Chapter 17

NIGERIA

Now began a strange time in my life, one which even after I explain it may still end up being incomprehensible to family and friends who knew me back then. There I was with a delightful family, a beautiful home, an excellent job and yet I became restless and unsettled. The best way that I can express this feeling is that I had begun to see myself only as wife, mother, worker, friend and all these roles were enjoyable and would have been sufficient for many people but I seemed to have lost touch with myself as a separate person. Being in my fifties might have had something to do with it too – I was aware that I was now closer to the end than the beginning and if there were things I wanted to do, it had better be soon. Having gone straight from living at home to being married and then being a mother, I felt that I was missing something – a sense of having lived as an individual.

I decided to volunteer with CUSO (Canadian University Services Overseas). Initially Reg offered to come too but I rejected his offer – I wanted to go alone. I know this decision was hurtful to him but if we had gone together it just would have been more of the same. My friends all thought I was quite mad – one of them asked if I had thought of seeing a psychiatrist. It was something like the reception we had got when we decided to move to Canada except that then there had been two of us. Now even the family were annoyed with my decision but I went ahead with it.

I sent away for the information, completed my application forms and attached the required pieces of paper and shortly afterwards I was interviewed and then notified by the head office of CUSO in Ottawa that I had been assessed as being suitable for a posting and they would soon be in contact with a job offer. They were – with a job running a school for the physically disabled in Mount Hagan in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, which I accepted without delay. Perfect, I thought, I’ll be able to go to Australia for my holidays and see family and friends there – besides my mother had lived in New Guinea as a teenager and had told me lots about it and I thought it would be a very interesting place to live. I still think that but I didn’t get there.

A few days later there was another phone call from Ottawa. VSO, the non-government organisation from the UK, had submitted their candidate before CUSO had done so and she had got the job. Would I be interested in taking something else? Sure, I replied blithely, I’ll go anywhere. What about Nigeria then? Oh Yes I’d love to go to Nigeria I said although I scarcely knew where it was. I hung up the phone and thought – Is Nigeria in Africa? North or south? Big or small? I knew nothing about it and had to look it up in the atlas when I got home but thought it sounded exciting.

The following week I received the job description and an acceptance form and a notification of the dates during which I should attend an orientation course in Ottawa before taking up my posting in Zonkwa in the state of Kaduna in northern Nigeria. The position was as a Learning Disabilities Teacher at Women’s Teachers’ College in Zonkwa, which is a small town 175 km from Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state. The task was to develop a department of Special Education in the Women’s Teachers’ College and to give in-service courses to the teachers at the other Teachers’ Colleges in the area.

I also read in the job description that resources were almost non-existent and that `the only available textbooks were out of date, culturally and academically inappropriate’. Even the information that `Electricity is supplied by the town generator which breaks down or runs out of fuel on numerous occasions,’ didn’t bother me – nor did `Water can be a problem during the dry season – the staff is supplied by the school tanker which also breaks down.’ In fact, during my 5 months in Zonkwa there was only electricity for a few nights plus the two weeks that we were occupied by the army – of which more later – and I never saw the school tanker and was entirely reliant on buckets of water from an open well – until that ran dry and we were reduced to using stream water which even the locals did not like as it was known to carry the parasite bilharzia or schistosomiasis which is carried by freshwater snails.

Nevertheless I knew nothing of the future at that time and went cheerfully off to Ottawa for ten days’ orientation. It was hard to know what to take – bedding, books, toilet paper, clothes and mosquito net and everything else I could think of that might be useful. All this stuff filled two large suitcases. The night before I left for Ottawa I stayed with Celene and Blain who at the time were living in Calgary. We got up early and Celene drove me to Calgary Airport and off I went on my big adventure.

I kept a very comprehensive diary while on my Nigerian adventure and much of it is repetitive but I’ll use extracts from it here. I’ve tried to cut out the complaining parts but this diary served as my outlet for frustration and loneliness so some of those sentiments have undoubtedly crept in.

We landed in Ottawa at 3.30 and I went to claim the suitcases/millstones. I glanced at everyone picking up bags and tried to guess who might be CUSO - picked one and as it turned out, I was right. We got a taxi to the hotel; my travelling companion on the plane had turned up his nose at the name `Beacon Arms' and said `They're doing it on the cheap - what a hole!' In the letter with the tickets, it had warned of `Shared Accommodation' - so when I checked in and went to my room, I was pleased to see only one double bed in the tiny room, and thought `Oh good, I'm not sharing after all' but an hour later an elderly (even older than me!) lady came to me and said `Joan Carr? We are living together.' Share the bed? No thank you! Anyway, it was a mistake; we were supposed to have two beds, so they put a rollaway in the room and Dolores (as she turned out to be called) chose to sleep on that. Not a bad night, although the room on the 10th floor was intolerably hot and the heater cranked out a sort of engine noise all night. The CUSO staff call this the `Broken Arms' Hotel’ and say that if you can stand ten days here you will be fine in the tropics.

Awake at 6.30 and so was Dolores so she used the bathroom first and then I did, got dressed and went out for a walk to cool down which I quickly did! Snowing and blowing, but very refreshing. My hair, damp from the shower, froze instantly and two blocks was quite enough to freshen me up. Picked up Dolores; she's Spanish/Canadian, aged 61, technical-draftswoman going to teach drafting in The Gambia, spent the last six months in Spain and the previous eight months travelling round India on public transport. She has never taught so is looking forward to Monday - an all-day seminar on teaching techniques which I am officially exempt from because, although at least ten of the 35 `orientees' are going to teach, I am the only qualified teacher of the group.

The ten days passed quickly, full of interest. I already knew that luggage was going to be a problem and more was given to us in Ottawa – a full medical kit worth $350 with instructions on how to use everything in it - along with the warning that we should resist blood transfusions in Nigeria as AIDS was already rife and was a 60% male, 40% female disease there – very different figures from western countries. There were 18 women and 17 men at orientation, all of them lively and interesting people. Our time was jam-packed – classes on community development, language, personal security, health, regional customs (important as I was going to a Moslem area). We were given gamma globulin against hepatitis A and we were all started on chloroquine to prevent malaria.

There were reports from previous co-operants and we were encouraged to read them in order to get an idea of the area to which we were going. I read the one from Carol, my predecessor in Zonkwa. She listed the many problems such as no water, spasmodic power and other things and her report ended ‘… this is not a good placement, no more CUSOs should be sent to Zonkwa.’ When I questioned one of the staff about Carol’s report his reply was ‘Carol was always a complainer, don’t take any notice of that’, so I didn’t until later.

We visited a mosque and spent the day there getting a crash course in Islam. The major religions in northern Nigeria are Islam and Christianity and the schools and hospital in Zonkwa were started by an Irish order of nuns, the Sisters of St Louis who were at that time being phased out by the government. The four major ethnic groups are Hausa, Hausa-Fulani, Kaje and Yoruba and the common language is Hausa although English is the official language of education and commerce. People who had already worked overseas for CUSO came to talk to us about conditions, climate, food, health etc. Not Carol though, my predecessor.

It was January - bitterly cold in Ottawa and the Rideau Canal was frozen over so people were skating on it. I left my Canadian winter overcoat and fur lined boots behind knowing that somebody would be glad of them. Before leaving I bought $1000 worth of US traveller’s cheques and was to be very glad of them and also a shortwave radio which enabled me to listen to BBC radio in Zonkwa.

Friday January 30 ^th was the big day and when I went down to breakfast I found that twelve out of our thirty-five co-operants plus two of the staff, were dreadfully ill with diarrhea and vomiting. Six of them had sat at my table last night and food poisoning was suspected but the other four of us were OK. The nurse came and thought it may be flu as they had splitting headaches and some had a fever too. I went to the Australian High Commission to get a five-year visa. The clerk said they would phone me at CUSO when it was ready; 24-48 hours. I said `No, I must have it by 3 o'clock, I'm leaving the country today' and she said `You may not be; Toronto Airport is closed due to a blizzard and it is expected to reach Montreal later today.' Got back to the hotel at 11.00 to find that flights had been cancelled for my travelling companions to Brussels; they were too ill to travel. By this time I was feeling a bit queasy too but thought a bowl of soup would be OK. By the middle of the afternoon I had a bad case of the runs, but I didn't tell the staff because I figured I could make it and wanted to get going.

We were bussed to Mirabel airport at Montreal in a blizzard and got there an hour late but made it in time for our plane to Brussels where we spent the afternoon and night. The next day we were up early to eat our last meal in Europe. It was clear and sunny as we flew over the European Alps, then the Sahara and I was taking photos madly but I discovered a couple of weeks later that in my excitement I had forgotten to put a film in the camera.

The man next to me was a Belgian business man going to Sokoto for his monthly visit to the cement business that he works for. He gave me a mini-orientation on Nigeria and Nigerians, explained the currency to me and said that the regulations have been relaxed somewhat, so that you can now send 75% of your salary home instead of the previous 50%. But, I said, I don't think I'll have any to spare - and when I said I'll be getting 327 naira a month he was horrified and said `But you can't live on that!' The exchange rate now is $1 = 2.50 naira, but I'll bet if anyone can manage, I can.

We landed at Kano (right) which is the largest city in northern Nigeria and is over a thousand years old; originally walled, and parts of the wall are still there, it was once a crossroads of the trans-Sahara trading routes.

We landed, climbed down the ramp and began to walk across the huge tarmac. Suddenly we were all waved to the side and an Air Egypt plane taxied along where we had previously been walking. Then an official shouted at us `Stop, stop!' and a horde of about 200 Nigerians (all in native dress) tore across the tarmac as if in the Olympics, some carrying babies, all the way to a plane on the other side. `Scramble seating for the lesser Haj at Mecca', someone said. Just at that moment a large Nigerian came up to me and said `Are you CUSO?' This was David Ozolua, my Field Staff Officer; was I ever glad to see him! He walked along with me (we started moving again about then) and said `Have your passport and immigration form and health book ready.' Oh no! My health book! Where was it? Packed in my suitcase! And I couldn't get to my suitcase until I passed through immigration, and I couldn't pass through immigration without my health book! What to do? David couldn't help me so I made my way towards the counter.

Our passports were collected and dropped through a slot to an official. He picked up the passport, examined the visa, then called the name and the owner would push his/her way up to the counter to show the yellow fever stamp; there is a current outbreak. Right in front of me was a young VSO boy; when he showed his stamp the official said in a belligerent way `What's this date?' and the kid said `27th of January'. `Too soon!' yelled the official, and slapped it down at the back of the counter (yellow fever doesn't take effect for ten days). Next came my passport. `Carr' he yelled, and I stepped up. `I'm terribly sorry' I began `but it's in my suitcase.' `When did you have it?' he asked, quite amiably. `Early in January' I said. `Are you sure?' `Positive.' He passed me my passport and I nearly fainted with surprise. Then customs; undo all the padlocks, cursory glance, question `What is in here?' and I answered `Clothes and books' and I was through. Then currency declaration; I had to write in my passport `US$1000 and CAN$17' and it was stamped.

My field staff officer was a Nigerian called David Ozolua – nicknamed by the CUSOs `David O’Holidays’. I didn’t understand why until later. Eva Murray, the CUSO co-ordinator for Nigeria, was there too. The three of us drove to the Kano Federal Club Hotel where Eva had booked rooms for the night. David had a CUSO Peugeot, so did Eva and all the CUSO staff got a new car every two years. The hotel was quite comfortable - twin beds, a couple of chairs and a TV, cement floor, and a bathroom with running water (but not for drinking; Eva went straight down and bought us each a bottle of boiled water for drinking and teeth). We put our bags down, had a wash, then went down to the bar where I was happy to get a bottle of Sprite. Then they took me out for a drive and we ended up at the Central Hotel where we sat in a pleasant courtyard and had a beer, while David and Eva explained various things about the job to me.

We were surrounded by Nigerians in their gorgeous national dress; not all wear it but many do. For the men it is a shirt and pants of the same material with a knee-length flowing robe like a tunic over the top, also made of the same material, and a hat, often white, like a half-sized fez. The women wear what looks like a sari usually in a gorgeous colorful fabric – it’s called a wrapper there – with a matching long-sleeved top underneath.

At 8.30 next morning we set off for Kaduna, about a 3-hour drive south. Nigerian drivers are maniacs. They say here that the greatest danger is not cholera or malaria (though both are rife) but road accidents. They all drive fast and recklessly, tooting horns incessantly and weaving in and out without signaling. We were passing villages all the way, each group of mud huts completely enclosed by a mud wall, everything swept clean and neat, goats browsing around but no fences so they just add to the hazards of driving. Cattle too, white, long horns, little hump, very skinny. They belong to the Fulani tribesmen who are nomadic so they move with the seasons; no wonder they’re skinny and the owners are too. Once in a while we would pass a roadside market and see piles of yams, tomatoes, onions, some kind of melons, carrots, bananas and pineapples.

At last we reached Zaria about half way to Kaduna where the Beth Torrey Home for Handicapped Children is situated. I was sent the job description for that one too so was interested to see it. There is a day centre and a residence and the CUSO running it is Pat Eagles who started in November. She showed us all round; some deaf, some cerebral palsy, quite a challenge with many not toilet-trained, flies, heat etc. I was pretty glad I hadn't got that one; Pat tried for Zonkwa but was under-qualified for it.

About an hour later we reached Kaduna and went straight to the CUSO office. Just then Martin McCann (FSO from Ibadan in south-west Nigeria) called on the radio-telephone and said `What's the scoop on the food-poisoning?' because his two co-operants (Jacques and Susan) weren't arriving until today. So John (another FSO) said `Well, ours is here, and she looks fine.'

David then took me to the Ministry of Education to meet the Director of Primary Education and the Director of Post-Primary Education. Both charming men in national dress, they introduced me to everyone who came in and they all shook my hand and said `Welcome, welcome'. We drank tea and chatted agreeably but the first of many bureaucratic screw-ups – my file was lost. Found at last, they then insisted on accommodating me at the Dunbar Hotel for two nights.

David picked me up about 9 the following morning and we went straight to the ministry to resume our quest for advance salary. I can't even describe the system, who knows what it is? Yesterday afternoon the Director switched on his ceiling fan and all the piles of papers on his desk began to swirl around the room. As I helped to pick them up and replace them on the desk, I thought `It won't in the least matter what order I put these back in; there clearly wasn't any in the first place.' No phones, a few ancient typewriters, piles of dusty yellowing sheets of paper and crumbling manila folders.

My salary advance would be ready tomorrow, Bulas Tauna assured me. He is a buddy of David's and is in charge of Special Education. A driver will take me to Zonkwa in the morning. `What kind of car?' asked David suspiciously (but not too suspiciously because I know he doesn't want to make the trip himself). `One like yours' Bulas replied blandly. I confess I'll believe both car and salary advance when I see them.

David took me then to the Kaduna School for the Deaf because there are two CUSO co-operants working there - Linda Whiting and Lynn Mathieson. The school consists of a series of long concrete buildings divided into rooms, each of which opens to the outside (no hallways). David took me into one of these rooms and introduced me to Lynn. The room was the library (about 50 dusty paper-back books on a shelf) and Lynn was busy signing out books but she offered to show me around so David left, saying he would pick me up later. Lynn introduced me to the principal (Welcome, welcome); he was sitting behind a desk in another of the little rooms, and all the other teachers were in there, it was principal's office/staffroom and they were in there the whole time I was there, chatting and laughing. Lynn showed me a third building, half-made. She had been asked to give a talk to Rotary last year and they had said `What do you need?' And Lynn said `Space is what we need.' So they began this building; then last week an official drove up and screamed `Pull that down; that is not your land!' It's cement block so it will take some pulling down. The workmen walked away and there it sits. She took me down the road to the residences; same type of building, two-tier metal army bunks with 6" between them. Then we walked back to the school (still nobody in the classrooms) and she showed me one of the rooms, 15 kids to a room, wooden desks, a crumbling blackboard. That was it. `Where are the books?' I asked. `There aren't any.'

We sat in the shade and talked. I asked her where she's from. `Alberta.' `That's funny, so am I. What city?' `Red Deer' she said. Her mother is second-in-charge in the sewing room at Michener Centre and Lynn worked on JPU and Robin on summer relief and they lived in Terrace Park. We could hardly believe such a coincidence; do you expect to meet someone from the same town in the middle of Africa? Lynn was hired as a speech pathologist (that's what she is, from University of Alberta). She was to do testing and assessing but of course she found not only no audiometer, but no electricity, so ended up just doing paper work (she is principal of the girls' school), running the library, helping with fund-raising etc. She has a German boyfriend here who has a car so they are going to come down and stay one weekend with me.

David came back and said to Lynn `How's Linda?' `I don't know' said Lynn, `she hasn't been home for a week.' Linda is the other CUSO, a trained teacher of the deaf, working in the same school. It sounded a bit strange and when we drove away David said `Linda was in a small accident ten days ago; she was knocked down and her purse stolen. She had a black eye.' There were things in this story that did not jibe but there seemed no point in going deeper.

We then went to the Police Department which is also the Department of Immigration. As I was granted only a 3-month entry permit (that's all you can get from outside the country) my passport and four copies of my application for visa form (all with photographs) now have to be sent to Lagos, the national capital. I parted with my passport with some reluctance. `What about roadblocks?' `I will make a photocopy’ said David. So now all I have is a photocopy of each page. Considering all the trouble I went to in order to get on open-entry Australian visa in case of emergency, I'm not too happy with the arrangement, but could do absolutely nothing about it. My exposure during the last two days to the government offices has not inspired confidence.

Next day I was to be driven to Zonkwa but we didn't leave Kaduna until 12.30 because there was the usual interminable wait at the ministry for Bulas (Secretary to the Director) to appear. Finally he did, and gave me my money - all in cash of course, I could hardly fit it in my purse. Then back to the hotel because Bulas had to settle the bill (as the ministry is paying for me). Then to the CUSO office to pick up some pots and pans that had been raked up from various places. But by then David had disappeared, and had left instructions that we should not leave until he returned, so that was another hour but at last he returned and we set off.

We passed many villages like the one on the left, mud huts with thatched roofs. As I've mentioned the driving here is reckless but today's ride was simply suicidal. We had a government driver and he hurtled along the roads, Bulas constantly entreating him to slow down to 120! I was glad I was in the back; I thought `They'll get hit first' and for sure nobody was going to hit us from the back, they couldn't catch us. When we reached Kachia the driver said `I must get water for the radiator.' He drove down a side street, jumped out saying `I go to pray' and disappeared. There was a mosque marked out on the ground with an outline of stones and about 30 men were kneeling in it on their prayer mats. Bulas was furious, it is against the law to stop Moslems from praying but he said `He's tricked me!' We sat there in the boiling sun for half an hour then at last the driver returned and off we dashed once again.

At last we reached Zonkwa and I had to go first to meet the Zonal Director (Welcome welcome) then off to the school to meet the principal. She and the vice-principal both welcomed me then brought me to the house. The house that had previously belonged to the CUSO workers had been grabbed by somebody else as soon as my predecessor had left and the one I was given was a very run down old concrete house with a jungly overgrown garden but it did have screened windows for which I was very thankful. When we got out of the car Bulas Tauna jumped and said `Oh I thought I saw a snake'. I thought he was just trying to get a rise out of me, so I said quite calmly `Yes, I'll bet there are lots of snakes around here' and strolled on, determined not to show fear.

Bulas connected the gas cylinder (red tank below) to the stove for me, scrounged a match from somewhere (I wish I'd brought some) and lit the stove and it worked, thank goodness. No water of course but they brought a petrol drum inside and some of the girls brought water in pails and tipped it in. I've got the runs again and was glad when they all left and I could go to the toilet, which is inside but not connected of course as there is no running water here. However, it works OK with a few pots of water tipped down.

Now it is almost dark (6 pm) and I have unpacked, made the bed and cleaned up as best I can. No power either, and I have no food, so it looks like an early night. I had the foresight to buy four bottles of boiled water before we left Kaduna because I have no matches to boil water. Boiled water is also essential for the teeth, though I've had nothing to eat since breakfast so I don't suppose they're too dirty! Just then a lady came with two candles. I said `I do not have any matches' and she went away and came back with a box of matches and two empty tins for candle holders. I'd just got that organised when another lady came with her little girl, Patience, aged 9, and brought me a little loaf of bread and a thermos of tea. Eva Murray had put a jar of honey in with the pots and pans so I had a cup of tea and the bread and honey and it tasted like a gourmet feast as I was starving.

Then off to bed. I had no way of rigging a mosquito net (the bed has no posts) so I sprayed the room and myself and hoped for the best. All the houses round me seem to have little kids and things didn't quieten down until about 10. I was just dropping off to sleep when my alarm went off; when I wound it I must have set the alarm too. I couldn't think what it was for a minute - phone? fire alarm? No such things here.

That’s my living room on the left. Roosters woke me before light but I dozed off again till 7. Then I hopped up, got a saucepan of water and did my `ablutions'. It worked surprisingly well, soaped first then tipped it all over and felt very refreshed as the water was quite cold. Got dressed, ate another slice of bread and honey and drank another cup of tea, lukewarm now but tasted good. Just then Patience Alkali (my visitor from the previous evening) came to the door and said her mother was waiting for me, so I quickly cleaned my teeth and dashed out. We walked to the school together and Mrs Alkali took me in to the staff-room where everyone said `Welcome' and I said `Thankyou'. Then the vice-principal asked me to introduce myself to the staff, which I did, to about 30 teachers. More came later; I'd say there are about 50 on the staff, about half men and half women.

Then it was assembly time and we all filed out on to the veranda, about three feet above the yard, and there was a sea of faces assembled before us, about 2000 girls I think, all neatly dressed in pale green cotton dresses and matching head scarves. Two students read prayers, one Islam, one Christian then they all repeated the Pledge of Loyalty to Nigeria and sang what I took to be the National Anthem. Then the vice-principal asked me to introduce myself to the students. I stepped to the front of the veranda and said `Good morning' and they all answered `Good morning'. Then I said `I have come from Canada to teach at your school and my name is Mrs Carr', and they all roared with laughter, not too sure why.

The only other white person here is a Catholic nun who teaches religion. She came over to me after Assembly and said `How are you settling in?' and I said `Fine - but I have no food and I do not have a bucket.' She responded as I had hoped and said `I'll pick you up at home at 11 this morning.' I didn't know whether she meant by car, machine (motor-bike or scooter) or on foot, but whatever it is I'll be most grateful.

Then I went to the principal's office. She asked someone to take me to see the Special Education Office which is now mine. It is off the Science Lab and is completely stacked with empty cardboard boxes and dusty old science equipment. `Very nice, thank you' I said enthusiastically. We went back to the principal's office and she said `I am sending a man to put up strings for your curtains; go with him now and then come back to see me.' `Could he also put poles up for my mosquito net?' `Of course'. So he collected a carpenter on the way, and they came with me and put up strings for my curtains. Then he said `I will come back at 12.30 and put poles up.' `No, please come back now, I must go out later and will not be here to let you in.' `Alright' he said, and went away. That was an hour ago. The principal is waiting for me, but if he returns and the door is locked, I may never get poles for my mosquito net, so I'm staying here. Now it's a quarter to eleven and the men are still not back, but the principal has been here and says the curtains are too small (which they are) and she will get some more.

I should explain about Harmattan and the dust. Harmattan is the wind that blows off the Sahara Desert from December to February. It fills the air with red dust as fine as talcum powder, which sifts into and settles on everything. Harmattan season is the cold season here. March and April are very hot (45 degrees is common) and then at the end of April the rains start and in the months from June to August it rains every day, so no shortage of water then. Then it tapers off until the end of October when the rains end. In the meantime, everything is filmed with dust and I can see it is just something I must get used to.

One pm now and things are looking better by the minute. Sister Noreen (the nun) picked me up just after 11 in her little old car and drove me to a tiny store (like a kiosk) which is actually within walking distance from here. I bought a tin of Nido (Nestles powdered milk), a packet of cornflakes, roll of toilet paper, box of matches and a packet of biscuits. That little lot cost me 13.80N; that is, 13 naira and 80 kobo. As I earn a bit more than 10 naira a day (327 a month is my salary) you can see that I am not going to be living riotously! Then she took me to the post office where I mailed a letter to Marcus. I asked if they had any aerograms; they do, and they are 20 kobo each but you have to buy a 20 kobo stamp to put on each one because the postage (like many other things I gathered) has doubled since devaluation.

Sister Noreen drove me home then and came in to teach me how to use a water-filter; the principal lent me one until I can get one of my own. She looked around and said `You haven't got much to eat, have you?' and she went away and came back 10 minutes later with a bag containing 3 grapefruit, 2 tomatoes, a bundle of spinach, some potatoes and onions, a tin of cheese and a jar of homemade jam. Thank God for the Sisters of Charity! Actually, that's not what they are, they are Sisters of St. Louis which is an Irish order. Ten of them live in a house near here and the others run the hospital; they used to run the school too but the government took it over ten years ago.

The lack of money shows everywhere here and must be hard on the ordinary people who certainly earn less than I do. But Sister Noreen says that CUSOs are respected here because they are known to be on very low pay compared with other expatriates, eg CIDA (Canadian International Development Association, who get Canadian salaries in Nigeria and consequently have rather low credibility). The government used to pay Sister Noreen's flight home to Ireland every year for a holiday, but now they only send her every second year. No wonder; she says it costs 2500N to London return. That's more than 8 months salary for me. Lucky I've got my American dollars, though I'm not sure how difficult it might be to change them into Naira.

Two workmen came to my door then, tools in hand, to put up poles for my mosquito net. That was a real relief to me as we all had it drummed into us. Boil all your water (even for teeth) and always use your mosquito net. As it turned out, there was a net in the house shaped like a box and the men have nailed posts to the corners of my bed and a frame across the top so I am completely enclosed in netting and that's very good because last night I was too hot with only a sheet over me but didn't dare sleep with nothing, for fear of the lethal bite.

After that was done, I went down to see the principal. She was just leaving to go to Kaduna to collect her car which is being fixed, but she said we will have a meeting on Saturday morning. She did her Master of Education in the U.S. and is very keen on Special Education, and wants this to become a `Special Ed School - the only one in Kaduna State.' I don't exactly know what she means by that but I guess I'll find out on Saturday. I walked back to her house with her, and then on to mine. It's a fair step and a sweltering day. I don't even like to guess at the heat because I know it will get much hotter yet; best not to think about it too much.

I collapsed on the bed to read and listen to the Walkman but there was a knock on the door and six little kids had come to visit. We chatted a while `What is your name? How old are you? etc, then they went away and I fell back on the bed. Five minutes later, knock knock again. I ignored but they persisted and in the end I got up. They had noticed my dirty floor and had brought their little grass brooms and a pail of water to clean it. They are still working and I am in a dilemma - whether to pay or not? The smallest coin that seems to be made is 10 kobo, which is a tenth of a naira, and already this morning my naira seem to be melting rather alarmingly. I have heard a number of horror stories about the Nigerian government not paying up. In fact Beth Eagles, at the Beth Torrey Home in Zaria, has not been paid since her original salary advance when she started work last November. It's dark now and I have no candles. Still no power so I'll read for a while by torch, but I'm trying to be frugal with the batteries after hearing how expensive they are.

My menu always remained simple because I had no refrigeration and nothing would keep for long in the heat. Breakfast was always Nigerflakes (cornflakes) with powdered milk and sometimes a banana, lunch was always a bread roll with a banana and an orange and dinner was rice, a green vegetable like spinach and an egg or a tin of sardines.

The State power here is called NEPA (National Electricity Power Association I think it stands for) but the other CUSOs have already told me that they call it `No Electrical Power Anytime'. We're not even on NEPA, we have a generator and there is no diesel for it, so I gather it's a fairly low priority in the scheme of things. Electricity is a luxury in a place like this, it's certainly not a necessity. The trouble is that I have had it for so long that I am having a hard time convincing myself of that. The same with the water; the nearest well is a couple of city blocks from here, and all day the women are walking past here going to the well, a bucket or a big tub or a basket of clothes balanced on their heads. I don't even have to collect my own as the girls bring it to me and all I have to do is bale it out of the drum with my saucepan - what an eye-opener, to see how millions of people live their whole lives, and what an insulated world we in the western world live. This is all doing me a great deal of good; I'll never take power or water (or flush toilets or refrigeration or TV or cars or a hundred other things) for granted again.

Most Saturdays some of the girls would come with me to the market which was about 2 km from the school. They taught me to bargain for things – my first purchase was a bucket and the price quoted was 10 naira which was a day’s salary for me. `Too much' said Teresa `5'. `Last 8’ said the merchant. `Last' when bargaining means that they will go no lower so give up. I paid 8 of my naira for the bucket, then a strainer for rice `1.50' he said but I had 45 kobo in my purse so I pulled out a single naira and my 45 kobo and said `That's all I have' and he laughed and gave it to me. Then on to the food. I had no salt and knew that I must start eating it as I was not eating meat - so I paid 50 kobo for a little plastic bag of salt, 1 naira for a bunch of bananas, 1 naira for 3 oranges and 1 naira for a little pile of tomatoes, half-green so that hopefully they would keep for a few days.

Then Teresa said `Now I will take you to the meat shops'. If I hadn't already decided to be vegetarian over there, I certainly did at that moment. Roughly hacked carcasses lying on open tables, some hardly visible for their coating of flies, a little brown goat's head staring up at me from the ground where it had been dropped, a little pile of eyes, oh gross! And you cannot even begin to imagine the smell of raw meat and fresh blood already starting to spoil in the heat.

There were many things at the market that I did not recognise and Teresa had to enlighten me. Cassava grated in jars, all kinds of peppers and chillies, fruit such as cashews of which Teresa bought three; they have a very strong sweet smell and a hard cashew-shaped excrescence on the end, which I presume contains the nut. Things were being cooked there, mostly deep-fried in hot oil, like little cakes or fritters, being sold as snack food. These were bean cakes and I became extremely fond of the tasty little morsels and bought them whenever I could afford it. For lunch I had a banana and an orange. I got a bunch of 13 bananas for 1 naira and they were greenish-black, not yellow at all so I thought they would not be ripe. But they were, and they had that lovely strong banana flavour. The oranges should have been called `greens'; there simply was not a trace of orange colour on them, in fact they looked like large limes. They had thick skins, very hard pith, tough membranes and a lot of pips - but they were sweet and juicy. My diet consisted of fruit and vegetables, rice, bread, cornflakes and dried milk and sometimes an egg and I managed very adequately on that.

I had not been able to get my shortwave radio to work but Sister Noreen had a friend, Mr Franks, who was the bursar at the hospital and was a radio buff. I dropped it there and went over the next day to pick it up from him. As I walked towards the Bursar's office, I heard the most glorious sound since I set foot on African soil - The BBC News! `Magic Man' I cried as I jumped up the steps - there was my radio, broadcasting as clear as a bell all the way from London. Profuse thanks, and then back here to lie on the bed and listen in bliss to an account of all the world's events from which I had felt so cut off.

Sister Noreen had also left 5 candles with Mr Franks to save me buying any. She is concerned about my meagre supply of money so apparently nuns get paid more than I do which is pretty funny. There are ten of them which makes shopping and cooking much more economical. She told me this morning to take great care of my throat (I said I had coughed a lot in the night, the dust is impossible to avoid, I blow it out of my nose and scrape it out of the corners of my eyes). She said `This really isn't a healthy climate you know' and I asked her `Do you get sick often?' and she said `No, hardly ever in fact.' But no doubt in 25 years here she has built up a fair amount of immunity to most local germs.

When the principal returned, I went to see her. What class was I to teach? Well, she suggested, Carol had a classroom with a storage room off it `full of beautiful equipment'. Perhaps I would like that? Certainly, I'd love that I said, wondering what the beautiful equipment might be. She took me up and showed me the room; bare cement room (they all are), nothing in it but wrecked desks, a few benches, and a blackboard that had seen better days. The key to the storage room could not be found. `Would you like this room?' Oh certainly - but the class in it is Form One (beginners Grade Seven) and she had it in mind that I would teach the Form 4G who need remedial work. That was what I had expected `The other teachers say they are unteachable, but of course that is not the case.'

So the two classes were swapped over and I officially took charge. Before that the key was at last found and the storage room opened. What did it contain? Tons of dust and cobwebs, four episcopes, one microscope, one overhead projector, one filmstrip projector and 24 bottles of duplicator fluid. There is no duplicator and no power, so everything was useless and the room has no windows so although it was offered to me as an office, I don't plan to use it. I was allotted a desk in the staffroom (above) where I can sit to mark books etc. There are about 20 desks in there for about 50 staff but only eight chairs so people take it in turns to sit. I found that I had been given a class of 27 slow learners, girls and women ranging in age from 17 to over 30. The older ones were all married and had children (one had six and I thought was showing with number seven) and had returned to school in the hope of getting a teaching job. They were all having problems due to a combination of factors - poor English (even spoken, let alone written), poor primary school education, and a method of teaching that stressed a great deal on note-taking and memorization, without any real comprehension. The whole system was self-perpetuating according to the CUSOs who had returned from Nigeria, because these girls would somehow flounder through their exams and go out to be another generation of semi-literate teachers.

To pass their teaching certificate the girls had to pass an oral English exam but none of the teachers spoke good enough English to get them up to that standard so the principal asked me to teach that as well, which I did. The compensation for some difficulties and frustrations in the job was the fact that the girls themselves were lovely; friendly, hard-working and easily amused, and always cheerful. When I went to a new class I always started by introducing myself and getting them all to introduce themselves. `My name is ...' Many names had to be spelt for me; Sarata, Laraba, Hanattu, Hassana, Laaitu, etc. I made a seating plan and asked them to write me a little essay on `What I did yesterday'.

I had seen excellent West African primary text-books in the CUSO library in Ottawa and went to the librarian who had a key to the bookstore which was a dust-laden windowless room with piles of ancient crumbling books 20-30 years old, none of them appropriate to the region. There were not enough desks so the girls had to sit three to a desk, not all of them had a pen or pencil and the blackboard was a piece of wood that had originally been painted black but most of the paint had worn off. The principal issued each staff member with one stick of chalk each day.

It's easy to see that they should be taken back to Form One English with a lot of oral work as all speak only broken English, simple dictation, putting words in sentences as all their tenses are wrong in their essays. But here they are, working out of ancient Form Four books which they cannot even read. I'm going to take it very slowly and diplomatically though; nobody expects these girls to make any progress so there is no pressure on me. They are lovely girls, polite and hard-working but they remind me of the Michener Centre residents turning the pages of catalogues mindlessly, with no idea of what they are looking at. One girl had finished her work and pulled out an old Teachers’ Journal and began puzzling over an article on `The Use of the Tape Recorder in the Classroom'. And I'll bet a million dollars that she has never seen (and probably never will see) a tape recorder in her life.

You might think `Well, formal written English is useless in Nigeria anyway' and you would be right, but the West African system is based on the equivalent of the British O level and A level exams and if they fail those they can absolutely never advance, never even get a job, so the whole system is geared to the passing of these exams. The problem is certainly not aided by the fact that many teachers, mostly the males, spend a good part of the day `under the tree', while the students sit in the hot classrooms puzzling over incomprehensible exercises.

School hours are 7.30 till 2 with a break for breakfast from 10 till 10.30. It makes a funny long day (there's no coffee of course and I won't drink unboiled water). The lady at the corner of my street, Mrs Alkali, is a teacher but also runs a little store. She sells two little loaves of bread (like rolls) for 50 kobo, so I bought two from her and had yummy cheese and tomato sandwiches when I got home. Last night I cooked rice but it took ages (my gas pressure is poor) so I think I won't cook every day now; fruit, sandwiches and cornflakes will do.

Early on Sunday I decided to walk to the Post Office and mail some letters. It was a pleasant morning so I then decided to proceed up the hill and look at the `main drag'. I wanted to find the Bank as I signed three forms in Kaduna to have my money deposited directly into the United Bank of Africa (UBA). I would have preferred cash but was not afforded the choice. The Bank is a good three km from home, OK now but a solid hike once it gets hot, and impossible for me to get to anyway because banking hours are 8-3 on Monday and 8-1 on Tuesday-Thursday. So that's another little problem that has to be worked out, but I'll find a way, like spare periods or something, I'll bet that's what the other teachers do. CUSO has an emergency fund for unpaid co-operants (of whom there are many) but I have no way of contacting David Ozolua because there are no phones in Zonkwa so my only recourse would be to get a taxi to Kaduna on a Saturday and then try to drag David off the golf course if I could find him. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Anyway, I found the Bank, no other stores up there except native ones, all trading busily today of course (Moslem Sabbath is Friday afternoon) but I didn't buy anything as I have enough food for several days and no fridge for keeping things anyway, so I trekked back and by then it was very hot and I was glad to read on the bed for a while.

Then knock knock on my back door. I opened it and there was a Nigerian man who introduced himself as the Science Teacher; he trained in Special Education at the University of Jos and wants to teach it, but the principal won't let him. She let him run classes last year for local staff but only in the evenings, so 10 out of 100 came. Not happy about that. But then, after a lengthy pause, the real reason for his visit was revealed. He has five children and lives across the road from me in a long sort of four-plex building. His five children sleep in a room which is separated from the parents' room and he worries about their security. There is a single man teaching in the school who had temporary accommodation in staff housing. My man wanted this house but when Carol Forster moved out, Single Man (who has some sort of in with the principal) moved into the CUSO house, which is nicer than this, and has a fenced yard, therefore better security. My man, Mr Ali, wants me to put pressure on the principal to give me the CUSO house, Mr Ali can move in here with his children and Single Man can have Mr Ali's house.

Politics already; so now I am in a dilemma; I am cross at not getting the CUSO house which I know to be better than this, but how many toes do I step on if I insist? And can I even insist? And dare I risk making any enemies at this stage? Tricky decisions. Mr Ali said `You know - Nigerians are very tricky people'. I could end up a pawn in some complicated game whose rules I do not understand.

This afternoon Sister Mary came round as she had promised to cut my hair which she did and now I feel much cooler. We talked for an hour about her work; she used to teach in Niger State but is now working in Primary Health Care and goes out to the villages and helps people get started in well projects, agricultural schemes, literacy etc. The Development Project is all based on Paolo Freire's work which she knows backwards (`for a society to be democratic it must be literate') and involves the people identifying their own needs, rather than people going in and telling them what they should want. She is very enthusiastic and interesting to talk to and we had a good time. I asked her about the house business and she said to be very wary of being manipulated; I already realised that I was, anyway. She said to talk it over with Sister Noreen before I do anything, because she has been in the school for 25 years and knows all the ins and outs.

Went to bed a bit after 8 but about half an hour later there was loud knocking on my front door; there were about 20 little kids outside `We've come to say goodnight'. Goodnight!

My water filter has not been working properly. Here is how a water-filter works: First I boil the water for at least 5 minutes (the ultra-careful say 15 minutes but I'm too stingy with the gas to go for that one). Then I pour the boiled water into the top chamber of the filter; there are two chambers one on top of the other and in the top chamber there are two porcelain `candles' which are porous so the water can soak into them and run down to the other chamber, leaving small impurities behind in the top. Then I put the water in bottles (the empty water bottles that I bought in Kaduna) and would put them in the fridge if I had one, but I don't so I just put them on the counter. Or I would if the water would go through the candles but it won't, I think the whole thing is sort of perished, it is very battered and ancient but the principal gave it to me and described it of course as `a beautiful piece of equipment.'

My last hope is that David Ozolua (well named by the CUSOs David O'Holiday) will come here this week and bring me one from the Harpers in Bauchi State. I met John Harper in Kaduna and he offered me some dishes and pots and a water filter but it required David to drive to Bauchi this week and pick them up, which of course he promised to do but I am not holding my breath and in the meantime I am drinking boiled but not filtered water. You may be wondering `Why drink filtered water anyway?' Well there are all sorts of little things in the water - some from the well, some from the trip here in the bucket, and some from the grungy old oil drum in which my water is stored, and I am told that these things are not all killed by boiling.

The day's teaching went well. I had planned a lot of oral work as their speech is poor so we started off the day with What day is this? and then got on to `before' and `after' and then the months, and then everyone had to say `My birthday is in...' and then I gave them some dictation and then had them write the days of the week, the months of the year and put 5 words in sentences. Not one of them had all the spelling right but they made a good stab at most words.

From 10-10.30 we have a break which is actually for breakfast and Comfort (one of my girls) said `Come and see where we eat’, so I went with them to their dining hall, a huge room with tables and benches and a big metal dishpan on each table containing `pap' like porridge and another bowl with pieces of what looks like johnny-cake but is actually bean cake. That is their breakfast each day. It looked and smelled good. All the cooking is done outside in enormous pots (almost big enough to cook a person in) over wood fires, and the bean cake is baked in brick ovens outside, also with wood fires. Most of the people round me cook outside over a little fire; I don't think stoves have caught on here yet.

I went to the staffroom and one of the teachers offered me a newspaper parcel and said `Have one' so I did, and it was a deep-fried beancake, about the size of a fritter, very good and quite peppery. I saw them in the market on Saturday but resolved not to risk them as I've been struggling with the dreaded runs ever since I left Canada, and don't want to take risks. But it would have been rude to refuse and it was so good that I had another one. Someone cooks them every morning in the compound, two for 10 kobo and I think I could easily become a regular. There is of course no staffroom coffee and I get very thirsty during the morning - I may start bringing my canteen with some boiled water.

After the break I wrote the days and the months on the board, gave them ten minutes to learn them and tested them and they did a lot better which was very encouraging. Then some of the girls had to go to Home Economics but five of them came to school after the term started so they are not registered in anything. The alternative is Science; `Do you want to take Science or Home Economics?’ `Science’, they all said. `Alright, I'll take you to register’. But the principal and the vice-principal have gone to Kaduna for a day out. Can anyone else register them? Of course not.

I went to the library (third try this morning) to try to get the key to the bookstore. Success at last, and took the girls with me to get some books; they are old and battered and very out of date but better than nothing. By this time the Home Economics people were back and it was time for a Hausa lesson for those taking Hausa, and Library for those who don't. I said `Go to Hausa' and they went but soon came back. `No Hausa today'. I sent the Library people but they came back too. `The teacher says the library is occupied'. Do you like library? `We never go – the library is always occupied'. When I went to return the key I found that the library was occupied indeed, by most of the male staff members sitting round, talking and laughing – of course, because the principal and vice-principal are away today.

There were the whole 25, all back. They sat in their desks, snoozing (it was very hot now, 1 o'clock), chatting, or copying the endless reams of notes from other girls' books that (although they cannot read them) they seem to think will lead them to success. I'd like to try to get a library in the room for such times as this but the librarian is reluctant to let anything out of the library. `They will steal them' he said. Mind you, he doesn't want the girls to go in there either. It's a nice cool room to use for a men’s staffroom. At last it was 2 o'clock so I went and looked one more time for the bookstore man but `He's out' again so I couldn't return the key. `Has anyone been for the mail?' Blank looks. `To the Post Office?' No, because nobody there ever writes or gets letters. `Is the mail picked up each day?' Oh yes. `Who picks it up?' Nobody knew. I've had no mail and can imagine my letters collecting dust for two years. But I can't pick up the mail because it is `Official' and cannot be released to me.

Home then for a bowl of cornflakes and powdered milk and a read on the bed. But my housewifely eyes could not rest for the dust so I got up and swept the floor with my little grass swishy broom, then got water and a cloth and washed the dust off all the furniture. It’s all back again now but for a little while it looked very nice. Sister Noreen came later and wanted to know if my water filter was working. I said `No, it’s not but don't worry, I'm boiling the water.’ She was aghast; `You mustn't drink unfiltered water' she said, `boiling doesn't always kill the larvae and that's why it has to be filtered’. She is going to Jos tomorrow but will be round tomorrow night she said, to see if she can fix it. I really think it's shot, the `candles' which are supposed to be porous, look calcified and perished. There is no hope of buying one in Zonkwa because the local people don't use them. They drink the well water unboiled and unfiltered but most of them survive, probably they have immunity to most things. Sister Noreen said the water is especially dangerous at this time of the year when the wells are very low, it's not so dangerous in the rainy season when you are catching your own water, though still risky because it is caught in open drums.

A couple of nights later I was almost scared out of my wits.

I was sitting at my table with my back to the uncurtained windows, and a man came to the window and called me. He was shining a flashlight on me; at first I thought perhaps it was one of the staff, and said `What do you want?' Then he laughed and started calling out things in Hausa which I couldn't understand. I blew out my candle and hid behind the kitchen door; he went all around the house, shining his light in the windows and looking for me while I huddled behind the kitchen door. Several times he tried the back and front door handles. At last, after about 10 minutes, he went away, still laughing and calling out. Was he mad? Was he drunk? Did he want to rob me (my radio) or rape me? Never seen a white woman before? Who could possibly know?

I didn't have enough nerve to sit at the table again so I went to bed. Even there I didn't feel secure because the curtains do not nearly cover the windows. That happened about 7.30 and I finally dropped off to sleep about 11 but woke at 1 having a horrible nightmare; I could hear someone walking in my house and tried to call out `Who's there? What are you doing in my house?' but in that typical nightmarish fashion, no sound would come out. When I woke I found it hard to distinguish dream from reality, and lay there with ears straining until about 4 when I finally fell asleep again.

After assembly, the principal said to me `How are you?' and I said `Well actually not so good, a man tried to enter my house last night and it frightened me so much that I could not sleep.' There was a young teacher standing there and she said `That always happens to new teachers' and the principal said `It didn't happen to me'. Well, of course, it wouldn't; she's a big Nigerian bruiser who just would have gone out and flattened him. She said she would send a guard round my corner every night for a while. I said `I’m OK, don't worry about it, I'll get used to it.' But I won't.

At 9 o'clock the principal sent a message to my classroom that she wanted me in her office. I left my class (that's nothing new for them) and went there. She had one of the teachers in the office, crying, and she explained that this teacher has a handicapped daughter. `Would you come to see her' she asked me `She is sick'. So we hopped in the principal's car and went to the house, a big house, her husband is the Zonal Director of Education. She brought the girl out - 14 years old, can't walk or talk or anything, spastic, bad forceps delivery she told me. She was vomiting and had diarrhea and I felt her and she was hot so I said `Why don't you take her to the hospital?' All agreed that that would be the best idea so the principal gave her the day off to do that.

Then we went to the Zonal Office to see the Director, a very agreeable man and of course he wanted to talk about his poor handicapped daughter and I had just last week seen the Beth Torrey Home and he had considered that at one stage, so we discussed the pros and cons of home care vs institutions and his daughter's future. Then I was taken in to see the Assistant Director (Welcome welcome) then went back to school. My girls were supposed to be having physical education. `Where is the teacher?' `He did not come'. Break time, and I went to the end of the compound where they were cooking and selling `Take-out'. I bought 4 cassava cakes for 20 kobo and brought them back to the staffroom to share with the other teachers. Lively staffroom discussion. `How old are your children?' I was asked. `Why did your husband let you come here?' And they said, they would not have dared to go away because their husbands would just have taken more wives. Many? Yes, many men have five wives and in fact my next door neighbour has three.

Back to the classroom and their maths teacher came, so I asked if she would let me watch so that I will know what they are working on. She put up all this geometry on the board, just notes, definitions, diagrams, and they copied it all slavishly into their books, not comprehending a word of it I’m sure. Then a girl came to the door and asked me to come outside. There was a girl waiting for me. `My name is Elizabeth Madaki and the principal said I should see you.' I wondered why, and then the penny suddenly dropped. `Are you blind?' `Yes.' The principal had told me about her. `Do you have a Braille machine?' She does, in the dormitory, so we went to the dorm (rows of double-decker army bunks with battered old lockers between) and she gave me a demonstration of reading and writing Braille. She became blind at the age of 17 (no known cause, but no doubt one of the common eye infections) and is now 26. The Braille machine was a good German Blista, the first decent piece of equipment I've seen here. It's not functional for her really because she is too slow to use it for the reams of school notes. The principal wants me to write a letter to the Examination Board recommending how she should do her exams. I'll say orally, of course.

I forgot to say that when I was at the Director's office he asked me `How are you settling in?' and I said `Fine thank you' but the principal said `She had a visitor last night' and the Director seemed to know at once what she meant and said `These thieves are getting very bold.' Then, while my hair stood on end, they discussed two robberies that took place in our compound last week. One teacher had his TV stolen (not much of a loss, I thought, with no power!) and the other caught them in the act and they fled. In both cases they had broken in because the houses were securely locked. The Director said `You will have to increase the security of the compound.' How? Nobody knows. My own doors are always locked of course, but the front doors are double with the lock in the middle and I know very well that if you pull hard enough on doors like that you can spring the lock.

Sister Noreen called in late in the afternoon; I didn't see her at work today because she went to Jos for a meeting, so I told her about my creepy man and she said No, that wouldn't be anything creepy, that would be a Mguardi. What's that? Kind of a night watchman she said - and he was probably telling you who he was, but in Hausa of course so you didn't understand him. Then why was he looking through my windows with his flashlight? Because, she patiently explained, he saw your candle and didn't know anyone was living in this house; then you disappeared and he wondered what was going on, so he went round looking for you. You know, she said, all those sickies in Ireland and America, we don't have them here. Don't they get drunk here? I asked. Of course they do, she said, but they're all happy drunks in Nigeria. About the break-ins and robberies, Sister Noreen just laughed about that. She said `They won't bother breaking into your house; everybody knows that CUSOs are poor!'

I believe her. It's a perfect example of getting hysterical over something in another culture that you don't understand. Five girls called in here after school today and began teaching me Hausa, about 30 words which I wrote down and try to use. News travelled fast because as I walked across the school ground, girls kept coming up to me and saying Ya Yau (how are you?) and I had to say Lafiya (fine).

I'm going to finish this off tonight because I am still clinging to the faint hope that David Ozolua will come tomorrow as promised and bring my water filter. If he comes I'll get him to drive me up to the bank to open an account and the post office to mail this and some letters. If he doesn't come, I'll probably walk up after school but it's so hot at 2 o'clock, when we finish, that I don't usually feel like doing anything except coming home and collapsing on the bed for a while.

Sure enough David came the next day so I asked the principal if I could have a bit of time off so that David could drive me to the bank. `Oh, of course, of course Darling’ was the reply so off we went to the bank and this is what happened when we got there.

`I want to open a bank account because my salary is to be paid in here.' I had already signed the forms for that to be done, at the ministry in Kaduna. `Go to the Secretary's office'. We did. `I want to open a bank account.' `You need two passports.' `Two passports?' But David had just returned my passport to me, so I handed it over. No, that wasn't it; two passport photographs. I have plenty but they were at home. David drove me home and I picked up two photos. Back to the bank. Secretary not in the office now. Went to the counter. `I want to open a bank account.' `Where is your permanent residence permit?' `I don't have it yet, my application has just been submitted to Lagos. But I have my three-month temporary permit', and I showed it, stamped in my passport. `Are you married to a Nigerian?' `No, I am married to a Canadian.' `Where is he?' `In Canada.' `No bank account without a permanent residence permit.' David interrupted at this point; `But sometimes they take a year to come through!' `It is a regulation.' I thought perhaps I could tempt them with US dollars. `I wish to put money in my account today - American dollars.' `No, you cannot open an account.' `Then will you cash my traveller’s cheque?' `No, we do not cash traveller’s cheques.' `Who does?' `They will cash them in Kaduna.' `Are they open on Saturdays?' `No.' I asked him to check the exchange rate. After a long time, he returned and gave me a piece of paper on which was written: US $0.3618 = 1.00N. Can this be true? Until devaluation the rate was CAN$1.65. = 1N. It was academic anyway because there was no way I could change it.

David at last got him to agree that a letter from the Minister of Education might open the door to an account for me, and I am going to Kaduna the last weekend in February to pick it up. That means a 2-hour taxi ride so I certainly hope it does the trick. `But' I had one last try, `my salary will be paid to your bank. What will happen to it if I have no account?' `We have a place we can put it, until you have an account.' OK. Frustrating indeed. `Why are they like that?' I asked David as we drove away. `Well’, he said, `there is so much graft, forgery of documents, dishonesty etc here that they have very strict regulations.’ `But I wanted to give them money! I didn't want a loan.' `Get used to it,' said David `it's the Nigerian way.'

Off to the post office and mailed some letters and stocked up on aerograms. Thought I might as well use David up to the limit, so asked him to call at a kiosk on the way home; bought a tin of Vim for cleaning and a sponge, more cornflakes and some matches and sardines. Then across to the hospital where there is an open stall with fruit and odds and ends, and bought my two staples, oranges and bananas.

Back home then and David produced a stack of things that John and Renee Harper had sent me from Bauchi State, where John is FSO and Renee is working on Women in Development programs. Dishes (more than I will ever need; I don't expect to do much entertaining here), a big pot for boiling water, a couple of plastic containers, a tin-opener (I have four now!) and the tour de force, a water-filter that works. My cup was full; the water has been a constant worry to me; this is a dangerous time to be drinking unfiltered water because the wells are so low - and I have been drinking it all the time in coffee but no more.

Just then Sister Noreen came round to see if I needed a ride to the post office. When she saw David she said `David, you must get a fridge for Joan. She has eaten no meat since she came here because she has nowhere to store it, and when it gets hot she must have cold drinks.' Alright, said David, he would try; but I don't hold out too much hope on that one. Then David said `You know, even if the power does ever come on again, you won't get it. Yours has been cut off.' And sure enough, the meter has been removed and the wires are just dangling. David and I returned to the principal's office and he said `Joan's power has been disconnected.' Yes, she agreed, it had. She would write a letter. Maybe she will and maybe she won't, but it's probably academic anyway, it's been off for a month now. `Then Joan should have a kerosene fridge.' `I have one at my house' answered the principal, `all it needs is a new bulb and I will get one next week when I go to Kaduna, and then she will have it.' Well...maybe again. Like everything else these days, I'll believe it when I see it.

David left then, and I returned to my class until 2 when it was time to go home. I rested for half an hour and then got up and attacked everything in sight with my new tin of Vim and sponge. The bathroom was unspeakable but I've been turning a blind eye until I could get some cleaner. Then I hauled all the ugly, broken old furniture that I don't use, into the spare bedroom and piled it there; less to dust and less to offend the eye. A hideous bureau in my bedroom took a lot of dragging but away it went, and underneath was a mouse's nest, full of droppings and little unspeakables. Then it was time to sweep all the floors and wash all the furniture. The floors needed washing too but I was just boiling by now; I stood in the bath and poured a bucket of cold water over myself, then had a well-earned lie on the bed.

A good day in many ways; plenty of help from David and I managed to scrounge some Canadian magazines which were in his car; a Macleans, a Saturday Night, and a New Internationalist.

I settled into the routine of teaching and then one day a messenger arrived to summon me to the principal's office so off I went. She had a fifth form student in there and was interrogating her. Suddenly she thrust a piece of paper at the girl and said `Go, write it all down.' The girl went snivelling away, still begging `Hear me, hear me' and the principal explained to me that the girl was to be inspected this morning (the form fives are all on teaching practice) and when the inspector from the Zonal education office arrived at the school, the girl was not there, but one of the teachers said that Mr Mosco (another of the teachers) had sent for her to go to his house. The inspector came to the school and told the principal, who with the vice-principal went to Mr Mosco's house where the guilty pair was found in the bedroom.

This little story is an interesting illustration of several things in this system. First, note that the principal has great authority. She needs no search warrant - straight into the bedroom she goes! Secondly, note the communications system; the inspector senses something amiss, drives here, and instant action follows. No phone calls because no phones, no memos or circumspect enquiries. Third, the ongoing problem of male teachers and beautiful young teenage students. Tom Charlebois in Ottawa told me that many girls in his Teachers' College in Gongola State were pregnant - always to the teachers.

Anyway, that wasn't why the principal had sent for me. The form five teachers had had a meeting and had more or less demanded that I should not be wasted on the `dummies' but should instead be utilised to help the form five students who will shortly be doing their final exams. As I've mentioned, passing exams is paramount here so they found a ready ear in the principal, who was brought here only last October to try to raise the standard of the school. Last year the pass rate was 8%! She agreed that this might be a better utilisation of my ability; what did I think? `Well sure' I said cautiously `but what about 4G?' `You could still take them for English, and take the eight classes of form five as well.' What branch of English did I think was most important?

`Oral English' I replied promptly, thinking of the order of language development; if they could speak it correctly they would be able to write it better, I'm sure. So she called in the head of the English department, a very smart young woman called Salome who told me the other day that her ambition is to be a journalist. She took my time table to see if everything could be fitted in and I don't yet know the result. One drawback to Oral English is that it cannot be fitted in to the weekdays, so is given on Saturdays as well from 8-12. I'm not anxious to work on Saturdays; for one thing I would like to be able to get away for the odd weekend and have already arranged to go to Kaduna in two weeks. Also I realise that as the weather heats up more I will be even more exhausted by the end of the week. However, I'll worry about all that when and if it happens.

Some little children are playing outside my window; they are aged about 6, 4 and 2 and the 6-year old has a newborn baby on her back, who is crying with the little wail of a baby not more than a month old. What about a CARE package of a million one-year's supply of the Pill?

I was visited as usual in the afternoon by Ruth and Vicky who are teaching me Hausa. Tomorrow they are coming to the market with me so that I can buy a mop and pail for the floor. Sweeping with the little grass broom merely rearranges the dust, and I have decided that if I am to be comfortable here I must wage war on the dust, by washing the floors and the furniture every day. No doubt the mop will cost a fortune but I think it will be worth the money. I also hope to buy a `bush lamp' (kerosene lamp) if I can possibly afford it. If not, it will be another bundle of candles. Three girls called in tonight to ask if they may bring their English homework tomorrow for some extra help. `Certainly' I said `but not before 4 o'clock.' That will give me time to visit the market and wash the floors.

The day after I wrote the previous entry was Saturday February 14th - Valentines Day and I must have been feeling a bit nostalgic for home cooking! It's funny the things you miss. After eating my unvaried breakfast of cornflakes, dried milk and a banana, and washing my few little dishes, I just stood there in the kitchen and thought `What I wouldn't give for my Saturday morning breakfast of bacon and egg and tomato' and my mouth just streamed at the memory of it. And toast! To bite into a piece of toast and marmalade, wouldn't that just be heaven?

My diet is boring, partly due to money but also lack of refrigeration. I might be able to buy eggs locally, there are always chickens scratching in my yard, but they would not keep more than a day in this heat, and I have no cooking oil because it is only sold in big tins and I would use so little of it that it would go off long before it was gone. Breakfast is always the same, lunch is always bread and tinned cheese and a tomato or bread and honey and a banana, and an orange or half a grapefruit. I try to do something different for supper. Last night I cooked rice, cut up a tomato and opened a little tin of mackerel.

I'd been looking forward to a sleep-in this morning after a week of early scrambles but when it came to the point I got up as usual at first light. Took my pills - calcium and vitamins and then extravagantly drew a whole bucket of water (I usually manage with half) from the drum. The last couple of days have been very hot and humid and I have perspired constantly. My hair was soaked with sweat this morning so I decided to wash it. Found to my delight that `Head and Shoulders' shampoo lathers perfectly in cold water so I washed my hair, then bathed (that takes half a bucket) and still had half a bucket of soapy water left so did a pile of washing; two shirts, a skirt, underwear, nightie and my towel. Used the soapy water to flush the toilet, used another half bucket to rinse my clothes - and there you are!

There is a lizard sitting on my kitchen window sill, inside the fly screen. I suppose he came in under the back door where there is quite a big space. I don't at all mind lizards but would prefer them outside as I have a horror of standing on one in the dark but I am reluctant to pick him up because I know that a bite from a lizard can give you blood-poisoning, so I'm afraid he will have to find his own way out.

Now I'm back from a successful expedition. My two young friends Ruth and Vicky had volunteered to go to the market with me this morning in order to buy a mop so I asked them to be here by 8.30 as I planned to be home before the intense heat round about noon. They were here on the dot, and off we set, first to the post office to mail some letters, then up to the market. We went to all the stalls that sell hard-ware type things, buckets, a few tools, bars of soap - but nobody had a mop. `Perhaps in Kafanchan' they all said. In desperation we left the market, walked on up the hill to a strange little grocery store; no mop, perhaps in Kafanchan they said. Kafanchan is a town a little bigger than Zonkwa and about 30 km from here. I asked Vicky `How much to Kafanchan?' `About 2 naira.' So I worked it out; 6 there and 6 back and I could still afford the mop anyway, and the lamp wasn't too urgent, I still have one and a half candles left. So back to the market to catch some `public transport'.

`Public transport' is an umbrella term which covers regular buses (expensive), mini-buses (cheap) and taxis (in between). They line up in a designated part of the market, a sign on top with their destination, and when they are full they take off. We found a decrepit 9-seater Datsun mini-bus which was half-full; I paid the 6 naira and we got in to wait. When there were 12 people in it counting the driver we left. As soon as we got on the Kafanchan road we struck a road-block; armed police, ten minutes wait. I hadn't thought to bring my passport and feared I'd be asked for it (being an obvious foreigner) but I wasn't, and presently off we went at the usual breakneck Nigerian speed, rattling and banging and regardlessly hitting bumps, stopping for nothing except to put passengers down and pick others up. There are no bus stops, you can flag a bus down anywhere. Another stop for the driver to `ease himself' - the euphemism here for going to the toilet. More appropriate too because there are no toilets; he simply dropped his pants, squatted on the side of the road and that was it.

On we went, through pretty country. The Zonkwa-Kafanchan district is mainly rolling, treed hills - obviously good fertile land and even at this time of the year there is greenery to be seen on trees and bushes; in the rainy season it must be quite lovely. We passed a group of hills and from studying the map afterwards I'd say that they may have been the edge of the Jos plateau. We reached Kafanchan and alighted at the market, which is where taxis and buses always stop, and started doing the stalls. `Do you have a mop for the floor?' `No; perhaps over the road' and then suddenly - miracle - a mop! Kind of jute fibre, not the greatest mop in the whole world perhaps, but a sight for sore eyes and I would have paid just about anything for it. `How much?' 5 naira; but my trusty companions got him down to 4 naira and we left, triumphant. Then a bucket; 5.50 naira down to 5, and a bush-lamp, 13 naira down to 10. Some sardines 1.80 naira and a tiny tin of mackerel for 1.40, a packet of candles for backup for 1.10 naira and then 1 naira on a bag of deep-fried pancakes (actually more like scones) to reward my helpers.

Back to the `garage' and into another bus in even worse shape than the first, and back to the Zonkwa market. By this time it was high noon and the heat was intense but Ruth and Vicky were still full of beans and wanted to run all over Zonkwa market, and as they were kindly carrying all my purchases I couldn't argue, so I bought bananas and tomatoes, Ruth bought bean cakes, and Vicky bought gari (made from pounded cassava) and then they haggled endlessly for two lengths of sugar cane, about 5 feet long. They offered me a piece but I declined as sugar cane is terrible stuff for giving you the runs, and I'm only just over that complaint myself.

At last! On the road to home. I had no hat and no sunglasses (stupidly) and I thought `I'm going to croak long before we get back to the school.’ But I didn't, I just trudged on and finally, about 1 o'clock, we got back here. I poured a bucket of water over my head, drank a whole bottle of water and subsided on the bed for an hour but I was tantalised by the thought of my new mop, so I got up, got a bucket of water, and went to town on the cleaning. It’s still not a palace but I'm gradually getting rid of the dirt and when I come in the door now there is a feeling of `Home'. There is a large electric fan in the living-room ceiling. It would make a tremendous difference to be able to switch that on in the evening, likewise I would absolutely kill right now for a cold drink, but I can't even hope now that `perhaps tonight it will come on' because since David noticed that I am not connected, even that faint hope is gone.

The water is also an ongoing problem; the girls are good-hearted but they just can't imagine that anyone would want more than a bucket per day; after all, that's all they ever use. It annoys me because there is a water tanker truck standing in front of the principal's house and it has a flat tyre which is why it is not being used. There is a bore across the road from the Teachers' College and in the past (so the other teachers have told me) the tanker filled up over there twice a week and came round and filled everyone's drum. I can't imagine that the College is too poor to buy a new truck tyre.

Sister Mary said one day `You know, I taught for years in Kontagora (that's in Niger State) and if the power was off for even one night everyone made such a fuss that it was always on again by the next night.' And yet, Kontagora is considered to be really `bush'. It's a pain indeed. I wouldn't care so much if I was convinced that nothing could be done. Sister Mary said `You should keep on at the principal' but I'm the very person who can't do that, because Nigerians all expect expatriates to complain, and I know they could (and would) just turn around and say `If you didn't want to live this way, you should have stayed at home.' Quite true.

Several times Sister Noreen gave me a lecture about putting up with bad living conditions. She thought I should tackle the principal and insist so I said that, about expats complaining, and she said very sternly `Well water is a basic necessity and if you don't complain nobody will think you're brave, they'll just think you are a very foolish woman.' She said that the principal should have the water tanker fixed, then it could make trips to Kogoro, near Kafanchan, to buy water. Nearly every public well in the compound was dry by then but some people had their own wells and those were still producing.

One day one of the teachers who lives in my street walked home with me and she said `You know, I have 5 little children and all the clothes are dirty, and I cannot wash them because there is no water.' I said `Why does not the principal have the tyre fixed on the water tanker?' And she said `Because she has a well, so she does not care. But you should go to her, you are an outsider and she would take notice of you. All the teachers hope that you will make her do it.' Oh boy! I've been elected, pawn again, to jump in and do something they are all chicken of doing. I have about 2 inches of muddy water left in the bottom of my drum. I have just boiled and filtered two days' supply and bottled it, and what's left isn't even clean enough to wash with, so I absolutely have to get a bucketful from somewhere today. It's hard enough to start the day without a shower; it is unthinkable to start without an all-over wash.

The answer to a maiden's prayer! Just after I wrote the last sentence, Sister Noreen arrived here with a tin of kerosene for my lamp. While she was here, my nextdoor neighbour Mallam, a very pleasant man, knocked at my door. Standing behind him were two girls, each with a bucket of water. One of the girls who had been in this morning for help with homework had told him at prayers that I had no water. We stood around chatting about water problems and he said `Of course I have a much greater problem than you do' - with a twinkle in his eye - and Sister Noreen began to laugh - `being polygamous, I mean.' He is Moslem, and like many Moslem men he has several wives and seemingly dozens of children.

Sitting across the table right now is a young girl called Hauwa; she brought her Islam homework to do. `But I can't help you with that' I said, `I can't even read it' (it's in Arabic). `Nor can I' she said. She lit my kerosene lamp for me, it gives out a pleasant light though I dislike the smell; still, can't have one without the other. Hauwa's parents live in Lagos, over 1000 km from here but her father (who is in the army) visited her this afternoon and she begged him to take her away. `Why don't you like it here?' I asked her. `Because some of the girls are winches.' `Winches?' `Yes, they want to suck my blood while I sleep.' `Oh - you mean witches.' Or vampires perhaps? Now we have been joined by my shopping friend Vicky who has brought her English assignment to do. As it is the same one that I helped Rosaline with this morning I already know the answers and it is tempting just to tell them to her but of course I must not do that. The girls chatter to each other in Hausa, but politely address me in English.

Two unpleasant things happened yesterday which I remembered during the night (naturally!). When I went to make my lunch, I opened the cupboard to get out a plate, and I saw something move at the back. I moved a glass and there was the most enormous cockroach I've ever seen in my life; two inches long, three quarters of an inch wide. I nearly died, but I couldn't leave it there with my dishes so I got a kleenex and grabbed it. It struggled and pieces of it broke off, other bits got squashed - ugh! Then at night I was reading in bed and I saw another cockroach on the sheet. But I had the candle balanced on the edge of the bed, so by the time I had moved that to a safe place, Cocky had disappeared. I stripped the bed, shook everything, but never found him. So, every time the dogs woke me in the night, you can guess what I was thinking about!

Had a much better day at school today; I must be getting the Nigerian attitude. As things stand now, I am taking 4G (remedial) for English, English Methods and Maths Methods, and I am taking all 8 of the fifth forms for Oral English and comprehension, probably week about, I haven't decided that yet. This gives me 19 periods out of 40, a light load, but I'm not asking for any more, and I'm not starting with the form fives until next week.

We always have staff assembly in the staffroom at 7.40 (actually a staff meeting) and then school assembly at 7.50. But next morning the principal told the story of Mr Mosco to staff assembly and declared forcefully that students are not to visit the male teachers in their homes. No firing or anything like that though; and Tom Charlebois told me that after causing several pregnancies at his school, one teacher was merely transferred, but not disciplined. Part of the way of life I'm afraid, so staff assembly lasted 20 minutes, then school assembly lasted half an hour as she harangued the students on the subject of not leaving the compound without permission, and not having slaves - the old English public school system of seniors making juniors do all their work, also hints of beatings.

Creditable as the principal's lectures on morals and standards are, I can't help wishing she would devote less time to those and more to solving the ongoing problems of water and power. I went to her office several times this morning hoping for a chat but there was always a line-up. Two more of the teachers came to me at break and said `Ah, the water problem, why don't you speak to the principal about it?' She's going to Kaduna tomorrow, supposedly to ask the Minister for money for water, but if nothing comes of that I'll try to do something on Wednesday.

The principal had asked me to assess a blind girl and make a recommendation on how she should be examined. She had a Blista braille machine but of course it would be far too slow for her in an examination situation so I said I would write to the Department of Education and ask for her to be examined orally. I said to the principal this morning `Would you like me to write that letter about Elizabeth Madaki today?' Oh, she would love me to do that darling - so as I had a spare I went to the library and tackled it. Made it sound quite official. `I am a specialist in Learning Disabilities, currently employed by the Nigerian Government at Women's Teachers' College, under the auspices of CUSO'...etc and in the end I asked for oral examinations for Elizabeth Madaki. I took it to the principal and she was just ecstatic. `Oh your beautiful handwriting' and the typist typed 8 copies to go to various different places and I had to sign them all. Under the place for me to sign was (Mrs Joan J. Carr) but I didn't have the heart to tell her so signed Joan F anyway because who would ever notice? but then under that was typed `Special Education Co-ordinator'. Didn't know I was that. While I was in the principal's office she asked me if my classes were all arranged. Yes, pretty well, I said. `Have you any problems?’ she asked. `Well - just the water.’ She said she had planned a trip to Kaduna today, but wasn't feeling well. Perhaps tomorrow. And the power? Yes, she said, she has already written a letter asking that my power should be reconnected, so if the power ever does come on I might have a chance of getting it.

As I had another spare late in the morning, I asked for permission to leave the grounds. Of course, of course, said the principal so off I went up to the post office to mail some letters. It's a long walk in the noonday sun and I was cooked by the time I arrived. `Has the mail for the Teachers' College been picked up?' I asked after buying some stamps, already knowing the answer only too well. `No.' `Then could you give it to me?' `No, we don't do that.' `If I show my ID to you?' `No.' As I've still received no mail from Canada it is constantly on my mind.

After six weeks of no mail I finally found out why. I was really dying for mail as I felt completely out of touch with everyone at home – there being no phones in Zonkwa (not even at the hospital) and my visits to Kaduna where I could make a phone call to Canada were few and far between. I was passing the vice-principal's office this morning at about 10.30 (the principal of course is on one of her frequent jaunts to Kaduna) and the mail is supposedly picked up at 9.30 so I stuck my head in and said `I was just wondering if the mail had come yet' and she said `I think the messenger is about to go, but check with the bursar.' OK, next door to the bursar. `Excuse me, I was just wondering if the mail is here yet.' Funny looks from the bursar. `He is just about to go.' On my way out I said to the typist `You see, I have had no letters from home and am anxious about my family.' At 11.30 I went back to the bursar's office. `Has the mail been picked up yet?' `No.' I was walking away from the building when the typist ran after me. `Excuse me - I thought you should know - the mail cannot be picked up because the post office will not release it.' `Why?' `Because the school has not paid the private bag fee.' `How much does the school have to pay?' `120 naira - and there is no money.' `Thank you for telling me.' Now I know, and I cannot afford to pay the 120 naira, and why should I? That is 12 days pay for me. And nobody else cares because nobody here ever writes or receives letters anyway. The nuns do, of course, as they are all from Ireland, but the convent has a separate private mail bag and they pick it up every day. It is just one more thing, and if the typist had not taken pity on me, I would never have known. So now I am faced with a new dilemma; whether to blow 120 naira on getting my mail, or whether just to do without along with the power and the water. I can cope with the deprivation of power and water somewhat better than mail. I feel so extremely isolated here. Lying awake in the night being serenaded by the dogs I thought about the mail and decided to pretend it was a mail strike. It would be nice to have letters but it certainly isn't worth 12 days’ pay to me.

Discipline in Nigeria was different from anything I’d ever been exposed to and I was considerably shocked by what I saw one day.

While my class were doing some writing this morning I was walking round between the desks and I happened to glance outside, and witnessed my first beating. One of the residential staff was standing there with a whip rather like a short stockwhip. Twelve girls stood in a line. One at a time they stepped forward and were given four lashes across the backs of the legs. It looked barbaric. One girl said something and got brought back for four more. Some of the girls glanced idly out the window but showed no surprise or interest, obviously it's a commonplace event. I don't have any discipline problems but even if I did there's no way I would tell the Discipline Mistress about it.

Feelings were mixed – some days I felt that things were improving then there would be a bit of setback! I actually can't believe how fast this week has gone. After the interminable dragging of my first few weeks, when I was struggling to survive one day at a time, life seems to have picked up into its normal pace again. My life has changed so completely in every single way, I feel as though I am a completely different person from the Joan Carr who caught the plane from Calgary. I always enter the kitchen in the morning with a little trepidation, wondering what will be there and this morning was no exception. My sponge, sitting on the sink, had the wriggling rear-end of an enormous cockroach sticking out of it. He had crawled into a hole and could not go backwards to get out. My first thought (a Canadian knee-jerk reaction of course) was to throw the whole thing away. Then my African common-sense took over; that sponge cost me 1 naira. I took it out the back and broke it open far enough to release the captive. The more I opened, the further in he crawled - but at last I shook him free, what a whopper, and he immediately scuttled back towards the house.

I was lying on the bed reading this afternoon when some girls came with water. I was so thrilled to get some extra that I decided to wash all the floors, so I wet-mopped right through the house. All the floors are cement but have been covered with vinyl tiles which are now in a state of decay - either broken at the corners, lifting or missing. But every time I wash them there's an improvement; a few more layers of dirt come off. I had just finished and was boiling, when Sister Noreen called in. The dear soul had brought me a little tub of margarine! I hadn't tasted it since I left Canada. It won't keep, of course, with no fridge, but while it lasts I'll surely enjoy it. That night I cooked some rice and put a blob of margarine on top. Nothing ever tasted so good!

School ends at 12.35 on Friday because that is the Moslem Sabbath. What a relief. Today is a boiling hot day, searing north wind, clouds of dust. `The hot season is upon us' says Sister Noreen `most here say that April is the worst month.’ `Worse than this?' `You'll get used to it.' I came straight home (still no mail of course) and started to boil and filter my week's supply of water. I allow a 1.5 litre bottle per day for drinking and teeth, so I make 7 of them. You can buy bottled water even in Zonkwa so there is always a supply of plastic bottles. I brought 4 with me from Kaduna and Renee Harper sent 6 more so I have plenty. Normally it is bottled and kept in the fridge of course; I wish! But I can't moan, I had bread and jam with margarine today for lunch, lovely. I keep it in a little pot of water, hoping the evaporation will keep it cooler than room temperature.

My kind friend Sister Noreen used to sometimes invite me up to the convent for morning tea. About eight nuns lived there; Sister Noreen was the only teacher, a couple of them worked in the hospital, several were too old to work and a couple of them worked in the outlying villages on projects such as women’s health. I often picked up bits of useful information there – for example:

At the convent this morning they were talking about power meters; the one from my house has been taken so I am not connected to the power system. `They're hard to get' the visiting priest said. I didn't understand that, and said so. `Doesn't the power authority supply them?' I asked. `They're supposed to, but they always say they haven't got any, and tell you to buy your own.' `How much are they?' `300 naira in the market' was the answer. Good night! A month's salary for me. No way; I could buy a year's worth of candles for about 50 naira.

The local snack food was delicious. Food generally there is peppery which is because pepper is a preservative and as there is no refrigeration it serves a useful purpose. I am just back from the market, and enjoying my favourite snack of beancakes which I bought there. I buy a few most days, and justify my greed (because I love them) by telling myself that I need the protein which is no doubt true. They are made from local beans, soaked, skinned, then pounded to a pulp and mixed with evaporated milk and spoonfuls of the mixture are dropped into boiling oil and deep-fried. They are a comparable snack to potato chips but much tastier and I would think more nutritious. When Nigerians buy them, they always have a spoonful of ground red pepper (like cayenne) added to the bag, but I don't, it burns my mouth.

At first some of the girls would escort me to the market and translate for me but after a few weeks I found I could manage and enjoyed my trips to the market on Saturdays. I got up early and did my Saturday chores; washed my hair (I wash it every morning, but only use shampoo, which is unobtainable here, on Saturdays) and my week's clothes, ate breakfast and cleaned up and set off for the market at about a quarter to eight. First to the post office to mail some letters, then across the road to the market. People were just arriving with their wares; women who had walked for miles with huge piles of firewood on their heads, sacks of grain and beans, bundles of grass brooms. The raw meat had already attracted its coating of flies and I passed by quickly. My main goal was to buy a bunch of spinach; ever conscious of my low-iron diet, I have resolved to eat greens every weekend and try for a few eggs during the week. I wandered round for half an hour before Eureka! a man arrived with bundles of a green vegetable. It's not exactly spinach, but serves the same purpose as far as I'm concerned so I picked up a bundle. `How much?' `10 kobo - and I dash you one.' He gave me two bundles, which will do for two meals, for 10 kobo - definitely the bargain of the morning. I had remembered today to take plastic bags; they are not supplied and cost 20 kobo if you have to buy one.

Next, a nice pile of tomatoes for 1 naira, and into the backpack they went with the spinach. I'm getting a little low on rice, and as that's my staple I thought I'd stock up. A bowl of rice, tipped into a plastic bag (had to buy that one) cost me four naira. I nearly croaked, I thought it would be one naira. I doubt if it could weigh more than a pound. It's interesting that rice never used to be eaten much in Nigeria (yam is the staple) until the oil boom when Nigeria began to import it from, I think, Thailand. Nigerians got to like it and still buy it although the price makes it something of a luxury item. I'll certainly spin mine out. Then to the next stall for 10 little beancakes for 50 kobo and a box of matches for 20 kobo and a packet of candles for 1.20 naira, because I still use candles in preference to my smelly kerosene lamp. I had spent 7 naira and it was time to set out for home, extremely hot by now. One of my best things is a little nylon day pack that I brought, it's perfect for the market. The walk home seemed long because of the heat and I was very glad to get back here, wash my vegies and put them away, and drink about three cups of water.

7 pm: The compound is rejoicing tonight because the power came on this evening. Girls keep passing my window and seeing my candle through the window they open my back door and flick the light switch and are disappointed when nothing happens. Then I have to explain that I am not connected to the power supply; the wires have been cut and I have no meter. Oh! Sad! they say. I've had my usual stream of afternoon and evening visitors - `We have come to greet you.' They sit down and chat, we do a little English and some Hausa and look at photos. Sometimes I am writing a letter (or eating) and they just sit and watch me, fascinated. In fact three girls (right) sat and watched me eat my supper of rice, spinach and tomatoes. They told me that what I call spinach is alayyafo. Anyway, it's good!

My contact with the girls was always a delight and I learned so much from them. I spent more time with the girls than I did with the staff because the women, although friendly, were all so busy. Most had children and each of them had a little `farm’ which was a plot of the school land where they grew vegetables. After school they would go straight to their farms to work before going home to cook for their families – but the girls were frequent visitors. The girls on the left were all dressed up to celebrate their victory in a sports contest.

One of the students walked home with me today and when we got to my back door she looked around and said `Madame, your compound is very dirty; give me your broom.' I did, and she swept every dead leaf away, leaving just the bare earth looking very neat. Then two girls arrived wanting my buckets; `The tap is open madame; we will get you some water.' There is a tap at the Girls' Secondary School which has a lock on it. The water comes from a bore, and for short periods of time (so that the girls can do their washing and wash their hair on Sunday morning) it is unlocked. They each brought me a bucket of water and then sat down to talk. `Do you have any medicine madame?' asked one of them. `Medicine for what?' `For worms in the stomach.' `No, I'm sorry, I don't; do you have worms?' `Yes, very badly.' Oh yuck! We have to undergo a 6-monthly medical which includes a stool sample for worms. Then we can get medication if it is needed. But worms are pretty well endemic here, I imagine all the students have them.

There are certain things one must close one's eyes to if one is to survive; the girls use my cup, handle everything I own, and if I let myself worry about what I might be catching, I would go mad. All the girls who came in last night asked me what did I do yesterday? What did I buy at the market? What did I pay for it? When I told them I paid 4 naira for the rice they were horrified. `But rice only costs 3.50, and you can always press them down to 3.00. They cheated you.' `Why do they always cheat white people?' Various answers: a) They know that Americans have lots of money. b) They hate Americans so they want to cheat them. c) They hate Americans because they have more education.

The last was interesting I thought. The emphasis on education is strong here; `Get a good education and you'll get on' `Study hard and you'll be successful'. That is perhaps the reason why I am quite well accepted by the girls; they think I hold the key that will unlock the door for them. I hope they’re right, but the task is a daunting one. On Friday I found the sheets with the results of the Teachers' Exams, which is what our form five students will be doing in May. Out of approximately 300 that wrote the exams last year, 25 passed all exams and got their teaching certificates. What of the rest? Postings can be bought, and if their parents were rich they still got jobs, raising another generation of illiterates. One of the girls who came last night, Binta, is in form three but can barely understand English; the other girls translate her Hausa for me. I had offered to help her, so she brought the first primary reader and we went right through it together. She knew about one word in four, and doesn't even know how to sound the words out phonically. A word such as `Let's' she would always say as `look' because she recognised the first letter. One of her friends (same form) said `Can you help me with my English assignment?' `Sure, what is it?' `We have to make a list of the phrasal verbs.' Another example of the highly academic approach to learning here.

Cockroaches continued to plague me and seemed indestructible – they just laughed at insect spray. The nuns told me that if I wanted to keep the rats out I should be careful always to keep my doors closed, which I did, but nothing seemed to help with the cockies.

When I turned my bed down last night, there was a huge cockroach languishing between the sheets. Despite my frantic efforts to grab him, he managed to evade me and I could not find him again. They run so fast! I have just searched my bed again, hoping for more success in the daylight but of course he is well and truly hidden and no doubt will pop out to spoil my sleep again tonight.

At break this morning a large chunk fell off one of my bottom molars. I wish now that I had had every tooth in my head capped before coming over here. There is no dentist in Zonkwa, I think there is one in Kaduna but I can only go there at weekends and I'll bet they don't work then. At present it's not aching, though it's sharp and is making my tongue sore, but what remains is almost all filling and I can imagine the whole thing breaking away now. Nothing in the CUSO medical kit for that.

As I had a double spare during the morning I decided to dash down to the little kiosk in the main road. If I wait until school ends it's too hot, so at 11.10 I trotted down and bought another packet of cornflakes (my great staple, but not cheap at 2.50 naira), a tin of sardines for 2 naira, a loaf of bread for 50 kobo and 3 eggs for 1 naira. Then I saw some bottles of orange cordial. `How much?' `2 naira 50 kobo.' Shockingly extravagant, but I bought it anyway because I am sick of the taste (or non-taste, I should say) of warm boiled water. Across to the open-air stall at the hospital then; they always sell fruit and I bought a bunch of bananas and 6 oranges for 1 naira. I shouldn't have to buy any more food this week and I'm glad of that on two counts; one, I'm getting low on money - but the main reason is that it is so hot if you have to go anywhere after about 9.00 am.

I developed a heat rash after a couple of weeks there. In the CUSO medical kit I found Caladryl which seemed to help for a few days but then it got worse so I tried cortisone ointment, also in the kit, and it had more effect. Every time I was in the sun (which was most days) it flared up - stung and itched and got fiercely red. It was funny about the sun there; for some reason it didn't seem to tan you. Even the nuns who had been there for 20 or 30 years were not tanned, and I was as pale as if it were mid-winter.

I had a double of English from 12.40 to 2.00. The room was so hot and the girls are squashed in two to a single desk, sometimes sharing one chair too because there are never enough to go round. Three new girls from Kafanchan today made the seating shortage even more acute. There are huge piles of broken desks and chairs in the compound; I even have two broken desks in my front garden, but nobody ever fixes anything here. The motto seems to be `Just throw them out and do without.' There is a perfectly good school bus sitting in front of the school. It has four flat tyres and I'll bet it will stay there until it gradually falls apart. Needless to say, the water tanker still has a flat tyre and although the rest of the compound now has power from 6-12 at night, I do not because I am not connected. One of the girls called here this afternoon to ask me to lend her some money to get home. She lives in Lagos, over 1000 km from here, and her father is a bigwig in the Army; she has a photograph of him with Brigadier Babangida, the President of Nigeria. As it's a military government here, I'll bet he makes a lot more money than I do, so I said Sorry, but No.

I'm pouring with sweat having just wet-mopped all my floors. They look appreciably cleaner than they did when I came, but it is certainly not without its toll! Having gone all the way to Kafanchan to buy the mop, it broke the second time I used it. So today I sticky-taped it all together again using a foot of my trusty 3M fibre-tape (glad I brought that, but wish I'd brought some little tools as well) and I wasn't halfway through the floors when the head fell off the metal part. It was made of the flimsiest tin you could imagine. I battled it with the tin-opener but could not make it stay together so finished the job just pushing the head around with the stick.

Part of my job description had been to organise workshops in Special Education for our own and neighbouring schools.

Next day I went to the staffroom at break and Mrs Kure, wife of the Zonal Director and a teacher at the school, came to me. `The principal told me to help you to organise a special education workshop for the whole staff, but I cannot help you; I am too busy at home.' Well, you can't argue with that; she has five children, the eldest with cerebral palsy. `Teresa will help you.' OK, Teresa is the one who went to the market with me the first time; she also has five children. But she and Mrs Kure had both attended a 3-day special education workshop last November in Zaria at the university so she had a copy of the program and a copy of the special education syllabus which is supposed to be implemented in the teachers' colleges in 1988. Teresa and I had a meeting at 11.10 when we both had a spare. `When is it to be?' I asked. `On a Saturday, all day - perhaps March 14th?' `How many sessions?' `Six' `How long for each one?' `We thought an hour for each.' `How many sessions do you want me to give?' I asked. `You are so experienced' said Teresa with her best smile `Could you give them all?'

Am I ever glad I bought the good old Alberta Special Education Resource Book. I didn't bring the binder, it is coming with all my other books, in 3-6 months, by surface mail. But I pulled out the most useful parts and stuck them all in my suitcase. I can probably pad it out enough, but it is the thought of teaching non-stop for 6 hours that is a little daunting. I must remember to take a canteen of water with me as there is nothing to drink in the school except the dreaded unboiled water.

While I'm writing this I am cooking my rice for supper. I no longer eat lunch when I come in at 2, I just have a drink and flake out on the bed. Then I cook supper at 5 - tonight it's rice, tomatoes and a hard-boiled egg. Before I was always cooking in the dark, now it is all cleaned up in daylight, works much better. Still no power of course although the rest of the compound has it, but after hearing about the cost of meters I am not pushing for it. Still no mail and I have become resigned to the fact that there never will be. The cortisone ointment did not help my rash and the Caladryl didn't either. So, except to let me sleep at night (when I use Caladryl to stop the maddening itch) I'm ignoring it.

I had just finished eating when Sister Noreen arrived in her little car. She has a Datsun, 11 years old, for which she paid 2000 naira; she says if she sold it now she would get 7000 naira. New cars (like David Ozolua's air-conditioned Peugeot) cost 50,000 naira. Sister Noreen gets 500 naira a month and she said `I couldn't possibly live on your salary. You should tell CUSO it's not enough.' I'm listening to the BBC news and just heard that at the weekend a bus swerved and went in the ditch in eastern Nigeria, killing 35 people and seriously injuring many of the 65 survivors. It's amazing that that doesn't happen every day of the week here, I have never seen such crazy driving in my whole life.

This has been quite a day of excitements. First of all, a girl summoned me from class at 8.00. `The vice-principal wishes to see you.' So I went to the vice-principal's office (the principal, as usual, is in Kaduna) and she showed me a slip of paper with JHON CARR written on it and said `Is this you?' `Well' I said cautiously `that is not how I spell my name, but it certainly could be.' `Good' she said triumphantly `I was just about to send this back to the post office when I thought of you. Sign it, and the messenger will collect your letter.' Wow! Mail at last, after the long drought; but why would it be registered mail?

Then, at 10 o'clock, one of the teachers brought a man to me. `This is Michael. He can connect your power for you.' He said he would go and look at my house, and tell me what was to be done. Sister Noreen said `Come to the convent and have a cup of coffee.' Good idea. We trotted over there, and there were all the usual goodies; tea and coffee, hot wholemeal scones, jam, butter and cheese. A priest was in from Mibushi for morning tea, and 6 or 7 other nuns, one of whom is the head of the order and is simply known as `Betty'. They are a friendly and amusing lot, and my visits there are the highlights of my social life. The priest said in the course of conversation `You know, there are lots of rabid dogs around here.' `Oh Eddie, there are not. Now don't go frightening Joan, she has enough to put up with.' Indeed, I have enough dogs to put up with; this morning I was wakened at 3am by women passing my window on the way to the well (later, there is no water). As well as waking me, they woke all the dogs in the neighbourhood and they proceeded to bark, fight, snarl, yap and whine until about 5 when I finally dropped off, only to be sleeping like the dead at 6.30 when I have to rise. My other disturber of the sleep last night was a cockroach which crawled over my shoulder just as I was dropping off. I grabbed him, but in the rush for the torch he got away and of course hid - never to be found again until tonight, no doubt.

After a pleasant half-hour at the convent, I walked back and was met by Michael the electrician. `I can connect your power today, if you will give me the money.' `How much?' `75 naira.' Oh well, it's a lot less than 300 and I am seduced by the thought of a cool drink. `Come to my house and I will give it to you' hoping I still had enough. I did, and handed it over. Back to school then, and into the library as I had a spare. There the messenger found me `A letter for you madame.' The long-awaited, looked forward to, letter - at last. In the envelope was a forwarded letter from Wilma Oxley, some newspaper clippings and a note from Reg saying that Tom Beach (CUSO Ottawa) had phoned him, but he could not get to the phone because he is on crutches!! Crutches? Not a word of why he is on crutches. The letter had arrived in Zonkwa on February 20th but I didn't get it till today because it has taken them 5 days to send the slip and have me sign it.

Still the day did have its compensation; Michael arrived in mid-afternoon and did the job. The 75 naira was not for a meter, because I still don't have one. It was for some kind of little breaker-box thing. He said he will come back tonight (the power doesn't come on till 6) and check that it works. Fingers crossed!

The other item of the day was this; I had planned to go to Kaduna on Saturday, returning on Sunday. But at the convent they said `Remember it's the last Saturday of the month and that means you can't leave the compound until 12 - or is it 10? Nobody was sure. `Why?' `Because this is the government sanitation campaign; on the last Saturday of every month, everyone must clean the compounds in the morning.' So now I'll have to go on Friday - but I am not expected until Saturday. What if Brenda is not there? That's a risk I'll just have to take. The further complication is that the whole point in going is to try to get a letter from the Ministry to assure the bank that I have permission to live here; until that happens, I cannot open a bank account and I cannot get any money either. But the Ministry closes at 1 pm on Fridays and so does everything else because it is the Moslem Sabbath, so I can't get there in time anyway. Fingers crossed that David has procured it for me and given it to Brenda to give to me, otherwise March will be a long hungry month.

Later: 6.30 came, all the other houses in the compound blazed into light but not mine. Nor did Michael return to check; I hope he hasn't skipped out to Lagos on my 75 naira. Off to bed with my little candle.

I was wakened in the night by a roaring wind, and thought `How lovely if it brought rain.' Forlorn hope of course, all it brought was clouds of dust. At the earliest opportunity I went to see the principal and asked for permission to leave right after my classes tomorrow to go to Kaduna. I have nothing after 10 o'clock because the form fives have their phys ed practical exam. I said I needed to go to the Ministry and she said `You can't go to the Ministry on Friday, it's a closed day. I said I thought it was open till 1 pm but she said No. She said `Go to the Ministry on Monday morning; I am going up on Monday and you can ride with me.' If I can't get the letter from David (or if I have to sign something) that's what I'll do. Then I told her about the power, and asked if I could be reimbursed for some of it as 75 naira is about a week's salary for me, and she said `But you should not have paid that man to do it, I have written a letter.' That was two weeks ago, and it only has to go up the road a few kilometres, so what's the holdup? And how long was I supposed to wait for it? I gave her the receipt and she came to me later and gave me the whole 75 naira, very acceptable thank you very much but in the meantime I had given Michael the key to go up to the house and see if he could fix whatever was wrong with the power. She gave me a lecture on the dangers of letting anyone in my house. `He may have cleaned you out!' she declared.

The Special Education workshop has now been changed from one day to two, and, pleasant surprise, it looks like being on a Thursday and Friday, instead of a Saturday. I'm all for that! A fair bit of my spare was spent on arrangements for that and the rest of it was taken up with showing my photos to three or four of the male teachers who always hang out and chat in the library. Yesterday they were asking me questions about the country, the economy, etc so I said I'd take some pictures today to show them. They were all fascinated and of course it was `How I would love to go there.' `Well you'd better save your money, because a plane ticket to London from Kano is 2500 naira, so to Canada I imagine it would be at least 6000.' They said `You will go home for your holidays of course?' That's a laugh! On 300 naira a month - and absolutely no way of getting money into the country - I'll be lucky if I can go to Kaduna. It was a long hot morning and I was glad to get home and stand in the bucket pouring cups of water over my head. Then I lay down to cool off, but soon there was a knock at the door and Binta (one of my evening reading students) had brought me a bucket of water. That was certainly well worth getting up for as the drum is getting low again. It was muddy water but the dirt settles to the bottom after a while. Then the men came to install my meter; Michael was there and another man, I assume from REB (Rural Electrification Board) then another man came along and shouted at them for a long time but it was in Hausa so I could make no sense of it at all. The big thing is - Will it work?

Tomorrow I will leave as soon as classes end at 12.30 so by this time (it's now 4 pm) I should be in Kaduna. I have only the vaguest idea of how to get to Brenda's so my struggles will only begin when I reach Kaduna - the taxis all finish at the central market and I know that is miles from where Brenda and Andrew live. Hopefully I'll be able to persuade a driver to take me to their house, without getting too severely ripped off, and they're not expecting me till Saturday anyway, so the whole caper has the potential for many slip-ups. but the thought of getting away from Zonkwa for a weekend is a strongly motivating one. Now Michael is back and is installing the cut-out? cut-off? box (which he yesterday installed on my front veranda) inside the house. `We are afraid of thieves' he explained. Indeed. Well, lets hope they don't get off with the meter when I get it.

Later: Wow! Fingers crossed worked! My lights, fan and fridge are all working. In Kaduna I'll try to get an adaptor plug (they're 3-pin here) and then I'll be able to plug in my radio and iron. Steady stream of visitors tonight - `How do you like the lights madame?' Very much thank you!

I woke early and hopped up, full of energy at the thought of the impending holiday weekend. Washed my hair, bathed, washed the week's dirty clothes, my sheets and towel. Dashed off to work and got well through the quick morning until the last period when I had a spare and went to the library to work. The usual contingent of men was in there (the women rarely use the library) and I was working away, and they were chatting as usual. Suddenly one of them looked at me and said `Are you teaching English to form 4G?' `Yes.' `Then why are you teaching from the form one book?' `Because they are having trouble at the form one level.' `But' he said `how do you expect them to pass their exams if you don't cover the work?' `They wouldn't pass them anyway, because they are far below the standard' I explained patiently. `Ah' he said triumphantly `you're just like the last CUSO teacher.' (Carol taught remedial maths.) `She taught them baby work and when it came to the exams, she had covered none of the work.' `Well' I said `I don't think you can blame all of that on the other CUSO teacher, or on me either.' `What do you mean?' `The figures speak for themselves,' I pointed out `you prepared 300 girls for their form five exams, but only 25 passed.' I felt a bit mean but not very, he provoked me! It was nearly time for the bell so I gathered myself together and stomped home to get my pack and hat and took off on my holiday weekend.

There are mini-buses to Kaduna for 7 naira or taxis (station-wagons with three seats) for 8 naira. A taxi was coming so I flagged it down, which one does by waving right hand towards thigh, something like calling a dog. It stopped and I hopped in; the ride went fast in every sense of the word and we hit Kaduna before 3.00. Taxis all stop in all towns and cities at the Central Market, though if you know where you are going you can alight sooner. I of course did not so I went all the way to the market. `Where can I get a taxi to Dikko Road?' I was directed to another taxi-park about a block away. Boy, was it hot!! Luckily I had worn a hat and my good polaroid sunnies. Came to the taxi-park, said `How much to Dikko Road?' to the first driver. `Five naira' he said. `Wow, that's steep' I thought, but what choice has one? I paid up but when I told Brenda later she said `You were seriously ripped off; that is a one naira fare and in fact if you get off at the corner (which they are near) it's only 40 or 50 kobo.' I understand why Nigerians cheat whites but it doesn't make it any more palatable especially as I have less money than they do, probably. Brenda says 10 naira is a labourer's day-hire (that's what I make).

Anyway, I made it. Got to 15B Dikko Road which is a good-sized house in a large walled garden. The steward, Haruna, was at the gate; he told me that Madame was not home, but he had the key and admitted me, showed me the bathroom - running water! - and got me a cold drink from the fridge. Bliss! the first cold drink I'd had for a month. Fifteen minutes later, Brenda came home. She didn't mind at all that I had come a day early, in fact seemed pleased. She then produced an enormous packet of mail, much of which had arrived at the CUSO office (where they date-stamp the mail) as early as February 13th. So all the time I was feeling so isolated and depressed, there was all this mail sitting in Kaduna. Typical David; he knew I had to come in at the end of the month for the bank letter so didn't bother to forward anything. Of course, I had to remind myself, David is not an expat and therefore doesn't realise how one craves mail.

Brenda had to go out so I sat there luxuriating in letters. Two from Reg, magazines, photos, cryptoquotes, newsclips, three from Mum, two from Belinda and four from Madeline, plus the government had sent my T4 slip, there was a letter from University of Athabasca about convocation of my degree (won't be there!), and David had sent 200 naira with a CUSO loan agreement to sign, and there was a form from the Ministry and a letter from David which supposedly may help me to open a bank account.

Andy, Brenda's boyfriend, came home then. He is an English aeronautical engineer who works for AIEP whatever that stands for, a German firm. The company supplies this house; there are two houses in this compound and the other tenant works for the same company. All kinds of mod. cons; air conditioning, stereo, TV, a VCR, lovely bathroom (my focus!) and beautiful furniture. We had a delicious meal cooked jointly by Andy, Brenda and Haruna, who used to work for a Japanese couple and they taught him to make okra in tempura batter in Japanese style. Chicken casserole, rice, vegies; it was a great feast for me, after my rather boring diet. We sat around and chatted afterwards; no dishes of course because Haruna does those. When I went to bed (about 9) I read all my letters again; an even greater feast than the food.

On Saturday morning Brenda took me shopping. There are three supermarkets in Kaduna and we went to them all. I bought many things that are not available in Zonkwa; tinned margarine that does not require refrigeration, tinned cheese ditto, porridge and cereal, a converter plug, tins of fish, a tin of Raid for the cockroaches and other bugs, and sundry other bits and pieces. Then home for a late lunch on the patio, and off to the Telephone Exchange. You fill in a form, go to a teller and pay, bring the form back and hand it over the counter, and then wait until your number is dialled. There are only two phones for dialling the exchanges; those are behind the counter so you can watch them working and often only one person is working so it all takes a long time.

`What's the country code?' I asked Brenda. `604' she said. I should have realised that was wrong. `What about the area code then?' `No' she said firmly `you don't need to put in the area code.' Well, I thought, that seems weird - but everything here is so different anyway that I went ahead, paid my 20 naira, and eventually he dialled my number. Then he called out `Carr - out of order.' I thought - they've had a big snowstorm and the lines are down. I was bitterly disappointed but could do nothing. We went home, sat around and talked. Brenda has led an interesting life; BA, Dip.Ed at UBC (she's from Vancouver), has lived and worked in Sydney, New Zealand, England for five years, worked for a year in an orphanage in India for just room and board, then joined CUSO. Her mother is deaf so she has always signed fluently and that's why she was interested in the deaf, and thought of starting a pre-school for the deaf when her CUSO term ended. So she went back to Canada, got $12,000 from Save the Children fund, went to Rotary in Kaduna and got an Alhaji (strictly speaking, a Moslem who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, but also used for a very rich man) to donate a house to run the school in - and opened it with five kids in January. CUSO bought her a Mitsubishi van and she is paid by CUSO; it is what they call a fully-funded CUSO project.

In the evening we watched a video `Night Crossing', quite entertaining but anything on a screen would entertain me! On Sunday morning Andy was going out to buy vegies and said he would take me to the Telephone Exchange. We shopped first; I bought carrots (unobtainable in Zonkwa) and tomatoes. There is a great variety of fruit and vegetables in Kaduna at the roadside stalls. We went to the exchange and I filled in the form. There were at least forty people at the counter; Sunday is the most popular day. I filled in the form and we stood and waited for about half an hour, then Andy must have been thinking about my form because he said `I didn't think you lived in Vancouver.' `I don't.' `But 604 is the Vancouver area code - Brenda told you the wrong thing.' Oh no! `Please' I called `return my form; I must change it.' Mine was on top by now and the clerk returned it to me, I changed it and paid an extra five naira because he thought 604 was UK and had only charged me fifteen naira instead of twenty, then I gave it back to the clerk and it went on the bottom of the pile again. Another half-hour to wait but this time I was feeling more optimistic. Suppose they had got through to that Vancouver number yesterday; two days pay to talk to a wrong number in Vancouver! At last he dialled my exchange and asked for the number. A couple of minutes, then `Carr - Booth 8' so I dashed over, had a not bad line to Reg (4am for him), explained that you can't make collect calls from Nigeria and that I could only talk for 5 minutes. I did most of the talking and was cut off in mid-sentence, but it was worth every penny just to hear the dear old voice. I felt quite restored after that, and plan to do it again in a month or so.

Home then, and Brenda wanted me to see the nursery school so off we went. It's about 20 minutes drive from their house, and near the Kachia Road which is also the Zonkwa Road, so she planned to drop me at the taxi-park after I'd seen the school. Most impressive; a pleasant three-bedroom house with very large backyard which Brenda has turned into a lovely playground with monkey-bars etc. She bought tons of stuff in Canada and is another children's book freak so she had all the things that I would buy myself. Small tables and chairs, good shelves etc, it was quite an eye-opener to me, having seen only my school where we have two girls to most of the single desks, and often two girls to a chair too, and nothing in the room but a splintery old blackboard with hardly any paint left on it, and the daily one stick of chalk. We spent an hour there, then Brenda drove me to the taxi-park and dropped me there. I found a Zonkwa taxi but they won't leave till they're full so I sat for an hour reading my book. It was boiling hot but I can almost tune out the heat like noise now, I just ignore it. At last the driver had his seven passengers so off we went like the customary bats out of hell. I got him to let me out at the hospital so I didn't have to walk all the way back from the market. My pack was heavy as I'd bought a lot of tins and it was hot but I made it home and came in the back door with a sigh of relief. I'd hoped to find the fridge cold as it had been closed all the time and had been on both nights, but it wasn't. So that's put paid to the hope of being able to keep food; still I've got pretty well into the swing of my diet and have some treats from Kaduna.

I had washed all my bedding on Friday morning. My mattress was awful with a hollow in the middle and I thought the one on the other bed might be better, so I changed them over with much huffing and puffing and sneezing because of the dust. Cleaned up the dust, make my bed, had a bath in my bucket (sweltering by now) and washed all my weekend clothes. Brenda had told me how to clean the porcelain candle in my water filter; I didn't even know you had to, so I took it to pieces, scrubbed it and boiled it and then boiled and filtered my water. As I'd had no lunch I had an early tea of brown bread which I had bought in Kaduna, and peanut butter, ditto. I've never been too fond of peanut butter but it's good protein and I bought it for that. The bread is very good and I'm eating it all the time until it goes because it doesn't keep in the heat and it's so good I don't want to waste a crumb.

The usual round of visitors at night, wondering where I have been for the last two nights. One girl came to ask me to help with an essay. Topic: Discuss co-education in schools. `Well, start off by writing down all the points you can think of for and against it.' Her first point was `We could learn from the boys because boys are cleverer than girls.' 'No, they aren't' I said. `Oh yes, they are' she replied. `Boys can do science and math, and girls can't.' Groan! Women’s Lib, where are you? Went to bed about 10 and slept right through till 4.30, a record - the mattress is much better.

After such a lovely weekend the next day was a rude shock.

The day had an extremely unpleasant beginning. The principal announced at staff assembly that there would be a public caning at assembly this morning. Grace Lowell, a very bright fifth form girl, had been missing from school and would not say where she had been. Protecting a teacher perhaps? I say that because Brenda told me she got into several terrible scraps with teachers at her school at Obi because they were all on with the girl students and she felt that was wrong. She was a house mistress and just couldn't close her eyes to it any more, after one of her girls who had been the `handmaid' as it were of several of the teachers became pregnant. Nobody was sure who the father was. She had an abortion and died, but there was no action against any of the teachers. There was a male principal and vice-principal. I said `Did you achieve anything?' and she said `Nothing, except that I made a lot of enemies.'

Anyway - back to this morning. Several other girls had also been missing from the compound so the principal beat them first. She used a piece of electrical flex, the sort with wire inside a plastic coating, about a metre long. They had to put their hands in front of them and she whipped them on the bottom and backs of legs. If they moved she delivered a few extra blows for good measure. Then it was Grace's turn. The principal is angry with her because Grace is stubbornly refusing to tell where she has been, so she was thrashed on arms, shoulders, backs of legs - wherever it landed. By the time she'd finished there were great weals on her arms and back and they were bleeding into her green dress. I just about threw up. What a barbaric place this is.

Sister Noreen came round tonight; she is the only other person in this whole school that would see anything wrong with that. She said she used to stay away from assembly if there was going to be a beating but then she thought, if you work in the system, you can't just ignore the parts you don't happen to enjoy. True.

The school has now run out of white chalk - so today we had red and green, neither of which show up on the bare wood which is all that's left of the blackboards. The messenger came to me in room 4G. `Two letters for you, Madame.' Oh joy! Mum and brother John. `Would you come with me please Madame? There is one mail that I do not know what to do with.' `Certainly.' I would have walked to Kaduna and back for him at that moment; he brought my mail! So we went down to the office and there were three large boxes addressed to Elizabeth Madaki, the blind student with whom I have been working. `I think I know what's here.' and ripped one open. Sure enough a big binder of Braille notes for her to study from. Great! `Put them on the principal's desk please.' I told the messenger. `When the principal returns from Kaduna (yes, she's there again) she can decide what we should do with them.'

I had a spare last period and was working in the library when one of the men came to me. `The girls in Home Economics have made some delicious food and they are selling it for one naira a plate.' So I went over to the Home Ec. building and said to the teacher `Are you selling food?' `Oh yes' - big smile - `a beautiful vegetable salad.' Oh dear. I couldn't back out of it now without being offensive; she took the tea towel off a big bowl and showed me. `Would you like some?' `Yes please.' So she got one of the girls to wash a plate - in the bucket of course - and filled it, and covered it with another plate. What a risk I thought; it's been sitting here, probably for an hour or two, unrefrigerated, with mayonnaise or something on it. Well, I thought, I'll throw it out when I get home. But when I got home, I discovered that it was made from cooked vegetables which sort of put a different complexion on things. I'll just taste it and see what it's like - and I scoffed the whole plateful and felt like licking the plate. I'm starved for vegies and it was delicious. Now I'm waiting to see if I get sick. Brenda gave me a bottle of Milton on Sunday. That is for sterilising such things as lettuce, grapes and tomatoes that cannot be peeled. I had just been washing my tomatoes (the other things, of course, are not obtainable in Zonkwa) but she said that's not enough. It's a tablespoon to a litre, and soak for 20 minutes. I boiled another lot of drinking water after I ate, and filtered it.

One of the girls brought Elizabeth Madaki round this afternoon because I had promised to coach her in Education. But I explained to her about the Braille books; that would be a much more effective way for her to study. One of my girls in 4G was sick today. `What's the matter?' I asked. `Yellow fever' she replied. `I've had it before.' It's bad just now; that's why they were fussy about that one at Kano Airport. `What are the symptoms?’ I asked Esther. `I ache all over and I cannot stay awake.' `Then go home and lie on your bed.' `I can't' she said, `the Matron will not let me.' `Do you have any medicine?' `No.' Poor kid. I'm always tempted to give out something from my CUSO medical kit - but I'm scared to do that; she might be allergic or something.

Evening now - and because I had the big lunch, I just made a sandwich for supper; peanut butter and tomato, very tasty, and that was the last of the excellent brown bread that I brought back from Kaduna. Now it's back to sawdust for another month. One of my young friends, Vicky, just brought me a bucket of water - so I can bathe tomorrow, at least.

The Braille books for Elizabeth proved a disappointment. I only glanced at them when they came and thought they were notes for her to study; but when I examined them more carefully, they proved to be three volumes of the Old Testament! Very kind of them but not too useful from the practical point of view. I'm still going to have to read the whole course to her. The binders came from the National Institute for the Blind, in London - so I sat down as soon as I had a spare period and wrote to them, begging for educational materials. Worth a try but may bear no fruit. They probably think a blind person would be better off reading the Bible than studying teaching methods and they are very probably right.

The principal called me in this morning, she is back from Kaduna and brought greetings to me from Bulas Tauna, the semi-useless head of Special Education at the Ministry. He sent a message that a week-long workshop on Special Education is being planned in Kaduna, and my presence will be appreciated. My word, I'll be in that! The thought of a whole week away from Zonkwa sounds good! In Home Ec. this morning the girls made steamed bean cakes and they were selling them in the staffroom for 20 kobo a piece. I wasn't really hungry so just took a broken off piece to taste; pleasant flavour of beans, peppery though, like everything here. They mush up the beans with tomato, onion and pepper - and eggs too I think - and then pour the resulting mixture into little tins (Peak milk tins, a popular variety of evaporated milk) and steam them in water in a big pot. It's really a sort of bean custard, I suppose. It's interesting that the milk is packed in such tiny tins here; because of there being no refrigeration I suppose. People here have never tasted fresh milk, unless they belong to the Fulani tribe who herd cows and use their milk. Most people have a few goats but they never milk them for some reason. Writing about that has made me crave a milkshake!

When I was in Kaduna Brenda told me that their yard-boy's baby died last week. `What was wrong with him James?' `He was sick.' People who live in the villages have to walk 10 miles or more to get to a town like Zonkwa where there is a hospital (well sort of a hospital). Who wants to drag a sick child 10 miles in the heat, so they wait. Perhaps he will be better tomorrow? And tomorrow he's dead. Binta, who never misses her nightly reading lesson, brought a new student for me tonight. Habiba is in Form One (Grade Seven). But she cannot read ONE WORD in the Grade One primer! Doesn't even know the letters. She showed me her exercise book; complicated notes on the structure of the eye, and the sight process. But she cannot read one word of it.

School started with staff assembly as usual; the principal gave me a letter from the Ministry of Education, in answer to the one I had written requesting oral exams for the blind Elizabeth Madaki. The answer is No. They will examine her in Braille. Well then why don't they send her some Braille materials to study from? She has no books except the Bible, so she will have to translate all her own answers into Braille - and she doesn't even know how to spell the words.

Then the principal told us that the house of Salome (head of the English department) was broken into last night and her TV was stolen. She suggests that we all have double loops for padlocks welded on our doors. She said `You may as well spend the money - if your property is stolen nobody will recompense you for it.' Well, I know that. We couldn't ensure our belongings in Ottawa (as is the CUSO custom) because no insurance company will insure for Nigeria, so I'm in a bit of a quandary. Plenty of people have seen my radio - but that is not as attractive as a Walkman - a most coveted possession here. I have never shown mine to anyone and I never listen to it except on my bed. But I had tapes on the bookshelves in my room - so I've stored them away in my cupboard with my clothes. The money is a worry too; I have no option but to keep cash here, as the bank is not accessible. Even if they let me open an account, I still can't get up there more than once a month, so I'll just have to always draw my salary out straight away, and keep it here. I've got it hidden in what I think is a very safe place, but it could certainly be found if thieves set their minds to it and turned the house over. The principal said they have been entering houses by removing the boards under the porch roof and getting in the roof, then down through the manhole. Lovely thought!

Our school is training for an inter-house track meet on Saturday and my class had Phys. Ed. this morning so they were out training. A boiling day - and of course no showers, no wash even (no water to spare for THAT!) and deodorants have not been heard of in Nigeria. 35 sweaty teenage girls in a small hot dusty classroom are something else! Strong stomach needed, and fortunately I have one.

Came home at 2 to drink gallons of water, but not in such bad shape today because I had come home at 10. We have a half hour break from 10 to 10.30 which is actually called breakfast, although I always eat breakfast before I leave home at 7am. So normally I go to the staffroom and read or write for half an hour while everybody else laughs and talks in Hausa. So today I thought, `Why don't I go home and have a cup of coffee?' I can get home in 5 minutes if I hustle - had a wash, a pee (another thing I cannot have at school because I consider my life is in enough danger without using the stinking school latrines, but it's never too much of a problem because there's nothing to drink either) and a piece of bread and jam, and a nice read while I ate and drank. I'll do that every day now because I certainly stood up to the day much better.

I thought I'd lie on the bed (very hot day) and have a read and listen to a tape but what did I have to pick but Chris de Burgh's Getaway? And when the song `Borderline' was on, I found the tears were just streaming down my face because, a year or so ago, I was staying with Nick - and he had just bought it - and we used to lie in bed and listen to it, especially that song and I had this absolutely photographic image of his bed-sitter with the two of us lying in divans at right-angles to each other so that our heads were almost touching and I could see everything in the room, and feel that Sydney air. And I thought - Nick is the only person who really understands homesickness and it's because he's travelled alone so many times - so I got up and came out here and wrote him a letter, snivelling all the time into my precious rationed kleenexes, and I told him to write me a letter and tell me some cures for homesickness.

I know already his cures for homesickness - long letters - he often wrote us twenty pages and collect phone calls! But that can't be done - even if there was a phone in Zonkwa which there isn't. He also used to walk miles; I do a lot of walking, right enough, because there is no other method of transportation - but in this heat it's no fun - especially with no hope of a cold drink or a cold shower at the end of it! It must be the writing that is the most therapeutic act - because after that I felt perfectly cheerful and was able to return to bed and listen to the other side of the tape (didn't risk Borderline again though). I've had the same problem with the Walkman before; some of the tapes remind me more of home than others; can't listen to Paul Simon's Graceland at all. Interesting scientific phenomenon; auditory stimulus of the tear glands.

A man just came to the door selling wood-carvings and batiks; he said `The other lady from Canada (Carol Forster) bought many of my things.' The wood carvings are lovely but you can't eat them, so I said `I am sorry, but I have no money.' I felt badly because he's lugging a big suitcase round with him, and it's hot, so I told him to come back in 6 months. `Perhaps I will have some money by then.' Habiba (Form One) had her first reading lesson tonight; I taught her the alphabet. Caught a big cockroach inside the mosquito net so that was good.

The next day and the one after were Sports Days so there were no classes. Today was heats, supposed to start at 9am but in fact they ran by Nigertime, so started at 10 to 11. In the staff room this morning one of the teachers, Christiana, gave me a roster. My name is down for `Bed check' every eighth night. `What do I do?' `Go round to all the dormitories and list all the girls who are missing.' `Where is the list?' `There is no list. Ask the other girls.' What a system. Being missing is a cardinal sin so who is going to squeal on friends? `What time do I go?' `10pm' was the answer. Going out to walk around the dark grounds (no lights anywhere) is not my idea of fun at 10pm but I can hardly refuse.

Back to Sports Day. It’s a day of great hype here and everyone (staff as well as students) was up to high doh. There are 6 houses and they correspond to the dorms, and the day girls who walk from Zonkwa are each assigned to a house as well. Some of the girls wanted me to take pictures of them and came to ask me to come and do that, as the races were about to begin. I went out into the blazing heat and obligingly snapped many girls, and also took some pictures of the school while I was at it. Today was like a fog with the dust so they will all be hazy. The girls have great team spirit and were all wildly excited. When someone won a heat all her friends would rush over and shower her with jacaranda and frangipani petals, and then her best friend would pick her up and piggy-back her around the track! These girls are STRONG; all the athletes are the big solid girls, so it is no mean effort to run with one on your back! I saw several girls finish races and throw up; the heat was intense (I was standing under a tree) and one girl fainted but she was summarily dealt with by being carried across and laid face down on the dirt under a tree, and left to get over it alone which she did.

The next day was Saturday so no school but no lie-in day either; Vicky (one of the 4th Form girls) had asked if she could accompany me to the market this morning - girls are only permitted to leave the compound with a staff-member, so I said `Yes - but be here at 7.30, I must go early to avoid the heat' and she was here at 7.20. I had got up just after 6 and had washed hair, bathed and then washed the week's clothes; two skirts, four blouses, underwear etc. - and hung them all round the bathroom, had breakfast and washed up, so was ready when Vicky came, and off we set.

I took the camera, anxious to finish the film and send it home. But you have to be careful about taking pictures here, for example you can't take them in the market, so I thought I could ask Vicky when it would be OK to do it. I never thought I would live to say this - but I was profoundly grateful for the dust this morning because it veiled the sun as we walked to the market. I was dying to take pictures of people with huge loads on their heads but didn't dare. They are all women; some of them are really scrawny ancient women who have obviously lugged a load of firewood to market every Saturday since they could carry one - at about the age of 5. Why firewood? Because everyone here cooks on little open fires outside. The cooking for the girls at the school is done on open fires and in open brick ovens.

I have never seen a man carrying a load to market, or a bucket of water, or a child. They sit under the trees drinking palm wine and eating bean cakes, laughing and talking - while the women trudge along the roads. Some of them would have set out in the dark, because they come from far away for the market on Saturdays. Women seem to do all the hard work here - and always hampered by the fact that they are pregnant, have a baby on the back, or often both. I had started life here with a jar of honey, given to me by Eva Murray in Kaduna but despite careful rationing I had run out. There is a shop up past the market and I thought they might possibly have honey as they sell some groceries - so we trudged up there first, but it was only 10 to 8 and it was still locked up. So back to the market and I got Omo for washing (2.30 naira), matches, toilet rolls which must be the worst quality in the world; the paper has holes all over as if it has been munched by silverfish. (Perhaps it has?) How I wish I had been able to fit in those 8 lovely rolls that I bought at London Drugs, but left behind through lack of space! Then I bought spinach and tomatoes and bananas, and offered Vicky a piece of sugarcane but she said her stomach aches too much; she is the one who asked me for worm medicine last week.

By then it was about 8.30 and the sun had burned through the dust and it was sizzling, so we set out for home. At the kiosk opposite the hospital, I stopped for a tin of fish, loaf of bread, and 6 eggs. They are a risk I know; last time I bought them the third one was bad but I have to get more iron somehow. Home at last, boiling, hut not time to lie down yet. Washed my spinach carefully and stored it in a plastic bag, then sterilised the tomatoes in Milton, boiled and filtered some drinking water then subsided on the bed to recover from all that activity.

Later I walked down to the field for the sports. There was a huge crowd there and many visiting schools, both primary and secondary, so events of all kinds were going on. I went over and sat in a little tin shelter which had been put up for the staff. Two enormous plush chairs had been brought out for the principal and her counterpart from the Girls' Secondary School next door. At one stage each teacher was given a warm bottle of pop - or mineral as it is called here, and I normally dislike pop, never drink it in fact, but I was so parched that I drank it all, and it was most welcome. I stayed for a couple of hours and then felt that I had surely done my duty. I left the sports and trotted down to the shop, bought a tin of sardines then in front of the hospital two old ladies were sitting on the ground with a bowl of oranges so I bought 4 for 50 kobo - not really a good buy because they are little green pippy pithy things but I eat them for the good of my health, rather than for pleasure.

Then I finished the film in my camera - took a couple outside the house and the rest inside. It's strange how long it has taken me to finish the film; granted it was a 36-exposure but normally in a new place I would be going round snapping everything, but here it's not so easy, as I'm very wary of giving offence. I took the camera to the market this morning but didn't dare take anything close up; coming back, though, we stopped to buy some bean cakes and the lady let me take one of her, squatting on the ground, deep-frying the delicious bean-cakes in a wide bowl of hot oil on a little wood fire.

Later - now - here's a laugh! Because the film was finished, I decided to take it out and send it back to Red Deer to have it developed. I brought the camera out here, and the manual, to make sure I was doing it right. The counter was showing 36 but the book said that it would automatically rewind when the film finished. So why didn't it? Try the manual rewind. Nothing happened. Could the batteries be flat already? Shouldn't be, but perhaps the heat? Changed the batteries. Still nothing. Read the manual again. Shed no light. In desperation I opened the back and suddenly off went the motor, back went the numbers and there was `S' on the top, I opened it right up - and what did I find there? NO FILM! My lovely pictures of the Sahara, last sight of Europe, the ones I took of the kids at the Sports, my house, and also some from home that I really wanted. What a really dumb thing to do, I can hardly believe it.

Anyway, now there is a 12-exposure film in my camera - and I'll get around soon to taking some more pictures as I know everyone must be anxious to see what my house looks like. Not great, but a lot better since the tin of Vim hit it! While I was finishing my supper, about 30 girls came bursting in through my door, all singing and clapping, and plonked a cup down on the table, and a big bunch of paper flowers - trophies from the sports. There are still groups of girls marching and dancing, singing and clapping, all round the compound. It's like an Aussie Rules football Grand Final day!

Went to the toilet earlier and there was a huge hairy long-legged spider in the basin. There are some in every room, but normally we leave each other severely alone. But you have to squeeze past the basin to get to the toilet, and then when you sit your head is practically in the basin. What to do? I threw a little of my precious water at him but he didn't take the hint. I waited half an hour and he was still there, so I went anyway. You can probably get over anything, though I'm still carefully keeping my doors shut, against the rats!

I have to do Bed Check Duty once a week and the first one came the next night and at least I've got my trusty flashlight. I've had a splitting headache all day, most unusual for me - in fact I can hardly ever remember having one before. In the end I broke down and took a Tylenol from my medical kit but even that didn't get rid of it. I'm afraid it might be the Malaria pills as they do that to some people (which is why some CUSOs don't take them), but I've taken them seven times and this is the first headache - but maybe it's build-up or something. Who knows? I even took my temperature this afternoon - wondered whether I was getting something - but it was normal. I hate to think what would happen if I got sick. How would I even get to the hospital? Walk if I was able. But if not? Morbid thoughts.

After an evening of drop-in visitors and reading lessons, I gathered myself up at 10pm and went off to do Bed Check. The dormitories, of which there are 6, each consist of a long one-story concrete building with the entrance in the centre, and two large rooms. (Photo on right) Each room holds about 60 beds, double-decker army style iron bunks with about a foot between. A couple of the dorms smelled abominably of stale sour food and I could see some empty unwashed food bowls under beds. I was assisted by the `duty prefects' who accompanied me from dorm to dorm, and asked a head girl in each room whether anyone was missing. Several were, and the names were written down, and when I got back to my house I had to write a report. Seeing the dorms at such close quarters (I've been in them during the day, but never when they were jam-packed with bodies) made my own living arrangements seem luxurious when I got home. It is also the duty of the Bed Check Mistress to see if there are any sick girls, and get them to the hospital if there are. How would I do that? But fortunately, there were not. The walk must have done me good because for once, instead of waking at 3am, I slept till about 5.30.

Here I sit with my trusty candle again. Just when I had got used to the luxury of four hours of power each night, tonight it just never came on. I didn't believe it for a while - kept thinking `It's just a bit late - it will come on soon'. After a while I lit the candle and started cooking supper. In pre-power days I used to eat early so as not to have to wash up by candle but of course tonight I was stuck with cleaning-up in the half-dark as it gets dark almost on the dot of 6 and gets light at 6 too because we are so close to the equator. I never leave dishes till the morning because of the various bugs; I do not plan on feeding them as well as providing a home for them!

Apart from that I had a very good day. Monday is one of the mail days and at about 11 o'clock the messenger came beaming to my classroom, his hands full of mail! Magazines from Reg and a separate letter too, one from Maddie and two from Mum. Bliss! Next period I had a spare and went to the library to read them - and one of the teachers gave me another envelope. No idea where he got it but it was some information from CUSO about the upcoming conference, plus an enclosed letter from Frances Cej which had gone to Kaduna instead of here. Then, ten minutes later, one of the teachers came to me with two slips for Special Delivery mail, to be signed. I thought I would have to wait until tomorrow to get those, but the messenger kindly went back to the Post Office and got them for me. Another one from Mum, and one from Celene.

Poor Mum! She had told me in her letter of 23rd that she was sending me a `Jiffy Bag' of cookies and some other things - but when she got to the Post Office to send it, the man told her that all those things are prohibited imports to Nigeria and that I would have to pay a huge fine if caught, and maybe she would too! I don't really think that's true, but I've told everyone not to send me anything because I would have to pay duty - even if they are marked Gift Only. Brenda told me that she once got away with books marked Educational Materials Only, but other times even that didn't work. She said the only thing that was stolen was underpants! The parcel had been opened and they had been removed. No doubt the guy in the Post Office wanted to give his girl friend a nice present.

Poor Mum then thought I would be looking for a parcel which would never come - so she had sent me a Special Delivery letter to explain the whole fiasco. But Special Delivery means no such thing here so it arrived later (because of having to sign the slip) than her other letter, which she sent on the same day, plus it cost her $4.50 to send! After that feast of mail, I spent the whole afternoon answering letters. People `outside' don't realise how much pleasure letters give. I save every single one, carefully arranged in order of dates in a folder, and I often lie on the bed re-reading them. The news never seems to get stale, probably because it wasn't fresh when I got it!

There were riots in Kafanchan, a town about the size of Zonkwa, about 35 km. from here, at the weekend, between Moslem and Christian students at the Teachers' College. Axes, guns, cars tipped over - so the principal gave a long sermon in Assembly this morning about loving one another. A little incongruous I thought when I recall the public flogging at last week's Monday Assembly, with that same principal on the end of the whip. The latest on the Special Education workshop is that it will now be on Friday and Saturday. Will it really? Or will it be next week? Or maybe cancelled altogether? Who knows?

Last night the power never did come on; I battled on with the candle until 9.30, had all my usual student visitors for coaching and conversation (quite the high spot of my daily social life, they really are such lovely kids), but the candlelight makes my eyes very tired, so I decided to turn in. Went into the bathroom with the flash-light to clean my teeth and saw what I thought was a mouse in the bath - but on closer inspection it proved to be a huge cockroach, quite the biggest I've seen anywhere. I bought Raid in Kaduna so it was a simple matter to polish him off (actually not that simple - I'll bet it took half a can of Raid), fish him out and drop him in the toilet, yuck!

The Principal said something about the riots in Kafanchan this morning and I said `Well what happened exactly?' and then heard the full story. The Christians were having some sort of seminar and the speaker was an ex-Moslem who was making comparisons between the Koran and the Bible, so the Moslems threw stones and broke all the windows, the Christians went on a rampage and burned Moslem houses, and the donnybrook was on - and is by no means over. Yesterday the Governor of Kaduna State came to Kafanchan with 5 truckloads of military riot-police - but they think the Moslems are massing in the north ready for a big strike. Eleven people were killed on Sunday - all Moslem - but the Principal thinks there were many more and it is being hushed up. Brenda told me that when she arrived in Obi (Niger State) to start her teaching job, there wasn't a whole pane of glass or a fly-screen in her house. The students had rioted there shortly before, so I could be a lot worse off! A little dust-up like that would never make the international newspapers - there's probably one every few weeks in some part of Nigeria, I'll bet.

I sent off the film to Reg to be developed this morning - at least Sister Noreen took it to the Post Office for me. It only cost 1.70 naira to airmail - which will no doubt turn out to be cheaper than having it done in Kaduna, plus the waiting of course. Tuesday is a heavy day for me - 5 40-minute periods without a break and it's pretty wearing standing up on a concrete floor for that long but I'm getting used to it. When I finished, I had a spare and went to the library and the librarian handed me two letters. How he got them nobody knows and today is not even supposed to be a mail day. One was from the Zonal director to say that I had used the wrong procedure to notify him of the Special Education workshop. I should have sent the letter through the Principal. I did. Perhaps she forgot to stamp it. The other letter was from my dear friend Norma Martin who had written barrels of news and even sent me $1 to pay for stamps! I could never change it here - but it was a sweet thought and I feasted my eyes on it as a piece of nostalgia and then folded it carefully and put it away in the back of my purse.

I wanted an adventure and indeed now I have got one. I had almost finished teaching my first class when a teacher came to the door of the classroom where I was. `The Principal wants you' he said. I picked up my books and walked towards the staffroom. She met me half-way and said `The schools have been closed; I am holding a staff meeting.' The staff room was full of grave faces and the Principal came in and told us that every school in Kaduna State has been closed and that all students must go home immediately. Two people were killed in Kaduna yesterday, many churches burned in Zaria and now the riots have spread to Kano, where the airport is. Then she went outside to tell the students what had happened. She spoke to them in Hausa, so I don't know exactly what she said but the girls began to cry and wail, poor things, the Form Fives are almost ready to write their final exams and there's no hope of that now. They had to return to their dorms and pick up their bundles of belongings and get straight out on the road; most would have to walk home because all public transport has stopped; that means taxis, our chief mode of transportation because most of the drivers are Moslem. There is a 6pm-6am curfew on the whole of Kaduna State - so they must try to get home before nightfall. So off they went, running and crying.

I said to Sister Noreen `This wouldn't get into the international news, would it?' and she said `Oh I'm afraid it did already; one of the sisters heard it on the Voice of America last night.' I was terribly concerned about my poor old mother; if she heard it on the news she would get a dreadful fright. Sister Noreen could see how upset I was, and grabbed a truck-driver. `Where are you going?' `Kaduna' he said. `Wait a minute; you can take a letter for Madame.' Then she said to me `Write a letter to David and tell him to get a message through to your family.' I quickly sat down and wrote to David, asking him to telex Tom Beach in Ottawa, who should phone Reg and ask him to phone Australia. Mind you, that all depends on an extensive chain of events taking place, but at least I feel now that I have done all I can to set people's minds at rest.

I don't expect David to come out, and didn't ask him to do so. I don't want him to think I'm panicking and I have no wish to be repatriated when I've got pretty well settled in. It is likely that the schools will be out at least until after Easter, perhaps longer. The roads are not safe so I can't go to Kaduna - no taxis to go in, anyway. I had a letter to Mum almost finished, so thought I'd finish it and get Sister Noreen to mail it for me. She said `Bring it over when you've finished it, and have coffee’, so I went to the library and finished it. I have no idea whether any mail will go out - perhaps not - but I thought it was worth a try, and explained the events recounted here, but no doubt (at least I hope) by the time she gets the letter she will have long since had the phone call.

I walked over to the Convent then. The school gate was padlocked so I went round through the hospital and caught up with one of the hospital nuns who was also walking up for coffee. She hadn't heard that the schools had closed - `Oh, dear God!' - but she was the one who heard it on Voice of America and told me what she had heard, a fair amount of detail mentioning the deaths at Kafanchan and the state of emergency in Kaduna State. We went in to the Convent; all as usual on the shady veranda, the coffee and tea, the wholemeal scones, the butter and jam. But the talk of course was all of the crisis. They are all in far more danger than I am; a Christian community at a time like this is at risk. Several Catholic churches and colleges were burned yesterday in Zaria. I asked if they would be evacuated. `Oh no dear' said one of the oldest, `We thought we would be during the Biafran War, but we never were.' `How long is it likely to last?' I asked. Well - it all really depends on whether the government wants to stop it or not. The army is huge and powerful, being a military government. If they wanted to do it, they could squash the whole thing by tomorrow morning. But perhaps they don't? We'll just have to wait and see.

Sister Noreen lent me three books - all bestseller paperbacks 20 years newer than anything in the library - and said `Go home and read; we'll keep in touch, and you can come over any time you want to.' I appreciate that, because pretty soon the school compound will be empty. Some of the teachers who live here seem to be leaving too; my next-door neighbour who is Moslem was packing his wives and children into a taxi and leaving when I got home, so there is nothing to do now but lie on the bed, read my books, and wait for something to happen.

So that was exactly what I did. The compound was deserted and every day I thought David would come out from Kaduna to see whether I was alright but he never did. The next day was Friday March 13 ^th and we actually made the headlines on the BBC at 7am. I was still lying in bed, nothing to rush round for today, and switched on the radio for the news - and imagine my surprise when the fourth headline was `Troops have been deployed to many towns in Northern Nigeria following religious riots between Moslems and Christians in which at least 11 people have died.' But one of the local priests said 30 or 40 – he said that 11 was just the morgue count but in fact most of the dead would have been carried away by their friends. Then when they had the news in detail, the West African correspondent gave quite a long item on the start of the trouble (the riots in Kafanchan) and about 100 Christian churches burned in Zaria on Wednesday. Zaria is one of the ancient northern cities and is a Moslem stronghold. According to the New Nigerian, 424 people were arrested in Zaria including over 100 children between the ages of 9 and 14 – the adults stood by with their cutlasses while the children were sent in to loot and torch the churches.

The curfew was extended to Bauchi State which is east of Kaduna State and each day the news seemed to get worse. One day one of the old nuns invited me up to the convent for lunch and she hadn’t heard anything new - `But you know, dear, one of the priests in Zaria had his house burned down - a soldier pulled him out just in time, but everything went. So last night I put my passport under the pillow - because it's so difficult to get your passport replaced, isn't it?' `Are you nervous?' I asked. `Well' she said `The first night I was a little frightened - but then I thought of all those comforting words in the Bible like `Cast your bread upon the waters' and after that I didn't worry about it.' They were a cool old bunch, those nuns. Some of them had been in Nigeria during the siege of Biafra so they were no strangers to drama. Although they had a locked compound anyone could scramble over the wall and commit all kinds of mayhem - and what could they do? No phones.

When I walked up to the Post Office to mail a letter, I saw a soldier sitting on the bench outside. `Good morning' I said, and he smiled and said `Good morning Sister', which is what most people here call me. One of the nuns (when I told her that most people here call me Sister), laughed and said `When I go out to villages where the only white person they have seen was a priest, they all call me Father'.

Next morning Mrs Alkali called in. She lives up the street and is the kind soul who brought me tea and bread on the first night, and now I am coaching her eldest daughter, Charity, for the entrance exam to a military college in Jos. She comes down every night and I give her reading, dictation and spelling. A few days ago she brought a sample exam-paper from Jos; she couldn't even read 50% of the words and absolutely does not have a hope of ever passing the exam. I've tried to break it gently to her Mum who is a deserted wife, raising five kids on her teaching salary but she has great faith in me and says `You will get her through.'

Mrs Alkali had come down to say that she has visitors and would like me to come to her house, so I couldn't refuse and accompanied her up the road in the scorching heat. When I got there, she said `You will take lunch with us, won't you?' and I had already eaten, so I said `Thankyou, but very little - I never eat much at lunchtime.' It was rice and beans, and I helped myself to one spoonful, and `Soup' as it's called here, which is actually stew but with only about 4 pieces of meat in the whole dish. The gravy is red-hot peppery but it goes well with the blandness of the staples; I took a spoonful of that too; it was yummy, though of course I was not hungry. Pepper has preservative qualities; I suppose it's too hot for the germs to live in, and that is why it's used so much in countries where there is no refrigeration. It brings me out in a huge sweat too, which I suppose is helpful for cooling one down on such a boiling day. No wonder everyone here thinks my house is a mansion! Mrs Alkali's house, for the six of them, is hardly half the size of mine. It does have a walled courtyard at the back, where chickens scratch round and Mrs Alkali cooks on an open wood fire. It made me feel ashamed for having moaned about this house. No screens on the windows; two tiny bedrooms and one is half-filled with cases of pop bottles because she runs a little shop for the compound to supplement her teaching income. She sells bread, sugar, salt, tea, biscuits, and mineral and I suspect, beer. I bought 2 bottles of pop from her and will put it in the fridge tonight for my brief period of refrigeration (the power is on since the riots started because the army wants the town lit up at night so that they can enforce the curfew.)

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and playing solitaire, and just when I was getting to feel a bit like a hermit good old Sister Noreen drove round for a visit. She was 24 when she came here and must be about my age now; she's seen a lot of changes, very few of them good in the long run, but still views her life with common sense and good humour. If ever anyone could moan, I suppose it's the nuns, who worked so hard to build the schools and run them well - but ever since the government took them over everything - the standards and even the buildings - has steadily deteriorated. She blames the whole mess on England, for having colonised and exploited the country, and of course being Irish she's no lover of the Brits. The whole question of the missionary involvement in the colonial countries is another huge issue of course, and one I certainly don't take up with her; in fact my own situation here is decidedly open to debate and is giving me a good deal of cause for thought.

I had made a really beautiful stew with the meat that Sister Mary gave me yesterday. Just 4 little pieces of meat, but I'd chopped them up small and put in onions, the juice of a convent lemon, a Maggi cube, tomato paste and rice. Very savoury. As Sister Noreen left I said `You know, I will have had meat 3 times in 2 days' (the convent yesterday, Mrs Alkali at lunchtime, now stew tonight), and she laughed and said `Sure and you'll go to the hospital and they'll say `What's wrong with you?' and you'll say `I had meat 3 times in 2 days!' `Come for coffee in the morning' she said as she drove away - and I will.

Tuesday March 17th: St Patrick's Day! - Good news today! On the BBC 7am news they said that the curfew has been lifted now in Kaduna State, and that students can return to school next Monday (23rd). Mind you, at the same time all the schools in Sokoto State (west of Kaduna State) are now being closed down - so I certainly don't think we've seen the last of it. There were clouds this morning; I've hardly ever seen clouds here - so I thought it must be cooler. I decided I would walk up to the Bank and have another shot at opening an account, so I put my `particulars' (the word used for licences, legal documents, passports etc.) in my purse and set off but I made it no further than the convent; it was so steamy that it was like trying to walk in a sauna and I knew I'd never make it. I'll leave earlier tomorrow morning and see if I can manage it.

There was a very jolly gathering at the convent; four priests in from outlying villages because they were all going to a do at Kogora, near Kafanchan. Plus, of course, being St Patrick's Day they were all even more jocular than usual - and instead of the usual scones there were raisin cookies for a treat. I stayed till nearly 11, having quite abandoned the ambition for a long trek, it was hard enough work just walking back here!

A fun day today! I was determined to get my bank business straightened out so left here at 8am for the long hot trek. There was a little haze or perhaps dust and I wore a hat. On the way I called at the Post Office to buy 20 aerograms and 40 stamps as I don't always use aerograms. The little man looked amazed and I explained my huge purchase by saying `You see - I have a large family overseas, and I write many letters to them'. He turned over one of the letters I was sticking stamps on, and said `Ah! You are the lady who got 5 letters yesterday!'

On then to the Bank. It sounded like the re-run of an old movie. `I want to open an account'. `Do you have a permanent residence permit?' `No, but I have a form from the Ministry and a letter from CUSO'. This time I fared better and was sent to the secretary's office. `I would like to open an account' I said, passing over the letter and the form. `Then you must have these forms completed by two people on your staff' she said, passing over two forms to be filled in by two people who are prepared to swear that I am who I say I am. No problem; but why didn't she give them to me last time to save me another trip? Well, because last time I did not have the letter or the form, therefore I was not then being considered as a candidate for an account. `And when you return' she said, `bring with you a photo-copy of your complete passport showing your visa, and two passport photos.' It just so happens that I have a photocopy of my passport (lucky, because there is not a photocopier in Zonkwa) because when David took my passport to apply for permanent residence, I insisted on having a copy to carry with me.

So, that is one step closer; and I was sauntering home, feeling rather pleased with myself, when I heard a man call `Sister' and turned round, and a young man was running after me and said `Please come with me to Mrs Kure's house.' We trotted up a side road to the Kure house; she teaches with me, and her husband is Zonal Director of Education. She was sitting on her front veranda with another of the teachers, Teresa Chiroma, and they had seen me walking along the road so sent the man down to get me. Mrs Kure said `Teresa and I are going to Jos University today and we thought perhaps you would like to come with us.' Oh - would I ever? I'd been dying to see the plateau and the city of Jos (right), so I said `Can I go home and get my camera, and some money?' `Of course, the driver will take you.' So he did, and then we went back and picked them up and off we went. Off we went one and a half hours later actually, because first all the tires had to be changed from one car to another (both Peugeots, like almost every car in Nigeria), then we left, but the driver stopped at the market and opened the glove-box. `Where are the particulars?' (That's what they call the papers). `Perhaps my husband has them.' said Mrs Kure. So, back to the Zonal Office. No, he does not have them. Back to the house. A 10-minute search. Found them. Back to the Zonal Office to show the director.

Then we were on the road at last. It was an interesting drive; first to Kafanchan where the riots started, then onto the Jos Road and a steady climb through very pretty foothills, towards the Plateau. Quite a winding road, and the ditches were littered with wrecked trucks and cars that had taken the turns too fast - even a bus at one point, half rusted away but just left to lie there. I have never seen such a graveyard as Nigeria, for wrecked vehicles, broken furniture, etc. Everything just lies where it falls. Tree-covered hills, pretty bush, once in a while a stream, kids in swimming and splashing and having fun, not worried about the dreaded schistosomiasis - and all the time we were climbing steadily.

We crossed the border from Kaduna State into Plateau State - and then at last we came out on the plateau - huge piles of rocks and hot as hades - really not at all attractive to my eyes, but then I like trees myself. We drove to the University of Jos (right), the standard one-story concrete buildings with a few two-story and almost every tree on the campus is a eucalypt, so it reminded me of Australia. Mrs Kure and Teresa both want to do post-graduate Special Education so we trekked around to see the right people. First, the head of the department, a very clever black nun, Dr. Teresa Abang (many books by her on the shelves, I noticed, all on Special Education). I would have gladly stayed in her office all the afternoon because she had an air-conditioner in there humming away and the room was deliciously cool. The first A/C I've seen in Nigeria. Then we met Benedict, who taught here in the holidays and is now back on campus and he took us to see Mrs Joanne Umolu, who is one of the Special Education lecturers and was actually the reason for me being asked to go. - `One of the people in charge is a white woman, and we thought you could help us' Teresa had said. She is English married to a Nigerian, very friendly and interesting, keen on the Language Experience method of teaching reading and she gave me a chapter from a book she is writing on teaching reading. Then to see Dr. Akwe who is also some bigwig and they found out all about application procedures etc. from him so the whole enterprise was very successful.

But by this time it was after 3 o'clock and I had had nothing to eat or drink since my bowl of cornflakes at 7.30am, so we got in the car then (the driver had been asleep under the trees) and set out for home, and I said `Why don't we stop for a mineral?' `Oh good idea', said the others and we stopped at a little shop in Bukuru, just outside Jos, and had a pop and shared a bag of little cakes. Not my idea of lunch, but many Nigerians only eat two meals a day, morning and evening and it kept the wolf from the door and we drove home. A lot of clouds by now and we were about half-way home when it began to rain. Despite my hopes for a downpour, it was only a shower, and there was apparently nothing in Zonkwa. The driver dropped me at my house at about a quarter to 6 and I decided to commit the supreme extravagance of a second bath because I was roasted and caked with dust and sweat. Halfway through, my precious 8-naira bucket broke and all my water went down the drain! I could have bawled, but got my little cleaning bucket, more water, finished it off and then washed my clothes - all sweaty and dusty. But imagine paying 80% of your day's salary and the thing only lasts 6 weeks! I'll have to buy another one tomorrow.

Cooked myself a nice supper to cheer me up; rice, spinach, an egg and a tomato, and ate some more of my mangoes and custard, delicious - to make up for a thin day foodwise. I was really interested to see Jos, people keep telling me - `Oh, wait till you see Jos, it's a beautiful city.' But it looked much like Kano or Kaduna to me, and I was glad I hadn't paid taxi-fare to get there. The plateau probably looks much better in the rainy season; everything is so dry and scorched at the moment, it's not fair to judge. My companions kept saying `Oh, isn't it cool up here? Oh, so much cooler than Zonkwa.' Well - cool like the Mallee in January! And Zonkwa is much prettier - at least I think so. All the same, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and a nice change from the routine.

The next day Mrs Kure and Teresa and I had agreed to meet at the Principal's office at 9am, to work on the Special Education Workshop arrangements. I, of course, was there at Canadian time - 10 to 9 - they arrived at African time, 20 to 10. Firstly we had to help the Principal to compose a letter to be sent to 12 other schools inviting staff to attend the workshop. Then we worked on our own presentations. I had mine done, so I helped them. Then the mail came; highlight of the day and it included a memo forwarded from Ottawa, stamped Kaduna Feb. 23rd, but only forwarded this week, to say that chloroquine-resistant malaria is now in Nigeria, and what steps to take. Good old David! Even that wasn't urgent!

When I got home my vague suspicions of the early morning were confirmed; my water drum was leaking. As the hole was just bunged with a rag it was not surprising of course. I tried everything; pushed it in harder, packed it round with a dishcloth, put a dish under to catch the water; still it came. Late in the afternoon I walked up to Teresa's house; perhaps she knew of a solution? She came down, bringing the vice-principal's daughter who is one of the matrons. The matron fiddled with the rag; `I have fixed it' she said proudly, and they went away. When I woke next morning my bedroom was awash; likewise bathroom, toilet and passage.

Washed, not much water left now, dressed and ate breakfast; allowed myself two bananas for a treat to cheer me up, and also as a fortification against the long hot walk to the Bank. Left here at 7.30; no haze today unfortunately - just clear, cloudless, burning sun - but I wore my hat and sunglasses and hoped they would protect me against the demon sunstroke. Reached the Bank and went into the Secretary's office, handed over the two forms duly filled in by the principal and Teresa Chiroma. Secretary looked at them. `These will not do. These are savings accounts. You must have them signed by people who have current accounts.' And she handed me two more forms.

With that, I saw red. `I do not know one person in Zonkwa with a current account. There is no point in giving me these forms because I can never have them signed. Please give me back all my papers. I will go to the Ministry in Kaduna and tell the Minister that they must pay me by other means.' She shrugged her shoulders and looked sideways. `Can I see the Manager?' I asked. `No, I will see the Manager' she said, looking very put out indeed. I sat there for half an hour and at last she came back with 2 more forms, filled in by two of the bank employees. Now does that make any sense? They have never seen me, yet they have sworn that I am who I say I am; whereas the people who actually know me, cannot sign because they have the wrong kind of account! `We will keep all your papers, and when your salary comes, we will give you an account, and a number.' she said. `Thank you for all your help' I said with my best smile.

I was no end pleased with my success and would have gone to celebrate with a drink if such a place existed, but of course it doesn't. So out again into the blazing heat, and over to the market - as I had realised that I could have a free day tomorrow if I could get my week's food today. Sure enough - bananas, tomatoes, and spinach were all there, so I stocked up. As I left the market I saw some plastic tubs and fancied one to replace the broken bucket. How much? I pointed to one that would hold about a bucket of water, right for my bath. `6 naira' said the boy. `4.50' I said. `Last five' he responded. `Too much' I said, and walked away. Looked at some on the next stall. `6.50' `Too much', and walked away. Just then I heard running feet behind me; the first boy. `Come and pay for your basin Madame.' `Four fifty?' `Yes.' I went back to the stall with him - gave him 5 naira. `I go for change' and he ran away into the market. I stood there for 5 minutes, cooking in the sun. Little thief, I thought - he got his extra 50 kobo anyway! I felt the joke was on me and started to walk away - but as I walked down the road, I heard the running feet again and there he was again, big grin, 50 kobo change!

Called at Teresa's before I came home to tell her that my drum still leaks, but she was going to the Bank herself so said she'd come later. When I got home I thought `Well if the water's going to be wasted anyway, it might as well he wasted to some purpose.' So I got to work on a grand house-cleaning burst. Washed all the floors, mopped up the floods, scrubbed the toilet, everything. Nothing escaped. My sweat dripped onto the floor, mixing with the soapy water. At last I was done; waste some more water, I thought with reckless abandon; I cleaned and filled my new blue tub, shampooed my sweat-soaked hair, washed my ditto clothes, and felt a whole lot better about life in general.

If only I didn't care about places being clean. I was meditating on this matter yesterday and thought `Volunteers need to be really laid-back; not care about hygiene, eat anything, happy to sit under the tree all day and chat.' Perhaps I'm too old and set in my ways to fit happily into another culture, too clean and fussy, too hard a worker. Can't do anything about that though, and at least I'm surviving and getting satisfaction from that. Collapsed on the bed after all that work, read for a while and then fell asleep.

Woke about 1.30 thinking of lunch; my favourite peanut butter and tomato sandwiches. So I got the things out of the frig. I always try to open it as little as possible, hoping it will stay at least a little cooler than room temperature - so grabbed everything in one hand - and the inevitable happened. My precious jar of peanut butter, unprocurable in Zonkwa, brought carefully in my pack from Kaduna, still a third full and being carefully rationed - slipped through my fingers and smashed on the concrete floor in a million pieces! My comfort food! My clean floor! Now all spattered with oil - and glass from front to back of my house. I paid dearly for my carelessness alright; it took me 45 minutes to clean it up (no dustpan and brush of course, just a grass broom and the back of a writing pad). I never go barefoot in the house because of hookworm, but the kids all do - and now I'll have to warn everyone who comes in, because the jar almost exploded (concrete floor) and shattered into very tiny slivers.

I am writing this with a washcloth in my hand, wiping the sweat off my face and arms before it can drop on the paper. Today is almost unbearably humid which seems odd when it is also so hot and sunny. Last night masses of clouds rolled up around 7 and for the next two hours thunder seemed to come from every different direction - but never a drop of rain. Meanwhile, I sometimes feel as though, like the tigers in Little Black Sambo, I will simply melt into a pool of ghee (or something). Cheered myself by thinking that three things have broken this week; my plastic bucket, the water drum, and the peanut butter. Maybe now my luck will change.

Saturday March 21st. - To think that people in western countries pay to sit in a sauna; they should just buy a one-way ticket to Zonkwa. This morning is partly overcast but they don't look like rain clouds; I think they are just steam clouds. Had a leisurely start this morning, very glad I didn't have to rush to the market, so cooked Wheat-O (porridge) and took my time over it. Boiled and filtered a day's supply of drinking water; had to tip the drum to get any out as I'm down to the dregs, and glad I have the filter as it's very muddy now.

I was lying in bed this morning thinking "What do I miss most?" and it didn't take me two seconds to answer myself. It's not the water, or the mod. cons, or the library or the films; it's just conversation. Remember that Nigerians when they use English, are speaking in their third language; first is tribal, second Hausa and third English. My third language is German and I could write in it (with the help of a dictionary) and read it the same way, but express ideas in it? Quite impossible. Even French - my second language - I could pick it up again if I lived in Quebec for long enough, and would be able to use it for day-to-day sort of conversations but anything abstract? Probably never. Nigerians never express their feelings in English; they couldn't, so conversation is limited to the absolutely superficial. When they teach in English, they just copy notes from a book onto the board - and neither they, nor the students, really comprehend the meaning. Of course, there are the nuns - but I try to be as independent of them as I can and limit myself to a couple of visits a week to the convent.

I hadn't been to the convent since Tuesday, and had no books left, so I felt justified in going round there this morning. Got a great welcome as always and had coffee and a scone - but heard the distressing news that Teresa Chiroma's nephew, who lives with her because his father (Teresa's brother) died last year, fell into the well this morning and has a compound fracture of the leg and a possible skull fracture as well. He's about 8 or 9 - but you have to lean over so far now to get the water - and he overbalanced. The principal drove him to the hospital; it happened about 6.30 this morning. From the purely selfish point of view this is bad news for me too. Teresa is the only one who would ever do anything about my leaky drum - and now I certainly can't expect her to even remember about it. Borrowed two more books and then walked down to the shop for some supplies. Spent 27 naira on 6 or 8 things - averaged out my spendings on a daily rate when I got home and found that I have spent 6.33 per day so far - and I only have 6.45 per day this month. I write down every kobo I spend so I know exactly where it has all gone (box of matches: 25 kobo. Toilet roll: 1 naira, etc.) but I somehow have to get to Kaduna in 2 weeks - and if my pay is not through it will just be touch and go.

4pm and I am writing this by Candlelight! What does that mean? It means that my luck has definitely changed! I was lying on my bed trying to work out what on earth to do about water. Out of the question to bother Teresa. Could I beg anyone else for help? Not really. Just then the thunder started, but that has happened several times lately and never a drop of rain. Then suddenly this terrific wind sprang up, like a hurricane, trees bent double, junk flying all over the compound, meanwhile getting darker and darker. And then, as though somebody had upended a bucket right above Zonkwa - solid water! I rushed in and dragged my drum outside and positioned it under a broken downspout - and now it is nearly half-full! Of course, it will still leak out there - but I'll at least be able to fill a bucket and my tub, and it will at least see me through the weekend. Talk about an answer to prayer! The water is filthy, from the dust in the air and on the roof - but that will settle. Eureka! I can see the surrounding country, for the first time since I arrived here, because the pall of dust has gone. It really is very pretty. The trees round my house are all rinsed clean too - great variety of light, dark and bright greens. Amazing what a difference some rain can make.

I settled down then to do some preparation for the Special Education workshop next Friday and Saturday, and was well into that when my next-door neighbour, Mallam Kagurko, came to the door to chat. His wives and children are not yet back; he says he can't afford the taxi fare but I think he is actually afraid to bring them back here, as he's Moslem. What is going to happen? I asked him. He shrugged. `Who knows? The worst thing that could happen is that the Moslems and Christians in the army will begin to fight each other. Then there will be no hope for any of us.' Oh really. I must say I'd never thought of that - and I don't think I will either!

Afternoon now. Lying on the bed this afternoon, peacefully reading, when something began running above my head. Now what is in the ceiling? I followed it from room to room, went outside and surveyed for holes where it may have entered (there are several; but will it exit the same way? Or will it descend into the kitchen via the manhole, whose cover does not fit properly? As it runs and squeals non-stop, the logical mind of course is left with the dreaded rat.

For a long time I couldn't go in the kitchen to cook supper; just sat here at the table and played solitaire and wondered what to do. Go and beg one of the teachers to get up there and look? I just can't. I can just imagine the story going round. `Oh that white woman; first she wants water all the time, then she hears noises in the roof!' I plucked up what remains of my guts (not much) and went in there and made supper - one eye always on the manhole. I've just been bitten by a mosquito. Chloroquine-resistant perhaps? Who cares?

At last the riots were over, the army left and the girls and the staff returned to the compound. I was very pleased as I had never thought one could get sick of reading but I had done.

Back to school this morning with no regrets; the days are too long without the job. Not many girls back; perhaps 250 out of 2000. We had a 2-hour staff meeting this morning in the library. The main topic of conversation was the fate of two girls who had been caught outside the compound on the night of March 10th. The men were all for floggings and the women wanted suspensions so they are to have both. The subject was then brought up by the Principal of how careful the male teachers must be, for fear their actions with the students might be wrongly construed. Never mind what the actions are in the first place; she never mentions that, just does not want to be embarrassed by any public trouble in her school. I stared out the window during the whole thing and wished myself a million miles away - or brave enough to say what I really think about the system here.

When at last it was all finished (Nigerians dearly love to talk and argue, frequently changing sides if the fight looks better from the other direction) the Principal said `Now you can have the rest of the day to prepare your lessons.' Well of course I'd done all that at the weekend but had a letter to write and stayed in the library because the Principal had told us not to go home before 2 o'clock. After a little while I noticed that the library was empty; then the librarian came over to me and said `Would you mind leaving? I want to lock up.' Oh, OK, I'll go to the staffroom instead. Walked down to the staffroom; it was also locked, and not a teacher remained in the school. I walked down to the little stall at the end of the compound, bought 2 slices of fried yam and came home - at 12.30.

The dogs woke me at 4 and didn't shut up for one minute until 6.15, when they probably went to sleep and I had to get up. Tuesday is always a heavy day for me, 5 classes without a break but because I came home for coffee at 10, I survived it very well. About 60% of the Form Five girls are back at school now but predictably only 10 of the Form Four Gs. I taught them maths methods and English, I thought the ones who bothered coming back must be keeners anyway and deserve my best. Not all teachers were of that opinion apparently because many chairs were carried out and placed under the mango trees and occupied by hordes who couldn't possibly all have had spares. The Principal is in Zaria today so while the cat's away ...

Tonight I'm on Bed Check at 10 pm. One of my most unfavourite jobs. I said to the Senior Mistress this morning - `Are we doing Bed Check this week, with so many girls still away?' `Oh yes' she said `Write down the names of the girls who are here, instead of those who aren't.' Oh well, great, that should only take me a couple of hours. Then to the Vice-Principal's office. `Do you have the Bed Check report book?' `No, I haven't seen it for several weeks.' Probably it hasn't been done since the last time I did it.

Poor Charity Alkali is sitting opposite me at this moment, slaving over a practice exam paper which I can see is incomprehensible to her. I have her do a section every night - by herself first, because she must get used to trying to puzzle the questions out by herself. She usually gets them wrong and then I go through them with her, explaining why the answer is whatever it is. But her English is very poor. When I ask her a question, she always says `Huh?' in an interrogative sort of way. I rephrase, use smaller words, but she never really catches on. An exercise in frustration for the poor child.

Later: so much for catching my rain-water outside! One of my neighbours, Victoria, a very nice woman in a wheel-chair (polio I think) who comes over nearly every night for a chat, came to my door pushed by her `junior sister'. `Madame, I come to bring you a message from my mother (who does not speak any English). She says you must not leave your drum outside because it will be stolen.' Oh. So I dragged it back up the step; can't put it where it was, outside the bathroom, because it's still leaking and the vinyl tiles (which were in very poor shape to begin with) are all coming unstuck. But it's cement in the kitchen - so I hauled it in there. Pity - but I suppose I should have worked that out for myself. After all, if they'll steal your meter and sell it in the market, they'll surely grab your water-drum too. I'm very glad she told me; I certainly would have been no end put out to get up one morning and find myself `drumless'.

Went out at 10pm and did the dreaded Bed Check. Found two co-operative girls (`You are the Bed Check prefects') and got them to accompany me and write down the names of all the girls present. I was home at 10.30 and then had to write my report; hardest job of all, deciphering the names that the girls wrote down for me.

After everybody weeping and wailing over the girls in Form Five missing two weeks' classes, and how could we ever catch up because their exams start next week, there was no teaching on Monday because of a long pointless staff-meeting, and no classes today either because today has been declared `National Statistics Day'! We had our usual little staff meeting this morning and the Vice-Principal (the Principal of course is away in Zaria for the day) announced that the staff had been divided into groups (a group of about 8 teachers for each form) and their job would be to count the number of day girls and boarders in each form. This is all in the registers, and would take 5 minutes to extract, but this little task will take all day, therefore all classes are cancelled.

Afterwards I walked down to the shop and walking back through the hospital, a Nigerian nurse stopped me and introduced herself as being a friend of Carol Forster's. She used to live in the compound (next to Carol I think) because her husband taught here, but he doesn't now so they had to move out. We chatted for a while; then as I walked on I met Sister Zalie, one of the Irish nuns, and she invited me into her clinic and we sat and talked for an hour or so - both moaning about more or less the same things - because she teaches student nurses and says that some of them are wonderful practical nurses, and would do a great job out in the villages (where nobody ever speaks any English anyway) but the written exams are in such convoluted ambiguous English that the girls fail that part because they can't understand the questions. `I hardly can myself', she said.

Mrs Alkali (Charity's mother) called in to say Hullo and `How is Charity doing?' What to say? `She tries very hard, but the examination is most difficult.' (Diplomatic). Mrs Alkali sells pop, so I gave her 2 naira. `Please let Charity bring me 2 bottles of mineral when she comes tonight.' A bottle a night makes a little treat with supper. `Don't you take beer?' she asked. `Never' I said firmly. I would not be the first CUSO to develop a drinking problem. Best not to risk that!

Mrs Alkali raged on with her usual theme; the flat tire on the Principal's water tanker. `I blame the Principal' she said sternly. She always wants me to attack the Principal about it - but I have been here long enough to know that it would be sheer waste of time. But the everlasting scrounge for water continues day after day. For example, last night I asked Victoria Wheelchair `Could your junior sisters please bring me a little water tomorrow? I have hardly any left.' `Oh certainly.' They never came, so late this afternoon I walked over to their house. They were all sitting outside taking some yellow stuff out of pods. `Could the junior sisters get me some water please?' `Yes, when they have finished this work.' It's dark now, so obviously they will not come. Two Form Five girls came for help with English. `Could you get me a bucket of water please?' `No Madame, there is no water in the wells now, there is only water from the stream and that is dirty and will make you sick.' Well, I know that. But if the tanker had a new tyre we would have a limitless supply of water from the bore at Kagora, for the small sum of 50 kobo per drum.

Next day I had just started teaching my first class when I was called for a meeting with Teresa, Mrs Kure and the Principal about the Special Education workshop tomorrow and Saturday. My nextdoor neighbour, Mallam Kagurko was there too because he is the kitchen master, also the Bursar was there; we have to provide breakfast and lunch for both days. We repaired to the library and discussed the menu; I should say, they discussed it because it was all in Hausa so I have no idea what was decided. The Home Economics teachers are to organise the cooking; one of them joined us and I gathered she was refusing to do it, on the grounds that she was giving her students a practical exam tomorrow. One of the furious arguments then ensued, much shouting and shaking of heads but eventually they all settled down and began to make lists. As nearly as I could gather, breakfast tomorrow will be tea, Bournvita and sandwiches. I suggested coffee but they all looked at me as if I were mad, nobody drinks it here, so l hastily said `It doesn't matter'. Lunch tomorrow is rice, soup (which is actually peppery stew, with chicken) and vegetable salad which is cooked vegies mixed with mayonnaise, or salad cream as it's called here.

Breakfast on Saturday is pap, a sort of thin gruel which you drink; I've never tasted it because it's grey and looks horrible and bean cakes, my favourite food of all time so I'll make up for it on those - and lunch that day is yam pottage which is a kind of vegetable stew and very good too. It will be interesting to taste something different from my own meals and I'm looking forward to that. The Zonal Director is coming to officially declare it open, the Assistant Director is the chairman, the program starts with the National Anthem and prayers for both Christians and Moslems. It's all very formal and I will cheer when it is over because a lot of the responsibility for its success is on me.

Our piece of peculiar news for the day was this. At our little staff assembly this morning the Principal announced that the CRK (Christian Religious Knowledge) papers from last year have been examined and no malpractice has been found - but here at WTC Zonkwa, 80% will be required for an A grade, whereas at all other schools, only 70% will rate an A. This is because so many more students got good marks from Zonkwa last year that it was decided they must have cheated somehow. No evidence of that could be found - but they still think there must be something fishy - so they have changed the grading scale for Zonkwa only! The fact is that Sister Noreen is the head of the CRK department here and she is an excellent teacher, questions, tests, reviews - all the time - and of course never `under the tree'. Plus, of course, she's been teaching the same subject for the last 25 years, so is good at predicting the questions.

Today is overcast and horribly humid. When I was walking to work I thought `This feels exactly like walking in warm water.' The same sort of resistance against you, sort of pressing against you, as you get walking in the sea. Only not cool like the sea. I managed to scrounge a couple of buckets of water this afternoon, thank goodness; I was down to the mud again. When I think of washing with a washer and dryer, and ironing with a steam iron! I'll certainly never moan about housework again, if I ever make it back to the western world.

Talked to Sister Mary tonight; she is flying to Amsterdam, then London, on Monday, to spend 6 months at the London School of Tropical Medicine. She said `I've got my ticket now; but one of the nuns in Kano is checking to see that I get on the list.' `Oh? Why?' `Because having a ticket doesn't get you on the plane; you have to be on the list too.' How will I ever get out of here? I've heard lots of airport horror stories about Kano; for example they say `Make sure you've always got naira; you have to dash (bribe) to get a boarding pass there.'

Friday March 27 ^th - The dreaded Special Education workshop is over and was the event of the season. As I recounted yesterday, the meals were planned in great detail and I was really looking forward to that aspect of it, two days of `proper food’, as opposed to my rather shoestring existence. Got there early, we had rearranged the library furniture yesterday and the girls were cleaning it this morning and had put fresh flowers in the vases, frangipani mostly; I never get sick of that perfume. I checked on the food; 3 half-grown live chickens with legs tied together, bread, eggs, tomatoes and sardines for the breakfast meal (to be at 9.30) which was to be sandwiches. The whole event was to start at 8.30 but this is African time, so at a quarter to 10 the Zonal Director, Chief Inspector of Schools and the Zonal Statistician all arrived and we had our formal opening exercises; National Anthem, prayer by the Vice-Principal, speeches by the C.I.S., Director, formal introductions of everybody and a welcome speech by me. Then a short question period which seemed odd as nothing had yet happened to ask questions about; but sure enough one of the men from another Teachers' College asked `How can you start tomorrow's sessions at 8.30 when tomorrow is Sanitation Day?'

Oh lord!! We had all forgotten that tomorrow is the last Saturday in the month so nobody is allowed out of their compound until 10am so our visitors could not be here until 11 at the very earliest - some even 12. The Principal had the idea of carrying right on today until 6pm and presenting all 6 sessions today, instead of 3 today and 3 tomorrow. Oh, excellent idea, I hated to lose my Saturday to such a thing - and of course much better for those who had to travel, especially as there is a petrol shortage here - it is almost unprocurable, no idea why.

So off we went. Mrs Kure first, then me on Learning Disabilities - 3 parts; introduction to, assessment of, and classroom management techniques. I must modestly say it was rather good. I'd worked hard on it, made aids, it was well received and people asked a lot of good questions and all said nice things. But the funny thing (awful thing) was that just as I started, trays of sandwiches and thermos flasks of hot water for tea (always called `Liptons' here, never called tea) and Bournvita were brought into the library. I said `Let's break for refreshments', but the Vice-Principal said, `No, we're running late, they can eat while we have question period after you finish.' Oh dear, I thought, they looked yummy, egg and tomato and sardine sandwiches, but anyway on I went. I talked for over an hour, then said `There, I've finished, aren't you glad, now you can all eat.' I turned round but where had the trays of sandwiches gone? They weren't there.

This is what had happened. The Bursars from all the schools in the zone were also having a workshop here today. There were 30 of them too; but they had not bothered ordering any food, so when they got peckish, around 11, they just came and took our food and scoffed the lot! Can you believe that?

We went on with our papers - and a meal was finally cooked for us at 3 o'clock. As I'd had nothing to eat or drink since cornflakes at 6.30, I was nearly fainting (hadn't even had my morning nigercafe). It was rice and `stew' - as I described before, a peppery sauce with a few pieces of meat. The sauce is good and I should have been content with that but stupidly took 2 pieces of meat, as it's 2 weeks since I've had any. Do you remember Charlie Chaplin eating his boot in `The Gold Rush'? That's exactly what it was like. I was petrified that I would do my broken molar in completely but finally managed to nibble bits of it and swallow them – boot leather or rubber chicken as it’s called.

On again after that; I did Speech and Hearing Impairment and Visual Impairment. Nigerians just adore talking, arguing, discussing, so they came up with dozens of questions which actually is great at a thing like that. There were about 30 delegates there and I must say it was quite a blast. We finished about 6; and then blow me down if another meal wasn't carried in! Yam pottage (vegetable stew) with pieces of chicken on top. My piece was a neck; I approached it carefully but could not make any impression on it at all so I laid it back on my plate. A moment later Joseph (one of our staff members) said `Don't you want your meat?' and when I said `No' he made short work of it, crunching it up with his beautiful strong white teeth. The Nigerians all have magnificent teeth; large, strong, white and perfect in shape and alignment. Chewing tough meat is no effort for them.

The only flaw in the day, if you could call it that, was that we formed a committee and of course I am the leader as I am the `Co-ordinator.' We are having a meeting on Wednesday and have to make resolutions and send them to the Ministry. Came home and was shortly visited by the Vice-Principal with a Form Five girl in tow, crying. Her mother had just died and she wanted to go home (a far village) for the funeral, but did not want to miss her oral English exam. `Don't worry' I said grandly, `I will arrange for you to take it when you return.' Have no idea whether I can do that, but she should go. I said to her `If my mother died I would go - and she lives in Australia, on the other side of the world.' She cheered up and trotted off but the Vice-Principal (I don't even know her name, isn't that awful but everyone just calls her `Vice') stayed and talked, rave rave about the workshop. She left and Mrs Alkali and Mrs Kabankwok arrived, ditto. Then Binta and Charity for lessons. Nine-thirty now and I'm off to bed after an exhausting but satisfying, day.

Wonderful to wake up this morning and know that the workshop had finished and I don't have to work today. Had a luxurious lie-in till 7.30, then hunger drove me to the kitchen to make porridge for breakfast. I was out of books so went to the convent for coffee and a scone and a chat, I walked up from the hospital with Sister Philomene and took the opportunity of asking her about the meningitis epidemic here which was announced on Wednesday. When I did Bed Check the other night, I noticed girls sleeping on the floor and said to the prefect `Why are they sleeping on the floor?' and she said `So that they will not catch meningitis.' Sister Philomene said that sleeping on the floor will not save them, but sleeping with the windows open will, because the virus breeds in the `hot-box' atmosphere of the dorms. She said there are always epidemics as the rainy season approaches; yellow fever and cholera will soon be upon us too (not upon me I hope!).

I have a mango tree behind my house so when I got back, I picked and stewed some; I prefer them green and stewed, rather than ripe, they have a nice tart flavour a bit like stewed apple. Wrote letters then because one of the nuns is flying to England on Monday and said she would take mail to Kano for me as it goes much faster from there. Washed all the floors; late in the afternoon it got quite dark and thundered a lot, but only a drop or two of rain, no run-off. I couldn't even see to read and had to play patience instead.

When I first came here the Principal told me she would like this to become a `Special School'. I paid little attention, thinking she meant specially good or something, but she has repeatedly mentioned Fadan Kaje, a boys' school near Kafanchan where they have a group of handicapped boys - blind, deaf, crippled, etc. And then when the director opened the workshop on Friday, she got up and said `How come Fadan Kaje for boys, and nothing for girls?' And now we all have to meet again and make up these resolutions to be sent to the Zonal Office - and one which she suggested was `Zonkwa should have a handicapped children's centre', and I realised that she wants to take handicapped girls in this school, like the boys at Fadan Kaje. The Principal is a very ambitious woman who did her Masters in the states and embraces the American way of life rather wholeheartedly. She is also very sentimental about the handicapped so she sees her claim to fame as being this new thing; handicapped girls integrated into Women’s Teachers College. I can see this whole thing looming up. We will start a handicapped centre at this school and I will be the Co-ordinator of it. But I won't. Because I have worked far too long with the handicapped to have blinkers on where they are concerned. Decent facilities cost money; and if you can't offer them those you may as well leave them alone, to live or die at home. The facilities are so lousy here for normal girls; how could anyone think of trying to cater for the handicapped?

Brenda has started a deaf preschool in Kaduna. She has 5 kids, a full-time assistant, a married couple who live at the house and work as mguardi/yard-man, and cleaner. The house which has running water and flush toilets was donated, CUSO bought a Mitsubishi van and pays Brenda's full salary, plus she asked for and got $12,000 from Save the Children in Canada. She has excellent equipment and the project is working well, and is of a manageable size. But to just take handicapped girls into a boarding school like this makes me break out in a sweat just thinking about it.

Monday March 30 ^th - Last night was a very weird night for me. After a generally uneasy weekend worrying about work, I woke in the night with the most vivid image of Reg in hospital, all hooked up in intensive care. I got up at first light, too restless to lie still for another minute and I was ready to go to school at 7; sat here at the table until 25 after, thinking `Well, David will come out this morning and tell me what’s happened.' I taught the first 3 periods with my eye on the driveway, every moment expecting to see David's pale blue Peugeot turn in off the road. But it didn't, so at 10 o'clock I came home for the 30-minute break to have a cup of coffee to steady the nerves. I was sitting here drinking it and looking out the window when I heard a car coming up my road. I knew before it passed my window that it was David, and I rushed out the door before he even got out of the car, and said `What happened?' `Nothing' he said, looking a bit puzzled, `I just brought you a loan because they haven't paid your salary again this month.'

He had also brought Linda Cobb, from Ottawa; she is out here for a month's tour of the health projects in Nigeria and David is driving her around so they came in and had coffee and chatted for half an hour, and then they left and I went back to school. But the whole thing just seemed so incredibly weird and creepy. I didn't know what to make of it. David told me that Patricia Eagles, from the Beth Torrey Home in Zaria (the other job that I was considered for) is going home. He wouldn't tell me why; just laughed and said `Personal reasons'. I told David everything is fine here; he had stopped at the principal's office before coming to my house and she had raved about the Special Education workshop to him. It meant kudos for her with the Director and the other principals, so right now I am the white-haired girl. Trouble is - I feel I almost am white-haired today! So queer that David should even come out, he could easily have left the money with Brenda again, as he did last month. And during the riots he never even came out; just said casually this morning `Did you have much trouble here?' and I asked him `Did you telex Ottawa?' and he said Yes - but this morning I had a letter from Marcus written 3 days after March 12th, when I sent the message, and he doesn't mention it so did they ever get it? Who knows?

Tuesday March 31 ^st - I am BEAT! The Oral English exams for Form Five start on Thursday, and as these are the girls I have been teaching I offered to give them extra help this week in my spares. So today I have taught 7 classes out of 8, which is no mean effort I can tell you when it means standing up for the whole 280 minutes on a concrete floor in a boiling dusty crowded classroom, teaching absolutely non-stop. What a marathon. Worth while though, they are so pathetically grateful because they have great confidence in me and think that I can help them to pass. Let's hope they're right!

I staggered home exhausted, collapsed on the bed for an hour and then got up and cleaned kitchen and bathroom with Vim, sweating so much I hardly needed to use water. The Principal nabbed me this morning and said that David had called on her after he left here, and said `Why is Joan still having a water problem? And why does she not have a kerosene fridge, so that her food would stay cold during the day?' So she told him `I am having the fridge repaired for her; it will soon be back; and I have given Mrs Chiroma the responsibility of seeing that her drum is always full; and I am going to buy her a jerry-can and bring her clean water every day from the bore.' And David swallowed all that! And she said the identical words to him the last time he was here - on February 12th! He knows she's lying but doesn't care, and she knows he knows she's lying but she knows he doesn't care.

Wednesday April 1 ^st - Last night practically a whole class of Form Fives arrived at 7, wanting an extra lesson. They crowded into my house and I did my best to teach them; tricky without a blackboard. At the same time I had the Vice-Principal's 10-year old son, Habila, for reading, Binta for reading, Charity and Sylvia Alkali, and Victoria Wheelchair visiting, and Ruth and her little niece Patience who proceeded to have a nosebleed on table, floor and several books. There is one thing about all this; I certainly can't complain about being lonely! Took extra English classes again today.

Then at 10am the `Special Education Committee' which was formed last Friday, met in the library to draw up resolutions to be sent to the Zonal Director and the Minister of Education. Delegates from other schools came too, they are a bunch of enthusiasts which is very good for me as I get all the credit for organising but all I do is sit back and let them argue and debate, all in Hausa, and one of them was appointed secretary and took the minutes, so I really didn't do a thing. Because they were visitors the Principal had ordered Home Economics to cook a meal, which they did; it was `tuwo' which is like a very thick porridge made from cassava and maize, and the usual peppery `soup' with a few pieces of meat, one of which I ate for the good of my health. The Nigerians eat huge amounts - even the women each took six times as much as I did. A few spoons were provided (I grabbed one) but most of them eat with their hands - a messy business for me, but they do it neatly and cleanly.

I finished testing the 4Gs this morning; gave them tests in Maths methods, English methods, and English. I thought I'd better have some marks to produce in case of report cards, though I've no idea what the system is, and don't get around to asking. It rained a little last night, but not enough to catch water - and is unbearably sticky again today. Two girls came tonight and wanted help with their chemistry homework. I draw the line at that; I'm sure they know more than I do!

Thursday April 2 ^nd - Another heavy day; oral English exams started this morning at 9am but actually started at African time of course, so it was about 11 - and until then I taught every class and extra students crowded into every room I was teaching in because they were all doing a jelly about their exams and think every word might help - so at times I was teaching 60 or 70 girls packed into a room designed for about 40. Hot work! The Principal has been fussing about trying to get Braille materials for the blind girl, Elizabeth Madaki. She wanted me to go to Fadan Kaje Secondary School where they have some blind boys. I knew they wouldn't have anything, but not to reason why, just to do or die, so I got a car and a driver and off I went at 11, taking my trusty Special Education friends Teresa and Mrs Kure with me. Talked to the Vice-Principal, sure enough, no materials.

Back to school, went to the examining officer because they insist on examining Elizabeth by Braille but had sent no Braille exam paper for her. No luck yet in straightening that one out but I'll keep trying. The latest on the CRK scandal (about the marks) was that the marks were to be released today; these are from the June 1986 exams, mind you! But instead of that, a typed list was handed to Sister Noreen this morning with 66 out of the 300 students names; all wrongly recorded marks or `Errors in Calculation' they called them. For example, a girl who had been awarded 98% should have been given 74%; a girl who had been awarded 46% should have been given 70% and so on, and so on. She was justifiably spitting chips. We were talking about it afterwards. `Aren't you glad you're getting out of the system?' I asked her (she finishes in June). `I couldn't stand another year of it' she said, `It gets worse every year.'

Friday April 3 ^rd - Jumped up early in good spirits at the thought of a weekend away in Kaduna, stripped the bed as I had decided to take my sheets and towel for a good wash in Brenda's washing machine, washed my clothes, packed my little bag then off to school. Got through the morning and remembered to buy some beancakes at break as I would miss lunch, dashed home at 12.35 and grabbed my pack and then off down for a taxi. I had a fat lady sitting on my leg and got out almost paralysed; walked to the motor park for Kaduna taxis and went through the same old hassle as last time. `How much to Dikko Road?' `Five naira' `Too much' `How much will you pay?' `One naira' Oh, laugh laugh - and call out to all the other taxi-drivers `One naira to Dikko Road! Go to another taxi!' So I'd go to another group; same again. In the end I managed to get one for 3 naira; according to Brenda the correct price is 50 kobo. Got to Brenda's at last and was so happy to have a cold shower and a drink, sit and chat and feel civilised again. At 6.15 we went to the home of Jane (Australian) and Neil (English) McDonald to have a birthday drink with Jane, a very nice woman in her mid-thirties from Brisbane. They have two young kids and her husband works for Wildlife. There were several other people there, including an East Indian couple, both teachers, and we had a very jolly time. Then home to eat and went to bed about 10. Brenda had had a week of gastroenteritis and was still a bit under the weather.

Saturday April 4 ^th - Andy was `going bush' on Saturday with three friends on the `machines' (motor-bikes). He has three bikes, a Norton (the biggest), a Yamaha and something else whose name I forget. They were riding to some falls, about a 5-hour ride each way so they left at 7. We didn't get up until after 8; I had had a good sleep for once without the racket of dogs, roosters and people going to the well, so felt very refreshed. After breakfast we shopped at Leventis, I got my precious peanut butter, bran cereal, honey and Milton for sterilising tomatoes and then Brenda dropped me at the Telephone Exchange to phone Reg. The line was terribly poor but we shouted to each other for 10 minutes for which I paid 40 naira and managed to have a very satisfactory conversation. Then I walked back to Brenda’s, about 3 km, very hot, glad of a cool drink.

Andy works for AIEP, a Nigerian aircraft company that is a subsidiary of Dorning, a German firm with a branch in Kaduna. They have a swimming-pool for their employees, and Brenda and I went there in the afternoon. A beautiful stainless-steel pool, the only one I've ever seen, surrounded by lawn and garden with banana trees etc., tables and lounges and stewards running round with umbrellas - beautiful clean changing-rooms - all very un-Nigerian, and of course no Nigerians can use it. We were the only ones there speaking English, everyone else was German. We had taken books, and drinks and bananas in a cooler and had a really gorgeous afternoon. It was boiling hot and I got a bit burnt even though I was under the umbrella all the time except for when we were in swimming.

On the way home I started to sneeze and my nose started running - and by evening it had blossomed into a really awful cold. Eva Murray (Nigerian Co-ordinator) came to dinner and we had a very good time; she brought me a pineapple which I thought was an excellent gift under the circumstances as pineapples are supposed to cure colds. Fell into bed, still sneezing and blowing, about 12.

Sunday April 5 ^th - Nobody stirred till 8.30 or so and Brenda made banana and agusi-nut (melon-seeds) pancakes for breakfast, a taste-thrill indeed. Andy is vegetarian and Brenda is semi- but they eat very well, both taste-wise and nutritionally. I don't think I'll ever really go back to meat either, I'm sure I'm better off without it. Andy had to work today; he is acting technical manager for AIEP and works hard but likes it. Brenda and I lay around reading; she suggested another swim but I didn't dare as the cold had now spread to my ears. About 3 o'clock she drove me to the motor park and I found a taxi for Zonkwa; had to wait half an hour for it to fill, then off we went at the usual hair-raising speed. It was a trying trip, fearfully hot (40 degrees) and my ears grew steadily worse until by the time we reached Zonkwa I could hear nothing but popping and pounding.

Staggered home, made the bed with my nice clean sheets, cleaned up the honey which had spilled in my pack, bathed, boiled the week's water and at last subsided on the bed at 7, went to sleep and stayed that way till 5am.

Monday April 6 ^th - Woke feeling shocking and debated staying in bed, but how to send a message? In the end I decided it would be easier to get up and go, so staggered out and readied myself. For sure, being sick away from home is something else again! Only made it till noon then came home and crawled on the bed; spent rest of day half awake, half asleep, totally miserable.

Tuesday April 7 ^th - Woke feeling a little better because noises in ears have stopped. Still weak and clammy though; legs like spaghetti. Dragged myself off to work and did as little as I decently could. Came home at 12 as I had no more classes and collapsed on the bed but 5 minutes later a girl came to tell me that the Braille exam had arrived for Elizabeth Madaki, so would I go back? I did, and organised that as best I could. I couldn't stay and help her of course as it would have been invalid. Another boiling day, hot north wind and I am out of water. I upended the drum to shake out the mud and now I live in hopes which were never realised as the whole compound is waterless now. Luckily I have a bottle of boiled water left to drink. Binta came after I was in bed (no power again tonight) and asked for 5 naira to get home for the holidays. `If you bring me water' I said, desperate now. `In the morning' she promised.

Wednesday April 8 ^th - Cold a little better though I now have a cough as well which woke me often in the night. No Binta with water. Principal asked me to dictate Elizabeth's answers so that she could type them. Brought her home to do that but her typewriter did not work. Took it (and her) back to the school and Esther the secretary fixed it. It was jammed in Stencil. Came home and she is doing it now. Very slow process but beats standing in front of classes all day when I'm not feeling well.

Looking back on this time I don’t know whether the miserable cold had triggered this sentiment or whether I was just generally fed up but I had begun to consider resigning. With the successful conclusion of the workshop, I felt that my purpose had been fulfilled to a large extent and I was in the process of writing (in longhand) a special education course to be given each year which I finished and presented to the Principal.

I had begun to worry about my health and I was thoroughly fed up with the water and power situation and was missing contact with the family terribly. I was in a bind over the CUSO Conference in Calabar to which I was due to go the following week; should I go or not? I had no way of resigning before it (as David O’Holidays was away for a month) and therefore could not give a reason for not going but I felt a bit of a fraud going when I was considering resigning.

I confided in Sister Noreen who had several times suggested that I resign, she thought my living conditions were terrible not to mention the lack of money. When I asked her what she thought her reply was instantaneous. `Go' she said `Anything is better than sitting here by yourself for 3 boring weeks. Then say at the end of the month that you had made up your mind to give it 3 months fair trial.' I decided to go to the conference, still not having made up my mind completely one way or the other.

Woke up next morning feeling a lot better; my horrid cold seems to be on the wane and is now limited to nose and a very irritating cough which woke me many times in the night. I feel a lot better and a lot more cheerful too. Two nice things happened last night, both contributing to my improved mood this morning. Charity Alkali arrived about 9pm with a bucket of water for me - thereby assuring me of a wash this morning. Then about 10 o'clock Teresa Chiroma, baby tied on back, arrived with another bucket. So kind.

No classes today because all the school has a Phys. Ed. exam. It starts at 10.30 (supposedly) and lasts, I think, for 3 hours. Then tomorrow is the last day of school before the holidays so I don't imagine there will be any classes then either - but when school closes at 12.35, we have a general staff meeting - another one! A letter from Mum (March 12th) came today; it had taken almost a month and no wonder; it had gone to Zaria instead of Zonkwa, been re-franked Zaria: April 1, and written on the front was `TRY ZANKWA'! Mum's writing isn't that bad! I'm writing this by candlelight again, no power. I guess now that the riots are all over it isn't important to light the town any more.

Friday April 10 ^th - I thought today was the last day of school - but when I arrived there at 7.30 I found hardly any girls and the same scarcity of teachers. `Don't we have any classes today?' I asked. `No, the girls go home today.' Oh, well, that makes sense of course; many of them live a whole day's trek from here and need to leave early. After a while the teachers started to straggle in and then someone announced that we were all to go to the library for a staff meeting. The Principal came in and made some announcements and then gave us all a lecture about how we should not travel far in the holidays as it really is not at all safe to travel at present.

Then we were finished - and I was home by 9.30. As I'd been invited to the convent for coffee, I trotted up there at 10 and spent a very pleasant hour eating scones and chatting. They all say there that it won't rain till the end of April - this heat has set in and will last for at least two more weeks and there won't be any power either they say - there is no fuel, according to Those Who Know. Good that I'm going away. Three weeks here with no work, no water and no power would probably finish me off. We were warned again this morning by the Principal against the thieves who will break into our houses if we go away (or even if we don't). I have asked Mallam, my neighbour, to keep an eye on my house - but neither he nor I have any side windows so he wouldn't see anything going on here at night. Hard to know what to do.

Spent the afternoon lying on the bed reading - having had a rather yummy lunch. When I was walking home from the convent I passed some women sitting by the road selling odds and ends. One had avocados and I bought one for 40 kobo and another had little bags of groundnuts (peanuts) for 10 kobo so I bought one of those. The avocado with lemon juice squeezed over it was delicious - and then the nuts. I thought afterwards, what a high-fat meal - but I thought I was due for a couple of treats. No power again of course, I'm writing this by candlelight. Down to my last candle and must get some more tomorrow.

Saturday April 11 ^th - I had just woken this morning, about 6, when there was a knock on my door. It was Teresa Chiroma with two of her little girls - each with a bucket of water for me. What a kind soul. She has 5 little kids including a 6-month old baby and her husband is away in the army. She has been very good to me and if I leave I will give her a lot of the things that I don't intend hauling back with me. I had just finished my bath when Charity Alkali appeared, also with a bucket of water. Now I have enough to last until I go away.

Had breakfast, cleaned up and left for the market - anxious to get there and back before the worst of the heat. My cold, through improving, has left me decidedly feeble and I wondered whether I could even make it that far. I had hardly reached the road before feeling weak and clammy, but pressed on with determination and finally made it. Bought bananas and tomatoes; there were pineapples there today, first time for a couple of months; I thought about one but they were all huge and the prospect of carrying it back daunted me. I bought some bean cakes and a couple of pieces of fried plantain to eat as a reward when I got home - met the principal there, she was buying `ingredients' as all food for cooking here are called - so I picked her brains for the names of some of the wares in the market that I had not been able to identify. Then on the road for the long hot trek home. Stopped at the little shop opposite the hospital to buy more spray for the cockies, candles, matches and bread. Home at last - ate my treat, Miltoned the tomatoes, drank some water then crashed on the bed - exhausted at 10 o'clock in the morning!

Later in the day I revived and sorted letters and papers for burning and made a fire out the back. Sister Noreen called to say goodbye; she is going to Kano in the morning to have her car serviced. Four hours drive; but there's not a good mechanic any closer. She won't be back before I leave for the conference. Some of the Girls' Secondary School girls (who don't finish until Wednesday) called to me; `We are having yam pottage' (stew) and they offered me a bowl. `Too much for me' I said but took one piece of yam. It was good - but just like eating a whole big dry potato by itself. No power again tonight of course.

Sunday April 12 ^th - Palm Sunday today and Mass lasted just on 2 hours. What an ordeal; my cold for some strange reason has freshened up and despite a bag full of tissues I had soaked the lot by the time we came out. The church was boiling; I always sit near a side door where I normally get a bit of breeze but today it was kept shut - whether to stop people from entering or escaping, I don't know. Order is kept in the church by men (deacons) who wear a blue sash across the shoulder and pace up and down the church throughout the service, evicting noise-makers. Every woman has a baby on her back; if the baby so much as squeaks, one of these men is instantly there, pointing imperiously towards the door - `OUT!' Same for any toddler who murmurs - and the mother gets up obediently and trots outside. The men of course never help to look after the children during Mass, they all sit together at the front leaving the women to care for the 5 or 6 - or more - children.

I walked home with Teresa Chiroma and her 5 children. `Are you travelling during the holiday, Teresa?' I asked. `No Madame, I have too much farming to do.' Every teacher has a farm either within the compound or just outside the fence. Teresa's yams (planted in October) have already germinated, since the March rains - but now she must plant her groundnuts (peanuts). Her husband is away in the army. `How do you find time to farm?' I asked her. `I always start at 5.30 in the morning' she said `and then after I cook at night, I work till dark.'

Later: Just had to empty my fridge; I've had to leave the door open because when there is no power it develops an awful smell. When I opened it to get things out for lunch I found it was aswarm with tiny fruit flies. They had invaded my stewed mangoes and I had to throw them away. They were also crawling on the honey, peanut butter, tomatoes etc. I emptied the fridge and sprayed inside, stored the food in my food box. One of my few treats was stewed fruit and custard for supper. But yesterday I had to throw out the custard which had gone sour in the heat; today the fruit.

Monday April 13 ^th - Got up early as usual, though tired after a very disturbed night of barking dogs. The idea behind getting up early was to walk to the Bank as I wanted to know whether they had paid me for last month. In a way I hoped they hadn't - as they can hardly expect a month's notice when they don't bother paying me. Hot sticky day as usual but off I trekked and reached there after half an hour. Waited at the counter but men kept pushing in front of me so I decided to see my old friend the secretary, knocked and went in to her office. `I came to see if my salary has been paid' I said after all the appropriate greetings. `No' she said. `It wasn't paid?' I asked, wanting to get all this absolutely straight. `Yes' she said. One last try at clarification. `I have money?' `No.' Fine. Off I went, satisfied.

Stopped at the Post Office for aerograms and stamps. `Five aerograms and 10 20-kobo stamps please.' He put out his hand for the money and I gave him 5 naira. `No' he said. `No change.' No change in a POST OFFICE? I dragged out all my change - it came to N2.80 - settled for 4 aerograms instead. Stopped for bread and arrived home at last, soaked with sweat but pleased to have that bank trip over. Now, after half an hour, I am still pouring sweat. Spent the afternoon lying on the bed, reading and sweating.

Tuesday April 14 ^th - No wonder most people here say April is the worst month. The humidity has increased steadily over the last week and last night was too hot to sleep. I dozed, but came to many times to wipe the sweat that was pouring down my face and neck. By morning I was sticky all over; it's like swimming in the sea and not having a shower after it. My hair was stiff with salt, so I recklessly used extra water, washed hair, body and clothes. Thank goodness I'll be in the land of running water again tomorrow; my drum is almost empty again.

Sat at the table after breakfast and read `Africa on a Shoestring' (Lonely Planet Series) which I bought in Ottawa when I still thought I would be traveling all over the continent. Now I know more about it, and the trip from Zonkwa to Kaduna is even a daunting thought. One would have to be intrepid indeed to venture to another country. There are 52 of them. Walked down to collect my mail at 11.30 but there wasn't any. None since last Thursday, and there's never any on Wednesday, so that means none until I get back here at the end of the month. However, I'm a bit past caring now. So many letters say `What an exciting time you must be having, compared to us in boring old Melbourne' (or Sydney, or Red Deer, or wherever). And I feel like writing and saying `You should try my kind of excitement! No power, no water, heat and dust; if that's excitement, give me some boredom.' There, that's my moan for the day; actually I'm looking forward to the trip to Calabar and the chance to see some of my fellow CUSOs and be in touch again with the world outside Zonkwa.

Then I walked up to Mrs Alkali's to buy three bottles of pop; no way of making them cold of course but at least it's a change from warm water and I drank one for lunch and it quite cheered me up. Read all afternoon. I never thought I'd see myself write this, but I am SICK of reading! I miss the girls very much too, as they have all gone home for the holidays; no visitors, no reading lessons, no conversation.

Wednesday April 15 ^th - Up early and excited at the thought of setting out on travels again. Spent all the morning washing, cleaning, packing and locking up or hiding everything of value. Packed my nylon day-pack as it's lighter and easier to carry than my flight-bag, and rolled and tied my comforter like a sleeping-bag and packed it, and a few other extras, in a plastic carry-bag brought from home. Set out at 12 noon and was only half way down the road when the plastic bag ripped, but thought I would go on to the school and see if by any chance there was any mail (though there never is on Wednesday - but I'd had nothing since last Thursday). Was there ever! TEN letters and two rolls of magazines! What a thrill. I went home, read all my letters (4 from Mum, 1 each from Cel, Mad, Tom, Nick, Delores Pedret in the Gambia, Marilyn in Ghana, Bernard Murphy in Cross River State. That's actually 11 letters I see. It took me an hour to read all those, and sorted out what to take (to answer) and then found another plastic bag and repacked.

Left home again at 1; got a little way down the road and felt something funny on my back-pack; checked it and the zipper had popped! Went back home and tried to fix it but no success so transferred everything to my flight-bag and set off once more! Boiling day, needless to say and had to wait 20 minutes for a taxi but we were finally away; four of us and a live chicken in the back seat made for a warm ride but we reached Kaduna safely (always cause for a prayer of thanks to Allah, as the drivers are all Moslem) and I managed to get a taxi to Dikko Road (3 naira as usual, though Brenda says 1) and at last arrived there about 4.30 and fell into a cold shower and then a cold drink fell into me. What utter bliss. The things I never appreciated until I came here!

At night we had a barbecue (shish kabobs) and there were visitors; Lynn Mathieson, CUSO from School for the Deaf and her German boyfriend Willy, Linda Whiting, also CUSO from School for the Deaf, Idris, a deaf Nigerian who teaches at Kaduna Polytechnic and his wife Ginny, a teacher of the deaf from Ohio. They met when Idris was studying at Gallaudet and Ginny was working there. Also David Sewell, an English pilot friend of Andy's who flies for IITA (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture) and Oscar, Austrian next-door neighbor who works with Andy at AIEP, and his Nigerian girlfriend Esther. It was a very jolly party; we ate and drank at tables outside on the terrace and it didn't break up until midnight. I didn't sleep well because the temperature was 31C at midnight and the humidity was 66%, very sticky. I tried using the air-conditioner but the noise kept me awake. In the end I just resigned myself to sweating.

Thursday April 16 ^th - We were all up early as Andy and David left for work at 7.30 and Eva Murray picked me up at 8. Her car was packed full of stuff for the Conference; it is a new, air-conditioned Peugeot so it was very pleasant riding; beats taxis! We drove back along the Zonkwa road as far as the Keffi turn-off, then south to Keffi, Akwanga, Lafia and eventually reached Makurdi about 2 in the afternoon. We stopped at a restaurant for a meal of some rather doubtful fish, then on for the last 3 hours to Ogoja. I drove for an hour or so but it's a pretty nervous place to drive and the car is standard, into the bargain. In Ogoja we went first to Sue and Bernard Murphy's house but nobody was home, then to Kathy O'Brien's (physics teacher for CUSO) where I was to stay, then on to Rosie Hyde's (another CUSO physics teacher) where Eva was staying.

We sat around and chatted for a while, then went to a filling station where there are some seats outside and had a beer, then to buy native food; suya (shish kabob of goat and chicken), plantain, yam and bean cakes. The meat was terribly peppery so we all had another drink. Home about 11 and collapsed into bed just as there was a huge electrical storm and the rain poured down. Had a very disturbed night between savage mosquitoes (no net), a bullant in the bed which gave me an awful bite on the back of the hand (it's like a golf ball this morning) and Kathy with awful diarrhea in and out of the bathroom all night. Do I sound too old for all this? Well I AM!

Friday April 17 ^th - A terribly sticky morning; this southern climate makes Zonkwa seem like paradise! Got up about 8, toileted and bathed and then Kathy and I sat and drank coffee and ate mangoes and bread and peanut butter until about 10.30 when Eva came to pick me up for the next leg of our journey. But first we called to see Bernard and Sue Murphy who were in my orientation group; he teaches physics and maths and Sue is a physiotherapist at the leprosarium. They have a nice house with all-day power, ceiling fans, a 500-gallon water tank, freshly painted throughout. He likes the job; she does not.

We drank coffee and spent a pleasant hour with them, then on the road for Calabar (right). Very pretty country, winding road between tree-covered hills, really not at all what one expects in Nigeria. After a while all the trees were palm trees - some coconut, some palm-oil, and the humidity was increasing all the time. We arrived in Calabar about 3.30 and drove straight to the CUSO office and hostel; a two-story building with about 6 dormitory rooms each with 4 or 5 beds. As I'm the only woman staying here I've got a room to myself. Greg Watson (my traveling companion from Ottawa to Kano) arrived from Cameroon just as we got here; there are also two VSO (England) boys staying here and two other CUSO men. Neither Greg nor I had eaten since early morning so we found a `Chop House' and had gari and soup which you have to eat with the hand; gari is like very thick maize porridge and you make a little ball of it, punch a hole with your thumb, and scoop the soup up in the hole. Because I can't eat with my left hand (your dirty hand in Moslem countries), it's quite difficult and I wish I had a spoon but it was tasty and only 2 naira. Then we walked round the streets for a while, chatting, and back here to have baths. Plenty of water for bucket-baths - and now I am writing letters etc. and all the men have gone out to drink and carouse.

Saturday April 18 ^th - Had an excellent sleep last night because my room has a ceiling fan and the building has a generator so the power stays on all night. The fan also keeps the mossies away - bliss. What a change from the previous night, being chewed by the mosquitoes and deafened by the sounds of poor Kathy's diarrhea.

Greg had been out and bought bread and eggs so I fried 2 eggs - first fried eggs in Nigeria because I have no frying-pan - on a slice of bread, and a cup of coffee. Then Greg, David (VSO) and I got a taxi to the `Hi Quality Bakery' - run by Belgians - as everyone here wanted croissants and pastries. I had an ice-cream, coffee-flavoured, in a dixie-cup. What a taste-thrill. Then another taxi back here to deliver the goodies. The CUSO office is air-conditioned and I `dashed' the staff with éclairs so they are letting me sit in here to write letters. Heaven to be cool. The humidity in Calabar (left) is indescribable but I guess you get used to it. In the afternoon I lay on the bed, too hot to move, and then about 5 there was a huge electrical storm and an hour of torrential warm rain, quite a relief. The vegetation here is profuse, and no wonder, this is the real tropical climate; in a word - STEAMY.

At night there was a CUSO party at David Murphy's house; he is the Calabar FSO.

Brian Home picked up Greg, David, Tom and me and drove us there; a beautiful new spacious house, 4 bedrooms plus servants' quarters and a spectacular view over the river. Once more it became apparent to me that the CUSO staff live very different lives from the cooperants. I realise they have served their time, they have all been in the field. But what about the cost? Is that really how the money should be spent? There was a sumptuous spread of roast meat, individual pizzas, cream puffs and chocolate éclairs (from the Hi Quality Bakery of course) but as I am suffering from one of my pesky periodic bouts of diarrhea, I ate most moderately and drank only Sprite. David Ozolua was there; he wants me to consider a move to Zaria (the Beth Torrey Home) as Pat Eagles has gone home after only 5 months. I said I'd think about it and will write and let him know but that is not what the letter will be about.

Then I started talking to an English woman, Margaret Ekerate. She runs a Brit-Cal travel agency and is married to a Nigerian who has now taken another wife (Nigerian) and has many other girlfriends too. But when he found out that Margaret has a man friend, he beat her with a rubber hose so severely that she was hospitalised for 10 days. Men are allowed to do that here. But she cannot leave him because she has 2 sons aged 10 and 14, and children belong to the father in Nigeria. If she left him she would lose them, plus her business which is in her husband's name because he had to provide surety for it. (A woman can't start a business here without a man to vouch for her.) The CUSO staff (but not the cooperants) are going to the Dunlop Club tomorrow, as the local FSOs are members there and go every weekend. It is on a rubber plantation that actually no longer belongs to Dunlop, but is now called CREL which stands for Cross River Estates Limited. Margaret said `I'll see you at the Club tomorrow' and I said, `Oh no, I'm not going; that's only for the staff' and she said `I always go on Sundays, I'm a member. I'll pick you up at 9.30.' So that was great; there's a pool there.

Sunday April l9th - Woke at 7 (still got the runs, despite my moderation last night) and got up and had a slice of bread and a cup of coffee for breakfast, then read and watched out the window for Margaret who arrived on the dot. She explained that we would go home and collect her kids, and then pick up her friend Margaret (from Port Lincoln, South Australia) and Margaret's two boys. We went first to Margaret Ekerate's home; a big compound with a Supermarket (her husband's business), the Brit-Cal office in a separate building, and 2 houses; one for husband, new wife and boys - and the other (the guest house) for Margaret. Her husband and his wife were away for the weekend, at `The Village' - a term which is used exactly the same way as `The Lake' in Canada - a weekend getaway, and in this case it was his home village. Margaret packed a cooler full of food and then we went to pick up the other Margaret. But she came out crying because her husband (also Nigerian, needless to say) said that she and the boys could not go out today - and if they did, he would lock them out of the house. We were there for nearly 2 hours while various negotiations took place but in the end she stomped off saying that she was going to Lagos to the Australian Embassy to get them to repatriate her and the boys (all Australian citizens). No luggage, no money, nothing. I could write a book on the incredible Nigerian husband, and the women who will put up with such treatment. One of the interesting things about these marriages is that both women met their husbands overseas, married them and lived in their own country for several years before returning to Nigeria. While in the other country (U.K. in one case, Australia in the other) the men behaved in the local way; as soon as they returned to Nigeria, they reverted to behaving like Nigerians. Hardly surprising of course.

We left and drove out to the Club. The country round Calabar is beautiful; huge trees, lush growth on everything, every shade of green plus vivid tropical flowers especially hibiscus. Our road took us through rubber plantations and palm-oil plantations. The Club is 50 km. from Calabar; a lovely club house in the old colonial style with big verandas, a swimming pool surrounded by lawns, tennis courts etc. A bar inside and they sell excellent barbecued chicken which we ate for lunch. Another friend of Margaret's was there with her husband (both University lecturers), their 2 sons, and a Rotary exchange boy (16) from New York. Danielle (the wife) was born in Australia but went to Canada as a child, joined CUSO in 1968, married Dexter (from Trinidad) and is now doing her Ph.D.

What a lovely day - swimming, eating, talking. Probably my nicest day in Nigeria. Margaret drove me back to the Hostel about 6.30, via the river road. The river is enormously wide and edged by ancient buildings, very picturesque but unfortunately it was too dark for photos.

Monday April 20 ^th - Another good sleep and Greg and I are the only two left here now so he went out for some eggs and we had fried eggs on bread and a cup of tea, then sat talking until about 10. Every few minutes a mini-parade would pass our window because today (Easter Monday) is the day of `Masquerade', so they dress up in colorful and elaborate costumes and masks and high headdresses, and parade the streets. I asked Brian Home (FSO) if I could take photos and he said `No - very dangerous - you would lose your camera and perhaps be beaten as well.' Greg and I had been planning a trip to the Museum which is situated in the original Government House, so we washed up and took off, walked a few blocks then got a taxi. We decided to go to the Post Office first. I had letters to post and Greg had to send a cable. When we got to the Post Office they said `Go to NITEL for cables' and indicated the general direction. It was a long trek mostly up hill on a boiling steamy day and I had stupidly brought neither hat nor sunglasses. We eventually made it and Greg telexed Cameroon; an air-conditioned building thank goodness!

The Museum was not much further on, at the top of the hill with a magnificent view of Calabar and the Cross River. Very good display all dealing with the area; slave trade, palm-oil trade, early settlers, colonialism, missionary days and independence. And it was air-conditioned! So we spent 3 hours there - then caught a taxi home, had bread and bananas, and crashed for siestas. After a while I had to come downstairs; my room is top floor and faces west, and it is an oven; unbearable during the day, even with the ceiling fan on, which merely serves to move the hot moist air round the room.

About 5.30 Greg and I went to a Chop House - the `Harmony Cafe' and had gari and afan soup. This time I took a spoon in my pocket, sick of trying to eat with the hand. My problem of course is a double one, because I have no co-ordination with the right hand (being extremely left-handed) and in this society it is considered absolutely filthy to eat with the left hand - or even to hand anything with the left hand - because that is the hand with which you clean yourself! So a spoon works a lot better for me. Saves me from either making a mess, or disgracing myself.

Tuesday April 21st

Last night and this morning were oppressively hot and I didn't sleep as well and dreamed a lot because of the heat. We cooked and ate our last 2 eggs and then packed up ready for Eva to pick us up at 10 am for the 5-hour drive to Obudu Cattle Ranch which is where the conference is to be held. It is on a mountain and it's said to be COLD there! Imagine! As I sit here with sweat dripping from every inch of my body.

Right after I wrote the last words Eva arrived and we set out. We stopped at Ikom for a coke and went straight on, no lunch, reached Obudu town at about 3.30 and then went on up to the ranch, which was built by the British in the fifties.

The last 11 km. has 20 U-turns (right), an incredible drive to this place which is on the top of a 5500ft. mountain. It is similar to Jasper Park Lodge, though not as fancy of course, no hot water, but a large stone lodge with bar, (below) lounge, dining-room, then a whole lot of small stone lodges. Ours is a large bedroom and bathroom with two beds, and I have a mattress on the floor. I am sharing with Linda Whiting from Kaduna and Kate Somebody from Somewhere else. We registered and settled in, then Jacques and Susan (from my orientation group) and Greg and Linda and I walked to a nearby village; one of the little kids had a pet baboon and brought it out to show us and said there are lots of them in the forest.

Beautiful buffet supper; very welcome after no food since 7.30am; rice and stew and salad and beans and carrots. They grow all their own vegetables and raise their own meat. Homegrown rhubarb for dessert too. Then we had the first session, just introductions and instructions, and then Rosie Hyde (who is an engineer, physics teacher, and astronomer) and I went out to look at the stars. We walked down the road to get away from the lights and lay on the road on a blanket and used her binoculars to pick out the constellations, very interesting and we're going to do it again. Back to our lodge and into bed about 11.30.

Wednesday April 22nd

Didn't sleep too well because my pillow was too fat, got up about 6.15 to have a bath but found that the bath was already occupied by a black mouse. Kate (ever-resourceful) kindly caught him in a towel and released him outside. It's cool up here; I wouldn't say cold, although those who have been here for a while think it is, but I had a cold bath anyway - though the other two chickened out. Breakfast was supposed to be at 7.30, but actually appeared at 8.15; a tiny portion of cut-up orange sections and one small slice of french toast, and coffee. Many grumbles but actually it was enough for me. First session was on agriculture in Nigeria; speakers, discussions etc - I knew nothing about it, and know a little more now. Lunch was also an hour late and consisted of one moin-moin (lump of bean-paste), one suya (shish-kabob) and one small piece of pineapple. Grumbles again but not from me.

Agriculture again this afternoon and believe it or not I have caught another cold - the second in three weeks - and alternately sneezed and yawned my way through the whole afternoon. What a blow, in more ways than one. After dinner we had a long session on CUSO and CIDA, funding, cutbacks etc, real yawn material. They showed videos and partied then but I went to bed. Forgot to say that in the afternoon Ann Somebody cut my hair; she does it for all the CUSOs, men and women, and won't take any money for it, you just buy her a drink. Very professional job; and I got her to take lots off, so much cooler.

Thursday April 23 ^rd - A real treat to start the day. It turned out that there is hot water here; it just wasn't switched on. We asked the steward yesterday if he would turn it on early for us, and sure enough when I went in at 7, hot water! Oh! To sit in a hot bath! Surely one of life's major pleasures, especially when one is feeling miserable with a cold. My cold is still horrible but I slept pretty well, thanks to some cold pills that I brought with me. Woke at 2.15am to find the lights blazing; Kate was still up when they went off at 1pm and hadn't bothered switching them off. I don't know why they would turn them on again at 2.15 - but got up and turned them off. Already (7.20am) there are people playing tennis and squash - keeners!

Later: The morning session was agriculture again and included a video of Fifth Estate on the subject of FAO, which was rather interesting. After lunch we had a free afternoon so some of us were going on a tour of the ranch; the manager gave a talk first. Area, 40 square miles, highest point 5900ft., record high temperature 90 degrees F., record low 40, used to have 6000 cattle but dropped over the years to 300 odd, now building up again. I think the breed is Zebu. Also have pigs, chickens, grow own vegies, butcher own meat, etc. When it came to the walk I chickened out. I have the demon diarrhea again, which mixed with a cold leaves me devoid of energy. Lay on the bed all afternoon, read and dozed. Stupidly ate African food for supper because that was all there was - then had a terrible night.

Friday April 24 ^th - For breakfast there was fried plantain and chips and a hot tomato sauce and 2 little pieces of toast. I gave everything to Jacques and ate only the toast. This morning we had a health session and then a pidgin session which was very good. Lunch was suya (shish kabob) and boiled eggs; I traded my suya for Jacques's egg and had 2 boiled eggs for lunch, and a banana that I had in the bedroom, and felt much better.

This afternoon was the Annual General Meeting, which lasted 3 hours. I was put on the Women’s Development Committee so I had another meeting afterwards. Supper was a barbecued whole roast pig, tasty but very tough, but great vegies with it; baked potatoes, carrots, parsnips and beans. At night there was a raffle and the prizes were all foods with the tour de force a bottle of Canadian Club. I won a jar of French Mustard. What will I put it on - my cornflakes or my sardines? Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how absolutely delighted everyone was with their prizes (including me) because everyone is starved for those little treats that you take for granted at home. Afterwards there was a talent show; no shortage of performers, the Nigerians sang, did tricks, read poems etc. and the Canadians told jokes. Then they danced and drank palm-wine but I came home early, still feeling pretty seedy.

Saturday April 25 ^th - Right after breakfast we had an Executive Committee meeting which (being representative of Women in Development sub-committee) I had to attend. I was given several jobs to do, including the planning and sending out of a survey on Cooperant cost of living as some CUSOs feel they absolutely cannot manage on the money paid. Brenda said she would help me with it so I hope to get that done during the coming week. Meeting ended at 11.30, and then we packed Eva's car and left; Brenda, Eva and me for the north, and we also took Bassie to Obudu township to catch a taxi to Calabar, and Iyorke to pick up his car in town. Then on to the road north. Apart from a brief stop at Akpakga to buy moin-moin (bean custard) which I ate with misgivings as it gives me the runs (what doesn't now?) and bananas, we drove straight through to Makurdi and arrived there about 4.30. We went to a mission, the Lamp and Book, and got a 3-bed room with a fan which we had to run all night to survive; shocking heat which of course we'd been away from for 4 days so had lost the knack of ignoring it!

We went to a restaurant for supper where Eva and I had eaten lunch enroute to Calabar. Chicken was on the menu and we all inclined to that. `Is it soft?' asked Brenda, meaning tender. `Very soft' said the waiter obligingly - but it turned out to be the usual Rubber Chicken but the vegies were good. Back to the Mission and all crashed out at about 8 o'clock exhausted by the long drive and the heat.

Sunday April 26 ^th - I didn't sleep badly considering the noisy fan. Brenda slept like a log because she always wears earplugs, a habit she got into when teaching at Obi where there were dogs like mine. Eva slept very little, because, being staff, she is used to air-conditioning. At least there were no mossies, because of the fan. We rose at 7, bathed, and were away at 7.30. All ate a banana for breakfast, and when we reached Kadarko we stopped at the market and bought mugs of Bournvita. They wash the grubby plastic mugs in a bucket of cold water; it's a risk if ever I saw one, but we were desperate for a hot drink so ignored the possible consequences. Straight on then until we reached the Zonkwa-Kaduna Road and Eva dropped me off. They proceeded to Kaduna and I caught a taxi to Zonkwa for 2 naira.

When I walked into my house it was like the day I arrived; everything thickly coated with dust. I had cleaned really well before I left and closed every window. How did it all get in? Before I could unpack, I dusted and swept; really everything needed washing but it's the same old story, I have no water. I even had to carry my clothes outside from the closet and shake the dust off them. After cleaning up I made a cup of coffee and ate bananas and peanut butter. Now it is time to go on the water scrounge!

Later: Neither of my water contacts were home but I left messages with kids which may or may not be conveyed, because the kids are the ones who will have to carry the water! Read and loafed all afternoon, tired but too hot to sleep. No power of course so went to bed early, read for a while between cockroach sorties and finally blew out the candle as my eyes were too sore to read - but spent a restless and wakeful night working out when and how to resign. The sooner the better but I dread it as I know that everyone will try to stop me.

Monday April 27 ^th - Woke at 6.30 as usual and got up straight away to wash the floors - as I was brought 2 buckets of water last night. Not entirely successful because they were so dirty that soon I was washing them with mud - but at least I felt better and will do them again when I get some more water. Bathed and breakfasted, picked dead cockies out of sink and counters, burned garbage, then went for mail. I was happy to find letters from Reg (post-phone call!), Mum (2), Bel, Kath Reading and Carol Forster. After enjoying them I walked down to the convent for coffee - got a great welcome from everyone there and they all wanted to hear about my Big Trip - none of them have been to Calabar and regard it as the end of the earth. Sister Noreen lent me The Haj by Leon Uris. I bought 2 eggs and 2 oranges at the stall at the hospital.

Afternoon: Wrote letters and roughed out the cost-of-living survey to be sent to all the cooperants. I can understand some of them having trouble managing. I've always had to be very careful, but if I had ever had a full salary (which I haven't) I think I could have managed quite well. But most of them have more expenses than I do; for example, there's booze and I never drink, there's house-help which I don't have (except for the very odd occasion when I've let one of the girls earn some needed money by working for me) and then there's travel, which I haven't done except for the odd trip to Kaduna. Still there is no real reason why we should have to be martyrs when the CUSO staff live so well. If there is money for them to have new cars, beautiful houses and full house-staffs, why can't the cooperants be a little better treated? The argument always is that the cooperants are paid by the host country and must be prepared to live like the local people.

Tomorrow I'm going to Kaduna to stay at Brenda's and finish the survey and get it ready for mailing, and I am going to see David and RESIGN! I'm nervous.

Tuesday April 28 ^th - Up after a restless night wondering what is ahead. I decided to leave earlier than I usually do because there were so many things to be done in Kaduna. Good that I did, because I stood for 45 minutes in blazing sun on the side of the road, trying to get a taxi. The few that passed were all full. I asked a man where all the taxis were. `It's Ramadan' he said - that is the month-long, dawn to dusk, Islam fast - and as most of the drivers are Moslem, they don't work. Probably good for road safety that they don't, they must feel weak from hunger and they can't even drink water. At long last I got one with an empty seat (meaning that he only had 4 passengers already) and off we shot.

The usual hassle to get another taxi for Dikko Road but got one at last and fell in Brenda's door about 2pm, made straight for cold shower first and cold drink second. I told her that I was quitting and she was very nice about it, said she was sorry for her own selfish reasons but very happy for me - and understands well because she has a partner herself, and met him shortly after she arrived in Nigeria and told me once that she doesn't know how she would have survived it otherwise. After a while she took me to tell David. He was also quite nice about it and gave me forms to fill in etc. I made it clear immediately that I intended paying all my own expenses and took full responsibility for breaking the contract - so he had nothing to get cross about. He said to come at 10am next day so that we could start the business procedures - which are incredibly complicated! The Nigerian Bureaucracy!

Then we called on Lynn Mathieson (CUSO from Red Deer, teaching at Kaduna School for the Deaf). She was sick with diarrhea (who isn't?) but we stayed and chatted for a while. Told her too. Home then and Andy came home and we had a lovely supper of fish and vegies and then all got into Brenda and Andy's bed, under the net (mossies are voracious now) and watched the movie `Yentl' on the VCR.

Wednesday April 29 ^th - Brenda dropped me at the CUSO office and David and I started our round of visits. This is how it went:

1. To the Ministry of Education - Bulas Tauna - to try to get my 2 months outstanding salary. No luck.

2. To British Caledonia Airlines. They will take VISA, but they only fly to New York and I don't want to bother with US customs.

3. To KLM. They fly Kano-Amsterdam-Calgary but will not take VISA. They will not let me pay in naira because I do not have a permanent residence permit.

4. Back to CUSO office for David to write a letter to Department of Immigration, asking them to write a letter to KLM to allow me to purchase an airline ticket.

5. Back to Ministry to bug Bulas again. He is very hard to bug because he is never in his office. Ran him down at last - promises, promises but no action.

6. To Department of Immigration, 3 different offices, at last got letter.

7. To Bank; will you cash my travelers' cheques? Yes, but you must have a photocopy of your passport.

8. Back to KLM; make reservation for May 12 and get exact price. N1787 as opposed to US$1186! Huge difference; too late to go back to the Bank again.

9. Last try at the Ministry; Bulas promises money tomorrow.

David dropped me back at Brenda's then after an exhausting day. No food of course. David never eats lunch. When Andy came home, he offered to give me naira for my ticket. He earns so much here that he can't spend it, and you can't convert it to `hard currency' (in other words it cannot be exchanged for any currency outside Nigeria). Andy said he will give me N4.50 for US$1 and I can pay Canadian dollars into Brenda's Vancouver account. I was very doubtful at first, in fact I said No thank you. It's illegal of course and I'm very afraid of breaking the law, especially in a country like this. But Andy assured me that nothing can happen so in the end I said Yes, and he went back to the Airport and brought me N1800 - for which he wants only the equivalent of US$ 400! A very good deal, but I am still nervous. Some VSO people came round at night and we all had a very jolly time and stuffed ourselves with Brenda's carrot cake.

Thursday April 30 ^th - Brenda was working today so she dropped me on the way to the Telephone Exchange and I walked up there and phoned Reg. Just a quick call - only had money for 5 minutes - and we lost the first minute - cut off, then came back on - but great to hear his voice and gave him estimated time of arrival and flight number. It's on a Tuesday afternoon but he says he'll be there anyway.

Then I got a taxi to Duwaki Road, the nearest taxi-route to Rabah Road - and walked the 4 blocks to the CUSO office. I knew David wasn't keen to waste much time with me today but he was pleased when I said I had the naira already so we wouldn't have to go to the Bank. He took me to KLM, where I paid for, and got, my ticket. What a great feeling! Not that it is any guarantee of getting on the plane. I've heard so many horror stories of Kano Airport which has only scramble seating, that I'll believe nothing until it actually happens.

Then to the Ministry but no sign of Bulas of course. Back to Immigration for renewal of my 3-month visitors permit which expired today, and to get a re-entry permit. Why do I need a re-entry permit? Because David told them that I was going home for a family emergency otherwise I could not have purchased my airline ticket in naira. `What is the emergency?' asked the woman who stamped my passport. `My husband is ill' I replied, having already prepared myself for this question. `Sorry' she said, with a genuine look of regret and sympathy on her face. There are so many of these expressions that I will never forget. I got the permit, but that took visits to 3 different offices for signatures and stamps - and a long wait in each one. At last it was finished. `Now' said David `I cannot spare any more time. I will drop you at the Ministry and you must bug Bulas until he hands over the money. Then you must come to the office and pay me the N500 that you owe CUSO.'

He dropped me at the Ministry and I sat in Bulas's office - lay in wait for him actually. At last he came in - didn't see me first or I'm sure he would have run. `Bulas' I said sternly `I must pay for my plane ticket today and I must have my money. I will not go away until you give it to me.' `One little problem' said Bulas `You did not give a month's notice so you lose a month's salary.' I did not bother to point out to him that a month's notice could not really be expected when they have never even paid me, but why argue anyway when I have no hope of winning? I consider myself lucky to be getting anything.

Visits to 3 more offices and at last I was given the measly sum of N296. At the first two there was a total stonewall - look the other way and shrug the shoulders. At the third stop, the official said `What? Madame has not been paid? How can that be? Who has her money?' Everybody looks away - especially Bulas, whom I suspect. `Get her the money.' `I have no money' says Bulas. The official repeats his instruction to two more clerks and the answer is the same. The official turns to another clerk. `I know that you have money because you have just been paid. Give Madame her money.' Wails from the clerk. `But that is my money, I need my money' `Give it to Madame' So with little groans the unfortunate man counted out N296 and gave it to me. I felt sorry for him but even sorrier for myself so I took it. What a return for four months of slaving my guts out.

Got another taxi back to Duwaki Road, walked 4 blocks again to Rabah Road (CUSO), got heck from David for only getting one month's salary instead of 2 (`They can't do that!' `Can't they? They just did it!') - promised to pay him the extra N200 that I still owe CUSO - I'll have to sell a lot of stuff to make that up, but there's the shortwave radio and old Mr Frank at the hospital once asked me if he could buy that when I leave. Another taxi (after half an hour of walking) to the Central Market Motor Park. Found a taxi to Zonkwa but had to wait an hour for it to fill. Finally reached home - exhausted - but a whole lot closer to getting home than I was two days ago - therefore things are looking AOK! Can't stop looking at my ticket. Spent the rest of the day absolutely wiped out on the bed.

Friday May 1st. Happy Workers Day - Slept not badly considering the intolerable heat, woke with everything soaked with sweat. Rains are late and no sign of coming. Loafed around, little energy, still bad diarrhea despite very careful eating. Perhaps a bit of heat-stroke I think, after so much walking yesterday and stupidly not wearing a hat. I had forgotten today was a Public Holiday. Went to Principal's office but could not resign, to Bursar's office but could not get mail, to Bursar's office at the Hospital to flog my SW radio to Mr. Frank but it was locked up. Went to the convent for coffee and told all the other nuns that I'm going home, the old darlings were all lovely, they are quite sentimental and all prefer love stories to martyrs. I stayed there till nearly 11 then did a little shopping and came home to start sorting and packing, a joyous job indeed! Soon ran out of steam though and spent all afternoon on the bed, alternately sleeping and reading The Haj.

Saturday May 2 ^nd - My last Saturday in Zonkwa and therefore my last trip to the market. I only needed tomatoes, but they were a must; I can remember that I used to crave tomatoes in the same way when I was pregnant. I sure am not pregnant now - but for the last month I have wanted tomatoes with every meal. I must be lacking something, caused perhaps by the diarrhea? Who knows? Whatever it is, it is such a strong need that yesterday at the convent I saw some tomatoes on the table and sliced one up on my scone, much to everyone's amazement! Including mine, as I passed up their lovely home-made jam.

So - quick breakfast and off to the market at 7.30. Another hot, dusty, windy day, and it's easy to see now how my house got so dirty when I was away in Calabar. This dust is as fine as talcum powder and seems to seep through everything. So much for the rainy season that always starts in April. I wore my hat and made good time in order to avoid the worst of the heat. I got 26 tomatoes for 2 naira, which works out to about 4 a day. That should satisfy even MY greed! I had left the back door open in hopes that some good fairy might bring a bucket of water but no such luck. I am down now to 2 bottles of drinking water and about a saucepanful for all other purposes. If nothing comes I'll have to go begging again later in the day. Lay on the bed reading and dozing - too hot to move. At last I bestirred myself and walked up to Mrs Alkali's. `Could Charity possibly bring me a bucket of water?' Ah, sad looks from Mrs Alkali. `There is no clean water.' `Well I don't care if it's dirty water, just as long as it's wet.' `Perhaps tonight.' More sad looks. At 9 o'clock, just as I was falling asleep, the good Charity did bring me a bucket of water! Dirty but wet.

Sunday May 3 ^rd - Off to Sunday Mass for the last time, as I plan to go to Kaduna on Friday and spend the weekend there. When I came home I did some sorting and packing. I am only taking one suitcase, I'll try to sell the other one. Everything that I can live without will be either sold or dashed; I have visions of myself at Kano where there are no carts and one dare not let go of anything for one second - and it makes my two suitcases plus flight-bag a complete impossibility. I try not to think about Kano Airport because there is no point in torturing myself with fear and worry for a week. But before I'd been there, the word `Airport' always conjured up some perfectly civilised place like Calgary or Tullamarine. No more. Since coming in through Kano, the word Airport is now synonymous with Madhouse. Stop thinking about it!

Later: Who should appear at my front door but a WHITE woman! Shirley Tarawalli, an English woman married to Dr Tarawalli who is a plant scientist (and so is she) from Sierra Leone. They both work as consultants for ILCA (International Livestock and Cattle Association) on pasture improvement. She was disappointed to hear that I am going so soon, but stayed an hour and talked and I promised to call on her during the week. They live on the main road, not far from the school. ILCA is an aid organisation much rubbished as doing absolutely nothing and being very highly paid; Shirley travels a great deal (which is why I've never met her before) but by the sound of it she works hard too - and her husband has been away for the last 2 months on business.

An addendum to the above, is that I later found out that for a year after they were married in England, Shirley was not here because she did not have a job - so she stayed in England. During that time, her husband was Carol Forster's lover (Carol was my CUSO predecessor). Shirley does not know that, though all the CUSOs seem to, and no doubt many people in Zonkwa do too. At the Conference I found that every single CUSO had a partner, though many of them had come over as singles. That was one of the things we were warned of at Orientation, but few cooperants seem to have heeded the warning; and in fact I can quite see why, as loneliness is such a terrible problem.)

Monday May 4 ^th - The day I dreaded (or one of them!) is over. Having been to the Principal's house several times since I returned from Kaduna, and never finding her at home, I left a letter of resignation at her house - but she apparently never got it. I popped in to her office this morning and asked `Did you get my letter?' `No - what letter?' I told her and there were many cries of `Kai! Kai!' (the Nigerian expression of shock/horror/woe) but she was actually quite nice about it, and said how much she missed her own family when she did her degree in the States. Then we had to go to the Staffroom and she announced it to the staff, `Kai! Kai!' again but Nigerians are romantic so took it well when I said it was not because of the water and power, but because I miss my husband so much. Everyone said nice things and I did too, so it all went off much better than I had feared. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt any of their feelings.

We had a staff meeting which took all morning and I dozed through the interminable arguments, then went to the hospital and saw Mr Frank, who wanted to buy my SW radio. `How much?' `300 naira?' I suggested, and he hummed and hawed so I said `Let me know tomorrow' because I know I can get N250 from a friend of Sister Noreen's, and that will get me out of the hole. I owe CUSO N200, Brenda N40, and need N50 airport tax, plus transport to Kano, plus bribes for boarding pass etc. There won't be much to spare but I'll manage. I got a stack of mail this morning so I'm off now to the PO for some aerograms.

Later: I was toiling along the hot road when Sister Mary pulled up in her Beetle. `You shouldn't be walking in this heat dear; let me drive you.' I accepted gratefully and we drove to the PO. There was a man in there but he wouldn't sell me any aerograms. `Why?' `Because this is the lunch break.' `Oh.' I was glad I hadn't got sunstroke to find that out. Sister Mary said she would drive down later and buy them for me so I gave her the money, and she drove me home.

Later in the afternoon Mrs Alkali came, more wailing about how much she will miss me, and couldn't I talk my husband into coming here instead of me going home? But then the real purpose of the visit. `What will you sell me?' I sold her the sheets and bedspread and my plastic tub and gave her a few odds and ends and a passport photo of me which she promised to treasure for ever. I told her to bring all her children tomorrow and I will take their photos `Snaps' as they are always called here - and I'll send them to her.

Tuesday May 4 ^th - When I got to school the Principal said `I hear you have some things to sell. What are they?' `Well - I haven't sorted them out yet - but some books, tapes, a suitcase...' `I'll buy the suitcase' she said immediately, so we came back here and she snapped it up. `How much?' `20 naira' I said. `Not enough' she said, very un-Nigerian. She took it and said she'll pay me tonight. Then I started to sort out what I was going to sell and set them on benches with signs above ` 1 naira' `2 naira' `5 naira' and `Free'. Then a stream of people started coming in and grabbing everything in sight. Cries of `Oh, very cheap, very cheap!' It was just like a garage sale. By now (lunchtime) almost everything has gone and I'm 120 naira better off (not counting the suitcase or the SW radio which I've still got). Tons of people wanted to buy my camera (I was taking pictures of the students this morning, so they were all looking at it) but NO WAY!

Still no rain. No water. Not a cloud in the sky. All the teachers are doing a panic. `Normally the crops are all up by now.' (The rains always come in April). The yams germinated but have withered. Teresa Chiroma said `God is angry with us over the riots. He is punishing us.' She was dead serious too. Nobody here can remember such a long dry season before and they are predicting a drought. An old guy in Kaduna said that 40 years ago there was a late Harmattan like this, and the rains NEVER CAME! Imagine what a killer that would be.

This month is Ramadan; the ninth month of the Moslem calendar and a full month of fasting. My nextdoor neighbor, Mallam, was in here this morning and told me that the fasting period lasts from a quarter to five in the morning until a quarter to seven at night. Fourteen hours, and they can't even drink water. Can you imagine that? In this boiling climate? I drink about 2 litres a day and I'm sure I'd die without. I said `How can you work?' and he said `I can't.' So during Ramadan things slow down even more here - if that is possible!

I walked down to the shop to buy eggs but they didn't have any so I bought another tin of the everlasting Pilchards instead. But on the way home I saw a lady sitting on the side of the road selling avocados for 50 kobo each so I bought one and ate it as soon as I got home. A treat! and I felt entitled, after my very successful sale today.

Wednesday May 6 ^th - Countdown! Two more days and I'll bid farewell to Zonkwa. Lots of mail this morning and I had four aerograms left so answered some of them; the rest will have to wait until I get home and indeed, some of them are from Red Deer so a letter won't be necessary. The thought of seeing the family and all my friends again is exciting but I try not to think about it as it only starts me worrying about all the details of actually getting there, and there is no point in thinking about that until I can do something about it.

I went to the Convent for coffee and to return the tin of kerosene they had lent me for my lamp. Many of the teachers who missed out on yesterday's sale are crabby and want me to sell them things. `Sell me your watch.' (The Swatch Belinda gave me for my last birthday) `No.' `Sell me your clock.' `No.' `Sell me your camera.' `No.' `PLEASE' `NO.' One man who bought 6 tapes for 2 naira each, now wants 4 more `but reduce them for me.' `No.'

This afternoon I walked down to say goodbye to Shirley Tarawalli. I wish I'd met her sooner, she's a nice interesting person; she and her Sierra Leonean husband are both doctors of Plant Science. She showed me her wedding photos from 2 years ago; there were 14 nationalities represented at the wedding, in England. She gave me a pile of letters to mail for her in Amsterdam and also some to mail in Canada. Mr Frank came last night about my SW radio; I had asked 300 naira for it but he said he could afford only N250. OK, I said; I'm still grateful to him for getting it working for me in the first place, it has given me so much pleasure. So tomorrow morning I'm taking it to him at the hospital, and he'll give me the money - which will get me out of the hole.

Thursday May 7 ^th - I thought this week would never pass, but it has! I've counted the days so many times and now at last, tomorrow is the day. I still go to school every day at 7.30 even though I have no classes. This morning I went to the library for an hour and read, then I went home and packed up my short-wave radio and all the little gadgets that go with it; aerial, adaptor, convertor, earplug, manual etc. I took them up to the hospital where Mr Frank works as bursar, handed it over and went through all the bits and pieces with him. He was very happy and gave me my 250 naira.

Then up to the Convent for the last time. I said Goodbye with real regret to all the sisters who have been so good to me, and gave them some music tapes for a farewell present and they were quite thrilled - Judy Collins (Amazing Grace), a Nana Mouskouri, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Walked back to the hospital with Sister Philomena who teaches nursing there. She told me that she had been going to ask me to teach English to her students in the evenings, until she heard that I was leaving. I would have been glad to do that; the students have trouble passing their exams because a very high standard of English comprehension and expression is required, and they just don't have it. `We would have paid you a little salary of course, dear' - Sister Philomena said. What a dear old soul she is; I would have gladly done it for nothing.

I ate supper at 5.30, before going to Mass - partly because I was hungry and partly because cooking and cleaning up by candlelight is more of an effort than it is worth. So then at 7 o'clock I was sitting here reading (teeth cleaned and everything) and Patience Alkali came to my door. `My mother said to see if you are home; she wishes to send you some food.' I didn't have the heart to say, `I've eaten already' - so she scampered off and returned a few minutes later, carrying a tray with a casserole of yams and beans, and a dish of `soup' as they call it - peppery stew and a bottle of pop. What a kind soul. I munched my way through as much as I reasonably could, hoping it would not bring on another attack of the dreaded runs. Even if it does - I comforted myself - tomorrow it's back to the world of flush toilets!

Friday May 8 ^th - Slept very poorly because of planning in my mind all the things to be done in the morning. Then of course when light broke I was exhausted and would have gladly stayed in bed. But, no time for sloth and got up at daybreak. Took down the curtains which belong to CUSO, folded up the bedding, bathed, ate, packed dishes and pots, and burned my garbage - all before going to school at 7.30! At Staff Assembly I was presented with 5 yards of very beautiful material as a going-away present, then had to make a speech of course and thanked everyone for being so friendly and kind - then School Assembly, and had to make a speech to the students. I told them - and it is absolutely true - that they are the most polite girls I have ever met, and that I especially liked the way they always greeted me so nicely, with Good Morning and Good Evening every time we saw each other. Manners are still very important here, and I love it. Now it's all over and I'm back home - waiting and hoping that David will come, and all packed ready to drag everything down to the road if he doesn't.

Later: He did! About 10.30, so we piled all the CUSO gear and my bags into the car, dropped the house key in to the Principal and said fond farewells, called at the Convent and ditto, and then off. First we had to go to Kafanchan because there had been a CUSO there a few years ago and he had been sick on and off for a year, kept going to the doctor but nothing ever diagnosed, and was eventually sent back to Ottawa. Just after he got off the plane he died of a brain tumour. He had an account at Kafanchan and his father wanted it looked into, so David spent an hour there but of course couldn't even find out how much money is in it.

Zoomed off then to Kaduna, David sitting on his favourite speed of 140 kph., so we were at Brenda's by 2. I was just getting under the shower when she came home, so after a drink we went to the AIEP swimming pool and had a gorgeous afternoon swimming and talking under the shade of the umbrellas. Home about 5.30 and scampered around because Brenda had bought 3 tickets for a concert that evening; the Arts Antiqua de Paris, two men who perform medieval music, one playing the lute and the other singing counter-tenor. It was sponsored by the Alliance Francaise and put on at the British Council, a nice little theatre with - fortunately - air-conditioning. Very enjoyable, and my first taste of culture for a few months, so I was rapt.

I'd done a machine load of washing before we left for the pool, and it was all dry. A very hot night, still 35 at midnight but I couldn't stand the noise of the A/C so switched it off and surprisingly - slept like a log.

Saturday May 9 ^th - Being somewhat neurotic about my flight from Kano, I was determined to phone Reg this morning - because several people have told me that the re-confirmation of a flight from outside the country gives you a better chance of getting on the plane. The last time Brenda and Andy flew from Kano to London they had paid a month ahead for their tickets and re-confirmed them, yet it took them 4 days to get on a plane! The seats had been overbooked at least double, so when the plane landed it had only a few empty seats, all the others had already been filled in Lagos. It was `Scramble Seating' - that means run as fast as you can across the tarmac, and the first there get the seats. They didn't have a hope as they were up against all these Nigerian university students flying back to London, who pushed them out of the way and beat them by a mile. They were given vouchers for a hotel which Brenda said was an absolute dive. The second day they went back to the airport, same thing happened. That night she would not go back to the hotel and they slept on the airport floor. The third day, the officials said `We will fly you down to Lagos so that you can scramble with the people down there, you will have a better chance.' They did, but by the time they reached Lagos their plane had already taken off, so they were flown back to Kano. On the fourth day (after spending yet another night in the airport) they got on the plane - but of course the big welcome party which their friends in London had planned for them was long since over.

Brenda had to go to the CUSO office to do some work on the word-processor, which is being moved to Bauchi next Monday, so she dropped me off on the way to the Telephone Exchange and I walked there. Phoned Reg - explained the position. I could tell he was puzzled by the whole thing, never having travelled in Nigeria. Until I came here, I always thought that a ticket would get you a seat, too! Walked home; a boiling day and by the time I reached Dikko Road (a half-hour walk) I was literally soaked right through, and had to have a shower and put on dry clothes. When Brenda came back at lunchtime, she told me of her frustrating morning; she had waited two hours for the NEPA (electricity) to come on, but it never did, so she could not do her work. We had decided to go to the Jacaranda Restaurant and Potteries outside Kaduna for lunch tomorrow. I wanted to take Brenda and Andy out as they have been extraordinarily good to me, and also it will use up some of my naira - which I cannot take out of the country, and cannot change into `hard currency' either. We wanted to take Linda Whiting - a CUSO with whom I had roomed at the conference and we had become good friends - so we drove over to Tudenwada, where she lives, to arrange that. Can't just pick up the phone here, you know!

There was a party here at night in honour of Lynn Mathieson's boyfriend Willy, who was 36 last Monday, so the afternoon was taken up with preparations for that. Willy is German and works for a German company, so 75% of the guests were German too. Some spoke no English at all; there were also 2 Bolivians, 1 Brazilian and 1 Frenchman. We all managed to understand one another somehow, as people can when in the party mood and had a very good night. Lynn had prepared shashliks for a barbecue and all sorts of salads and desserts. We sat at tables on the patio, in the hot Nigerian night - the only fly in the ointment, as it were, were the fiercely biting mosquitoes. Every time one is bitten one has to wonder whether it was a malaria bite - or worse yet, a chloroquine-resistant bite.

To bed at 2am, but not much sleep as it is so steamy. The temperature in the afternoon was 36 degrees but the humidity was 70% - a wicked combination! Everyone here is worried about the unusual lateness of the rains.

Sunday May 10 ^th - About 9.30 we were sitting round reading and recovering from our late night when Lawrence Somebody, a Nigerian tennis professional, called in to visit. He used to live with Eva Murray. Then Lynn and Willy arrived to pick up leftovers from last night, and we spent the morning chatting and drinking water to combat the flowing sweat as once more it was 35 degrees with 75% humidity - very trying.

At 1.30 we picked up Linda Whiting and drove to the Jacaranda Restaurant, about 15 minutes from town. It is on a hill so has an open view of the country, and is an attractive place with some tables under the trees and others in a large open thatched building, and an open-air bar. Beautiful gardens, though dry and dusty at present - a pool with small crocodiles in it, playground equipment for kids and a golf driving range. Our meal cost 140 naira for the four of us (which I paid) and consisted of a very good buffet with several hot Nigerian dishes. I was happy to pay - but think of it; two weeks salary, for a meal for four people! No wonder there were only expatriates eating there. There is also a pottery and we went to see it after lunch. They sell their own wares, plus carving, batiks, some jewellery etc, but I did not buy anything, not wishing to add to my already burdensome luggage or take any risks with customs either.

Home about 5 and we sat around reading and listening to music, and all went to bed by 9.30, still somewhat exhausted from last night's bash, as well as the terrible heat.

Monday May 11th - Today's the day! But why did I eat that big meal yesterday? The demon runs struck again in the night and it was still with me in the morning. Just what one needs with two days of traveling ahead - the first one in the Land of No Toilets! Lay around all morning (Brenda and Andy at work) and tried unsuccessfully to get over it.

6pm. Here I am at last sitting in Kano airport with 6 hours to wait before take-off. Andy (who works at Kaduna Airport) thought there might be a small plane Kaduna-Kano today which I could fly on, so Brenda came home about 2 and picked me up and we went to the airport - but nothing today - so I farewelled Andy, and Brenda drove me to the Motor Park where I found a taxi for Kano for 13 naira. It had only one seat left, right at the back, so I hopped in. Brenda quickly bought a mandarin from a seller and threw it through the window to me. Good that she did because I doubt if I'll eat again until I'm on the plane.

The drive was extremely hot and uncomfortable; it was 43 degrees in Kaduna with 70% humidity and it's 41 degrees here. Never mind! I was on my way! At 5.15, after two and a half hours of the usual hair-raising breakneck speeding, we arrived at Kano Motor Park. Immediately we stopped, my driver yelled `AIRPORT' and men and boys converged on our taxi and six of them grabbed my suitcase and flight bag and had a grand free-for-all - nearly ripped the bags apart, shouting at each other, all wanting the job. I got into one of their cars. `How much to the airport?' I asked. `20 naira' he said! I jumped out of the car. `Give me my case' `How much will you pay?' `Ten naira.' We settled at last on twelve. Not bad money for a 15-minute drive!

So off we shot to the airport, and when we got to the carpark there the driver said `I can go no further' so I got out and paid him, at least you don't have to tip them here, and managed to find a boy to carry my case to the airport building which is a fair distance. Now I'm sitting in what passes for a lounge. There is no KLM desk, just a long counter with 4 scales and at 8 o'clock they will announce which one we must go to. That is when the free-for-all starts, as everybody rushes for the boarding passes - though even those do not assure you of a place on the plane. There are open-hole washrooms here, flooded and reeking, and a few little booths that sell mineral and cakes. I had a 7-up and will now settle down for a lengthy wait.

Tuesday May 12 ^th - 6am: We'll be in Amsterdam in 1 hour and 30 minutes! But what a long day! I was dehydrated but couldn't risk any more pop, so about 7 o'clock I went looking for a shop with bottled water. It was risky leaving my suitcase but I had no choice. I found a shop right round the other side of the airport and bought one bottle of water; should have bought 6. At midnight it was still 40 degrees and I was going mad with thirst. At 8.30 we were allowed to go through with our luggage and put it on the scale, then down to a little window to pay the 50 naira airport tax; at both these places there was a wait of half an hour, because the attendants had not arrived yet. Then to Immigration and put our passports and departure forms in a slot, then they call you one at a time to the counter for questioning. People were passing money over the counter to get taken quickly but I wouldn't, so mine kept going to the bottom of the pile. Consequently, although first to the counter, I was called last for interview. Mind you, I was in no tearing hurry; having bought my ticket with black-market money I was extremely nervous and kept thinking `Will he be able to tell by looking at me?'

Apparently not, because I was called eventually and passed through there - then next door to Customs. You have to pick out your own suitcase from the line-up and open it, and they go through it with a fine-tooth comb. He opened my writing-case and examined all the papers in it, opened packets that people gave me for mailing (they knew that would happen and hadn't sealed anything), and unzipped every pocket. Passed that, up to the flight lounge and the final security check. No X-rays here! Two women were doing the check and went through my flight bag and examined everything.

There were a huge number of people on the tarmac, all with bundles of clothes and bedding (no suitcases). They were all Moslems making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and went on a Nigerian Airways plane. I could see the KLM plane was way over the far side of the tarmac and I prayed it would not be scramble seating, as I was not feeling much like walking, let alone running. But they took us over by bus - and then, magic moment, there I was walking up the steps and towards my seat. It was definitely one of life's high spots when I actually got on that plane because I never really believed that I would. I had a boarding pass with 17C on it, but a Ghanaian man was sitting in it (the plane had come from Accra). `Good evening' I said politely `You are sitting in my seat.' `No, this is my seat.' `Show me your boarding pass.' `I have lost it.' `Please find it.' He did, and his pass was for 17D. I had especially asked for an aisle seat because I knew I would have many trips to the toilet throughout the night. (This proved to be only too true.) At last there I was, sitting in my seat, in a beautifully clean and air-conditioned plane. The sweat dried on me, I went to the bathroom and had a good wash and combed my hair and drank 8 cups of water.

Dinner was served soon after we took off. I ate a little, carefully avoiding the meat and anything spicy. Didn't sleep at all, and divided my time between seat and bathroom, but nothing could dampen my spirits as we travelled steadily north. It was very rough over the desert and seat-belts had to be fastened most of the night. Continental breakfast at 6 o'clock but I just ate the fruit and drank coffee. In 45 minutes we will be in Amsterdam.

I miscalculated my money; I thought I had given all my surplus to Brenda, but in fact I had another 50 naira in another pocket of my purse. How frustrating! It is now just useless paper; being `soft currency' it cannot be exchanged for anything else. Drat! I have letters to mail for Shirley Tarawalli and a battery to buy for Brenda's watch - so I'll have to cash a travelers' cheque. I had thought about going on a bus tour of the city this morning but quickly cancelled that plan when they announced the temperature in Amsterdam; 10 degrees!! And I have on a cotton skirt and blouse, and sandals!

10am: I'm in Amsterdam airport and have just had a nice sleep, stretched out on a couch with my flight bag under my head. They have `sleep cabins' with showers here - but when I went down all were full so I thought a sleep that didn't cost anything would be even better - and it was. I had letters to mail for several people so I changed $16 Canadian that was in my purse, and got about 20 guilder, enough for stamps and some English papers - something I've been craving for months. Funny, I spent the last of my Belgian francs on papers on the way out in January. Now I'm doing the same again.

8.30pm by me, but 12.30pm Calgary time. It's been a long flight! Mainly made that way by a dreadful group of French men in my section; A club? A team? Who knows? Because they have been drinking themselves silly and one of them has now passed out on the seat next to me, and keeps putting his feet up on me, and I keep pushing them off. He's so drunk that I think he's just about certain to throw up and I am poised to jump clear. One draws the inevitable comparison between last night's plane load and today's. Last night's were Ghanaians, Nigerians and East Indians with only a few Europeans. Many of course would have been Moslem, therefore they don't drink anything alcoholic, so they are quiet, polite and friendly. Also Nigerians hardly smoke at all - 2 men, no women on our staff of 50. These Frenchmen have been trying to sneak cigarettes all day in this, the non-smoking, section, and when the stewardess refused to bring them any more liquor, they all started drinking their duty-free.

Coming in to land very shortly - and so ends the saga of the trip to Nigeria - the strangest, the most interesting, and the most exciting time of my whole life.

I wonder whether any of you have persevered through this long, repetitive, at times boring chapter of my life. At times on re-reading it I thought of cutting out lots of the complaints about no water, no power, heat etc but I didn’t do that in the end because that’s just the way it was.

Do I think my time there was useful? In some ways, Yes. My teaching of Oral English may have helped some of the girls to pass their oral exam and the work I did with the students every evening in my house was probably as useful as anything I did in the classroom, if not more so. The curriculum I wrote for them on Special Education would have enabled the Principal to get the extra grant from the government although I am fairly sure that it would have never been implemented.

Do I have any regrets about having gone there? Definitely not. As I complete this chapter it is now 2024 and soon I will be 90. I consider myself so fortunate to have had that experience because I know now how half the world lives. We in our affluent western countries are so spoilt, just as I was when I went to Nigeria. I think and hope that I am less so now and I have so many happy memories of my time there; the warmth and kindness of the people, the absolutely delightful students and the fun we had every night when they would come to visit, the way they patiently taught me Hausa and helped me in the market to do my shopping, their politeness and generosity, always happy to share anything they had. A very special time and a very valuable one for me.