just the other office

Nigeria, a country that one’s had the best educational system of sub-Saharan Africa, has now an education sector that is literally falling apart. Falling apart because schools collaps. Luckily some principals don’t allow their pupils to come in to school during rainy weather. But what then? Also the federal government doesn’t seem to mind that schools close for 4 weeks. Elections are more important than education…..
My questions ….. or better to say Lucy’s and my questions are: how come that things deteriorated so much? How come the differences between different states are so enormous? How is responsible for maintaining buildings, writing curriculum, supplying furniture and learning aids? To get an answer to these questions Lucy got suggested that we should go to the Federal secretariat of the ministry of education. So we did.
After a summit for the 10th anniversary of the international year of volunteering we took off to the ministry. In the taxi thinking about how to put the questions and who to talk to, we arrived. A little bit nervous. How do we know where to go? How do we know who is the right person? Where do we start and how do we introduce ourselves? We decided to start to look for the director of schools. So we went to the 6th floor. We popped in the first open door to ask where we could find the director. In 606. There we were directed to 610 and there to the first office we entered. The new directions lead us to the nearby office where somebody was sleeping on the desk. Visualize a head that crashed down by gravity. She told us to go to the third floor, to the director of administration. On the third floor we also visited 3 office and got directed to the eight floor…… or was it the sixth …. again.
In the hallway we decided for ourselves that we had to make a choice. Lucy got the advice to seek it higher in the hierarchical system, the minister of education should know our answers.
Mmmmm, minister …… are we dressed properly? What do we really want to know? Why are we here? New deliberation in the hallway. We took the advice of a lovely lady in the hallway and we went to the ps’ office (Permanent secretary). ‘ He knows everything’: she said.
After entering 2 office and asking if the ps was in we were sent to a waiting room. Nice chairs and a tv + some other people.
Being in Nigeria for a while now, we know that waiting is part of the daily routine. Also the fact that secretaries don’t know anything about the agenda of their ogar (boss) is known by us. But waiting for somebody for more than an hour while he is not in the office is a little bit strange….. surely when it is already 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
All and all after a while Lucy did get the advice to write a letter in which she has to invite herself at the ps’ office ……... After 2 hours waiting.
What did we gain: knowledge about structure of the building, some good practice examples of schools (advertising on tv) and how to find our way in a bureaucratic environment (conversation with lady that also was waiting).

no dancing at all.......

Commissioning is a new word that I learned this week. Still don’t know what it means literally, but it has to do something with the official opening of a building. Viola commissioned her project (two classroom school building) on her birthday. The 28th of February 2011 will be a date she won’t forget soon. Almost all invited people came to see the official opening.

The proud shine on Viola’s face was enough to know that she was happy and satisfied. Nawani Aboki (owner of NACWYCA, chairman of CSACEFA and possible new governor of Nasarawa State) was the proud chairman of the day. In his speech he told us that he was the one whom introduced Uche and Viola to each other. The two ladies had the same dream and he brought those dreams together. Viola wanted to leave a landmark behind after leaving Nigeria and Uche wanted to help out a community. Uche lacked the right skills to pull it off and Viola lacked a place to put her landmark. Together they build the school block for two classrooms in Kurikyo in 4 months’ time. Money came from the German embassy and Viola’s former high school in Germany, labor came from the community.
As Viola is a person who wants to plan things in slight detail the day was well prepared, only in the last moment people wanted to show they are Nigerians and they messed up the how program. They shifted things around and they were adding and scraping things. In the end Viola knew she had to let go and enjoy the whole day just as it would be.

After all official welcomes and speeches, Nawani cut the cord and the man from the embassy, the village head, Uche, Viola and the man from UBEB (universal basic education board) cut the cake, traditional dancers took the floor. Traditional dancers…….. What do you think they are? What do you think they look like? What do you think they do?............... None of your answers is probably right. In Kurikyo they don’t dance, they don’t wear traditional clothes and it is not a mixture of man and women. In this case it was a few guys in the age of 18 till 25 with an old man as their leader. They were wearing normal pants and tiny tops like teenagers sometimes wear and they had big knifes.
Their ‘dance’ was cutting themselves with those knifes in front of the village head and Viola. The old man then gave them some green stuff (looked like Nederwiet) and a razorblade. After eating the green stuff they put the razorblade in their mouth and started chewing. They eat the razorblade!!!!!!
This is no dancing!!!!! This is weird!