My compound

I live at the back of this block: 

This is the back of the building (to the right of the picture) - the low flat roof extension that you can just see behind the compound wall is where my kitchen is. 

And the landlord lives in this huge house!

The place is nice and secure, with security staff in the little room by the gate. They help me carry my shopping to my door, and they call me ma'am and bow a little bit at me which makes me feel like a queen (bowing, or a slight bow is quite a common greeting here. My taxi driver sort of bows at me as well). 

And the place is all lit up at night which is nice. 

Oh... and did I mention that there is a monkey in a cage? I don't know why there is a monkey in a cage, and it makes me feel a little bit sad every time I see it. It seems like quite an angry monkey (does it help with security?!) but I think I would be angry if I lived in a cage. 

Taxis

I take a taxi to work every day, and in fact whenever I move around the city. Taking a taxi by yourself is known as a 'drop', and although there are shared taxis and buses here, staff in my organisation have been advised not to use them for security reasons. 

Every time I take a taxi I have to negotiate the price. This felt like a bit of a chore when I first arrived but has become more natural to me now that I know rough prices and more about what I expect to pay. The distance between home and office is really not far - less than 5 minutes drive. I have gotten into the habit of paying 200 naira for this each way (making my daily transport to work and back about £1.40 - much better than Transport for London prices!). 

It's interesting to see the different approach drivers take, and at what price they start at. I know that 200 is a fair price for two reasons - 1) my colleague lives very close to me and negotiates down to 150* and 2) more reasonable drivers will open negotiation at 250 - showing me that 200 is fine. 

However, some drivers start at 500 for the 200 journey and are very difficult to negotiate with. Once, in my first week here a driver openly said to me that he would never give me the price I was asking for because I was a foreigner. I refuse to pay more than 200 so the grumpy ones either drive away (doesn't happen very often) or they take me and grumble - getting about three quarters of the way home usually before they start muttering 'this is far' (it's not!). 

On the other hand, some drivers are overly helpful and accommodating. On my way home last night the driver and I were scrabbling around for change (small notes go fast leaving you with 500s or 1000s so 'change is always a problem' is a frequent refrain in taxis). The driver managed to get together about 295 (he owed me 300) but was so concerned about giving me a bunch of crappy notes and shorting me 5 naira he decided the journey should be free. I insisted he took 100 from me - all I had in change - but I appreciated his kindness. 

And yesterday morning my driver asked me if I would always be needing a taxi from that point at that time. I didn't think it would be too long before an enterprising driver realised that I was going to be making the same journey every day, and yesterday it happened. When we got to the office he told me not to pay and that he would pick me today at 8:30. Sure enough, he was waiting for me at the end of the road at exactly 8:30 and will do the same again tomorrow. Although the negotiations on fare have almost become second nature to me now, it will be nice to have a regular driver who I can pay by the week, and not to have the 'how much?' discussion every morning. 

* My colleague suggested I should try for 150 as well, but this is where I start converting naira to pound and thinking that I really don't mind paying 15p extra and giving a slightly more decent fare with less negotiation hassle!

Eating and exercise

While I can't say that my social life has been exactly hectic, it does feel like things are starting to come together a bit. I went for a drink with a colleague last week, quite unexpectedly, and I have started to make ice-cream plans with another. And at the moment I am quite enjoying the relaxed pace and my calmer social calendar. 

This quieter period means that I am spending a lot more time than usual thinking about food and cooking food! My excitement about having an oven has involved more bread baking, and I used some of the dough to make homemade pizza from scratch - sauce and all. It was delicious and really sorted out my pizza craving. I found mozzarella in the supermarket so it was also a good cheese fix (and I bought blue cheese the other day as well...mmmm). 

The bread has been very good for making work sandwiches. 

So this extra eating has prompted extra exercise and I have been enjoying jogging around my new district, learning the street names (in my area many of the streets are named after rivers, which is nice) and marvelling at the size and grandeur of the houses. I have also learned which pavements to avoid and haven't been shouted at for a while now! 

And yesterday I went to a yoga class. It was very sweaty (dread to think what the Hot Yoga class would be like) despite the fact that it is pretty 'cold' here at the moment. There were about 16 people plus the teacher in a small room, so I think it was just body heat, but it will be interesting when the weather warms up! I enjoyed the class and I was pleased I went, it would have been easy to put it off but it felt like a good way of varying my evenings a bit and a start in meeting some new people. 

Food

After my trip to the village, and my stay in the hotel I had definitely had my fill of Nigerian food. I do enjoy it, but I was starting to crave some home cooking. 

The food in the top left is 'farmhouse' with vegetable, a nice combination of beans and plantain and vegetables with some kind of green leaf vegetable. I don't know what exactly, but like The Gambia a lot of the leaves from other crops are used, like pumpkin leaves, aubergine leaves, potato leaves etc. Top right is egusi with chicken, served with wheat - I like wheat as it has quite a nice flavour. Bottom left is pounded yam with a soup made with chicken and vegetable - again I don't know what but it was a leaf that started out like this: 

And bottom right was a mix of green beans, tomato, onion, carrot, fried goat meat, boiled egg and boiled plantain made by my brother in law - pretty tasty as well. 

So, once I got home from the village I went shopping for vegetables of my own. 

I cut up the chicken, froze sections for later use, and then made chicken stock and a chicken stew. Over the weekend I also made chicken breast with pasta and pesto, beans on toast, and jacket potato with beans - the joy of having an oven.

I cooked up a big batch of tomato sauce for the week ahead, and most excitingly I made bread!

Travelling to the village

Between Christmas and New Year I flew with my brother in law to the family village - time to meet the in-laws! Abuja was very quiet as practically everyone travels to their home village for the Christmas season. Interestingly it seems that all homes are known as 'the village' even if it is actually a big town. 

The flight was a last minute booking as we wanted to wait until I definitely had a move in date before we booked our travel. With a bit of research I managed to get tickets for us at half the first price I was quoted, by going with a newer airline. Sourcing the tickets and paying for the tickets (not as easy as it sounds in this convoluted part of the world) felt like quite an accomplishment! The journey was smooth and much quicker than the seven hours or so it would have taken by road. The village was bigger than I expected, or had a lot more people living there than I imagined, but was definitely different to purpose built Abuja. 

I was very warmly welcomed into the family, and met about 30,000 relatives during my four night stay. We went and visited people, and people came to visit us. Much was made of my hair (they want me to grow it even longer and then cut it and sell it... now my hair grows fast but this could take some time to come to fruition as a money making idea!) and the fact that I 'ate all of their food'. I was snapped and I took lots of photos, although I won't put the family ones on here, just a couple of me eating which was what I spent most of my time doing. I was constantly offered food!

Breakfast one morning

One goat was killed while I was there (and I think one had been killed for my arrival as well) and the yard full of chickens was seriously depleted by the time I left. On the final morning I was even packed up with a freshly killed (and boiled) chicken to take back with me. 

Take away chicken

It was really fantastic to meet the family, and not as strange to go without my husband as I thought it might be. He had previously told me that it was custom for the bride-to-be to stay with the family on her own before the wedding so that she had time to get to know the family in her own right. We kind of skipped that part of the engagement, so I guess this was my time to get to know them without having him around. And actually I enjoyed it. I had chance to talk with everyone and learn more about them, as well as more about my husband, and I felt immediately close to them and comfortable. I am glad I went, although I must admit a sense of relief when I got home and could relax without relatives coming to greet me!