Facilitators and Participants

So this week, supported by an excellent consultant, we delivered the Financial Planning workshop to the State School Improvement Team. (See previous post)

Surprisingly I wasn’t nervous, and I have discovered that teaching adults is just the same as teaching children! For some reason, it is really important that you are called the facilitator and they are the participants. As you can see from the second photo, they love to take their shoes off whenever they can. Also 4 new female members have been recruited, which will provide excellent role models in the schools and workplaces.

These lizards, some as big as my foot, fascinate me. They have been scurrying around the workshop, running very fast, perched up high on their feet. Then they stop, bob their heads up and down quickly and look around. Their skin reminds me of a plastic toy. They are everywhere in Dutse and although I do get a bit nervous if they come close, they are harmless and run away from you.

Our workshop has been very successful and I have especially enjoyed living with the consultant who has been staying with me in the guesthouse. I am off to Kano, a busier town about 2 hours away this weekend, to visit another VSO.

Aunty Lucy in Dutse

(Substitue the L for D in Lucy and you pronounce Dutse correctly!)

Strange things are happening to me here in Nigeria. I am drinking tea, and sort of enjoying it and I am dipping my chips in tomato ketchup! Those of you who know me well will realise this is not normal!

I am actually on a workshop in Abuja this week with 4 Nigerian colleagues from Jigawa which is the State I am working in. We are together with representatives from 4 other States in Nigeria. This is what we are trying to do: (I am only just beginning to understand the process so I hope it makes sense to you)

With support from ESSPIN, Jigawa’s Education Board have recently selected 30 people (all Muslim men) to create a team that gives support to head teachers, governors and school communities to help develop and make improvements in their schools. This team is called the State School Improvement Team (SSIT).

Very soon ESSPIN are going to give schools a small fund (150000 Naira = £650) so they can buy basic things like text books, chalk, stationary etc or they can use the money to fix broken furniture or repaint blackboards etc. The best way to spend the money would be on teacher training as recent results have shown that 70% of Year 6 Teachers scored less than 40% on the Year 6 end of year test papers! The money they spend has to relate to what is on their newly written School Development Plan. This funding is also an incentive to the Head Teachers to finish their School Self Evaluation and write a School Development Plan in which they have just had some training.

We are being trained to deliver financial management training to the SSIT. The SSIT will then deliver the training to the Head Teachers and governors. The training is vital so that schools will know how to spend the money wisely and account for it.

The training we are being given is very basic and alarmingly there is still a lot of confusion, debating and questioning. It is as basic as how to log what you have spent in a cash book and how to write a receipt! It is assumed that the SSIT will find it even more difficult to comprehend than we do!!!


I am really happy to be in Abuja, mainly to have contact with the other VSOs who are on the course. Ease of conversation and being understood is bliss. As the new VSO I am grateful for their advice and the chance to gossip and I am especially grateful to finally have some female company! As you can see I am enjoying a luxurious hotel with huge bed 3 pillows wide! Nigerians apparently are known for their huge beds.


Here we are enjoying beers by the pool with the other volunteers who are based in Abuja. We are either British, American, German or Canadian.

The strangest thing of all was that one of my work colleagues thought I was 50 years old! After a few guesses I left it as being under 40! I didn’t want to loose the wisdom and status that comes with being older. Igwe, the guest house manager, also told me not to tell anyone your age because if you are younger than them they will not listen to you!

Also I have been called Aunty a few times. I understand it to be a sign of acceptance and respect from others, but I am also now slightly worried that it also refers to someone older! I will inquire when I get back to Dutse.

My First Week

VSO is an international organisation which can easily be demonstrated by the other new volunteers that joined me in Abuja, the capital city, for 3 days of In Country Training (ICT).

From the left we have James from Canada, me from the UK (as I now call my home country), Aurelia from Kenya, Simon from Uganda, Jayne also from Kenya and Bibin from India. 3 of us are working in the Education programme, 2 in the Secure Livilhoods (farming) programme and one in HIV/AIDs.

Towards the end of the training our employers came to meet us in Abuja and take us back to our placements. Luckily my 7 and a half hour journey to Jigawa was in a very comfortable, air conditioned car. Although, as it is considered unsafe to eat from roadside stalls, we had to wait until we arrived to eat lunch. As I was a bit nervous that morning I could barely eat breakfast so I was very grateful when dinner arrived!

My work in Jigawa is funded by ESSPIN (Education Support Programme in Nigeria). ESSPIN has been funded by DfID (Department for International Development). As my accommodation is not ready yet, I will be staying for a short (or maybe long) time in ESSPIN's guest house. This is a very comfortable apartment, apparantly better than the best/only hotel in town. I have air conditioning, TV, Internet (most of the time), water and electricity (even when the power goes as they have a generator). I am locked behind a high wall and a secure gate with friendly guards.

Igwe, who is the manager of the building, is also cooking me food and has walked me around the town. On Saturday he wanted to introduce me to the Police Station. As I nervously stepped through the door I was wondering who I would meet. But, as it turns out, I didn't see any police. The Police Station is a secret place to drink beer! And it is full of Muslims!

Jigawa, along with other Northern States, follows the Sharia Law, which is the sacred law of Islam and alcohol is forbidden in the state.

As I had a quiet weekend I decided to go the Catholic Church with Igwe, his wife and 7 month old daughter. 3 hours, in 30 degrees heat, crammed to bursting on hard wooden benches meant that everyone welcomed to time to go wildly dancing down the aisles to the altar where they were being showered with holy water! All the Nigerians were dressed in their best, with intricate headwear, while I strangely tied a scarf around my head.

PS I also met Emily, a VSO from Bournemouth! Can't remember who told me to look out for her though!

Welcome to Nigeria: First Day Drama

We have been constantly told that the biggest threat to our safety whilst working in developing countries is from road traffic accidents.

Following my first Nigerian lunch, and first tour of the capital city, Abuja, I was involved in a huge car accident! A car travelling at remarkable speed, through a massive cross junction which had 4 lanes in each direction, with no working traffic lights, or traffic warden directing the traffic, crashed straight into the front/ drivers side of the bonnet of our car. If they had crashed into the door, I think one of us would have been killed. Everyone is very lucky to be alive and to have no injuries at all!

Shocked and shaken, the 4 of us new volunteers were then sent back to the safety of the hotel in a taxi with: several cracks in the windscreen, no seatbelts in the back, and with a driver weaving in and out of cars at the speed of 100kph! Also none of us had a phone, no Nigerian money and no VSO emergency number!

3 hours later, after the police had arrived, drawn a map of the crash on an A4 piece of paper, both drivers finally agreed and signed the picture, and both cars towed to the police station, the VSO Programme Manager returns to the hotel (via taxi) to check on us.

The driving here in Abuja is really bad. Each road is anything from 3-6 lanes wide in each direction. They squeeze 4 cars into 3 lanes and the Toyota truck squeezes through gaps that I wouldn't even think my mini could fit through! They drive fast, and very close together, not just to the car in front but also to the left and right of you.

I have definitely learnt my lesson about road safety, although not really sure how I could have prevented that crash, plus I am going to carry all of the above on me at all times, including my first aid kit.

Having also been involved in a minor car crash in the UK the previous day, I urge everyone to be extra careful on the roads. Thanks!

Lucy x