A Very African Problem

Pilar had been quite stressed at work and was looking forward to getting away from her life in Bangui, Central African Republic. It had increasingly become unsafe with more and more car jackings taking place. The curfew constantly made her feel imprisoned, it was midnight at first, then it moved to 11pm but was recently changed to 9:30pm. What could anyone possibly do before 9:30pm? The only time to socialise was during weekends, people from different organisations organised barbecues and house parties during the day. From 8pm, one by one, everyone would start to jump into their cars, contacting their various radio rooms to announce their return home, not to contravene security rules. The country was known for its constant conflicts. Rock club was always full during the weekend, of those wanting to swim, to play tennis or to just sit out in the sun. Hôtel Ledger was known for their Sunday brunch and also had a nice pool, then hôtel Oubangui, not the fanciest but had good massages. These were some of the things that helped Pilar decompress during weekends.

Being a guest speaker...

 

I have had a more manic week than I’ve had in a long time! I've been on holiday for over three months so I have probably lost touch with life as a working person, hehehehehe. 

A friend of mine who lectures at Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Strasbourg (INSA) asked me to be a guest speaker in her class. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! One of her courses is conversational, so her students are required to have conversations in English. She asked me to speak about something cultural in Nigeria which I was glad to do. After giving some quick facts about Nigeria, I went on to speak a bit about my state of origin, Benue. 

Lest I forget, I got some funny answers when I asked what the capital of Nigeria was. I'm chuckling as I remember...I even got Bamako! 

Could this be a generational thing?

Someone contacted me out of nowhere to ask what options her cousin who studied French and had just graduated from university had in terms of work. 

She also mentioned that some other people they knew who studied French ended up teaching. Then she ended her message with this question: 'What can she do with the French?'. What I drew from her message was that she didn't want her cousin to teach.

I asked her what her cousin's interests were and if she had asked her cousin the same question. She seemed to be getting frustrated with my questions but I didn't see how I could help, because in reality, my thinking was that her cousin would be in a much better position to know what her options were and what she might like to do.

I told her teaching was one option (and what if that was what the cousin wanted to do?!) but there were other things to do. Another thing was that I didn't know her cousin or what she liked so I was unsure how to respond. She was contacting me obviously because I studied French and was not teaching I suppose...

Rounding up 2019

My biggest lesson in 2019 has been that it is not and should not be all about you!

It's not like I have not always known this but it has hit home so much harder through the year.

I lived in Central African Republic all of 2019 where the country has been totally run down by selfishness. I cannot and may not have accurate analysis so I'm stating very clearly that this opinion is personal.

The sun setting over Bangui

When people speak of the good old days...(I wrote a little about that here), I always ask what changed. When you dig deep, it boils down to selfishness; the need for power and control, people thinking only of themselves and what benefit they can get. I'm sticking to the everyday little things that have led to me draw this conclusion.

Riding with volunteers in Tanzania

For the past year, I have lived in Kibondo in Western Tanzania, where I worked closely with the Tanzanian Red Cross. I'm describing one of many days working with the Red Cross volunteers in one of the three refugee camps, Nduta refugee camp, which is home to nearly 100,000 people...  

I wake up to crows making loud caws and take a look at the time. It's 7am already and the day awaits.

I get ready and off we go to Nduta camp, the camp is about 36.2 sq km
There are close to 300,000 refugees in the three camps in Tanzania. Although there is no conflict, the country has become a safe haven for people from nearby countries ridden with different forms of conflict.

Bumping and jostling in the car with every movement, the dust is all I see ahead of me as there is no tarmac. We arrive at Nduta just in time to catch the morning meeting. Right after the meeting, on cue, bicycles are rolled out. This is the daily routine. The volunteers ride the rocky paths of the camps to deliver family news to their fellow refugees. For some refugees, this is the only way to get any assurance of their family member's well being. They cherish these moments. Sitting at different call centres where we provide free phone calls to the refugees, I smile all the time till my face hurts. I see the way their faces light up when they hear a loved one's voice and it warms my heart.

Not all Nigerians fit the stereotype

I visited the Nigerian High Commission in Dar es Salaam today to get a letter of introduction for the Tanzanian authorities for work. Going by stories I had heard of how bad Nigerian Embassy/HC staff could be, I went there with no expectations. 

At the front desk someone was chatting so loudly across with a guard in Swahili, so they were both obviously Tanzanian. When a Nigerian staff came to attend to me in the waiting area which was in the same room/hall, I could barely hear him as these people were yelling. I looked up in shock wondering whether I was in a market place or an office. I told him I could not hear him and looked towards the front desk as if to say, ask him to keep his voice down but he made light of the situation by saying he is like a Nigerian now. I know we could be loud but in an office, this was not acceptable. And for someone who was sent from Nigeria to represent his country in another country to accept this, it shocked me a bit. I wondered if that was what he was taught from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!

What would you like to be remembered for?

A friend and I were talking about how there is so much stress and toxiciy in different work environments. Also about how many people do not know how to set limits to when work should be done. It almost seems like long hours = productivity. I do not agree with this as I do not take for granted the role that rest and self care play in the human body. My approach is, if people are paid to work for a certain number of hours, they should pack in as much as they possibly can within those hours instead of spending unnecessarily long hours struggling.

Where is my ogbono soup?

If you live outside your home country, you would know the craving of food from home that comes every now and then.

I had one of those cravings over the weekend and cooked up a storm. I made different sauces, what we call soups in Nigeria. I made ogbono (irvingia) and egusi (melon) soups. With satisfaction I packed it all in bowls, each bowl enough for two servings, and put them away in the freezer. It has been four months since I had any of these delicacies.

My mother, bless her, by now is used to her children moving away from home every now and then. She is always ready to pack some Nigerian food stuff for us to move with. When she was doing her job, I kept telling her how the food she was packing was too much. She packed it anyway and packed my suitcase for me :-) On days when I have the craving for any of these food items, I am thankful for her wisdom. 

Life in Tanzania

It has been five months since I moved to Tanzania for work. Discovering this country has been interesting, it is beautiful, it is a haven for nature lovers, the landscape is captivating. 

 

Before coming to East Africa, I was told that I would enjoy the hospitality in the region but I was also warned that I might find people to be slow out here.

Some of the economies in this region thrive on tourism and I have to say that they are good at it. There is everything needed here; picturesque scenes, beaches, safaris, the volcanic crater etc. They have done well to preserve these things.

My Jacob's Cream Crackers

These crackers are the truth! They have been my companion for years.

For the kind of work I do, I prefer eating something dry, devoid of any form of spices when I am out working on the field. I work in sometimes difficult terrains to navigate where bumpiness is normal as there might be only dirt roads.
I live on these crackers and apples (when they are available) on the field. I could find these easily anywhere in Nigeria. However, the last time I worked in another country, the 2 packs I took with me from Nigeria finished quite quickly as I was on the field much more than I was in the office.

Burnout

For most working class people today, this is a word that has become normal.

I could define burnout as a build up of fatigue that causes one to become emotionally, mentally and physically drained. A common cause of this is stress. 

There is a difference between stress and burnout by the way. 

Stress is defined by dictionary.com as physical, mental, emotion strain or tension. It also defines burnout as frustration or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork or intense activity. 

These days, stress seems to be part of our everyday lives. How we manage stress and eventually burnout matters to our well being.

Faith Restored

Cars sometimes have a mind of their own…today was one of those days for my car. It was something anyone, including me, might have considered as minor but I was not willing to take any chances so I called the mechanic to pick the car up. That left me with the option of finding my way to work.

The transport system is one that is not exactly functional in Abuja. There are ways to get around but there is no proper system in place. It’s a struggle, like many other things here.

Anyway, I got on a bike and the dust on the back road we took had me blinking a lot. When we got to the stop, there were many cars heading out; private and commercial. Many private cars had no passengers and that made me feel bad for a minute. 

On giving lifts in Abuja

I don’t live in central Abuja and I see how people struggle to get some form of transport to get to work so I give people lifts on my way out. People who know Abuja well will easily know the locations that I mention in this post. 

My sister and I come out together normally, we both used to work in Maitama but at the end of last year, the organisation I work for moved to Asokoro. My sister still works in Maitama so we leave home a little earlier so I can drop her off before I go to work. On days when the traffic might be bad, I drop her off in Asokoro where she can jump into a taxi before I proceed to the office.

The Federal Secretariat is in between Asokoro and Maitama and we tend to give people going there lifts. 

One day we gave three people a lift and at AYA, one of the men asked if we were going to Garki and we said no, he got so angry, came out of the car and left the door open. We were all left with our mouths open. I think the other two feared that I could ask them out of the car and were so apologetic on his behalf but we said it was okay and they stopped at the Secretariat which was their destination. My sister and I laughed about it and carried on. Sometimes, people have tried to pay us but we tell them it’s free and they are always so thankful. 

A view on the diplomatic/foreign service

Disclaimer – if as a diplomat, you do not have the ability to stomach criticism, please do not read further as you may identify yourself in a behavioural category in this post. If you are comfortable with being criticised please enjoy reading. This post is meant to evoke critical thinking. 

It has been talked about so many times of how diplomats who represent the finest of a country go abroad to serve their governments. The sad part is that some of these individuals happen to show the worst of their countries. I say so because people who have never had any contact with the countries the diplomats represent, could easily take it to be the way majority of the people from that country would behave.

OFFICE POLITICS

In various work places, different people come together so opinions of all sorts are expressed. There can sometimes be a conflict of interests so office politics happens quite often in different work places. From the malicious colleague, to the one with a sense of humour, or the one who calls the shots, the one who is easily swayed and there are different other categories of people.

If it were just polite and rude attitudes, that would have been very easy to deal with but I also find that the world might have been boring and too predictable, don’t you think? The part where people are manipulative or negative, that makes life unbearable for others but that’s also quite interesting. Sometimes, the negative energy can be a spring board for some or could easily be passed around and that makes a person dread walking into that space everyday. The sad part is, if you have a job, you probably spend the most part of your day at work. You might not necessarily like what happens in the work space but that is probably your main source of income so count yourself lucky! There are many others who wish to have your job. Well, good news is that there are ways to deal with negative energy in work places.

Boss - Employee relationship

In her one year of working at this firm, Mfon got all the scolding she had not got since she was a child. With a boss throwing tantrums like this every now and then, he is worse than a woman going through that time of the month. It is usually women who are this bad she thought to herself, but not in this case!

She decided to track his record...previous employees all found that he was a horrible boss and couldn't put up with his tantrums for very long. She decided to be the different one and see this through. He would bend this time and not the other way round. Feisty she had been told she was but it was about to be displayed at the very maximum.

She talked with a friend who manages a major organization and his advise to her was simple 'bad managers are everywhere and you will always meet them, count yourself lucky to have a good one'. She had to read between the lines and her own interpretation of the statement was...be the best you can be given the circumstance! Zeal renewed and her challenge belt worn, that was what she was determined to be.

It takes some effort to be up there. Are you ready to put in what is required?

Frustration explained

I once read a piece titled ‘The Writers Curse’. That curse is exactly what controls me right now, I sit here not sure where I am going with what I write but I am compelled to write, and write I will do...

Chinyere and Tobi were best of friends, they had grown up together and despite being girls, they never had 'trouble' living together. These two had to move in with Nkiru, another friend of theirs who was the sweetest person, a doting mother hen as Tobi always teased.

Unnecessary issues as Nkiru called them seemed to come up every day at work. Having a boss who didn’t appreciate a ‘small girl’ (as he liked to say) standing up to him was not the easiest task. He seemed to make extra efforts to find faults in everything she did. Being human, the pressure began to get to her but the mistake she made was bottle it all up.

Building Castles

Tony walked to the ATM with such heaviness of heart because he was about to empty his account. Notwithstanding, he went ahead as there was a basic need. As the notes came out, he wondered why he was so broke but then, the year so far had been one full one. Most challenging yet rewarding, the kind of projects he had carried out, he never thought he would. At the same time, he had been broke a few times but this broke? No! The thought terrified him but his comfort was something he heard recently and chose to apply at the moment...’this is the poorest you’ll ever be’. A smile broke out and with satisfaction he got into his car and drove off. Who would see such a good looking lad and know the kind of challenges he could be facing.