What does cow-tail and goat head have in common?
Trip Start
Mar 24, 2008
1
7
20
Trip End
May 25, 2008
Abuja,
Nigeria
Monday, April 7, 2008
On Friday, CDD was arranging a conference about Muslims and globalisation. It was an American, who was a hard-core neoliberal who had the lecture. I spoke with him before the lecture and he meant that hard-core capitalism was the only solution for Nigeria. Cannot say I agree too much with that, as I'm a huge fan of the developmental state. The lecture was good, even if I never read anything about it before, and it didn't interest me much either. Nevertheless, we got food and coffee, I ended up talking to a leader of a Muslim society, and he invited me to come and pray with them. So I got his number, and I'll think about it☺
After the lecture, the Muslim part of the office went to pray, while the rest of us went back to the office. Terfa is a Muslim, so it was only Ngosi and me. She started talking about my religion, and I told her that I am not very religious and that I believe in god and nothing more, no Jesus, no Muhammad, no bible or Koran. I order to please her I told her that I was Christian, but that I didn't go to church, as we don't need to do that in our belief, we can speak with good wherever we fold our hands. Its very hard not being religious in a country where religion plays a major part of everyday life. She invited me to come with her to church on Sunday, but I lied and said I had plans. I guess I it is something that will send you to hell, it is lying in order to get away from going to church...
Friday night and Saturday morning, I worked on my thesis as I had arranged with Odewali to go out for some beers on Saturday evening. I actually finished a very crude draft of the fourth chapter so I'm pretty happy about that. That means that I only got one real chapter left, and a loooooot of revising. Nevertheless, if I can have a finished draft of the thesis before I leave Nigeria, which would help a lot, so the director and Dauda can look over it before I leave. The water disappeared again, and it was back to the buckets, so I'm glad no one bought them from me☺
So, first night out in Nigeria. We arranged to meet at five in a place called gardens, which was more a large plain with lots of small pubs with plastic chairs. Odewali and his two friends came pretty soon and we sat down. Odewali is just something I call him, because his nickname is Egghead, and he wanted me to call him that as well. We sat down, Ibrahim was a nice guy, but he didn't say much, whereas Muhammad was very extrovert and spoke the whole time. They were very nice people and I felt really welcome. Muhammad had worked for CDD for 8 years, but had now changed to ECOWAS, which is the same as EU is to Europe. First we ordered beers and some food. They asked whether I wanted beef, fish or chicken, and I went for beef. They told me that it was pepper soup, but that was only half the story. The beef I got was cow alright, but it was a cow-tail. I guess the fewest of you have had cow-tail so I'll explain a bit. In the middle you got a big bone, then some tender meat, and then half a cm of fat (the skin). They dug in as it was Christmas Eve, I on the other side struggled. I hate fat; I even cut the fat of bacon! I had a go at the whole thing, and it tasted like shit! It was like eating fat with a spoon. I ate the small pieces of meat and the soup and told them I was not a big fan of fat. I think they though I was a weirdo☺. I should mention that there were about 100 flies flying around us because it is dry season, but they told me that they would disappear when it got dark. What they didn't tell me was that the termites came out when it got dark. After a while Ollie came with some friends. He is a British guy who does his PhD about the Nigerian police. He was full of life and we had some good laughs, and for the first time I had fun in Nigeria, and could just kick back and relax. After a while we went to the next place, everyone a bit tipsy and we were laughing all the time. Everything was funny at this time. We were able to squeeze all seven into the taxi, even if that was pretty full. At the next place we needed more food apparently, Ollie wanted cow-tail, Egghead took goat head (eyed, brain, face, everything) and I chickened out and took the chicken and rice. They said that I should try some goat brain, which I did. Cheeses, that consistency was wrong I tell you. It was like chewing a shoe and can't even try to explain it, you just have to try, if you dear☺
We started at five and around 12 Egghead fell asleep, and we all agreed that it had been a very nice evening, and it was time to get home. It has to be mentioned, that they paid everything for me, I did not spend a dime as it is common courtesy to treat the guest, and it is expected that I do the same if they come to Norway. A great evening and the people were really nice. A success in other words. I really learned a lot about Nigeria culture and I was able to be myself, and I didn't have to pretend to be anything I'm not.
Ollie is going to Lagos and around Western Nigeria, and I'm thinking of coming along, just to see the country, and to speak with Gani Adams. He is going to this culture festival, and I could do with some more goat brains and stuff. And if you think that the cow-tail taste goes away easily your wrong and I can promise you, that next time I'll order fish if I'm offered pepper-soup.
On Sunday, I arranged with Ngosi to go to the park for a stroll at five. I was there fem to fiva and sat down to wait. As I sat there, it started to rain, big time! When I got there, it was about a thousand people, but in ten minutes, they were all gone. Off course, it is not the best wetter to be in the park, but nonetheless it was 28 degrees and warm. I got flashback to gremlins, cus it looked as they were going to turn into something dangerous if they got water on them selves. Ngosi got there ten past five and we walked around, but it was raining and it was not the best day to go to the park. We had some fast-food before we split and she told me some inside stories from CDD, and gave me some tips on jobs in NGOs as her uncle has started a lot of NGOs here in Nigeria.
Overall a much better weekend than last as I actually meet some people and got out of the hotel☺.
