I have a job!

Well, two, actually.

Starting tomorrow, 1 February, I'll be working as an editor for African Christian TextbookS (ACTS) and Joint Project for Sunday School Materials (JPSSM). I'm really excited that I'll finally be doing something I'm good at and enjoy. (Last year I did data entry at a company in the States, and I loved the coworkers but didn't really like the job...) PLUS I'll get to work from home most of the time (I'll be working 32 hours a week), so the hours are flexible, plus I don't have to drive...yet. Yay!! Thanks to everyone who gave me advice. I really appreciate it.

For anyone interested, I've added the link to ACTS on my sidebar. Check it out!

Mrs. Bako's fiftieth birthday party

"I told her we would try to come," David explained as he woke me up from my nap. "We have to leave now if we're going to get back by six."

I was anything but happy about going to visit the matron from our hospital for her fiftieth birthday. I'm not very good at visiting in general, not being much of a people person, but a birthday party would be even worse, I knew, because there would be lots of people. But David won out in the end, as he usually does, and we went to the party.

Mrs. Bako's house is about fifteen minutes away, but we had to hire a taxi to take us. (We have a car but not fuel, petrol costs being about $10/gal.) Usually, taxis run like buses in the U.S. - on specific routes. But David knew I was tired, so he hired the taxi to take us all the way there. We didn't have good directions, so David called Mrs. Bako when we got to a landmark and asked where to go next. Instead of directing us, she sent her son (on foot) to lead us the rest of the way. Her house was quite a ways off the main road, and we drove through the Federal Government College, then walked through a few yards to get there.

There was a small crowd at Mrs. Bako's house. Apparently, we'd just missed the actual party and had come in time to join a few stragglers. On the porch, we were introduced to Mrs. Bako's mother, who is "very strong and still farms." The matron herself greeted us warmly, and we wished her a happy birthday. "And many happy returns," as the others said. At the door, I paused. There were several pairs of shoes outside the door, and I could see carpet inside the parlour. But the hostess herself had on shoes. Should I take mine off or leave them on? David had already untied his shoes, so I started to slip off my sandals, when Mrs. Bako scolded us and ushered us into the house with our shoes on. *shrug*

We went inside and sat in the parlour, greeting all the others as we did so. Another doctor, Dr. Sule, arrived with his family, and he made his greetings. (He was barefoot!) After a few moments, a woman brought us each a mineral (soda/pop) and a styrofoam box of food. Inside was some masa (fried corn cakes), birthday cake, and a few pieces of meat. Very generous!! For some reason, I hadn't been expecting food (what was I thinking?), but it was delicious!

We sat for awhile in the parlour, just sitting and listening to the conversations of party guests around us. I hardly knew anyone, but it didn't matter since they were all speaking in Hausa anyway. The woman who had brought us food then brought us a bookmark and calendar with Mrs. Bako's picture and name on them. (That's what people do here, commemorative gifts for guests. At our wedding, guests were given trays with our photo and nsmes on the bottom, unbeknownst to us!)

After a little while, Dr. Sule got up to leave and offered us a ride. We said farewell and congratulations again to Mrs. Bako, greeted her mother on the porch on our way out, and walked to the car. Dr. Sule has a 2-door, 4-passenger car. We were five adults and three children. Did that bother anyone? Nope! We all fit in snugly, and Dr. Sule drove us home along some very awful dirt roads. (We scraped bottom several times with all our weight!)

And we were home by 5:20, with forty minutes to spare before supper. And all in all, we had a good time. What matters is that we made an appearance. Greeting is such an essential part of Nigerian culture (and such a headache for those of us who are socially inept), so I'll learn to visit with the best of them!

Happy birthday, Mrs. Bako!

Seeing Samuel again

I saw Samuel again yesterday! I hadn't seen him since July and wondered how he was doing. So I asked Dad to notify me when Samuel came in for his next check-up, which was scheduled for February 12. I was surprised when Dad called yesterday morning to tell me Samuel was in the clinic! I rushed down to the hospital with my camera, and as soon as Samuel saw me, he greeted me with a big hug!

For those of you who don't remember or weren't reading in July (May I have this dance?), Samuel (not his real name) is one of Dad's HIV+ children in the PEPFAR program. He's now 3-1/2 and doing well. He's started to say a few words (in contrast to his not talking at all last summer) and is good at repeating sounds (frog, elephant, giraffe, snake). He's as cute as ever and loves to smile. He still loves playing with my beeping digital watch, and he also loves the buttons on my camera. (So much so that when I took the camera away to take a photo, he cried. So Dad had to take the photos!) Speaking of buttons, the little tyke tried to unbutton my skirt! How rude! :)

I thank God that Samuel is healthy and thriving despite his HIV status. He's a reminder to me of my reason for being here - the reason for PEPFAR's existence and even for the existence of the medical ministry at this hospital. And he gives me hope that even though HIV cannot be defeated, it can be waylaid, that God loves even the smallest child.

Zoë joins the family!

I brought Zoë home yesterday! She's about eight weeks old and is adjusting quite nicely to her new home. We talked about a name for her, but David's not really that sort of idea man. (Don't get me wrong; he's great in other fields of ideas!) So I went with something short and sweet (Grk, life). And it happens to be the name of a young woman who was a friend when I really needed one. (Thanks, Zoë!) She's adorable and wonderfully playful. And I'm going to have to get used to having scratches all over my hands from her little claws! :)

Between jobs

Well, this will likely be one of my final weeks as a 100% housewife. In February, David and I will go to Immigration and get my status sorted out so that I can finally work. Yay!

The trouble is...

I've been invited to work at four different jobs, and I have no idea what to do!! Help! The problem is that all four jobs are amazing opportunities. Two are editing-based, which is really my specialty. I've had experience in that field, and I feel pretty solid in my abilities. The other jobs would definitely be more challenging, and more people-oriented. I'm an introvert, no mistake, and these jobs would stretch me to the max. But don't I need to be stretched?

Plus there's the question of whether to work part-time or full-time. If I work full-time, we'll have to hire someone to help us around the house with the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Not a big deal. It's easy to do here, and most missionaries see it as a ministry in itself: providing work for someone unemployed. But... I don't know. I feel weird about the whole thing.

So bear with me as I choose a job (or two part-time jobs) this week. Any advice?

A brief acquaintance

On Thursday, Daddy came home and told Mom that there was a baby in the paediatric ward for her to take care of. Mom and Dad have been foster parents on and off for the past 20 years, and Mom loves babies. These days, they tire her out a bit more than they used to when she was much younger, but she still has plenty of energy to hold a baby, feed him, change his nappies, and rock him to sleep.

But Baby N wasn't a healthy baby. Mom had taken care of a few sick babies before, and two years ago, baby Hershey died while she was looking after him. This time, Mom was a little apprehensive. Baby N was not an orphan or even abandoned, but her mother was HIV+ and could not care for the baby. From Baby N's symptoms, she, too, was HIV+. At six months, she was a scrawny little thing with a large-ish head and sunken cheeks. She had been admitted to the hospital for ten days, but since the mother could not take care of her – being an admitted patient herself in a hospital where family members, not nurses, care for and feed the patients – Baby N had been released from the ward to join her mother.

When we brought her home to Mom and Dad's house, Baby N was pretty sick. She had diarrhoea and vomiting, and her cry was a high-pitched squeak rather than a real lusty cry. And yet she didn't look sick. She was alert and looked around. She ate well, in small quantities. I fed her last night from a sippy cup, just two ounces of formula. She threw it all up later in the evening, but we weren't that worried.

I only held her that once.

This morning, Mom called and told me that Baby N had died in the night sometime. She just hadn't woken up. Her mother – from my husband's tribe – and a translator came this morning to collect Baby N's body. I wasn't here, but Mom says the mother was weak and looked frail. Mom thought perhaps this woman had just lost the only thing she had left to live for.

The vicious HIV/AIDS has claimed another life, and I am powerless against it.

Ogbono soup

When I mentioned to Auntie Victoria that I was learning how to cook, I didn't expect her to offer to teach me. And even when she did offer, I didn't really think she'd follow through. I've had dozens of offers from women all around town, each wanting to teach me how to cook Nigerian food, but no one has set a date yet.

Auntie is different. Our families have been friends for years and years, and she meant business. So she arrived yesterday afternoon, and we started to cook. The one thing I find most frustrating about Nigerian cooking is that there are no recipes and no measurements. Everything is done from memory, and all quantities are eyeballed. So I watched carefully as Auntie did all of this, taking notes as we went.

Fortunately, I'd remembered to thaw the stew pork I'd bought the day before, so we rinsed it and threw it into the pot with some salt, green onion (the bulb end), and a Maggi bouillon cube. We let it heat awhile, then added water to cover the meat. While that cooked, Auntie taught me to use my new mortar and pestle to grind the dry okra she'd bought at the open-air market. “If you find pieces that are too strong,” she said, “just take them out and throw them away.” We set that aside. Then we put some dried crayfish into the mortar and pounded it to powder. Auntie cut up some more green onion and added it, and we pounded them together to make a paste.

The meat water was boiling happily away by this point, so we added another Maggi cube and a spoonful of palm oil, then the crayfish-onion paste. This was followed by the dried okra and some fresh okra Auntie showed me how to cut up. (Okra's not in season, so most of what we used was dried.) Finally, we added the ground, dried ogbono – some sort of vegetable for which I know no English name.

And in a moment, we had soup!

Then Auntie helped me to make the tuwo – playdough-like starch eaten with any kind of soup. I'd bought semovita, so she showed me how to cook it. First we boiled the water. (We boil all our water.) Then Auntie made a paste with a little bit of water and a little bit of the semovita. She stirred it until there were no lumps and then added it to the boiling water. She brought out a wooden paddle and stirred the pot of starch until it was smooth. Then, still stirring, she added the rest of the semovita powder. The starch became thick, like mashed potatoes, and she commented I might need to build up my arm muscles to be able to stir it! She kept stirring until it was quite thick, then turned off the burner.

We placed the pot on the ground, where she sat, and we spread out two pieces of plastic. She took a plastic saucer and scooped the semovita from the pot onto the plastic – 2/3 on one piece for my husband and 1/3 on the other piece for me. She scraped out the pot using the saucer like a spatula, and we wrapped the blobs of semovita in the plastic. Then she shaped them into more-or-less circular balls (look kind of like bread dough) about 6” to 8” in diameter. (It was too hot for me to handle, but her hands are used to it.) And we put the packages into a plastic flask to wait for my husband to return home from work.

So now I've seen it done and have it written down, to some extent, so – I hope – I can do it myself someday soon!

Washing without water

Before David left in the morning, I told him I was going to do laundry that day, so he gathered together his dirty clothes – did he do laundry much while I was gone?– and left them on our bed. I called on my mom to borrow clothespins (note to self: add to shopping list for next week) and sat down to figure this out.

I'd never washed clothes by hand. All right, I did once in Thailand, in the kitchen sink with Woolite... But this is different. I'm going to be washing all our clothes by hand. And we don't have running water in the house. Hmm.

I got two buckets and an empty plastic hamper. I filled both buckets with cold water from a big barrel outside that David had filled last week when the city water was on. Then I put a packet of laundry soap into one bucket and stirred it. Okay, so now what? Obviously put the clothes into the soapy water... and...? Scrub them? With my hands? A washing machine agitates the clothes in the water. I don't have a washboard... So I put some clothes in and started washing. The shirts and underwear were easy. No sweat. My friend Heather had told me that duck soap (long bars of green soap) got out dirty and stained spots, so I used that. Wow! And then I rinsed them and put them into the hamper to take outside to the communal clothesline strung up between some trees.

But the trousers were harder. And by the time I reached them, the wash water was filthy and my hands were raw. So I dumped out both buckets of water and decided to take a break. (Besides, I couldn't fit David's trousers onto the clothesline until his shirts were dry.) I filled both buckets with clean water, put laundry soap into one, and put in David's lab coat to soak. When I came back a half hour later, I started again. I discovered trousers are awfully hard to rinse. Hmm. Is it okay to wring the trousers, or will that wear out the fabric too quickly? The rinse water turned soapy almost immediately. So I dumped it out and filled the bucket again. And my hands stung in the soapy water. But I kept going. Finally, the trousers were all clean! At least I think so.

I took down the shirts and put up the trousers to dry (Most of them still feel soapy, but oh well!). In this weather, drying doesn't take long. But I'll probably have to iron all the clothes to make sure we don't get infested with “mango worms,” fly larvae from eggs laid in clean and dry clothes hung outside. *shudder* But I'm wiped out. So maybe I'll save the ironing for another day!

Grocery shopping 101

I've now been grocery shopping for the first time in town. Granted, I haven't braved the open-air market yet – mostly because I don't trust myself to haggle successfully – but at least now I know where to buy spaghetti noodles and tissues!

Our morning began at the mission headquarters, where Mom can get money three days a week. After a brief stop at one of many local pharmacies, we arrived at one of our town “supermarkets” (a hole in the wall, about 20' x 8'). There we got most of our canned goods, Ramen (Indomie) noodles, spices, toiletries, soy sauce, and powdered milk. Some of our “gold mine” finds included coconut milk, which Mom says only appears once every few months; ground cinnamon; raisins; sesame oil; and even tapioca!

Next we went to the Lebanese store where Mom can buy imported cheese. (Not me. The price is just too high, so I'll learn how to cook without dairy products.) We got instant coffee, sugar, flour, couscous, and halveh (a favourite sweet sesame spread).

Our next stop was one of the bigger supermarkets in town. Mom avoids this store usually because we have to pay N20 to park (about $0.16). There we procured semovita for last night's dinner, some plastic containers in which to store my dry ingredients (did I mention we have a mouse in our house?), and an ice tray. We looked for a toaster, but to no avail – although there were lots of different electric kettles and even two microwaves!

Right across the street we went to the meat store, where we bought some pork (which is cheaper than beef). I coveted the bratwurst, but at N1400/kg ($5/lb), it's totally unrealistic with a weekly budget of about N6000!

Up the street and around the corner, we bought a flat of 36 eggs. (Mom used to buy her eggs from a woman on the hospital compound, but last summer, a huge truck ran into the chicken coop and killed almost all her hens.) Just across the street, we made a stop at the fresh produce stalls. From one man we bought all our vegetables and from his neighbour all our fruit. Luxuries included broccoli, strawberries, and potatoes! Yum!

Our last stop was the bakery, where Mom buys pita bread and can occasionally buy whole wheat pita. Not this time. So we both bought some white pita, and I got a loaf of regular white bread for sandwiches.

And finally we were on our way home! The whole trip took about 4 hours, and when we returned we still had to sort through our vegetables to figure out what was whose. Then Mom taught me how to sterilise the vegetables I wanted to eat fresh (only tomatoes this time) to avoid getting typhoid or whatever. Phew. What a morning! Now I just need to get my stove & oven working...

Back in the saddle

(Internet has been down for a week, so this is what I wrote on 4 January 2007.)

I'm home!

Wow, it feels great to be able to say that! I brought in the new year here in Jos, with my husband and family, and now my “normal” life can begin.

I have my work cut out for me in setting up house. This is the dry season in northern Nigeria, which means harmattan – dust. The Sahara is encroaching on my country and spreads a bit further south every year. One of the evidences is the dust that blows in late in the fall and remains thick and heavy in the air until about March. Sometimes it's thick as fog, other times just a haze around the rocky hills. But always it's thick on the windowpanes, furniture, and every flat surface. Yuck! Oh, the joys of keeping the house clean during harmattan! As I said, I have my work cut out for me.

And next week, my mom's going to take me grocery shopping! (Oh joy.) I'm eager to learn the ropes, even though I've never liked shopping. I'm hoping she'll let me just tag along on her weekly shopping trips for the first month or two, until I get the hang of it.

I've got a lot on my plate, but ultimately, I'm home, and that's what matters!