Sannu!

Hello again! This internet page just took about 10 minutes to load and that's 10 minutes I'm paying for!! Anyway, it's been a busy few days. We went to a local football match for free, but lets just say the football wasn't premier league style! Anyway, our side won and it was a great experience. Monday was Nigerian Independence day and we experienced the Nigerian way - SLOW!! We went to the Stadium to March past the Governor of the State along with other Non-Government organisations. We got there at 8am, and we waited until 11:30 to March in the blazing heat! It seems that Nigerians take the phrase 'being fashionably late' to the extreme!! We were only 5 minutes marching - waste of time. Then in the afternoon we visited a hospital with the first lady. It was a total shambles. There were about 40 people rushing around trying to get in photos and noone really cared. I got really angry. We are hoping to go back and visit the childrens ward for a longer period as it was another waste of time. Anything official here is mind numbingly slow and ceremonial and very frustrating!

Anyway, enough moaning! I started one of my 2 work placements today. We have a huge task to do. We are starting a project which wants to establuish how many vulnerable children there are living in a certain area of Lafia. Once this research is done, we hope tomeet the basic needs of the most vulnerable. Our job is to start the ball rolling and complete a framework by which other volunteers will work. The program will still only just be starting by the time we leave, but at least we will have helped to set it all up. The guy we are working with is very passionate and I hope we can really help with it all. I start work at the school tomorrow, so I will be able to say more about that next time.

I really love my host family and I feel as volunteers we are making them closer. Most evenings we play some of the games we have learned as a team with them and we have a great laugh together - mama even joins in and she's 61! She was dancing around the dining room last night shaking her booty! It was so funny! Her grand children are 10 aqnd 11 and so lovely. They like the game 'Boomchikaboom' which I will teach you all when I get home.

We have some new friends in our room with whiskars and long tails - yep we have mice!!!! They don't come near me because of my mosquito net, but I can hear them scuttling about!

My counterpart had Malaria for a few days, but she's ok now after a few injections. It's not such a big deal over here as once it's diagnosed, treatment is swift. I was very worried, but it was all ok in the end. We are getting on very well and laugh a lot together!

There are probably things I have missed out, but I only have 3 minutes left so i shall have to go!

Love Abs xxxxxxx