Input from Doris: September 16, 2006

We’ve been home for 2 days and are just beginning to make some sense of over 1000 photographs and 5 rolls of video. I hardly know where to start with stories and impressions. Nigeria is a country packed full of courteous, kind and hospitable people. We made lots of new friends in a short amount of time..and most of them wanted to exchange email addresses.

We saw parts of 4 cities and the main highway that connects them—Abuja, the capital, Kaduna where the National Eye Center is, Zaria where the school for the blind is and where we helped build the radio station, and finally, Kano, the most northerly and the most polluted. Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and there were crowds everywhere.

Our new adventure started in Amsterdam when we met up with 3 other members of the surgical team that we assisted at the NEC. Our friend Dr.Linda Lawrence from Salina was the facilitator for that group and introduced us to Andrew Gani-Ikilama last year when he was in Kansas. He’s the Executive Director of Hope for the Blind Foundation and School. Before we left home Linda gave us many helpful hints about making our trip easier—clothes, habits, food, water, money, visas.

I guess Pete told you that the first hotel was surrounded by razor wire. Guns are not allowed in Nigeria by security guards, so we didn’t see a repeat of all the weapons of Honduras. The team had mountains of luggage because all the docs brought surgical tools and microscopes and supplies with them as well as regular stuff. We carried 4 suitcases of medical supplies in addition to our own 2.

The National Eye Center looks a lot older than it is and is obviously hard to maintain and way too big for the activity that goes on there. It’s a government property so requisitioning anything is a huge nightmare of red tape. The techs we met were very frustrated that they didn’t have the tools and resources to do their jobs and coveted our computers, cameras and camcorders. Pete was able to “work around” many of their problems to set up microscopes, video displays and even fixed an air conditioner and looked at their internet connection and their generators. He was a real popular guy. It was my job to take pre-op and post-op photos of many of the patients and get some of their stories. I also acted as sort of logistics person who kept track of stuff..

It is common for electricity to go out 2,3, 4 times a day and can stay out all day at times. It went out in the middle of eye surgery!!! A very classy lady is the Chief Medical Director: Dr. Mrs. Pamela Ozemela. Breakfast break was at noon with coffee, tea and meat pies, lunch at 1:30 to 3 PM with full hot meal tho we weren’t sure what we were eating at times. Some of the food was very spicy,,, too much for me. Ask us how much we liked Spinach Soup …ugh. Dinner was after dark and seemed like about 8 PM most days.

We got ferried back and forth to the Hotel in various cars and vans. The Hamdala was known far and wide as the best hotel in the city. Our room probably rated a 1 and that was when the hot water was actually coming out. We had to figure out the switches for the hot water heater and the AC switch was in a strange place. Only one towel provided. Phones a mystery. The best food (most recognizable ) was in the hotel—eggs, shrimp, chicken, pancakes, fruit salad, yogurt and toast all available, none of which was ever seen again after we checked out and moved to Zaria.

We didn’t handle too much Nigerian money—the nara.. One dollar was worth 125 nara. As recently as last April one dollar could buy 140 nara…. The declining value of the US dollar is really hurting overseas charities. We gave our cash to Andee and he paid our expenses for us as well as being our professional haggler at all the vendors and shops where we bought small gifts. I’ll stop for now and add another segment soon, Doris