What I have been up to- 6

This is the last of the letters I wrote before I left and returned to Nigeria! Have some pictures from Nigeria too to put up! Thanks for reading and all your comments! Merry Christmas and have a lovely New Year!

I have just two full days to spend. It dawned on me a few days ago that I will definitely miss my time here. I have been excited about my impending departure dreaming of using once again the luxury of a toilet and bathroom not exposed to the elements with the attendant comfort of being able to read a book in it. I had also been dreaming about tasting my mum’s superb meals for the first time in a long while and also getting as excited as my niece who asks her mum continuously if next week has arrived so she can see her ‘dear’ aunty tomi!

Then my mood shifted and I realized that there is still so much more I would have wanted to do, more of the Somali language to learn, more of the great people to talk to and listen to their stories as well as their complaints of all the aches and pains they have, more time to actually eat the watermelons and tomatoes we planted which have been fluorishing with the arrival of the rains.

Its probably the response of the people to my depature that changed my mood! They all seem to know without my making an announcement that my time to leave them has come. Mama Amol arranged for me to have henna designs put on my hands and feet, she said it was her way of thanking me for coming to work! I had seen her once at the hospital and given her some advice and stopped in her shop a few times and we became friends- the kind that smile at each other and ask in a few Somali words if all is well with their health and family! My mum got a gift too- some material to make the traditional garb worn by women here courtesy of our interpreter who said it was his way of thanking my mum for having me because if she did not I would never have comeJ  I love the rational for the gift! Quoresho and Fariah (our cook and cleaner) have also been asking me what I want from them-my answer has been ‘nothing’ and yet each day the question remains the sameJ They say they want to give me something so I can always remember them. I doubt I need a gift to do that. (My dad got a serche- a scarf from Quoresho today (14th), apparently for the same reason my mum got the material)

I spent today walking around the village, going from house to house with the polio vaccination team. It was a delightful experience and one I wish I had experienced much earlier in my stay. It was nice to see people I had hitherto seen only in the hospital in their homes. The children to be vaccinated almost always burst into tears on seeing me ( a woman without a burqa or hijab is a strange and frightening sight) and the mothers many of whom I had met at the health center welcomed us with big smiles and complimented the henna designs on my handsJ

It was also a very sobering experience. As I went into each compound I realized that many of the houses are just one large room with one mattress on the floor, old mosquito nets are hung on the walls, there are no windows and everyone in one family lives in the same room. There is usually a small stick hut for cooking and all the cooking utensils hang on the walls made from branches of trees! For the more affluent, they have houses made of corrugated roofing sheets, the rest are made of dung and clay or branches covered with old clothes and plastic sheets with UNHCR printed on most of them.

One question I asked myself when I first got here was‘If I had been born here would I still be in this village?’. That question has a million different answers. I might have died before my 5th birthday because my mum might have fed me goat or camel milk for 42 days instead of breastfeeding me as is customary; if I had survived my first year any of the childhood killer diseases might have cut my life short; If I got to my 5th birthday I might have been circumcised; as a teenager my job would have been to bring in the stubborn goat and sheep in the evening chasing them all around their grazing fields and trying to convince them that the way home was in the one direction I wanted them to go.If I had reached adulthood, I would be married with a passel of children or even a grandchild on the way! Or none of that would have happened and I would be one of the lucky girl children educated up to university level depending on if my parents were able to afford to pay for my education. There are a million possibilities. At the end of the day, I can say that I have been fortunate to spend time here even if I was not born here!

I am spending my last hours appreciating and being appreciated by the people I have lived and worked with for such a short time. Like my aunt Biola said ‘ I will definitely leave a piece of my heart here!

This will be my last missive, thank you so much for following me all the way, your emails have meant a lot to me .Thank you so much!

Salama,

Tomi

Gate made of a tree branch

After Henna

Chicken coop

Donkey Cart Ambulance

Our little garden of watermelons

Scare crow

More watermelons