Teased, again and again!

Yesterday, Friday 25June, was a full day, I was busy from 8:30 am till 9:30 pm when I finally returned to the JETS guesthouse. Unfortunately, by time the generator was off for the night and the guesthouse was pitch black and locked. After some knocking and banging the door was opened and I group my way to my room and fall into bed.

The biggest downside of today was that I was not able to charge my computer, so when I booted up Saturday morning my computer had only a few minutes of batter left. I opted to head to my office in the administration building, for some reason the Admin Building has much more reliable NEPA (electricity) and it had NEPA.  Unfortunately it was just a tease,the NEPA lasted only 10 minutes… booo.

So on to plan C… my one hope for Saturday ws to find an internet café to email home, post blogs and now possibly charge my computer… I am off on adventure.

I was directed to an internet café only five minute walk from the campus. I found it easily and hope began to build. It is small and was packed with people perched at each computer. I asked the attendant if there was a plug so I could charge my computer while I waited. I don't think she understood me and said, "No." I waited outside for maybe 10-minutes and them moved inside (it was hotter but I thought I might not be forgotten if she could see me. I do stand out being the only white person. By the grace of God a friend, Augustine, came in shortly and he chatted on my behalf and guess what they found a plug!!! So I sat and typed a bit as my computer charged, waiting for a computer or port to open up.

Soon enough Augustine was finished… somehow he was given a port right away. I moved into his spot; hope grew. I have emails to send and blogs to post and most of all I longed to feel connected to my world.

I plug in the cable, click internet, the tech configures something on my computer and I see it is loading… and loading and loading. It fails, I 'retry'… loading… loading… loading it fails again. Basically I repeat this cycle of hope and frustration for almost 60 minutes. Hope dashed more times than I can count. Finally I give up; it simply isn't worth it. And if the Google homepage takes this long to load, will it load my Gmail page????

Maybe internet is only a figment of imagination here in Nigeria.

Augustine kindly waits all that time with me and we walk back to JETS together. One good thing I did get my computer mostly charged!

A Surprising statement

Driving from the airport Danjuma and I chatted along the ride home catching up on our families. His niece, the sister of his nephew who came to live with him last year, is now living with him too. Something about the child's grandmother being sick and so the niece needed someone to care for her. I don't know what is up with his brother who is the dad?

Then Danjuma made a surprising statement. He said, "the crisis is good in one way." My puzzled look must have told him to continue because he quickly added, "many people have come to Christ." (A little history, the crisis was a series of 3 sectarian riots in early 2010 tht left hundreds dead, mostly Christians died. The last of the 3 incidents witnessed the violent slaughter of Christian women and children by rogue Muslims.)

I have been chewing on Danjuma's statment. Interestingly my devotions Wednesday 23 June was from Phil 1. In verse 12 Paul writes, "Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me [Paul being imprisoned] has really served to advance the gospel." When I read that I thought wow, Danjuma has a similar view. Things that advance the gospel, even if they are hard things or 'bad' things are good if they advance the gospel. That thought stuck me when Danjuma shared it on the drive to Jos and it hit me again when I read it in Phil 1:12.

How soft I am. I judge most things by how they effect me. Danjuma and Paul look at things through the lens of advancing the gospel.

This requires more thought on my part…

More Driving, we almost made it without a glitch!?!

We almost made it to Jos without a hitch. I was actually beginning to recognize some of the sights when Danjuma got that look on his face, which I could barely see since it was still buried in his hood. The engine began to whine a high pitched cry and he pulled to the shoulder. We drove/coasted on the edge of the road for a ¼ mile until Danjuma found a suitable resting place beside a "carwash."

A carwash is a guy with some water and a bucket and a sign on his little hut. A pretty funny sight.

Danjuma said the engine temperature was high and he had to check the motor. Thankfully Danjuma is a good mechanic as well as driver. I moved to the back seat (the front seat tilts back to get to the engine and it was HOT… classic signs of over heating. I could see the coolant overflow tank was dry.

Grabbing a rag he began to open the radiator lid, steam escaped with violent force. Danjuma grabbed a plastic canister from behind me and then chatted up a storm with the car wash owner returning with a full canister of water. Pouring some into the radiator opening, and some onto the engine itself the water violently vaporized with a hiss.

Replenishing the radiator with water and cooling the engine we were 'on the road again' in 15-20 minutes. I am so glad Danjuma is driving!

Driving in Nigeria is an experience… -:).

The game of chicken…

This wouldn't be Nigeria if there aren't a few 'bumps in the road.' Speaking of bumps reminds me of potholes… they are everywhere. It is common to be speeding down a highway at 140 kph in the wrong lane in order to avoid the potholes in your lane. I don't know how tires and suspension survive; actually they don't -:)! Sometimes driving seems like a grand game of 'chicken' two vehicles speeding toward each other at high rates of speed, only to have one car swerve into its appropriate lane at the last possible moment.  Driving is so much fun...

A human bobble-head!

I missed the middle of the trip falling asleep. My guess is I dozed for 1-2 hours, which was good. I needed the sleep; it would be a long day. I eventually woke because I noticed the van slowing and swerving or swerving and stopping repeatedly. Each swerve caused a head to flop forward or to one side or the other… you have seen someone sleeping in a car. I must have looked a bobble head doll, with all the slowing and swerving, swerving and stopping.

Turns out that all the swerving and slowing or stopping were road blocks by police and military. The road blocks are an added security feature on the main roads around Jos initiated due to the riots during early 2010.

We must have passed through 30-40 road blocks on the way home, sometimes multiple roadblocks were only 200 yards apart. The violence has quelled so obviously the roadblocks and other safety measures seem to be working… Thank you Lord!

Pollution…

I had forgotten how irritating all the pollution is and how acidic the air is in many places in Nigeria. It didn't take long after we began driving from Abuja airport before my eyes began to burn. It wasn't terrible, but annoying. I could feel the sting of irritants in the air. Every car we passed in Abuja, and there were plenty even at 6:30 in the morning, had blue-gray smoke belching out of its tailpipe. No wonder my eyes burned. Within the 15-minutes of our drive home I was blinking and rubbing my eyes.

Fortunately the irritation lessened as we distanced ourselves from Abuja, I am guessing that as we drove into the countryside where there are less vehicles and less people the pollution abates. Makes sense to me.

The next time you get the notice to have your car's emissions tested, don't grumble. Instead be thankful your eyes don't burn every day. Be thankful that the air we breathe is relatively clean and much healthier than many places in the world.

What a sight we must have been…

I had to chuckle as pulled out of the Abuja airport. Well Danjuma and I set off for Jos about 6:30 am, the sun was just breaking the horizon… Here I sit in the passenger seat wearing a short sleeve shirt and I am warm. Danjuma, in the drivers seat wears a black fairly heavy winter coat zipped up to the neck with the hood pulled up covering his head! What a contrast. I don't know if we looked funny but I imagined that we did. Our apparel choices reveal the difference living in a warm climate all the time and CT where we are only beginning to enter summer. Admittedly there were a few early on where 2x70 (2 windows open driving 70 miles an hours) was a touch cool but as the sun rose I longed for cool. And next to me sat Danjuma buried in his winter coat all the way home. What a sight we must have been?!?

Kindness pays rewards…

Every year I travel to Africa there is some glitch. International travel is filled with glitches and travel to developing countries increases the likelihood of them. The glitch began in the US. Two days before leaving my Blackberry phone started having problems; still under warentee they ordered a new one. But when the store set up my new phone, they forgot to transfer the SIM card from my old one. So it worked great in the US, but not at all internationally. I discovered this in my layover in London, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The first line at the Abuja airport was Immigration, the line was pretty short (being in the front of the plane helped). I chatted with a female Dr in front of me casually as we waited. She is an international who lived all her adult life in Nigeria (Kaduna State) with her Nigerian Dr husband. She was returning from holiday to see here daughter graduate. Our chat was friendly and brief, the line moved quickly.

After collecting my bags and passing through customs I entered the Abuja lobby…no sign with my name, or JETS or … I knew JETS knew when I was arriving, but there had not been any confirming emails to let me know who would come to pick me up. I could feel anxiety rising within me. No phone to contact anyone, no driver to meet me. I was feeling isolated and I didn't have many options… I prayed (always an option no matter the problem). I prayed some more and wandered the lobby checking out all the drivers. All I could do is sit and wait… so I sat, prayed and thought. 20 min, 30 min…  time ticked by.

What are my options? I wondered if I could ask someone to use their phone??? I retrieved every conceivable phone numbers that might be helpful… Prayed some more. Then it happened… a casual glance made eye-contact with the Dr from the immigration line. She too was seated and waiting half way across the room. She made the first move, mouthing the words, "no driver?"

I mouthed back "No."

"Did you call?" she asked.

"No phone," I responded offering her phone and coming over to sit next to me.

I called Ebere, the friend from JETS who make the arrangements; he didn't answer. But before I could decide on another person to call, Ebere called back. Danjuma (my driver from previous years was in Abuja to drive me) Ebere would call him.

In an instant mu anxiety lifted. I knew they knew I was arriving today. Danjuma is very reliable, maybe he over-slept? Maybe the car had trouble (not a surprise in Nigeria),it didn't really matter they knew I was at the airport and they would come.

Relieved, I visited with my Dr friend. She is an 11-year widow with 3 grown children. Her oldest daughter a Dr in England. Her son a Computer Engineer in England and her youngest daughter just graduated med school and will likely practice in England. My Dr friend carries a sense of loneliness... Rumanian by birth and citizenship she doesn't know where she fits. "Home is where family is," she mentioned. But she has no family in Nigeria anymore?  Rumania is so cold, after living in a hot climate like Nigeria or 30+ years, and England where her children live… is foreign to her. Eventually she will likely move to England, but her children are scattered, so where?. Maybe in a couple of years she will figure it out and retire???

Looking back on this episode, it occurred to me that kindness pays rewards. A simple friendly conversation on a line leads, by God's grace and as an answer to prayer, to a phone in my hour of need!

Shortly after the above conversation Danjuma walked in. Oh what a smiling familiar face means in a time of mild stress. I shook hands with the Dr, we exchanged first names and we were off. Like the nameless woman who anointed Jesus' feet in the gospels, this woman whose name I couldn't pronounce extended an act of kindness to me. I wish I had her contact information, without it I doubt we will ever meet or speak again. To me she will be remembered as an angel of mercy in a time of need. Lord Jesus would you please bless her please right now, give her a peace and assurance that she has a home, a place of belonging with you and with her children. And, Lord, if you allow let our paths cross again.