. But I can't believe that, inside, Celeste is in any less pain than any other mother would be if they lost their child.

Snippets

Wow - it's been a long time since I blogged. So, I thought you might like some snippets of life in the last couple of weeks...


I worked for 9 days straight in Zaria on two consecutive (in fact, overlapping) workshops. Absolutely exhausting, but really rewarding. Got to know my colleagues a bit better (since we were living in the hotel there, eating and socialising together as well as working) and was able to deliver a number of the sessions. Lots of challenges and lots of learning - exactly what I ordered.


Then we had a 3 day VSO workshop in Abuja on 'Gender'. Some interesting discussions among other volunteers about gender in their workplaces and in their respective cultures, but in general some highly questionable course content. This included strong advocacy for positive discrimination towards women ("because men have enjoyed the benefits of gender discrimination for centuries, so it's only fair we redress the balance now"), the assertion that "rape is always a premeditated act" and that men who rape when they are drunk only got drunk in the first place as Dutch courage to help them do it, and finally the advice that if nuns running a charity want to favour women staff "that's ok, because they are women so they probably prefer women". Oh, and the facilitator's very first greeting to me was "Oh, you're Simon's wife." Oh dear.


Last weekend, we had a visit from Gayl, an Irish volunteer who was in our intake in June but whose 6 month placement is about to come to an end (reminding me that we have now been here for nearly half a year, and a third of our placement time!). This gave us an excuse to go to the Hausa Theatre in Kaduna, which we've been meaning to go to for a while. Some great music and dancing, a packed and almost exclusively male crowd and some drama which we couldn't understand.


Last Saturday we went to a Bazaar held by the NGO that another volunteer works for and picked up a few second hand bargains. It was very like a church fete, complete with a Lucky Dip stand where small Nigerian children bellowed into a microphone "Keeeeep trying!" and "Try your best!". While there, we popped next door to a farm which has a restaurant, pottery shop etc - the kind of tourist attraction you can easily imagine in Cornwall or rural France or something. I visited the bathroom there, and when I flushed the loo, 2 tiny little live frogs appeared from under the toilet rim, bobbed around in the water for a bit and then climbed back up there!


Thanks to another Irish girl we've met in Kaduna who is working at an International School here, we've been able to take advantage of her membership of the Zaki Club recently. There's a pool and a bar which also serves decent food (best chips in Kaduna, if you ask me). Sunning myself on a lounger, with a cold beer and looking up at the palm trees, I could have been in a holiday resort! Very relaxing and indulgent. 


And finally, I'm starting to feel really quite chilly at times. Nothing makes you feel more like a local in Africa than feeling cold.


That's all folks - I'll try to blog once more before we go home for Christmas in 10 days.