After the travails of getting to our preferred destination in Nigeria yesterday, today was the first day of delivering training. The audience today were a group of about 35 prison chaplains, prison volunteers, and church leaders, and it was wonderful to spend time with them.
Prior to the training, we had a delightful time of meeting with a group of women who are members of the church and the equivalent of ‘Mothers Union’. They clearly do all sorts of community and church work, and today was the presentation of a gift for each of the ladies to say thank you. This was a lovely colourful and tuneful event, full of singing and laughter and prayers and praise and hugging. It even ended with some dancing and a bit of a conga experience – very wonderful, and so good to spend time with the women and celebrate them. A truly African experience – loved it!
The training with the prison chaplains etc went really well. They were wonderfully engaged and lots of questions and conversations that showed how active their listening was, and how much they were thinking through the contextualising of it all. One of the conversations that I had with the prison chaplains centred around what the main crimes are that lead to imprisonment. Obviously, there are the usual ones of burglary and theft, but apparently the key ones here for men are abduction and kidnapping, and the key ones for women are child abduction with an aim of trafficking. I have to say I did feel slightly alarmed at that point and have realised why all Nigerian friends are saying not to walk alone around the neighbourhood and have decided not to do any early morning runs!
On a food front (always a good topic of discovery when going to a new place) – we’re doing well on some new and very delicious foods. I’ve not had jollof rice before, but that is now a firm favourite and definitely something I’ll need to find a good recipe for when I get home. Today we had some sort of bean paste alongside the rice and greens which was really nice. It came in a little plastic bag – kind of like it had been put in cold, and then heated up in the bag in hot water – and then you just rip the bag to get the paste out and mix it in with the rice. Really delicious and I’ll have to try and find out more about what it was. We’ve also had some good greens, and the bananas are wonderful over here. Considering we’ve not been here very long, I think that’s a pretty good start. Oh, and today we were introduced to Nigerian non-alcoholic Guinness (although I don’t think it bears a lot of resemblance to the Irish version!)
Traffic-wise it’s pretty standard although everyone does drive very fast, and lots of horn-honking to get people to move out of the way. Definitely need your wits about you if crossing the road – although as I’m not walking anywhere alone I guess I’ll rely on the locals to keep me safe!
And that’s about it for my first reflections. Everyone is so very friendly (that I’ve met anyway), and so full of welcome and warmth. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the temperature is hot. Am feeling very blessed.
Over and out until the next ramblings 😊
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