A week in...

It is hard to believe that a week has already passed since landing in Lagos, Nigeria.

Kate and I are safe, healthy, happy and really enjoying our time in Nigeria. Shortly after arriving in Lagos, last Friday evening from Amsterdam, we spent the night in a local hotel close to the aiport. Before we caught a ride from the airport to the hotel, we spent two hours waiting for our three cardboard boxes of checked luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt. And prior to that we stood in line to have our 90-day NYC Consultate visas stamped in country as 30-day tourist visas. "But we are going to be volunteering in Calabar, sir - and our visas are already approved for 90-days.." His look told me we'd better be happy with the stamp we had. No need to make waves, especially considering that we can likely extend our visas' stamp (I hope) in Calabar.

After a night in the hotel (Airport Hotel), we made our 5am way to the domestic terminal to catch our 7am flight to Calabar, Nigeria. After haggling with the taxi driver over N500 (less than US$5) we stepped into the terminal and started to wade our way through buying domestic tickets, checking overweight luggage (paying for it), and managing all the various people that wanted to help us through our process. One guy did manage to be "our guide" and at the end when we offering to pay him a tip he said it was too small! Boarding passes in hand, we headed into the terminal. Waiting until 9:30a to board our weather delayed flight (Arik Airlines), but before we walked up the stairs and into the plane, we had to point out our baggage to the baggage handlers to make sure everything got on the plane okay. I pointed out our boxes and the guy looks at the white man (me) and says, "You pay me and I make sure your boxes get on board." I smile at him, knowing I have zero control or power - reach in my pockets realizing I have no small naira, and then just pray he doesn't decide to leave my boxes out. I say with a big smile, "You wouldn't want to hurt your brother...I'll pay you next time.." With another big smile (I might have winked, I don't recall) I walked up the stairs, sat down next to Kate and said, "Well, I hope our boxes make it to Calabar. Nice little experiment we've got going here..."

Landed in Calabar (with boxes) and met up with One Sky Nigerian Staff member, Patricia. Super nice and helpful - very welcoming. We drive through the streets of Calabar, and eventually end up at our host families home (Mom: Founder/Director of Foundation for Children; Dad: Supreme Court Judge in Calabar). Wonderful people! Extremely welcoming. They have a wonderul home (3 daughters) and show us to our room. And then we hear (after a short nap)...time for dinner! And from that point forward, they have prepared all our meals and taken extremely good care of us...

We've settled nicely in Calabar, attending church on our first Sunday, walking around town, visiting local NGOS (drill monkey and chimp conservation/rehab orgs, for instance), going to the market and haggling prices, spending time with our host family - and just in general relaxing and becoming accustomed to Nigeria, it's people and food.

Work-wise, Kate and I have been preparing for the coming 4 day Leadership Workshop (June 30-July 3). One Sky's Canadian Executive Director, Mike Simpson, flies into Calabar on Monday, and from that point forward we'll be full steam ahead for awhile. Once the workshop is complete, we'll spend time finding One Sky an office (our home), setting everything up, transitioning from our host family's house, and planning our visitation schedule with the participants in the workshop. In terms of the workshop, Kate and I met (yesterday) with the 33 local leaders in a gathering and had a chance to introduce ourselves and talk a little more about our role while we're in Calabar until the middle of August. So great to meet the people we are going to working with so closely. Incredible people (men and women)! Very inspiring to be in their communities and humbled by whatever we can offer. Kate has also been working with the Oten Ita Foundation (our host Mom's organization) - getting started on teacher training, fundraising and spending time with the little ones after school...

We have lots of pictures to share, but this computer doesn't want to. I'll will work to post some in the coming week when my computer is connected online and we have some more time to get pictures uploaded. Electricity in Calabar is spoty, at best. The national energy infrastructure, (NEPA) is both inconsistent and unpredictable. Power might come on for 10-30 mins a day, and it might not return for days or weeks. The only predictable way to do anything with power is to have a generator (or two). Luckily our hosts have generators (affectionally called: Little Gen and Big Gen), so at least we can count on predictable power at points throughout the day. The petrol to run the generators is expensive though, very expensive. For instance, for their family to have off and on power (total of maybe 4-7 hours a day) to run lights, fans, frigs, etc it costs them somewhere in the ballpark of N200,000 a month. Thats roughly US$2,000 in gas a month! So, seeing that it is evening right now and NEPA is long gone for the day (we had two 10 min bouts this afternoon) the fact that I can be online and writing this blog means that a large, very noisy, generator accompanies my thoughts...

I am assuming that our new One Sky office/home will have a generator as backup...but that all remains to be seen. We'll know more in the coming week. Until then, much love to everyone!
I'll try and post again at the end of next week once our first workshop is complete...

Adam & Kate