So I was travelling last week, as you die-hard blog readers would know. Went to Lafia, which is the capital of Nasarawa State, right below Plateau State (the one I'm in) and only 2 and a half hours away. It was a good trip. Also eventful. Some events I'd rather not share with the masses (I'll let your imagination run wild) but one event I feel deserves mention...
Hope you're in the mood for a story...
So, the point of this trip was to visit the promoters (teachers, basically) who teach either to little kids, preteens, teens or themselves based on the
Choose Life books we have. Depending on the group, the 'students' either take what they learn about HIV/AIDS and abstinence and (hopefully) remember it, or they end up teaching what they've learned to another group of their peers. Which is pretty neat. Kinda a pyramid scheme, but for something good.
We visited several of these groups, to just monitor the promoter in his or her teaching of the material. Check to make sure he or she is doing it right and well, while also offering encouragement or constructive criticism where appropriate. We would introduce ourselves at the beginning of each session, then just sit back and watch the rest. At the end, we opened up the kids to be able to ask me anything they felt like. I obviously stick out and I know kids can be random, but I still didn't expect some of the questions they asked me. I was also curious as to why they ended up asking ME these questions and if they had someone they felt they could ask these things any other time. Some of the questions were pretty standard... 'Where are you from?', 'What's it like?'... but one boy stood up and stated "I want to know more about love." and sat down. So that was interesting...
Every time they asked me a question I tried to relate it back to HIV/AIDS, abstinence or overall health/life choices. Like when I was asked if someone could get AIDS from using an infected person's toothbrush, I told them that it was
highly unlikely, but that for the sake of health reasons, one shouldn't share a toothbrush ANYway. I was also asked about pants. Girls wearing pants in Nigeria is a relatively new thing. Last year I hardly remember any Nigerians wearing them, now a lot of them do. It was an interesting question to answer. The girl wanted to know whether or not the could (as Christians) wear pants, like all the women do in the West. Traditionally, Nigerian women never wear pants. Many of the older men and women are not too fond of this new 'trend' of women in pants. Nigerians are regularly bombarded with Western things, pants are one of those things. I tried to get across how WEARing pants isn't BAD, isn't a SIN. BUT, if you're wearing pants to rebel against parents or authority, or wearing them to provoke boys (had to link it back to that...) THEN it's wrong. Not sure how much made sense. My 'accent' can be hard for Nigerians to understand sometimes.
Anyway, back to the story.
Last Wednesday, we headed out from Lafia to the outskirts to a nearby village school. It was in a field and would
not have passed ANY safety codes in Canada. I grabbed a quick picture of it while we were walking up to it
(crooked, sorry. Took it without looking) I wanted to make sure I got a picture of what some schools look like. Inside didn't look much better. The school was pretty big, as you can tell. They built the roof first, propped it up on some beams, then started work on the brick walls. The entire building was leaning on about a 70 degree angle, with a few poles placed in vain attempts to keep the metal roof up.
As the session wrapped up and I was answering a question about whether or not 'boys and girls can sleep in the same room' the entire school fell down on top of us!
Fortunately it fell slow enough (took a couple seconds to come down, wasn't instant) and there was no ceiling, so we were all able to move and get out of the way of the beams over us. The roof came down intact and didn't make it all the way to the ground, but was supported by all the childrens' desks, so we had a couple feet beneath the roof to tuck ourselves in. We ended up all being unharmed!! Praise God!
One of my coworkers mentioned how it must have been "
quite the experience", I think it was more of a potential tradgedy. There were dozens of kids in the school and if just one of them had been seriously injured it would have been a complete tradgedy. This is not a representation of all Nigerian schools, I've never been in one this bad. In their defence, they put the roof up first to protect the kids from the rain (the irony being something that was built to protect had the potential to harm...) so they put it up so the classes could resume. They had just been forced out of the building they had been using before, so this was a new structure. You can see some of the bricks already being laid. They just cut too many corners in their rush to put this up. Something that's bound to happen when there are no building codes. Enforced ones, anyway.
So, that was quite the day... the rest of it was much better.
Please pray for the safety of children worldwide, as at any moment, tradgedy can strike.
Also, hug a child today and tell him/her you love him/her. (Preferably a child you know). Might as well do the same for your friends and family as well.
Repeat daily.
I was reminded again on Sunday of the speed we may end up leaving this life. Three Dutch girls who are volunteering as nurses here for a short while were in Jos last weekend, so a few of us took them rock climbing.
Then on Sunday, I found out they ended up in a car accident. Thankfully they all survived, one ended up with stitches and they're all sore, but they're alive and well!
Driving here can often be dangerous. Accidents happen often, but only ending up with stitches does not. A Nigerian I worked with last year lost his wife and small girl in a car accident and he now has permanent back pain. Practically everyone here knows someone who was killed in a tragic car accident. Particularly dangerous roads, like the steep roads leading on and off the plateau, have signs placed to try to enforce some common driving sense.
Please pray also for road safety.
And for people to find better ways to transport 4 goats.
Oh, and I uploaded some photos onto Facebook. Enjoy more of the
Animal Kingdom costume party!!
