Adapting to life here...

No pictures for this post, though I do have a few interesting ones coming up. It takes a while to adapt to being here. It depends on where you come from, the Indians and Philippines adjust quickly, the over weight white boys from Seattle, not so fast. It is regularly in the 90's (yes F) here and the humidity is often higher than the temp. For the first 3 weeks I came back to the house for break and had to change all my clothes. Not so bad now, but when I come home it will be interesting, for the first time I will be the cold one in the house.

Another thing I need to make clear is that I am not really seeing Nigeria. I am seeing Onne Camp, and the work sites. I don't get to go anywhere else. There are the "Troubles." Damn shame, this is a beautiful country with wonderful people. Hopefully I will be around long enough to get past the BS.

Going to work

Surveying in Nigeria is not like working in the States. First off is a fundamental change in mind set. In the States, equipment is cheap and people are expensive. In Nigeria it is the other way around. Manual labor is easy to acquire, but equipment is expensive. But as it always seems in my career, fortune has smiled on me. I work with a team of intelligent motivated people. To be honest, I have worked more than a few jobs in the US where I wish I had these guys.

But let's talk construction. There are w few OSHA inspectors I would love to bring here, just to watch their head explode. Take a look at this:

Yes, that is indeed my survey crew 4 meters in the air, with the only fall protection being a belief in God. But it gets better, take a lok at this:

You have to look closely, but yes, those are workers climbing over the edge of a 7 storey building to drop on the scaffold. The good news is, from what I have seen your average Nigerian is as graceful and body aware as a ballet dancer. I have watched a man walk down a 2 inch wide wall carrying a load for 40 feet, and not even consider how hard it was. The more I know them, the more I like Nigerians.

First Impressions

Before I go any farther, it is quite clear I need spell check. If you did not understand what I was trying to say in previous posts, well tough luck, I am not editing them, I think such things should be as they are written.

There are things you notice when you first get here, the first is perhaps the smell. It is always hot and humid here, the vegetation is lush, but short lived for the most part. That translates into a background of, not really rot, but the smell of over-ripe vegetable matter.

Next is bugs. I don't have any pictures yet, but damn. I regularly see ants over an inch long, and the no-see-ems are in almost visible clouds. The result is these guys:



Meet Chester. He and perhaps half a billion of his relatives keep the bug population down. Honestly, these guys are everywhere. We are building a 7 storey office building, I have seen them on the top floor. I found one, about an inch and a half long in my shower. And their name? Redneck Lizard. Honestly. Reminds me of some guys I met in New Orleans. But they were not nearly as useful.

Next topic. Damn it is flat here. Like living on a pool table. It is out of sequence, but here are a couple of pics from the top of a 7 story building:

and 180 degrees...


My house is just a bit down the second driveway on the left. Prodeco brings "architecture by Xerox" to a whole new level. Most of the things they build are from their precast concrete legos.

Now for something different. There are a few pluses for being here, one is PRAWNS! Okay, this is $6.00 of shrimp:


Yes, five of them, and they are the size of hot dogs. Tasty too.

Welcome to Onne

My first night in Nigeria waas spent in the Intels Camp at Aba Road. To be honest I don't remember much. I showered, ate, showered again, and went to sleep. The next morning was my rip to Onne, where I will spending the next 74 days.

The next step was getting my house, which is in fact an apartment. So withiut furterh ado, pictures of John's House:

The living room


The Dining Room


Yes, they are in fact the same room .

The Kitchen


And the bedroom


Now an interesting little fact about the term "house." No expats, even the ones who have been here quite a while, refer to these places as home. They are all "my house." And the convention comes quite naturally. When an expat says "home" you know where he is talking about.

Port Harcourt Airport

The first thing that hits you when you land in Port Harcourt is the heat. You step out of a plane at 65 degrees and 60% humidity into 90 degrees and 95% humidity. Damned near knocked me on my ass. Then you go to Immigration. Immigration in Nigeria is not like Immigration in the US. The over riding concern here is that your fees have been paid. The first thing they asked for was a deposit against any "unpaid" fees. Right. I didn't buy that even with 20+ hours without sleep. Then customs. I had "too much" so they wanted to check it all, but then I discovered an interesting fact about dealing with the Nigerian government. The absolute worst thing that can happen is having someone cause a scene. When I started yelling everything changed, though there is a rumor I yell loud. So they zipped the bags up and handed me off, to "narcotics". OMFG He really wanted to be intimidating, but not only did I have nothing to worry about, I have been interrogated in 5 states and Mexico, when I did have something to hide. Made a big show of taking my name. But when he wrote it on the inside cover of a magazine I damn near died keeping from laughing.

Once I had cleared all the BS it was time to find the guy who was supposed to pick me up. That wasn't so hard. He was standing out side the fence with a Prodeco ID and a sign with my name. But the 50 yards between the gate and the bus cost me $50. As I walked out the gate I was swarmed with men helping with my bags, two per bag, helping, carrying, and making it impossible to move forward. I was toast, I gave in. But when I got to the bus I realized all I had in my pockets was the rest of my Euros. I said "to hell with it" and passed them out four %'s and one 10. They scored.

The there was the bus ride to Aba Road, the admin headquarters of Prodeco. Me alone in an armored bus, a truckload of armed police in front, one behind, lights, sirens, the whole deal. I began to think I had made a serious mistake. The truth is it was all for show. Appearance is so damn important here I could be living in Hollywood.

I will post more soon. And some pictures. It took me a couple of days to get to pictures.

Charles de Gaulle

Okay, the french are just different. But it is all in small subtle things. Charles de Gaulle is one of the busiest airports in the world, and example of the "first" world at its best. And entirely confusing. To begin, when they sell you the ticket that brag about you will land and depart from the same terminal. Except you won't. You will land on the tarmac and then be taken out to an unsecured area and have to go thru security again. And the bottle of water you bought in the secure part of the Seattle Tacoma airport? is now a major security issue. I had forgotten about it. had to explain to the airport security, armed with HK machine pistols, how it was a mistake. Lucky I am a large fat white American.

But there are more little details. The one thatsticks out, because I was trying to find my what to the gate I was supposed to have landed at was that... everyplace I have ever been if a sign meant that you were supposed to continue down a corridor the arrow points up. In France they point down. Not that hard to figure out, unless you have just spent 12 hours on a plane. Oh, and the only french I have can get me drunk, or slapped. I had a two hour lay over, barely cuaght the plane.

Coming to Nigeria

I have to say that the hardest part of the journey was laving my family at the gate. That sucked. I do have a serious recommendation, if you fly international fly a European airline, Air France was one of the more pleasant experiences I have has flying, and I have done a bit of it. First off, the plane, to be blunt there is little they can do with the plane. It is a damn flying bus and the experience of sitting in a box with a few hundred other people is not fun. But on Air France there are some details that take the sharp edges off. The first? Edible food. Not great food, but decent food, which is something that you haven't seen on a US line, ever. The second, free booze. The thing is when you buy an Air France ticket, everything you might want (no do not go there) is included. That is nice.

My next post will be about Charles de Gaulle airport, which seriously proved that the French are... different.