Blogs from Calabar, Nigeria, Africa

Overshot the border as there were no signposts, we got to Nigeria without getting stamped so we had to go back. This is in Ilara, a border town, while our passports are being processed we had truck lunch, once through we tried to change money in town but wont change dollars for us so we moved on, Not one minute later we got stopped by Immigration checkpoint and there will be 8 more that afternoon, unbelievable, most of the time we have to show our passports and officials going up the back of the truck to check us out, Sometimes we can still see the last checkpoint and we got stopped by another! We got through that ordeal and bush camped before another checkpoint ahead of us. They also checked for the yellow cards a first ... read more

Well, this isn’t exactly how I’d planned to write my blog, but unfortunately it’s the way it’s panned out! Lack of internet access, lack of bandwidth when you do have the internet (one dial-up connection shared between four people anybody??), and lack of electricity through constant power cuts over the last 6 weeks or so mean that its been impossible to keep up to date with this blog. So rather than try and kill myself writing up entry after entry now that I’ve eventually found an internet café, I’m going to scrap the hurried bits and pieces I’ve started and let the photos tell the story, while I concentrate on mentioning my highlights and impressions of West Africa! (By the way, I don’t plan to continue like this for the entire trip, but hope - ... read more

Linus Ita is an incredibly determined person. I certainly did not meet him by chance. This strongly built man with steadfast demeanor was attending every meeting related to renewable energy he could, committed to figuring out how to bring it to his un-electrified village. He had been doing so long before I came to this country. In 1998, Linus founded a community-based conservation society to promote practices that increase the quality of life in his village while preserving the rainforest that surrounded and sustained it. In this manner, they had implemented sustainable methods of organic farming and trades such as beekeeping that work with the forest. But his dream of powering his village with renewable energy has not been as successful. In 2004, he helped a Canadian organization write a case study for powering the village ... read more