And I'm Out...

Things I'll Miss

1. The weather!
2. Being in Africa
3. The many friends I have made here, especially Kyura and Mr. Embassy-Man
4. Being able to (but not having to) walk anywhere I need to go
5. Not buying gas
6. No bills
7. Yam on Sundays
8. Getting my hair braided for super cheap
9. The time zone difference that made it so my friends back home were always awake when I wanted to talk to them (they were sleeping when I was at work)
10. Being able to hang the laundry outside
11. Plantain chips and drinkable yogurt
12. Random chickens on the side of the road
13. Mr. Trizzle being nice because he's forgotten how annoying I am when I'm actually around ;)
14. Work, most of it, at least sometimes
15. Being able to be there for my friends when they need to talk in the middle of the night (cuz it's my day time!)
16. The 9-4, doesn't matter if you're late, workday (even though I was usually there around 8 and stayed 'til nearly 5; it was nice to know I didn't have to be there)
17. Kim the tailor and his amazing work
18. Yummy ice cream that comes in a plastic bag and tastes like cake batter
19. Palm trees
20. Never having to wear or carry a jacket
21. The smell of fresh flowers along the roadside and the gentle scent of burnt grass in the air
22. Moin moin, Milo, roasted maize on the roadside, purple Ibo fruits, and other foods I can't get at home

Things I Won't Miss

1. Random people I don't know coming up to me and telling me they want to be my friend or that they love me
2. The tribalism
3. The driving
4. The bathrooms at work
5. The constant condescension
6. Only having one pair of shoes and enough outfits to get through one week
7. Power surges and outages (that destroy my computer)
8. Having to haggle or bargain before buying anything or going anywhere
9. Having walls and gates and guards around every building
10. Having to buy an expensive and only so-so meal in order to get an internet connection good enough to download a pdf file
11. Smashing cockroaches at work and shaking off ants at home
12. Those creepy lizards that seem to be everywhere
13. The hypocrisy
14. Unfitted sheets
15. Having to iron everything
16. Having to count in hundreds and thousands
17. West-African men
18. Watching people eat goo with their hands
19. Having a maid (I like her, as a person; I just don't like having a maid as a concept)
20. Being called "whitey" or "white" as if that's my name
21. People hissing like snakes

How Did I Get Here?

It's a question I've found myself asking quite often the past few years of my life.  In my heart, I'm still that little girl from Cheeseland who'd rather have a glass of milk than a glass of wine (or of anything else for that matter), anytime.  And then here I am in Nigeria, interning for part of the Federal Government, talking to the American Ambassador's parents!  wtv?!

It hit me really hard this past week, and Thanksgiving added to it.  I was sitting in a group at the Thanksgiving Day Dinner, just chit-chatting with a bunch of people, and watching these two adorable little children run and play, and I started thinking about when I had been to the Embassy earlier in the week to meet with one of the people now part of this group. 

The gentleman is really nice, and from the bits of interaction I've had with him, I think very intelligent (that's probably a pre-req for working in the Embassy, I guess).  His Boston College lanyard around his neck put me at ease a bit.  Ba Tim went there, so it somehow made things more familiar.  Although, the Patriot's clasp on the bottom of the lanyard made me frown a bit inside.  Where I come from, there's only one real football team. ;) 

His office had these great, very Nigerian, calendars in the back corner.  Candid pictures of him above the months, probably snapped at some meeting or conference or something.  But the pictures on the side of his desk, those were the ones that made me start a little bit.  Those were the ones that came into my mind when I was wondering how I wound up at this Embassy Thanksgiving Day dinner.  Him and Colin Powell, him and Condy, him and W.  It was like when I go to Mr. Embassy-Man's house and there's pictures of Mr. Embassy-Man and Clinton all over the place. 

How on earth am I sitting here talking to someone who's been that close to a President?!  I thought Mr. Trizzle's picture of him and the Congress-woman he worked for was really neat.  And I remember, when I was 10, thinking that my mommy knowing Rosemary Potter was the coolest thing in the world.  She had to be important; she was in our Wisconsin Blue Book!  Along with the state beverage, milk, and the state wild flower, wood violet, and the state domesticated animal, Guernsey cow.  (No, I did not look those up, so I don't know if they've changed in the past umpteen years.  And in case you care, or are Wendy, the state fossil is the trilobite.)   To me,  presidents and politicians aren't real people, they're like movie stars or something.  You can't actually meet or talk to them!

I suppose it makes sense that people who work at the Embassy know the President.  They are diplomats after all, representing the country and stuff.  And I guess the President appoints the ambassadors, so he'd have to know them.  So what I find even more surprising than these guys having pictures with the President is that both this gentleman and Mr. Embassy-Man have friends that work at Google.  How can they both know such lucky people?  Of course, as the Ambassador pointed out, Mr. Embassy-Man seems to know everyone.

Gobble Gobble Day

I promised to tell you all about my wonderful Thanksgiving, so here it is!

I asked for half the day off so that I could go to Thanksgiving dinner.  My boss said, "take the whole day; this is like the most important holiday in America."  I don't know about that, but I took the whole day.  Turns out that was a very good thing.

Pot-Luck, Luck Needed

The dinner was a pot-luck, turkey provided, everyone brings a side or dessert.  I wanted to contribute, despite my limited kitchen access and even more limited resources, so I decided to make deviled eggs.  I already had mayo, and I knew just where to buy a carton of eggs.  Plus, Dara and Feyi had been begging for egg salad again.  I figured I could use whatever eggs weren't devil-able for the egg salad.

It took the entire morning to make the deviled eggs.  I started at about 7:30 when I went to buy the eggs, and finished around 11.  For some reason, the yolk of African boiled eggs always goes to the fat end of the eggs.  This means you can't do deviled eggs the normal oblong way.  Instead, you have to slice off the top of the fat end and use the rest of the egg as the bowl part.  Result: one deviled egg per normal egg instead of two.  I used all the little sliced off pieces and  extra yolk for Dara and Feyi's egg salad, so it worked out well.

I didn't have any paprika, but luckily, his other girl going to the Thanksgiving had some in her purse.  She let me use it on the eggs.  And Mr. Embassy-Man had a deviled egg tray, so that helped a lot with the presentation.  (I had carried the eggs to his place in a cut-apart cereal box.)  They seemed to be ok; only 4 were left by the end of the dinner.

The Dinner

Mr. Embassy-Man is really thoughtful.  He asked the other Embassy people if the random Americans could join them for their Thanksgiving, and they said yes!  Hooray!  So two other random Americans and I met at Mr. Embassy-Man's house and headed over to the pot-luck with him and one of his neighbors.

Mr. Embassy-Man often thinks to include us in different events around Abuja, so we often go places in this big sort of group.  The Ambassador asked Mr. Embassy-Man if we were his posse, or something else, since he'd just gotten back from Turkey.  I thought that was really cute.

We are Thankful for This Food

The food was fantastic!  Stuffing, cheesey-potato bake, pasta salad, barley, rice, Turkish delight.  (Now I understand why that boy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sold out his siblings for that stuff.  It's good!)  There's was plenty of good food that I didn't eat, too.  Of course I didn't have the turkey, or the caviar that Mr. Embassy-Man brought.  I also missed out on the mashed-potatoes and the ice cream.  By the time they arrived, I was too full of other goodies.

I did not have any green bean caserole.  Nobody made any.  Mr. Embassy-Man thought about it but didn't, but that was probably a good thing.  I found out that Mr. Embassy-Man uses cream of chicken soup in his green bean casserole!  How can you ruin a perfectly good vegetarian side-dish like that?!  And not tell the vegetarians?  Oh well.

For Our Homes

The house where they held the dinner was gorgeous, and huge!  Plush carpeting, beautiful windows, soft and cushy furniture.  I mean, it was as if that security gate at the front had been a teleporter that moved us to the US.  I was scared I would break one of the nice dishes, or spill something on the rug.  I didn't, whew!

And for the People in Our Lives

The Embassy-crowd seems like a really good group.  They were very nice in allowing us to join them, and are always friendly when we chat with them.  They also seem to be forgiving.  Us random Americans, not really knowing proper protocol (or moving in circles like this) failed to stand up when the Ambassador came into the room.  We felt kinda bad about it as soon as realized we should have stood, which was right about when everyone else sat down, but nobody seemed upset by our faux pas.

The Ambassador's parents were visiting her from South Carolina, so I got to talk to them for a bit.  That was really cool.  They're very nice and were having a good trip.  Visiting Africa was a life-long dream.  To finally get come to Africa and get to see your daughter, the Ambassador, that's got to be amazing.

We (the random Americans) also got to visit with some other people whom we had met previously, either a Mr. Embassy-Man's birthday party, the Election Night, or some other random event to which he invited us.  They're all very nice, even if it can be a little intimidating talking to them sometimes.... more on that tomorrow.

After Dinner

Mr. Embassy-Man and his posse returned to his place after the Dinner, where we got to watch the last half of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!  That was wonderful; it really rounded out Thanksgiving.  It was on live, so evening time here.  I guess next year, I'll have to get up super early if I want to watch it.  Wendy's right, live tv on the West Coast sucks.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, too!