Nachdem ich mal wieder einen alten Mailaccount ausgegraben habe, auf dem von Zeit zu Zeit doch noch die eine oder andere Mail aufschlägt, war diesmal, dem schwachen Spamfilter sei Dank, eine nette Nachricht an mich zu finden. Die war zwar nicht an mich direkt geschickt worden, hatte aber mit einigen Besonderheiten aufzuwarten. Zum einen war ein Bild angefügt, zum anderen hatte sich der Versender die Mühe gemacht, den Originaltext aus dem Englischen durch einen Automatismus zu jagen, um eine Art deutsch herauszubekommen. Da er wohl des Deutschen nicht unbedingt mächtig ist, hat er den Teil auch nicht korrigiert.

Ich aber auch nicht. Also los:

Hello sweetie

My name is Judy, i am 25yrs old, i'm a free minded, open hearted girl, i like to take life as easy as i could, i'm one of the few that still believes in friendship,love, trust and signs, am very much single and ready to mingle. was browsing through the internet and came across your contact believe me i like what i see and i am attracted to you, it will be my sincere pleasure to be your friend if you don't mind, i hope you will not take my request for granted, feel free to email me, i will appreciate it if you can send me some pics to my private email address, i look forward to hear from you soon.
Take care.

Judy.

Hallo Schätzchen

Mein Name ist Judy, ich bin 25yrs alt, ich bin ein freier aufgeschlossen, offenherzige Mädchen, Ich mag das Leben so einfach wie ich könnte, ich bin einer der wenigen, die immer noch glaubt, in Freundschaft, Liebe, Vertrauen und Zeichen , bin sehr Single und bereit zu mischen. war das Surfen durch das Internet und stieß auf Ihre Kontaktdaten glauben Sie mir Ich mag, was ich sehe und ich bin zu Ihnen hingezogen, wird es meine aufrichtige Freude, dein Freund sein, wenn du nichts dagegen hast, ich hoffe, Sie werden das nicht mein Wunsch für gewährt, dann zögern Sie mir eine Email, ich werde es begrüßen, wenn Sie mir ein paar Bilder auf meiner privaten E-Mail-Adresse, ich freue mich, bald von Ihnen zu hören.
Achten Sie darauf.

Judy.

So here we are again.

Currently there's some refurbishment going on outside our office building. The house is 4 stories high, so scaffolding is needed on the outside to fix the new tiles. But this wouldn't be Africa if things were not slightly different to the rest of the world. So this is how scaffolding is fixed here:



Unfortunatly the light is weak inside the staircase, so the picture is a bit blur. But I think you can see that there's one bar from the outside entering the staircase through the window. And then there's a second bar preventing the first one from sliding out again.



Here you can see that the sharp edge of the scaffolding directly points into the emergency escape route in the staircase. But where is the HSE officer to complain about?

He simply doesn't exist.

More than 60 locations all over Nigeria are part of this project. Some of them more important, some less. Especially the bigger ones where different contractors are involved need periodically interface meetings to clarify questions and solve problems before they occur.


One of those locations is Calabar. Located in the far southeast of Nigeria it is a quite safe place to travel to. Just a bit less than an one hour flight away from Abuja Calabar is offering a completely different environment. In Abuja there are bushes and trees, yes, but generally there's a lot of dry grass and brown shining through. But here in Calabar everything is green. It starts already when flying in over thick, carpet-like forests where roads and small creeks virtually disappear inside. Then, once outside the airport, you will see big areas covered with grass and plants, all growing and blooming. Last time I was there it was harvesting season for pineapple, so everywhere along the road were small tables and stands offering freshly harvested pineapples. A bit back from the road you could see the pineapple plants and there, in between, the houses of the farmers trying to make some business.

Calabar. Not only that I had to go there for business reasons, as well parts of my family are living there. A nice opportunity to see them again. For me as white man. And as I wrote before: Calabar still is safe. Although we had a policeman escorting us, there was never need for him. Next time I will try to take more pictures.

It's been quite a while since I last posted something from Abuja. In fact, it was just the day before I left for a short holiday with the family back at home.

But now I am back again. During the time I was away the contract for the house I am moving to was finalized. So when I came back I immediately could move in. Of course still most of the furniture is missing, as I did not find the time for shopping around, but basic living is possible. The major things are there which is: a bed, a fridge and one roll of toilet tissue. What else do you need?

Well, the topic of this posting is about something else. So let's start now.
When you're in Africa, you will discover that there's a big hype regarding gadgets. The latest mobile phones, the newest electronic devices - you will find them here. Everybody needs nowadays those little handhelds with full alphanumeric keyboard to show off. Together with that the need of power (for charging these toys) is rising. Therefore those countries invest a lot of money to get their power networks refurbished and extended. But sometimes I ask myself if this is correct, if it was right to bring electricity to Africa? It may sound like racism, but I will explain why.

I moved into this house within a nice compound as first tennant. The house was empty for quite a while and so I was checking through what had to be re-done or fixed. Besides some AC units that lost gas over the time and therefore did not work well, there was no bigger issue. That's what I thought.

After my first night I got up in the morning and went into the bathroom. Waking up in a seating position is part of the ritual. During that time you got enough time to make plans for the day or just check the environment. Inside the bath tub outlet there was some piece of metal which caught my interest. I finished what I was doing and went to the bath tub to check if something broke off and was flushed there. But when I came near I could see it was a piece of support metal keeping the screw for the sieve into position. Most probably an adjustment after someone spoiled the hole of the sieve. Anyway, touching it was not really a good idea, as I received an electric shock. Ok, may have been static electricity. And as well I am a bit stupid. Second touch ended up with electric shock as well. So the conclusion was that static electricity was out of the possibilities. Next careful tries were touching the taps. Nothing on the tub, nothing on the sink. Good. Next floor, next bathroom. Touching the sieve: nothing. Touching the tap: bingo! I already started thinking about selling the principle to PHCN: power from the tap, just open it and you'll get a combination of water and light! Only the master bedroom on the top floor seemed to be without electricity on the taps.

So the decision grew to move everything to the top floor and use the bathroom of the master bedroom. But first it had to be cleaned. So I went upstairs and opened the tap for hot water. Felt a bt strange and not hot, when I put my finger inside. So I touched the tube coming from the water heater. Needless to say that it is made of metal. Double shock: hot and charged with electricity.

The next thing was going and complaining to he management. Before I started not to have any bath at all and smelling all around. The management organised an electrician to come around, check and fix the problem. A real specialist. He came to the house, touched the metal tube of one of the water heaters with his electrician screwdriver and told me "There is light!" If I did not knew before. Then he unscrewed the first switch for the water heater, without switching it off before. Well, he found out that there was still light on the water system. When trying to screw back the switch he caused a nice little spark which blew the fuse. No more light on the water pipes.

So we went up to the distribution box on the top floor and put two fuses in again which had tripped. Wonder what? Electricity on the water system existing again. Wow. Slowly I was impressed by this guy. He found out what I knew long before and what I already told him. But nevertheless, I am just a stupid consulting engineer anyway. So he took out the next heater switch. And found out that one fixing screw had caused a connecton in between the switched power cable and the earthing connection. So the earthing connection put full electricity to the outside of the water heater and, water is a very good conductor, the water system inside the house. he then fixed the problem and went again.

Hours later it came to my mind that if the earthing connection was carrying full 220Volts, why did the fuse not blow? Was it possible that all the earthing connections are useless inside the house? But now it is too late to tell. And touching a running system: never do so!

So let me continue within my series "Dining out in..." which I started during the last project in Qatar. Now Nigeria, mainly in the beginning out of Abuja, but maybe there are more locations to come.



This time now Dunes. Located not far away from the Hilton, Dunes is well known to everyone here in Abuja. There's a supermarket on the ground floor offering quite a range of products except alcohol. Run by Lebanese also there's no pork available, the meat is halal.

When you enter the supermarket, there is a snack restaurant in the middle, just on your way to the meat and cheese counter in the back of the supermarket. This snack restaurant opens to the patio and offers nice shadow seats there, so you can easily enjoy your lunch break. Or go for dinner at night.

Dunes offers starters, burgers and sandwiches (as well as single pieces or as platters accompagnied with chips and cole slaw), shish kebap, salads, meat dishes, pasta and pizza. Other than the supermarket they also offer beer here, Star, Gulder and Heineken.

The prices are ok, but keep in mind that a 10 per cent service charge will be added. Sandwiches are most times small baguettes, nicely filled and slightly toasted. Pizzas have a good size, rich toppings and the dough is thin and crispy outside. Tastes very good. Prices are in a range around NGN 800 to 1000 for sandwiches, 1900 to 2400 for sandwich or burger platters and 2000 to 2500 for pizza, excluding service charge. Gulder and Star NGN 500, Heineken NGN 700, minerals (Coke, Sprite, Mirinda) NGN 250 to 350, depending if you take a glass bottle (250) or a plastic bottle (350).

It has been a while since I posted the last one about this topic. I was of the opinion that only in countries where English is a kind of second language mistakes like those could happen.

But no, also over here there is the phenomenon of interpreting the English language in a special way. The small restaurant where I occasionally go to changed its menu. In fact not the content, only the presentation. But still some corrections could have been carried out. But no.



Still there is the wish for dry soil, garnished with toppings of your choice. Well, whoever likes something like that, will be pleased to find on the next page:



Pure deserts, sweet and without oasis. And if you brought enough time with you, you can still have a coffee. It will be delivered late then.

Each day the same over here in Abuja: around 5 a.m. it is starting. The night is over for me. As hard as it can be, it is disturbing my sleep and makes me doze only a bit until the alarm goes off.

I don't know if you can imagine how it feels when you are being woken up every day by the same cock, disregarding if it is a weekday or week-end. And if it was only one, but no, there are a few, at least five.



And all next door.

Four years passed since the last time. Four long years filled with changes, new impressions and surprises.



Tis year now I was there again. Julius Berger Camp in Abuja, this time with invitation only. I have to admit, nothing really has changed in those years. Still there are the huts where small Christmas items are being sold, still there is the long queue in front of the plces where the food is being distributed. And still there is the magic container.



The container which is being chilled down using airconditioners for selling Gluehwein inside. Mulled wine, hot, spiced, red wine while outside the temperature still does not drop under 28 celsius.



And again this year there was a special glass available for the mulled wine. As usual printed with this years 2010 and a different pictur. Collectible and mine now.

Talking to my wife in Germany she is telling me that already it began to snow over there. Temperatures dropped heavily within the last week after I left and now winter is about to move in.

I can imagine how it looks like, Mr. Gorillaschnitzel postet a picture directly taken out of his bedroom. Somehow I am missing the cold, the snow and the fun you can have with it. But on the other hand, still I am able to walk around here with short sleeves enjoying the sun and the warmth in the morning.



So, Mr. Gorillaschnitzel, after you let us participate in your room with a view, here is mine. Maybe the sky is not as blue as in your case, but although there is morning mist, the temperatures are already high.

Today was the big day. Not only for me, but as well for bride and groom up there in Kaduna. A traditional wedding took place and I was invited.

After most of the guest settled, it was time for the groom to show up.



Escorted by his friends he approached the area dancing. Meanwhile his parents and relatives already were there and had introduced themselves to the parents of the bride, claiming that they wanted to pick up the bride now. But this would not be Africa if it was that easy.

Arriving at the venue, the guests started blessing the groom by dropping money on him.



Still the bride was not his.
After having greeted his own parents, he had to show respect and dignity to the bride's parents.



Asking for his bride, him and his friends had to go down and be submissive to the parents-in-law. After that happened, the parents-in-law decided to bring their daughter.



Veiled and covered she was brought to the groom dancing, escorted by her best friends and family.



Her mother also was involved, handing the bride over to the groom.
After unveiling the bride and exchanging the rings the traditional handover of kitchen appliances took place. These presents are being donated by the brides parents to the bride and groom to give them the opportunity to start their own household immediately. The groom's parents in this case are obiged to donate yams, palm oil, rice and other food items, so that the couple can start their own life without break.
Having fulfilled their tasks, everybody will be served food and drinks now, also the couple, but as I spoke to them, they wanted to eat later. I wonder why.

Here we go again - Abuja.

Since yesterday evening I am back in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja. A new project is calling. No, in fact it is an old one that now is continuing. Up to mid 2012 I will be here now, trying to do my best in what I am here for.

Already I did the tour to see old friends and colleagues, some of them disappeared, some others were in meetings or busy. Nevertheless I am sure I will see them again within the next week.

One day only

Yes, scheduling the flight for Thursday left me with just one day to be in the office until the week-end starts. Just to get a slight taste of what changed. And what not. It depends on what you focus. Abuja has grown, lots of new buildings are there, that changed. But back in the business, nothing really has changed. Internet is crap as usual, electrical power is dropping frequently and whitre people are still ripped off. Ok, the last pointy I could not verify yetr.

So let's see, because for tomorrow I am invited already to a traditional wedding. And there - I hope - I will be able to take pictures and maybe publish them. If everybody agrees.

And yes, there was a slight shock getting out of the plane. Having left Germany at temperatures around seven degrees celsius, over here it is around 30.

Note to myself: put all warm clothes away.