busy and sad times in Abuja

always-energetic Jare!

Week two was eventful and sad at the same. I was back in my office, which is actually quite large but let just say that my allergies are not as excited. Lots of meetings and my understanding of collaborations and outsourcing of projects to NGOs, civil society, grassroots organizations continues to grow.  Early in the week, we met with the Director of a small NGO that works with youth here in Abuja. The Director had scheduled the meeting to meet with our Education team to propose an initiative that fits under our literacy goals for Nigeria. His NGO would partner with us and be mostly responsible with designing and implementing the initiative. My office gets many similar proposals and my supervisor spoke to me about many requests that came though from organizations that are actually not in existence or similar situations. Later in the week I was asked to do some research on the history and experience of another NGO that had sent a proposal for another youth empowerment partnership. This week, I also met with my direct supervisor for quite a bit – which went very well and I participated in my office’s monthly birthday party. Overall, the pace of my work is picking up, quickly! 

My second week was also a week of an unfortunate tragedy in Abuja. There was bombing about 15 minutes from my office and many people were killed and injured. It happened around 4pm, at which time I was actually in my supervisor’s office talking to him about a report he wanted me to write. My uncle called me on the phone to tell me about the attack and check on where whereabouts. My supervisor had not known about explosion and when I told him…it was like everything stood still. I went to another part of the office to find out more about what happened and bumped into a colleague who had just returned from the site. He said that as he was nearing the site he saw the explosion happen and quickly turned around and headed back to the office. His destination that afternoon was the site of the bombing, on an errand for the office. I am thankful that God made it so that he was minutes late. Nevertheless, I felt scared, angry, and very sad for the many that were not as fortunate. 

The site of the bombing is a very popular spot in Abuja and where everyone goes to purchase electronics, especially phones. The bombing was just outside the main building and thus most of the victims were young kids selling bananas and peanuts, taxi drivers waiting to pick up passengers, and anyone who was unlucky to be hanging around outside the building at that moment. I called my parents to let them know I was okay, but the news had not reached their media yet. They were thus surprised and concerned. I then went home.

It pains me to say this but Abuja is rapidly becoming an unsafe place. The threats are not empty and they are very frequent. Public places are major targets and thus people are forced to limit their movements to work –home – church/mosque. Even then, your work/worship site could be dangerous. I thank God that I am okay. I thank God that my family and colleagues are okay. I could go on a bit more about what is and what is NOT being done to take control of this situation but I’ll pass on that right now. That requires a separate post and possibly a book chapter. We continue to pray for God’s mercy and guidance; that He leads and directs our actions and steps according to His plan. I don’t go out much, in fact, at all. In a way, it is frustrating because I would like to explore this new city but I also notice that I am rapidly losing enthusiasm to bother about anything besides my work and finding a j.o.b! Again, thank goodness for comfort food -- my cousin bought me some Suya for week 2. 

Please keep us in your prayers.

madame secretary and her laptop

First, I want to thank the Almightily God for granting me a safe trip to Abuja!

Abuja is HOT! At least that was my first impression when I arrived in the airport. I have been told that this is nothing because when it really gets hot, I will want to run out of the city as fast as possible. My bags etc. arrived safely (which is good news) and the office picked me up. Had a good ride into the city as Mr P and I jisted (chatted) about Nigeria and Abuja happenings. LOL @ my uncle being worried because I had not called. I actually wanted to surprise my family by navigating to their house independently. It was great to see my family, of course my little cousin Jare was a little too excited to see me when he attempted to carry me into the house. It felt good to be home. J Within 48hrs I had Suya! Yep, I didn’t even have to wait one week to meet my quota. The spices, the onion, the meat...I was soooo happy. Not the best I have had (Suya @ Ikoyi Club in Lagos is just unbeatable) but it tasted good. Turns out that my love for Suya is also shared by some of my cousins so lets just say the Suya did not sit idle for too long ;)

The week was already off to a great. I went to my office building and everyone was soooooooooo welcoming! Within I hr, I was transported to a nearby hotel, which would actually be my office for the rest of the week. We were facilitating a workshop for all the partners involved in a literacy project for girls and women. I was immediately put to work; welcoming participants, handing out resource materials and assigned as the rapporteur for the entire week. So jet lag also kicked in around this time and if I said having to stay super-alert to keep detailed notes of everything was a challenge, that would be the understatement of the year. I don’t know how many sweets I ate that week but lets just say my dentist would not approve.

Participating in the workshop was an enlightening experience! Reflecting on the technical proposal my-super-awesome team developed in April, one could consider this a next step in the process if the proposal was approved. Basically bringing the technical and planning partners together to outline dates, develop resource materials that would be used, assign roles, etc. Thus, it was good to see how it all came together afterwards. Of course, not without some challenges.

Development reports talk about national partners and ngos collaborations with the UN and other multilaterals but they don’t really discuss who these organizations are and I got a first hand experience understanding who these key partners are and their role in bringing projects to life. There were so many acronyms…it was hard to keep track of the organizations.  Each morning, I would read my report of the day before, like everything! From the opening prayer to the closing prayer…everything that happened. My report I read on Tuesday was not well received and I was advised to improve on the flow and summarize better. They also warmly made fun of my “Americana accent.” I made the recommendations and the following report was not only well received but the chairperson personally came up to tell me how impressed she was. J Of course, there was now pressure to maintain that standard. Considering how much time it took me to work on that particular report and the amount of sugar it also took to stay away throughout the day so as not to miss out any discussion, it felt like the longest week of the year!

I was practically glued to the laptop the entire week. Well, when I was not being silly with my camera.

I’ll end this post by highlighting the all participants in the workshop were Nigerian. In fact, one could argue that I was the only “foreigner” in the room. It was interesting to see how an initiative that was financially sponsored by a large pharmaceutical firm, coordinated by a multilateral development agency was being fully developed and implemented by the nationals of the country it was serving.  Even the representative of the pharmaceutical firm was Nigerian. All the participants were very informed about the way things operated and resources they could tap into for different aspects of the program and were focused on developing a contextually and culturally relevant project. I don’t know what I was really expecting to see when I walked into the meeting hall but it was interesting to observe the process and activities being directed by national stakeholders.

My cousin Jare and I about to enjoy some Suya! :)