Peek at Dubrovnik

Sneak peek for you from my trip as I am hiding from the heat in my hotel room while looking out at Lokurm Island.

I feel like I stepped into a postcard!

You never know what you might stumble upon...

Out for a nice late Sunday afternoon stroll, I stumbled upon the filming of a Croatian pop star's music video... Behold: the filming of Croatia's 2012 summer hit where everyone on the street knows the words to the song and sang along-

Severina- "Italiana"

Severina is the one in the orange top and jeans

How did I find this out, you might ask? Turns out I have no shame as a tourist and asked the waitress who served me ice cream right by the filming what was going on. She was kind enough to share with me and even wrote the name of the song and artist on my receipt. YouTube the song, it's pretty catchy. But please don't ask me what they're saying... I have no idea.

Summer trip- sneak peek

Country in Mourning

If you keep up with Nigerian news, you may have already heard about the plane (an Abuja to Lagos flight) that crashed in Lagos yesterday afternoon. All the passengers on board, approximately 150 people, died and an unknown number of people on the ground died. Most of the passengers were Nigerian but it has been reported that some Chinese nationals were on that flight. I've heard that a few Nigerian staff that work for our embassy or our implementing partners were also on that flight. Details about the crash are mixed which is pretty typical for Nigerian news reporting. But it is a terrible tragedy. The president has declared 3 days of national mourning. It is pretty scary because many people fly between Lagos and Abuja all the time, whether it's for business or pleasure. Just last weekend, several of my expat friends made the Abuja-Lagos journey just to relax and enjoy a change of scenery.

In other Nigerian news, not any more uplifting, there was a bombing up north in Bauchi. A suicide bomber blew up a church on Sunday. According to BBC, 10 people were killed and around 30 were wounded. I hate to report all these tragedies, but this is what is going on in Nigeria. Tragic tragic tragic.

Aside from that, my body decided it doesn't like to be healthy anymore. So for the last month, I was fighting a head cold on and off. Sick sick at the end of April. My body decided folliculitis might be fun to experience and my one toenail ripped off. Lovely times.

Can't Believe It's The End Of May

Over the past month, I have been married at least 5 times, have had at least 1 kid, and am seriously considering getting a second husband. No, you haven't missed a large chunk of my life. I have developed a habit of creating an imaginary husband for myself when taxi drivers ask if I'm married or not. Sometimes I have a child, sometimes I don't. It really depends on how I feel that day. I think it kind of mixes up the whole taxi-ride experience, and it helps me avoid the marriage proposal that sometimes comes after a taxi driver discovers that I'm not married yet.

In other news, there's not too much to report. Now that Teresa's gone, the apartment is getting dustier by the day and no matter how many times I sweep and mop, it just doesn't seem to get any cleaner (or maybe I'm just really bad at cleaning). I have developed a new skill of making pretty good omelets. Other than that, I don't think my cooking skills have improved this year. 

It's crazy to think that I have around 100 days left in Nigeria, give or take a couple days. It's the end of May! Pretty sure I didn't believe it was the end of April last month and I probably sound redundant, but it's true- I can't believe it. This is the longest I have remained in country to date. In the past, I have left Abuja for one reason or another. But soon I'll hit the 4 month mark of consistent living in Abuja. Pretty crazy. It feels like time has flown, yet is moving slowly. A lot of the friends I have made here have left or are leaving. There seems to be a pretty high turnover rate when summer hits. Good-byes are sad, but it's awesome that I've gotten the opportunity to meet all these people. And hopefully I'll stay in touch with some of them, maybe even get to visit them wherever they end up in the world. 

Things Aren't Boring

Just when you might think things in Nigeria are a bit boring or uneventful, something new happens. Last week, we had a VIP visit from DC. That kept me super busy and also taught me that I never want to be an events coordinator when I grow up. At the beginning of the week, there were endless meetings. On Tuesday, our delegates arrived. I got to ride out to the airport to welcome them. I came to the realization that going to the airport but not being able to get on a plane makes it a little depressing. 

On Wednesday, the visitors went to meet the First Lady. I wasn't important enough to go along, which was just fine with me. However, I hung out in an armored SUV for 4 hours waiting for the meeting to be over with the desperate need to go to the bathroom. But there was no bathroom to use. That was not exactly fun. That night (after I finally was able to use a restroom), I got to go to the US Ambassador's house for the first time to help with an event. It would have been much more fun if I had gone to just enjoy myself, but I was there to work. Less fun to be had.

Thursday turned out to be an interesting day. I got to go visit the UN building that got bombed by Boko Haram in August. It's structurally damaged so the building is just empty now. I got to see the crater the car created when it exploded and the remnants of the exploded vehicle. There was a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate those who lost their lives in the tragic bombing. It was really sad. Then we were told to go back to the embassy rather than move forward with our planned agenda because there were reports of a bombing in Abuja. So off to the embassy we went. We ended up sitting there on lock down for several hours. Turns out that ThisDay newspaper in Abuja and Kano (a city in Northern Nigeria) were bombed. I believe 7 people died. Another tragedy that Boko Haram claims responsibility for. The bombing changed much of the final events we had planned for the VIP visit, but nothing could be done about that.

Then lucky for me, I proceeded to get violently ill Thursday night. That was unpleasant on so many levels. I did experience having a fever for the first time in a really long time. I'm happy to report that it wasn't malaria, but knocked me out all weekend. Not cool.

And if you don't follow Nigerian news, Boko Haram attacked a university in Kano (bomb and guns) on Sunday morning. Then they also attacked a church in the north-eastern city of Maduiguri on Sunday. Nigeria is not exactly the most stable or safe country as of late, however I don't really feel that afraid for myself. Oh and don't forget, on Monday, a bomb blast hit a police convoy in Eastern Nigeria that killed 11 (according to reports).

Yesterday was May Day aka Worker's Day and we were given the day off here in Abuja. That was a nice little break since I didn't get to do much over the weekend. On top of the relaxation though, there was a bomb threat in my neighborhood by a grocery store I sometimes go to... so that wasn't exactly the most comforting thing to hear. I used to say TIA a lot (this is Africa), but more and more, we use TIN (this is Nigeria). There are things that happen in Nigeria that I don't think we can generalize to the rest of the continent. If nothing else, my time in Nigeria has definitely been... interesting.

Work and stuff

Part of my responsibilities at the office include holding a public health lecture every other Tuesday. It's a short (supposed to be half an hour but always lasts an hour with questions) presentation on a health topic. Yesterday's was on sickle cell anemia. Interesting things I learned from my lecture:

• Approximately 25% of Nigeria's adult population is a carrier of the sickle cell gene
• Approximately 150,000 children are born every year with sickle cell anemia
• There is a belief that if you live with sickle cell anemia beyond 39 years, you will lead a normal life and not have sickle cell anemia anymore (obviously this is untrue).

Lectures and meetings are interesting in Nigeria. I don't think I've ever gone to a meeting where when the presenter/speaker asks if there are any questions, no questions are asked. The Nigerian staff here will always ask questions. Even if they know the answer to their question, they will still ask. I know this because staff have come up to me after meetings and told me. They want to provide "open discussion". Also sometimes the questions take 3 minutes to ask. People have a very round-about... beating around the bush way of asking questions where they talk for a long time before actually asking the question. In other words, meetings in Nigeria never end on time and can last for... well forever. Sometimes it's a bit painful to sit through. 

My other work recently has centered around a lot of administrative work- creating a comprehensive new employee packet for new hires and standard operating procedures for the office. Nothing too thrilling there.

In other news, Teresa is officially gone and I am all by my lonesome. I have this giant apartment and can't really do anything with the space. I'm debating turning my hallway into a slip-and-slide. Could be extremely messy, but also very fun. I don't think I'll become as crazy here as I did in Sembabule because there are still tons of people to interact and socialize with. I have been a bit of a hermit the last few days and have been watching GCB, the new ABC show. Trashy but hilarious.

It's pretty unbelievable that it's coming to the end of April... It just seems like yesterday I was coming back to Abuja from Christmas with my family. Some days the time seems to pass unbelievably slowly, but I am starting to think ahead to what's next. Move back to the States? Find another job somewhere else? Try to pursue my dream of working for a while in Southeast Asia? Find a job in a place where electricity is consistent and internet doesn't depend on some magical being? Who knows where life will take me next...