Nigeria Preparation - Week 2 and Week 3
Originally published at Rodney's Blog. Please leave any comments there.
So yesterday we had another preparation meeting for our upcoming trip to Nigeria. It was our Third meeting (I missed last week’s meeting). Yesterday’s prep meeting was pretty awesome because we got to hear from someone who was part of the last Nigeria team (Team 5). Although that Team was in Lagos and we will be going to Ado Etiki, the country and cultural overview was very much appreciated.
I think in the meeting we found ourselves asking general questions…maybe even silly questions. But in fact, there are no silly questions when you are embarking on a journey such as this. We had lots of really good questions on the logistics (we need to finalise on those quite soon), what to expect about our living conditions (internet might be a scare resource), what kinds of projects we would work on (issue-based consulting projects), typical diet of the population (we have vegetarians in the group), travel logistics (Ado Ekiti seems about a few hours from everything else), and of course our security situation which seems fine to me. Our meetings are also attended by our NGO partner as well who gives us good insights and helps us understand the overall process.
To give you a sense of placement within Nigeria, this is where we are:
For an overview of Ado Etiki, you can read about it on Wikipedia.
Also, the true scope of pre-work has now also dawned on me (and probably the team). There is the “easy” administrative stuff, but we know that within 4-6 will come the work that is associated with the projects themselves. I am honestly a ball of energy about this! Nothing would make me happier than to just dig in right away, but I have to trust in the structure and the methodology so that I don’t drown in good intentions.
It also now just hits me that when I plan to be in Ado Ekiti, that also means that I need to plan time away from my job and time away from Sweden. There are many logistical things that have to be planned and coordinated at work (coverage for meetings, etc, etc), and at home. But it all will sort out because I will make sure it does.
Finally, it seems that many in the group are planning to do something after the CSC assignment ends. Whether that is climbing mountains in Tanzania or safaris or anything in between, I find the adventurous nature of the group refreshing and inspiring. In a way reminding me of how I used to behavior before getting comfortably settled into my “Svensson Life”
Well I don’t want to drone on forever…so I will end it here until next time
#ibmcsc nigeria