I’ve been to Nigeria this past week - down in the Delta, in Port Harcourt. The word I’ve been using to describe it is “…Interesting.”

For a pictorial guide, see Port Harcourt tags on Flickr - I checked this out before I went and in the end I didn’t take many photos because I was only duplicating what can be seen here; badly surfaced roads with buildings varying from ruined shells of what looked like byres up to slightly ragged looking apartment blocks along them. Cars, trash and people everywhere. This is where old vehicles go to die, I saw those round-nosed Bedford trucks from the late 50’s, among many others - including lots of old Merc’s, all being horsed along through chaotic traffic as people weaved in and out. I was sure one guy was going to be squelched between a tractor-trailer and a big van, but apparently there was just enough clearance.

Most of this, indeed everything I saw that wasn’t within the compound or the office-block was seen from the windows of a minibus that was either speeding, or stuck in a traffic jam. Everywhere we went was escorted by glowering military police in Toyota Tacoma Doublecab pickups - see here (painted white with emergency light bars on top) as I didn’t fancy taking a picture of them, they looked angry.

Whoever makes razor wire must make a fortune here - everything is strung with coils of it. The village (our residential compound) is fortified with razor wire, electric fencing, a dog run and a twelve foot fence in that order. Inside its quite nice - the new bit is very bare and exposed because the landscaping hasn’t grown in yet, but the older section is quite ok - just a bit wierd and Children of Men because they evacuated families a year or so ago when it started getting *really* ropy so you have swings, roundabouts and playsets dotted about in charming little play areas, abandoned and with grass regrowing over the scuff marks where the children used to be. Theres a paddle pool with a big smiley face in the tiles on the bottom beside the empty classroom where all the toys are in boxes, pushed against the wall.

There is a poker game on Saturday nights, I’m told.

The weather was strange - cooler than ABZ while the clouds were in but in a brief break in the cloud cover I got the full bore of 4° 45? 0? N June sun while I scurried over to the HR offices from the ops building and rapidly stopped my scurrying and slowed to a gentle stroll so as not to completely dehydrate before arrival. It’s really humid and yet I was in danger of catching cold because everywhere is overly airconditioned. Normally I’d say “bah, waste of power” but this is malaria country and cold makes mozzies sluggish.

The office is a tower block that smells of diesel for some reason. Appropriate I guess, but its not like we’ve got a PVT lab in the building as far as I know. Theres lots of room, compared to the ‘elbow-thy-neighbour’ conditions in ABZ office, and the desk I’m inheriting is nicely located - facing door, back to windows, big C shape with little fridge and a place for a kettle. I’ve resolved the worry that I’d not have place or opportunity to make tea - not a problem, the tea-lady appears in the mornings only and doesn’t seem territorial.

As you may have gathered I’m trying to focus on the details, the things that aren’t as bad as I feared. For the most part, it’s pretty grim. Its going to be a bit of a challenge going expat into two new cultures as an Anglo amongst Continental expats in Nigeria. I’ve no doubt my French will sharpen up that I’ll be able to properly chat to Franck’s mates next time we trawl Paris, but its another couple of degrees added to an already fairly steep learning curve.

I guess, I’m keeping the faith because every component part is something I’ve done before - living in isolated accomodation where just wandering out for the evening was impractical - this I’ve done in Heriot-Watt, which was mostly due to lack of funds and the bloody inconvenience of that campus but still - I’ve done the ‘work all hours, go home, crash, repeat, leave campus once a week’ trick. Bad water protocols I’ve done before - the rigs spring to mind, brushing ones teeth with bottled water, not opening your mouth showering, etc, etc. Food for fuel only (as opposed for taste, joy) see also the rigs. Packing up everything into a few small bags also - just bung the whole lot together and Bob’s your uncle.

Ah, I’ve been gearing for this more or less for years - I have no big things beyond books and the computer and I’ve a feeling Omenschilde is headed for a skip unless someone has a clever idea for how to move a Dell Dimension on a plane without destroying it. I guess I could chance it in hold luggage - if it dies, no loss, I was throwing it out anyway. Yeah, might try that.

But yeah, my mind is kind of shying away from it - whip-sawing between being ok with going and trying to figure if I’m getting conned. I figure the chances of anything dangerous happening to me are slim; lots of people in ABZ office have been and come back, bits attached, so its obviously not that bad. My main worry is falling off the grid, loosing touch - but then I’ll have net access, its in the same timezone, I bet some people won’t even notice I’ve moved. I should be able to travel every three months at least - no less frequent than other times I’ve survived.

Mainly I worry about if the job will be interesting - even in the days I was there it became apparent the initial job description I got had … experienced some mission creep? Probabilities for achieving the objectives I’d heard mentioned were … less than optimal. However, theres a lot going on, I’m sure if I get bored and twitchy and start bitching about being bored, someone will find something for me to do. I have some ideas already, but they involved getting people in a different department to give me a ton of basic data for me to crunch. This is the kind of thing that leads to embarassing questions direct at people who should have been watching things that they probably didn’t realise were drifting off true, so this may or may not happen.

I realise after all this, that I’ll have racked up half a decade on mature field redevelopment, which is going to be a very saleable skill set over the Olduvai Gorge - even if I did, in a bleaker moment think of chucking it all to retrain as a solar tech or some such. But then, that would require money for the mortgage while I do that… and so I’d need to build up cash reserves… and gee, something like this would let me do that… so in the end, even trying to get out just leads deeper in.

I’ve skimmed - mostly because the environmental stuff I’ll get back to once I’m there - I’ll have better photos and more to say. The blackly humourous bit around the office today was that Nigeria will soon no longer be the least desirable place on our expatriation roster - in a few months it’ll be Iraq.