Nate hopefully updated that I made it safely to Nigeria. We landed in Lagos on Tuesday afternoon after a pretty good flight. We lucked out and had fairly empty flights on the way to Amsterdam and to Lagos. We sat next to this very nice guy who now lives in Sweden but is originally from Nigeria. He was telling us about the people, the food, the terrain, etc. It was very interesting talking to him. After only five hours of sleep from Monday morning to Wednesday night I was totally exhausted. This showed as Erin and I layed in the hotel bed laughing hysterically for no reason except for the fact the sleepless delirium had set in. The hotel left a few things to be desired…perhaps a toilet seat that wasn’t lying on the floor would have been nice. I did find it humorous that we had a flat screen TV in our room. The only thing about this TV is that it got one channel, and that was scrambled. Our room number was written on the door in pen, and the light bulbs were hanging from the ceiling. I do have to say that it did have air conditioning, which was a blessing until the electricity went out about midnight (which is when the laughter began because it was to hot to sleep).

Wednesday morning we got up and headed to the airport for our flight to Owerri. The flight was interesting. As I said to everybody in the group, they drive airplanes like they drive cars…fast and crazy. We did however land safely in Owerri and headed to the “guesthouse” in Atta. We got there, ate lunch, and then headed to the Mana clinic to see some of the children. Mana is the name of the school/orphanage/clinic that is run by the Jubilee Christian Center whom we are working with. Ben, who started the Mana house is a bishop here and owns the property and house in which we stayed at. Our work at the Mana Clinic consists of doing assessments on the children, primarily checking their spleen size to help track malaria. All the children that go to school at Mana are in a program that consists of getting Vitamin A throughout the month, as well as doses of anti-worm medication. It has been proven that giving Vitamin A helps reduce mortality by 25%, so this is huge! We saw the school children yesterday and saw more of the village people today.

I have to say that last night was the most miserable night of my life! This was due to three factors…the HEAT, lack of sleep, and the inability to have any contact with people from back home. The phone that I had did not get reception at the guesthouse and there is no internet there. The fact that there is no internet is not surprising considering that there is no electricity. So thank you to Dad Veldman for all the flashlights, they are coming in quite handy! There is a generator that runs for a few hours at night during dinner and into the late evening hours. After dinner Erin and I tried to get settled into our room. Being the resourceful young women that we are, we finally got our mosquito nets rigged up with hair ties, hair clips/pins, string, and a clothes line. We had two nets over one double bed which we had to share. Now if it were 70 degrees in that room it may not have been a big deal. However, when it’s 90 degrees and you’re attempting to sleep while avoiding touching a mosquito net and at the same time trying to avoid spooning with Erin, it’s not the most comfortable. I did fall asleep around 10:00 and woke up in a panic around midnight. I felt as though I was suffocating and couldn’t breathe because there was no air movement due to the fact that we had to close our door so that people couldn’t see inside our room from outside the gates that surround the property. I have to admit, I laid there and wondered how I was going to get through the night and wondered if I had made the right decision in coming. I had prepared myself to be miserable, but I was not prepared for this. Mike (Dr. Talberg) has been coming here for years and even he said that it was the most miserable that he’s been. To top it off, I had to go to the bathroom (in the dark since there is no electricity), with no toilet seat. That’s right, toilet seats are evidently a luxury item over here. I should have some great quads by the time I come back to the states. After a little pep talk from Erin (while she was also complaining about the heat and sweating her butt off) and some deep breaths of stagnant air I finally fell back to sleep around 3:00. I slept very well until around 6:00 when the prayer/singing service started outside our room. After last night, we have decided to stay at Queen’s house (she is a nurse at United as well and is originally from Nigeria) where she will hopefully have a generator going all night so that we can have a ceiling fan going. I am really hoping for some good sleep tonight!

Today we went to the clinic to work, but stopped at the Mana school before starting clinic. It was so wonderful, and I was soon reminded why it was worth it to be so miserable last night. The children were full of love and laughter. They loved having their pictures taken and thought it was so funny to look at their picture on the digital camera screen. I wish that I could upload pictures to the blog, but due to lack of technology here I can’t. I will definitely put up some pictures when I return home. At the clinic we saw some children, and then also did some physical assessments and blood pressure screenings on adults. It’s funny to see the children laughing and having so much fun at school, but as soon as they come into the clinic they are very serious and it soft spoken. They take it very seriously and are very well behaved.
I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to update the blog, but have asked Nate to put some updates on here after I talk to him on the phone (which I’m hoping will be every other day). We are planning on heading to Anusha (I believe this is the name of the village, it’s about 1 ½ hours from Atta) on Saturday and will be staying there until Monday evening. We are going to be setting up some outreach clinics there. I believe that we’ll also have a chance to go to the market while we are there also, so I’m looking forward to that.

The food has been ok, and I’ve been able to eat a lot of pineapple and rice. I did eat some meat that they said was beef the other night, and had some “suey” which is beef (that’s been sitting out in the sun all day) that is highly seasoned with spices and is then grilled. It was actually pretty good. We had baked beans for breakfast this morning which was kind of interesting. Who knows what’s on the menu for tonight. Tonight we had amazing rice as well as black eyed peas and fried plantans. I also tried some chicken that seemed a bit tough which is somewhat concerning to me. I’m always a bit leery about trying the meat in third world countries.
I would like to report that Erin just came out of the shower and is having a large panic attack. She took her shower with a large cockroach and is slightly freaked out to say the least. Time for me to go and give her a pep talk and remind her why we like showering with geckos (by the way, Erin pulled the tail off one when she tried to take it out of the bathtub last night) and enjoy sweating as soon as we get out of the shower. She is now rolling around in bed moaning about how hot it is. It could be another long night! J

I thank you for checking in and thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. I wish that I were able to update more frequently and had more time to give you more details of what we’re doing. The group that I'm working with does great work over here and I'm so excited to be a part of it! I’m hoping that Nate is able to give you some updates after I speak with him on the phone in a couple of days.

Love you to all!
Steph