Fish Farming

Good Evening All,

Well we are learning more and more each day here. A lot has been going on with Jess taking the director position and me getting classes underway. Jess is off to the US to get her work visa settled and to meet with some study abroad programs. We miss her.

I was fortunate yesterday to stumble upon the end of a fish farmer training program sponsored by USAID and Winrock right here in Yola...who'd a thunk it? It was a great opportunity to meet with some local farmers and to be introduced to aquaculture in the area. It is rather fascinating here. Most places I have been, aquaculture has needed to be introduced or "sold" on to potential farmers, here people have been trying to get it going on their own for a few years now. The unfortunate part is that much of it has been misguided. I do applaud some of the ingenuity, but am a bit at a loss of where to start. Without getting into the gorey details I'll just share some pictures.

This is a small backyard pond for african catfish. I did not see a pond more than 3 by 3 meters. Very small operations.

These are the fish tanks a the Farming Skills Acquisition Center in Yola. Pretty basic, but it has some potential for research and training.

Some broodstock in another backyard operation. Plenty of money on concrete has been spent by some of these operations.

Hungary critters...as always feeds are a limiting factor

This was at the closing ceremony. I believe the man with the light green head dress is the district chief for Yola. The men in red are bodyguards, one for the chief of Yola the other from Jimeta. When the chief sat (in a chair), his bodyguard would sit on the floor beside him. Different.

The last pic is pizza night. We still have some of the pleasures and joys of home!

First Day of School

Matriculation was on Sunday. The girls were quite excited about seeing Daddy in his robe!

The girls didn't shed a tear leaving Mommy and Daddy on their first day of school.

(The only tears shed were from Mommy.)

The girls started school at AUN's Community School today. Here are some pictures of Addie with a new friend and Emma with her teacher, Ms. Blessing. I think she said her name 100 times tonight!

Tomorrow I start my new position as Director of Study Abroad at AUN.

So many new beginnings...

School Song

School Visit Yola and Misc.

Today things are really starting to ramp up for the semester. Monday classes start and today was registration and community service day. A lot has happened the past few days... students are pouring in and the campus is coming alive, syllabi are being made, remade, and remade again. Many of the processes and logistics of getting things done here are difficult, but hopefully when can change some things to bring about some improvements. We are still getting used to "African Time" and need to remind ourselves of how things work in Africa as we are still in an American paced mindset. I believe things will begin snapping into line once the semester is fully underway.

The most exciting thing (bar one thing we will share later) was doing community service at a local school. The new president of the university is really pushing community service and is getting the AUN community out to the surrounding community. Jess, Emma, Addie and I were assigned to a group going to a school where we were to put up some now football (soccer) goals and a volleyball net. The school was quite near to campus, but is socially and economically worlds away.

Upon arriving at the school (The fam plus about twenty staff and students) there was not much to see. A small two (maybe three room) school (or shell of a school) and a football field with two makeshift goals on either end of a dusty pitch. The students began quickly removing the old goals and installing the new ones. As we meandered around trying to find something to help with we were suddenly surrounded by about fifty (I'm terrible at estimating, probably more) young students aged around 4 to 7 years old dressed in their kelly green uniforms. We were actually taken aback quite abit, but at least we had something to do now. Emma and Addie were overwhelmed and understandably so. The young students were enamored by Emma and Addie and circled around them. Probably the most disturbing thing to the girls was that they could not understand the children as they were speaking either Fulfulde or Hausa (I hope hausa as that is what I was trying to get translated to them) and the school children laughed a lot and Emma and Addie thought it was directed at them. After a few moments the girls were still overwhelmed, but began to deal a little better as long as mommy and daddy were nearby. Anywho, we sang a song to the kids (head, shoulders, knees and toes), which we tried to translate into their language, among many giggles, and they sang us a Nigerian National song (not sure which) and a Hausa song. We tried to play simon says, but due to translation difficulty we played duck, duck, goose (I had the translator help me so the game became agwagwa, agwagwa, bite', or duck, duck, monkey). It was a ton of fun. We also played some volleyball and football. All in all, a terrific experience and one that we have been discussing with the girls as they try to understand being a stranger in a strange land.

On another note, I have made an aquaculture contact and we'll see where it goes. We bought a fish yesterday (see pic). If you can name it (english or latin) you win a prize, for some reason here they call it elephant fish, though there is another fish that goes by that name. Those of you in Uganda or with experience in Lake Victoria ought to know this one. I am excited about seeing what is going on in the world of fish farming 'round here.

Another aside (because I like this type of info) here is a grocery list with prices in Naira (150 Naira to the $). Keep in mind that these are batturi (european) prices.

Tomatoes (2#) 300 Naira

Eggs (2 dozen) 750 N

Bread (sliced loaf) 200 N

Beer (~20 oz.) 150 N (250 at the club)

Meat (2.2#) 1000 N

Fish (13#) 10000 N

Potatoes (5#) 500 N

Onions (3 med.) 100 N

Watermelon 300 N

Coffee (250 g) 900 N

Peanut Butter 500 N

Well, we are headed to start cooking up some of that mystery fish. Sending love to all from Yola,

The Traveling Pines

Settling in....

OK! So finally some pics. We finally have internet at home, and better yet we were able to set up a wireless router as the lan line is in the kids room. As Jess wrote before, we are settling in and are in our new home in Jimeta (Yola North) called Transit Camp. The following photos are a glimpse of where we are:

Jet Lagged in Abuja. This is the morning after arrival in Abuja. We needed to wake up early to catch are ride to get the flight to Yola. Addie woke around midnight and it took awhile to get her settled. This is her still passed out, the worst of it is that Jess slept with her on that couch most of the night (I won't share her picture).

As mentioned earlier we stayed at the president's former home in the guest cottage. Down the street from us was this view. The Benue River can be made out before the mountains.

Happy day. This is when we moved into our new quaters at Transit Camp. I don't know why it called Transit Camp, not the best name, but perhaps because it requires some transit in order to get to the permanent campus. Anywho the girls were happy to be home.

A better view of our home.

Garden day! We are trying (though likely feebly) to establish some gardens in the back of the house. Emma and Addie are proud of there watermelon and cantelope...we'll see.

As you can see we are making our home here. We have a lot of issues to settle and many things to figure out. This week work starts and we will have more of a routine. I will post more about work this week.

Cheers

-Harvey

Settled in our new house....

We are finally settled in our house, transit camp. The girls were so happy to set up their room, decorating the walls with butterfly stickers LaLa sent. They were also excited to sleep in their princess tent (mosquito net) last night.

As soon as I get our card reader in the mail I will post some pictures of our house and surrounding area.

Love and sunshine from Yola,

Jess

On the Ground

Hello all,

We made it. We arrived in Yola on Wednesday afternoon after traveling through Frankfurt and Abuja. A long, but smooth trip. We are settling in as best we can. We are currently staying in the cottage at the AUN President's former residence, which is quite nice, but a little isolated. We are still working on getting a permanent residence, but we are comfortable here in the meantime. I am starting to meet some people and I am getting setup slowly. I have managed to get our mobile phones up an running and we will pass on the number via email. The girls are doing great and are dealing with the transition nicely. All in all everything is well, sometimes I need to remind myself of how work goes in Africa, as the swahili saying goes "Pole' Pole' utafika," slowly slowly we go together. To sum up we are doing well and we feel quite safe and secure. I will try and give a brief recap of our travels. I apologize that I do not have photos yet, but will upload them tonight and make an attempt to post them soon.

August 3 & 4

A rough day as we left friends and family from Philadelphia. The flights were uneventful and our time in Frankfurt was shy of 4 hours. We arrived in Abuja an hour late on the fourth. Contrary to the stories that I have heard about Nigeria and it airport, immigration, and customs our arrival was very quick and easy. I think having two little cuties smiling and laughing gets you very far. Immediately upon be recognized as traveling with family an immigration officer took us to an open line and we passed through immigration easily to find our baggage 0n the belt. Customs welcomed us, and I did not receive any request for a "dash" or bribe. The only hiccup was that our driver was not waiting for us. With no phone or niara (nigerian currency) we were pretty helpless, but fortunately the driver phoned one of the baggage carriers who found us and informed us of his coming (on time is a relative thing in Africa). We were relieved upon his arrival and were taken into Abuja.

Abuja... I was comforted and pleased to find the surroundings very familiar. It did not seem foreign to me. Harouna, our driver, was pleasant and knowledgeable. He drove us to our hotel with a brief stop to exchange some money. We exchanged money at a rate of 150 Naira to the dollar and were dropped at Top View Hotel. The hotel was fine. For those of you who have traveled to Zambia and stayed at the Ndeke hotel, it was very similar. We had a suite, which made it nice as we could separate the girls and get a decent nights sleep, though Jess spent it on the love seat with Addie who woke up around midnight. Aside from some noise in the hall and noises from the AC the place was okay. We ate dinner here which was:

For the Girls:

-Roasted Chicken and Chips (french fries)

Mom and I:

-Pounded yams, ogbono soup, and goat

Not a bad dinner except they brought Jess and I the wrong dish at first, which was bitter leaf and some sort of offal, which was...awful. The ogbono soup was much better though neither of us cared for the goat.

August 5th

Harouna called early and asked that we be ready early (8:30a) as opposed to 9. This is unusual in Africa, but was understandable once we saw the jam on the way to the airport. We woke the girls from their jetlag induced comas and got the whole clan to the domestic airport (across the street from the international airport). We were met by chaos. The scene in the check in area is hard to described. Poorly painted haphazard signs for the flights and no directions at all. Hot, hot, hot, my best description would be a hot, dirty, stock market floor with crazy trading in multiple languages (sorry the best I could think of for now). On top of this we stood out for one reason (you guess), but Harouna and a "guide" took good care of us and got us booked in and through security to the "lobby". Our flight was late by about an hour. We were worried we missed it because we could not understand the fuzzy, crackling, and popping loud speaker, but we made it, and an hour later we arrived at Yola International Airport. We were met by human resources and the president of AUN. We were then taken to the university club for lunch and then to our housing.

Cheers, Harvey

Jess is taking over....

August 6

Addie's 3rd birthday!!! Wow, I can't believe 3 years ago....

We stayed at the club while Harv did paperwork at AUN. The girls were pretty restless, but took a nap in the afternoon. We came back for pizza night at the club.

We even found a piece of cake and sang to Addie.

August 7

We went to the outdoor market today. The girls were a bit overwhelmed, but we did find some dhal and vegetables to make for dinner.

August 8

Lazy Sunday. We are at the Club now.

Love to all!