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Diary 19720820
The account of this journey should have taken one page and is taking three! We arose at 5:30 AM to finish packing and to eat breakfast. We left at 7 AM just as the sun was rising. In a couple of hours we arrived at Ibadan which resembles a Western city more than any I’ve seen. Also soldiers are on the street with guns! We stopped for 1 hour. The next leg of the journey until lunch was to Ilorin – 1/5 the distance in 6 hours! Sandwiches were given to us at Ayetoro and soon after Ilorin. We bought fruit. This and biscuits (cookies) were the only food we had or could eat. Already the drivers want to go only part way and stop overnight but CUSO had asked for spare drivers and we have no money. At last they agree to go on as long as they can. It is obvious we can’t make it by midnight or even later. In the afternoon we crossed the Jebba bridge which is the only one that crosses the Niger River in the north. No one is allowed to take pictures and you must have permission to cross.
Letter with drawing
My microscopic writing with a microscopic drawing!Here are birds (odd occurrence). Brilliant red and black ones and vultures (often to be seen from now on). After the bridge we see the mud houses that typify pictures of Africa but they don’t look so “primitive” in actuality. They look efficient to build and cool. Also the Muslim influence is strong with each village having one or more walled compounds.
About 9 PM we arrived at Bida, half-way point according to mileage scales but it looks closer on the map. The drivers say we are about 8 hours from Zaria but they must sleep or they can’t finish. We stopped first at a gas station, no food; then at the Catering Rest House, too small to feed us, and finally at the Moonshine Hotel (actually a brothel I think) where we could sit in the courtyard and drink beer while the drivers sleep on the one long seat in each bus. In honour of our Canadian nationality, they played Diana by Paul Anka - the whole night! It is too hot for us to sleep upright, so we sat around and ate coconuts and pineapples and drank beer. The local food and water would make us all ill, but soft drinks and beer and peeled fruits are all right. Once or twice we went for walks and for “pit stops”. We are all getting less and less modest as the trip and our nerve wear on.
19720821
I must record this memorable moment on paper. We finally arrived at Zaria 29 hours after leaving Ayetoro, only 15 hours late for dinner. The day started at 3 AM when we woke the drivers to continue. I got my only sleep during the journey from then until day break at 6 or 7 AM. Nothing happened except we kept going and going, but good time was made. We got to Kaduna, 48 miles from here, and found a beautiful city only 60 years old and very modern. Still mud houses but well spaced, unlike in the South. When we got to the university in Zaria there was no one to meet us! After an eon of arranging, we slept all afternoon and I am just going to bed (9 PM).
19720822
Always a first day! Last night was my first night under a mosquito net and I felt like I was in a canopy bed. The net has to be put down about 7 PM as the sun sets because that’s when the bugs get in. Despite all those stories, I did not get tangled up!
Also our first
Hausa lessons this morning and afternoon. Sannu! Which means hi! It is interesting to watch and feel it being taught because I can pick up pointers for French teaching.
Also first time in a big pool in 3 months. It’s huge and very pleasant in the extremely hot weather here. Still cool at dawn 7AM and sunset 7PM.
19720823
Hausa lesson number two! We learned how to plant a garden today, and how to have guests to dinner. This is an awful lot to learn in a few days but cram courses are supposed to be good in languages. We also learned how to count which is very easy – much better than in French or English.
We had chicken today which is something to note. The meals here are the same every day, both lunch and dinner. For a change at dinner I had Nigerian pounded yams and sauce, which is what they give the students here. It was good!
To my family August 23, 1972
Here is another extensive epistle. I forget where the last one left off, so I will just write stuff. I write my diary (Grandma’s) every night, so you can fill in the gaps this time next year.
We are now at
Amadu Bello University in Zaria (even though the address is the CUSO office in Kaduna). A University is always that, and this one amazingly resembles U of C, but within a Nigerian context. Hallways as covered walkways, residences are more functional with fewer frills but built along the same lines. It also has a bookstore! A rarity here, with very cheap Penguin and Fontana books. I am going to pick up some while I am here, because my interest in literary subjects has not lessened one bit.
We are learning Hausa now - two lessons worth. French helps because I am much more conscious of
how to study and learn and I am receptive to sound, but there are still others who are better than I. Our teacher is an Ag student from a city about 200 miles north of Yola.
Our trip from Aiyetoro will never be forgotten, and has given rise to the expression “Back on the bus” which means
nothing is going right. Before we left with no CUSO official (just volunteers), they told us that the trip would be 14 hours, starting at 7 a.m. We were given 1 box lunch each, consisting of three sandwiches, cookies, and fruit, and the blessings of those going on more comfortable trips. They might as well have sent curses. The first 1/5 of the bus trip took 6 hours! This included a one-hour stop in Ibadan, the largest city in W Africa. It is much more modern than anything we had seen and very impressive. Soldiers are on the street with open guns and machine guns! It made me glad to be far away in the North.
The land changes quite noticeably from the Southern rain forests (which are not
that dense) to Ilorin, the lunch stop. The houses in this area are all profiled like this
drawing, much like old Quebec houses but much less substantial, only 1 story, and I believe with only one room. Everything faces the road, even farther north where the forests are much thinner and the grasses shorter. A forester told me today that the soil is red, because humus deteriorates so fast the all the vegetable matter is always used for growing all the very tall trees seen all over.
After lunch things just got thinner and drier until the scenery resembled a warm part of southern Québec. For the first time you could almost persuade yourself that this might be Canada. That didn’t last for long. About 5 p.m. we arrived in Jebba where there is one of the three bridges across the Niger. The others are in Lagos and at the brand new Kainji Dam. This is considered so militarily important that no one may take any pictures of either Northern bridge! The bridge itself is in two portions and each vehicle needs permission to cross. Crossing the Niger was rather exciting, in a romantic way, made even more so by the rows of vultures that sit on buildings on either side and watch you cross! This bird is prevalent all over the North.
After the crossing we met the Africa that National Geographic describes. The villages and towns were walled either by a sort of thatching or by mud walls. The houses also were completely woven and thatched or made from mud and thatched. Far from being primitive, they struck me as a most reasonable solution to the problems of building materials, heat, ventilation and construction methods. These places certainly looked much cleaner and better organized than anything in the South, although they may not have been, for even there life and psychology is centred on family and town.
The sun went down in (another) spectacular 20 minutes. People lied about tropical sunsets and sunrises. They are short, but especially in the rainy season, they rival anything in the prairies. Supper consisted of ½ a sandwich each, cookies and fruit, which we had fortunately bought further south near Ilorin. The North is too dry to produce any tropical fruits. Soda pop is available all over, but we cannot drink any local waters or eat any local food for fear of stomach or bowel disorders during trips. After we are settled in, things will be different.
About 9 p.m. the drivers insisted that we stop. Greyhound Nigeria was supposed to send spare drivers so we could arrive at Zaria with no stopovers. They didn’t and we had no money. As a result we went to the hope of all travellers, the Catering Rest House which refused all service (beer and pop included) except the use of their washroom. (First and only wash of the trip) An expat there told us about the “Moonshine Hotel” where we could probably park and buy beer. That and rooms by the hours was about all it sold. They were delighted to have us buy their beer, though (The Rest House was afraid to run out), and we passed time eating coconuts and pineapples and taking walks. It was too hot to sleep on the bus, except on the long seat on each bus which is where the driver was. At 3 a.m. we woke them as pre-arranged and started off again. Already some of the vendors at the gas station were stirring. All the big lorries, though, were parked at the station with their drivers sleeping under the tail.
I slept from then ‘til dawn (7 a.m.) when we stopped in a fairly sizeable town. It was extremely clean, tidy and quiet, and was the first time I saw men doing actual physical labour, as opposed to selling. Here the driver found some breakfast and we ate more cookies (like Social Tea). The town where we had spent the night was half-way to Zaria and we were now 8 hours late for dinner! After this we made good time as the road was noticeably better. That is, you didn’t have to drive onto the shoulder every time a vehicle approached. At 11AM we arrived in Kaduna, where the CUSO office is, even though we didn’t know where it was. This is a modern town (60 years old) and half mud houses / half Western. After we finally found a gas station willing to fill up two buses, we drove the 48 miles to Zaria, arriving after a 29 hour trip to find no one to greet us or tell us where were supposed to be. Sympathy for our pains was not obvious and by the time we collapsed into bed, we really needed the sleep.
Since that long night of sleep I‘ve spent two days here. The day is well occupied, but there is nothing planned at night, which is nice after 1 month of orientation programming. I turned on the radio tonight and heard some of the words from our lessons! I feel obliged to work diligently since I shall expect my students to do the same! There is a store here which I have yet to investigate. I’m not really that homesick yet, thank heavens. Hope you are all well. Seems odd for you to be doing the usual things and me not.
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Isabel Gibson
non-member comment
I might have missed it, but how many CUSOs were on the bus? What an ordeal! But you seemed to retain your sense of humour and perspective admirably well. I particularly liked the bit about "seeing" teaching techniques being used on you for Hausa, and adding them to your repertoire for French.