from Farley to Nigeria

Recollections from after Reading Festival before Nigeria:
Went blackberry picking with Tim, Andrew Fine (friend from Harvard), Juliet, Zoe (Juliet's sister) Travis (another friend from Harvard) and Juliet's dad, then watched Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Otherwise did absolutely nothing. Recovering from a week of nonstop party...fun can be very exhausting. We all came down with colds at the end.

Then Juliet and I went to London for a couple of days, where our only notable activities were exploring Camden markets, watching A Scanner Darkly (our first movie date!) and meeting Juliet's grandmother (very interesting and intelligent, but slightly hobbled by Alzheimer's. Knows 6 languages; born in Czechoslovakia, moved to Palestine, then London during the war, where she worked as a translator in the US Army).

Then it was back to Farley the day before Nigeria. Main highlight was Juliet, displaying her marvelous hand-eye coordination and elegant grace, smashed the water-jug into her glass, sending glass shards flying past me and into her mother's hair. After a moment of stunned silence, everyone burst into laughter and water spilt everywhere. Her dad promptly vacuumed the diner table, leaving long scratches in the wood.
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Food here is quite interesting....Lots of plantains, lots of fried food. Usually a meal will consist of meat (often spicy fried chicken) and rice or fried potatoes with either plantains or a spicy sauce to make a stew. Today breakfast was oatmeal + yams + spicy anchovy saucy.

I'm not getting enough veggies! And eating too much fried food.

Had tuoh yesterday, which was a really good ground up rice-mash.
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Days here thus far have been limited in excitement and adventure; mostly just relaxing inside their gated house, which is not super-opulent but v. nice by Nigerian standards (sprawling, lots of rooms + TVs + couches etc.). Poorly maintained in parts (chipped tiles, ungreased sliding windows). I'll push for more outside exploration in a couple days, but content to relax and recuperate for now...

In general my impression has been that Kano is like any other poor african city; no more or less dangerous. The main differences come from islam, which affects landscape (mosques) and how people dress (mainly women).
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Gender treatment here is distinctly different than west...Women almost all wear something covering their hair. Some w/ black hajib (sp?) in Wahhabi-stark style, others with more traditional Nigerian colorful hair covers. No veils though. Inside the house there is very limited interaction between women and men. No strict divisions, but everyone tends to keep to themselves. Men eat separately, but women set the table for them. Women do, however, drive cars freely....

I don't quite know what to make of it. This division is bad -- lack of familiarity breeds contempt, as any all-boys school attests -- but there aren't (or don't seem to be) hard and fast rules...little that you can point to and say this is objectively wrong. It's not laws; its culture.

Not sure how representative my experience is...this is a religious family (pray 5 times a day) but not super-religious.
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Showering is interesting....Although there is water 24/7 (unlike electricity) there isn't enough pressure for the shower to work, so I have to fill up a bucket with cold water and then dump it over my head. Quite a shock. But more bearable because it is hot and dry outside (upper 30s, no clouds, no rain...) and it stays that way all day, barely any dip at nighttime.