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!