“Haggling Apprentice – You’re Fired!”

There are a million photographs to be taken here; however, there is a general prohibition because even a casual photograph of nothing in particular will result in a near violent altercation with someone who thinks you are gaining something at their expense. There is nothing charitable about the way of life here. If someone does you a favour it is with the expressed expectation that they are owed a debt which must be repaid soon. It is a dog eat dog world and everything under the sun has a value of some description. We got a lift to the market on Friday, a journey of 5 minutes, but I think I have to house a Nigerian teacher, his two wives and twelve children when they are next in the UK. I think it will be cheaper to move house!

Children camp outside our houses in the hope that they may get a sweet or a bottle or intercept any rubbish we throw away. Shopping for us can be a bit of a trial as we will offer 100 Naira (40p) for some tomatoes or eggs or onions and you might get one or a bag full. Traders will charge more to white skins for however much they can get away with. We just pay the price if it seems reasonable but rarely argue.

When it comes to a major purchase the haggling starts in earnest. Having avidly followed the ‘Apprentice’, the tip I picked up was that when bargaining, you never pay more than half of the original asking price. You can see the glee on the traders faces as we approach (with trepidation).

One needs a manager and back up crew just to set foot in the doorway of a stall holder who comes from a tradition of thousands of years of negotiation. At a recent visit to Kurmi Market, one of the oldest markets in Africa, we were led down alleyways that defied compass bearings. Each trader had the equivalent of a walk-in wardrobe as his space for trading. Slaves were originally bought and sold here, so the place has brooding air of despair for those that enter!

Some traders really ought to visit John Lewis‘ lighting, gift or soft furnishing departments to see how to set out your wares properly... There might be a bargain to be had, but it’s hard to see clearly in the dim alleyways and the word ‘Bature’ flashes around the market. Bature means white person or in this case ‘easy prey’ would be more apt.

Eking out my meagre funds: having bought too much costly tuna fish from outrageously highly priced western supermarkets. I endeavour to find a souvenir of Nigeria.

My late mother always comes to mind on these occasions. We were in Hong Kong many years ago when my brother was living there and she would enter into negotiation with a Chinese trader who didn’t speak a word of English. Having had a verbal exchange in which neither would understand the other, my Mum would always say “How much for two Love?” and issue a ‘V’ sign in complete innocence...

Dawakin Tofa, where we go to market for vegetables. Mud houses with refuse strewn about!

The ‘Apprentice’ advice gets a very mixed reception. Some real disdain or a turned back which I see as a victory because the trader feels he’s not going to make much money out of me. However I leave souvenir-less which leads me to doubt my approach. I try again at a cupboard selling Islamic Rosary Beads. First I get one price, and then another, then another, so making a choice I’m then told that they are more expensive because they are made from amber. There then follows a lengthy discussion about yellow plastic beads do not in fact constitute amber. This brings the price down to the one before last. Are you keeping up with this? Because I’m not... In the end you kind of lose the will to live and would rather just find a bar or cafe to regroup. But then this is Kano... no bars and no cafes that you would recognise! Life is so much easier when the price is displayed...

Some people are very good at getting the best price for everything and I admire them greatly. After an hour or so, we’d had enough and a guide took us back to the mini bus, where someone was being paid to ‘look after’ it. Still cheaper than parking in Bristol though. This haggling business, I must really get the hang of it or employ someone to do it for me! Where’s Karen Dinning when you need her? I spent nearly £20 on a hat which in the cold light of day was a huge mistake. It’s worth £2.50 at most: wonder what it would fetch on e-bay? As Lord Sugar would say...”Really pathetic, they saw you coming – you’re fired!”



Some of my unofficial class - SS2A. The teachers here are on strike, so being a boarding school the boys fend for themselves hanging about the classrooms. We have an english lesson each morning to keep them occupied!



Coffee and Paracetamol!

‘Twas the night before Mawlid and not a sound was to be heard not even a mouse. Not exactly...

Laying beneath my mosquito net and trying vainly to get to sleep, a lizard starts running back and forth across the window screen. I throw a t shirt at it and it leaves abruptly! I then hear it clamber across my tin roof. Why is it one’s knowledge of the world is never remotely conclusive? I thought lizards only became mobile in the sunlight, yet here we are, moon becoming brighter by the minute, it’s twenty five minutes to midnight and lizards are dancing around the house in around 25 degrees!

A scratching noise from the direction of my bedroom door forces me to turn my torch on. (Having had to chase a rat out of my colleagues’ house just the previous night, whilst they just screamed continuously; causing quite a commotion thank you very much... I wouldn’t have minded but the blighter lunged for me (trio of screaming momentarily...) before I shooed it out of the door with a broom), so did not fancy another round. No it was a large cockroach!  At least I think a 4 inch cockroach is a tad large. It didn’t appreciate the torch light, so left momentarily. I then pondered whether to get up and try and catch it or leave it alone as they go again by daylight. Oh no, it decides to come back with the express purpose to annoy me. So starts the game of “catch me if you can” for at least 10 minutes, chasing it around the walls and ceiling of the house. What my neighbours must have thought I do not know. Cockroaches are good at teasing you. They move so quickly, that even though I’m sure I’ve temporarily blinded it with my torch light, the bin I thrust down to capture it misses and it scoots a few centimetres out of reach. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I hit it with the broom. Having stunned it, I throw it quite ceremoniously out of the front door Fred Flinstone fashion.

Another battle won, I retreat to my room after getting a drink and settle down to some deserved sleep...  In the distance a dog barks and then the P.A. system in the traditional village next door starts up. I don’t believe it! Why start a gathering at midnight? (I find out the next day that the village were celebrating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. Mawlid refers to the observance of this feast and is celebrated in the third month of the Islamic calendar (February time)). There were prayers, stories and singing especially from the children. However, this middle of the night interruption was compounded by the blasted guinea fowl outside my courtyard starting an almighty ruckus. This starts off the goat that’s tied to my neighbours’ fence ( He is the Hausa teacher at school – nice man called Abubaka, though why the goat is tethered I don’t know... Goats can have a really excruciating bleat, they also break wind constantly and loudly! There then follows at least an hour of cacophony that would drive a man to drink – except I have only water in the house. By 2:30am the night is at peace again. So I turn off the ipod (of which I am now thoroughly bored with) and settle for some quality sleep.  A cockerel crows, a dog barks and half an hour later the P.A. is at full volume again...

Nigerian schools start to take over my alert mind and before I know it: the 4am call to prayer starts in the town then passes across the countryside from village to village. 4:30am , 5am...  Cock starts crowing – again and again, then the dog barks, then the hideous guinea fowl start – what’s the use!  Well there are some e-mails to type so I may as well get up and by 6:17am precisely, the bees in the lemon tree are buzzing quite loudly and the birds are in full song. A dawn of a bright new day... quick get me some coffee and paracetamol!

Symbol of the Prophet Mohammad from Wikipedia

Local three & four year olds at school because the state funds a teacher! They sit in the shade of a tree as there is no room for them to go in. So even when the Harmattan wind is going strong, they chant and sing and listen to stories. Not one single piece of equipment exists for them to play or explore with!



Looking out from within! Children at the traditional village school (who would have been up all night for Mawlid). The school was not as bad as we thought it would be and compares favourably to others we have seen including the 'Model School'.

The staff of the local traditional village school. The women break off lessons to feed their own children whom they carry with them. Arabic, Maths, English, Hausa and PHE teachers compliment the staff. I'm stood next to the head teacher.





Part of the 'Neighbourhood Watch' gang!

Little Hassan with his tyre!



Bashful Sidiq!



See a camera and all goes to pot!

Sainab at full volume!

Farouk framed!

Mohammed

Sainab, Faroul and Mohammed's sister! 

Mr.Cool!

Not London Fashion Week!




and the winning contestant is...

My wife and I often know what we don’t like in the clothing line as opposed to what we do like. In recent years, with maturity, clothes buying has lost the excitement that it once had. However since I have been in Nigeria, I have been struck by clothes envy! The Abuja (Christian) Man has the wildest African print on a shirt and draw string pants, They are the colours that only a black guy can wear. Well actually a black person seems to look good in any colour. Pale white skins need to be more careful. What colour you wear draws comment from those around you – at least behind your back at any rate. Abuja Man looks cool and hip!

The Kano (Muslim) Man looks elegant in his plain long shirt with understated embroidery around the neck with matching pants underneath. An embroidered Nehru hat finishes the ensemble. The sight of tens of thousands of muslim men attending Friday prayers, forming an ocean of billowing material of every hue under the sun, is something to behold. Nigerians are not colour prejudiced in the way that we are regarding clothing. What I mean by this is that a burly 6 foot Nigerian male would not think twice about wearing a bright pink ensemble, with contrasting baby blue accessories. From a distance it could be Barbara Cartland, though closer appreciation proves this to be far from the truth. So who gets top prize – the Christian or the Muslim?

I need to put this to the test so having been assaulted by the masses at Kurmi market, I have chosen the most outrageous material I could find for ‘Abuja Clements’ and a neat grey/blue material for ‘Kano Clements’. £7 for around 12 yards in all... call the tailor!

Wearing a full face crash helmet in 40 degree heat is not something I relish at all. Having got the opportunity of riding on the back of Khalifa’s bike into Kano City to attend Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral, I weighed up the possibility of being involved in a crash with or without a helmet. I could wear the helmet, faint in the heat, and fall off the bike that way, or not wear a helmet and be prepared for any eventuality. I thought in my infantile wisdom that God would not want me to crash when I was going to mass anyway, does he do irony? An hour and ten minutes later, we arrived helmetless. I almost thought it pointless going in to the church as I’d spent the majority of the journey in prayer. But buoyed by the achievement of actually arriving, I settled into a really memorable experience. The Christian women were a sight to behold themselves, wearing the most gigantic and elaborate head-dresses. The prints were so fanciful, decorative  and utterly fantastic! Abuja Man was everywhere to be seen so the place was a riot of colour – well apart from me in chinos and a shirt from M&S.

The choir master and choir were amazing and people danced in their pews to the music of praise. Each bench had to process to place your offertory envelope in a sack and then the offertory procession itself starts. Hundreds and hundreds of people brought a crying child first; then it turned into the Generation Game conveyor belt. The offertory included sacks of oranges, boxes of bottled water, electric fans, a bicycle(!), a projector stand... and on it went for nearly twenty minutes until the back of the altar looked like a warehouse. Another hour was to go by before the end of mass. Just as everyone was ready to leave, a child threw up in the doorway. And as Nigerian women hitched up their prints to tread carefully away, it seemed to me the Christians had swung it their way. However you will be the judge...

We popped in to the tailor on the way back from the city. Abuja Man will stand out a mile. In fact you’ll see me coming from as far away as Morocco at thirty thousand feet! The outfit is literally blinding! Kano Man is still on the sewing machine, so wait and see.

The irony would have been complete if I’d had an accident on the way back from church, but I’m pleased to report there were no incidents!

(Since going to press, I can report that we were assigned by the inspectorate to join them on a routine inspection of a secondary school. Our driver pulled out too sharply from refuelling and a motor bike rider ploughed into the side of us! Who on earth would want to go on a bike without a crash helmet? Cyclist shaken but not stirred!)

Turn right at the 'Killing Tree!' - another market day...




  

Hazy morning travelling east from Dawakin Tofa towards the Kano - Katsina Road


 Walking into Dawakin from the school last Friday was to be a relaxing end to what had been a busy week. We had been travelling 3 - 4 hours per day back and forth to a science and technical school that seemed designed to harness the heat of the sun and point it directly to wherever I stood in class. Now was the weekend, a bit of food shopping and the weekend would be set up. The whole school goes into the town for Friday prayers at the mosque, so we were greeted by several multitudes of boys on their way back as we were going in the opposite direction. The market was a lot busier than the time before, but we thought that the locals would have got used to our white skins after nearly seven weeks, so this visit would be fine.
It can be quite disconcerting as I've mentioned before, when literally hundreds of people just stop what they are doing, mouths dropping, just because I've walked by! (Checked to make sure my trouser zip was indeed correct...)Anyhow we pass the millet, maize, rice, tomatoes, chillies, onions and oranges and start to take a closer look at some of the more unusual items. There were some amazing dried fish and some mirrors fashioned out of old CD's that had little battery holders for some lights that were also attached. These were selling like 'hot cakes'.
This brings me to the real reason we went to the market, as my colleague Annabelle had taken a fancy to some clay pots that hold hot coals in them. You oil the lid which has some small crater like troughs fashioned in it. After adding your dough, it acts like a little oven. I thought it might work for yorkshire puddings! 
Dawakin is famous for its pottery and as we walked along a path through the market towards the kilns, I noticed that we had an entourage of at least 30 children. We thought if we went into the narrow alley ways of the pottery kilns, the children would disappear. At this moment I was accosted yet again by a ranting old man who was saying I don't know what. This has happened before. A passing staff member from school interpretted that the man was demanding money from me as "all white people are rich!" In comparison to him I must be a billionaire. And like all billionaires, I pleaded poverty and told him the women have all my money... That sorted him out!
We knew we had to turn right at the 'Killing Tree', which is a place one wouldn't want to hang about for too long a time. In every market, each trade has its own 'quarter'. So fast food, meat on skewers etc was prepared by the killing tree as I call it. Underneath its branches, various animals were dispatched, skinned or plucked and cooked! The ground was red with blood stains and feathers flew in all directions. Being a complete coward in this respect... I love to see cows in fields and sheep in meadows and always look for the associate bargain in Tesco's or Sainsbury's on a Saturday. But you show me a poor goat or sheep being led bleating plaintively by the foot and I think being a vegetarian would be the best for all concerned. Having turned the corner, it was out of sight and nearly out of mind...

At the pottery, Annabelle negotiated 100N ( about 40p) for a 4 cake size bowl. The children grew in number to the point where it was uncomfortable and in the end, we beat a hasty retreat. If this is how Peter Andre gets his kicks, I'm glad I'm not a celebrity. The market could have made more money that day, but it seems the novelty of our skin colour has not worn off! No meat and two veg. for dinner either!















Harmattan

Harmattan is the name given to the sub-saharan wind that can blow for days and create a fog of red dust up to several metres high. What looks like a dense fog in the distance is the amount of dust billowing around in that area. If you've ever wondered why regular kids looked caked in dust from head to toe, whilst wondering why their mothers don't make them wash more: now I understand! It's impossible. 
Everywhere around gets covered in dust. It blows under doors so that science equipment looks as if it hasn't been touched for years!!! You hang washing out on a 'clear day' only to find it wasn't that clear after all. All clothes take on a slight rusty appearance, especially after washing...
Then there's the water issue. We've had no water for two days, so Mr Sani took his Indian taxi laden with water carriers to a bore hole in the town to fill. Bless him! Some staff walk the nearly two miles there and back with a small dustbin of water on their heads - around 40 litres worth. Now why would any mother be concerned by a little dust that her 10 year old picks up whilst playing football outside?Think of the water you would have to use! It's not that there isn't water, it's just how far you've to go to collect it.
The Heath Robinson contraption that keeps going on a whim and a prayer pumping water, seems to have given up the ghost. No water in school either. That means 800 boys have been without water to drink or wash with for two days. Nobody seems bothered - only me!

Reciting from the board

One of the Foundation Classes

Home time!

There are different Harmattan's for different times of the year. Nigeria, hopes every election time that a 'wind of change' will happen for the nation's better. We visited a 'model' school and had been warned beforehand not to think all schools were like this, as this was better than most.
The Principal and Deputy were very welcoming and hospitable. The children were splendid and well behaved. The prefects had different coloured hats on depending on what they were prefect for. Some for gardening, sports captain, class monitor etc. We saw neat rows of wooden benches, populated by boys to one side and girls to the other. The rooms were bare and clean - monitors clean the floors of any debris that flies in from outside. They also had a games pitch and field to go to!
We saw some handwriting practice and some Arabic lessons - learning by rote.
The majority of classes had a teacher, some of those without had prefects to look after them. They had a library, and a few computers but without internet access. Occasional children would be invited to learn about the keyboard and mouse operations. It was a very informative visit and showed how the primary phase fits with the secondary in education. It's quite breezy today!

"Some mothers do 'av 'em!"

Don't look now!

One has to avert one’s gaze as you walk from the staff quarters to the school as countless boys will be in the scrub bushes going to the toilet as the school’s toilets are being renovated with a new block planned. Always discrete, they are naturally embarrassed if you happen to trip over someone about their business!

 The boys here are great, they work so desperately hard, knowing that a good education is their ticket to a brighter future.  We like the staff tremendously. All articulate and trying their best at a difficult time for teaching in Nigeria: when they are paid so little. Most teachers need to earn money on the side just to make ends meet.

We will be working with the English department naturally as well as running workshops on teaching and learning to those who are interested. The English department has a ceiling tile missing which gives a large owl living in the roof space access to defecate over books and precious materials. A requisition has been made to the board to fix the tile, but it can take forever for such a trivial thing to be rectified. In the meantime, where can I get a ladder from... ? Local management of schools would rectify this!

The library is one of the better we have seen but still has very few books by any standards. The boys are desperate to get their hands on any English materials to gain a better understanding of vocabulary and comprehension. With little access to T.V.  and most bookshops only to be found in the Sabon Gari  (where the foreigners and Christians live ) district, it also comes down to money as novels are very rare and expensive. Second hand paperbacks can cost as much as ten pounds. This is an obvious area that needs support in their learning. With the help of our school, we might be able to do something about this! The boys come to just talk or borrow a book and check their understanding throughout the day on the weekend or after school during the week. Passing English is their most consuming issue. It’s not so much an issue if you come from a wealthier family.

The new ICT suite will be great when it is commissioned though in the meantime it gathers dust until all the logistics are in place. I have warned of the dangers of treating the computers too preciously. We know from experience that they should be used as much as possible as a tool for learning because they will soon become out of date. The Board will get the best price to put in a suite but the computers often come with no software or just a small pirated copy so cannot be properly upgraded. There needs to be more joined up thinking. The staff have the answers but the powers that be need to consult more when commissioning.

Cooking for 800 boys three times a day is quite a challenge. We saw the outdoor kitchen at work today as the ladies toiled away making broad beans with millet porridge for lunch. I think I’ll give it a miss today. Health and safety at work don’t make me laugh – open boiling cauldrons with babies crawling around! Now where’s that ladder?

Too many cooks?



Mmmm... boiled broad beans - very nutritious

 

"Please Sir, I want some more!"