Settling In

After three days, four airplanes, two red eye flights, long waiting lines, and missing luggage, I’m glad to report that I’m finally beginning to settle in Abuja (and with all of my luggage)! Below is a picture of our hotel.

I could write quite a long entry about the escapade that Niki (the other CSCer from DC) and I endured traveling to Abuja, but I much rather talk about my recent adventures involving my team members and my project with the Abuja Board of Education.

By yesterday afternoon the entire team had arrived at the hotel and we were taken on a brief tour of the city. Our tour guide (and CSC logistics coordinator) Lawrence drove us past the major landmarks, including the President’s Villa, the National Mosque, and the National Church. The different religions, cultures, and languages so tightly mixed together have been really interesting to observe. 

Most of us had to exchange our dollars or euros for naira (Nigerian currency) and since banks were closed Sunday, we went to the next best source—small yellow huts on the side of the road. Lawrence assured us that this was the normal, legitimate way to exchange money, and that we would get as good of a rate from these guys as we would from the bank. Lawrence called out to one of the money guys who then boarded our van and opened a huge bag or cash. Trusting Lawrence, we started giving him our cash in exchange for naira. This probably sounds a bit shady, but as we learned, this is just doing business in Nigeria.

Today (Monday) we hit the ground running with our assignments. The 13 of us have been broken into five teams, working for five different clients. My team member, Sumit, is a Senior Project Manager from India, and our assignment is to evaluate the e-learning program in the Abuja public schools and make recommendations for improvements. 

When I learned the details of the assignment today, I became even more excited about the work. In addition to visiting schools and working with teachers, the e-learning program which we will be evaluating is the One Laptop per Child sponsored by Intel. Back in 2005, Intel made its first donation of these lightweight, inexpensive laptops to Abuja. From there, the program spread throughout Africa. The primary problems our client faces today are out-dated training materials for the teachers, a significant shortage of laptops (it’s now more like one laptop per 50 children), and unreliable power supply (the power typically goes out 5-6 times/day throughout the country). Sumit and I are both excited to dive deeper into this project. 

At the end of the day, Sumit asked our client if there was a place nearby where we could buy our lunches since we will be working in the client’s building. Although both parties speak English, there was a lost in translation moment. The client interpreted this as Sumit being hungry at that moment so he offered him a biscuit.  Sumit clarified that he meant for future lunches. The client was not convinced so he excused himself and came back half an hour later with fried chicken wrapped in newspaper. Actually, it was more like fried chicken pieces containing only skin and fat. Don’t get me wrong, I love my buffalo wings, but not one piece of this chicken resembled a drumstick or wing.  When I described to another CSC team member what I ate, she informed me that I ate the chicken’s neck. Tasty! Seriously though, the pepper seasoning was good—I just hope my stomach agrees.

#IBMCSC