Hiking in the Bush and Seeing God

Every other Saturday, expatriates gather in Abuja for what is known as The Hash. Apparently, The Hash House Harriers (HHH) is a worldwide organization that I never heard about in the US. There are hash walks in most major cities throughout the world, and Abuja is no exception.

Expats meet and convoy out to the bush, where they follow a trail marked by paper confetti. A spot of confetti means "you're going in the right direction." A circle shape means "checkpoint," where you have to wander around until you find the trail again. If you find an X of confetti, it means "false trail" and you go back to the checkpoint and set off again in a different direction. There are people who have walked the trail before, and they are called "hares." They wear special t-shirts and walk in front of and behind the rest of the crowd to make sure nobody gets lost.

To be fair, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. No one stopped to explain the whole concept to me, and I didn't understand where we were going to be walking. I wasn't really dressed properly, and just felt like I was along for the ride.

And what a ride it was.

Corey drove us to the starting point, making good use of his 4-wheel drive. The roads weren't really roads at all, and realization began to set in. This will be no casual walk in the countryside. No it most certainly will not.

We set off walking on a red clay dirt path. It was downhill, but it was easy enough. Did I mention the insane number of children on the hash? They were everywhere - some as young as 3 (although credit is due to their parents who carried hauled their sweaty little bodies all over the bush).

When the path ended, we kept going. Up and down hills, crossing streams and farmer's fields, fighting our way through the undergrowth, sweating all the way. At the tops of the hills, we could see for miles the outskirts of Abuja, which was spectacular (and of course today was the day I decided not to carry my camera). Most of the time I had to concentrate on what was going on at my feet, so I couldn't really appreciate the scenery. It's hard work keeping up with people already adjusted to the heat and terrain.

After walking about 4 km, there was a pit stop where everyone got water, soft drinks and beer (in other parts of the world, HHH is regarded as a social drinking group that happens to go on walks). As we left the rest stop, the clouds moved in. Since arriving here in the rainy season, I've watched the sky turn from pink to black in 45 seconds - these clouds move fast. The winds picked up and things got cold and dark quickly. When the rains began, we were still 2 km away from the end and still had to climb up the face of a hill with a river of red clay mud rushing down at us.

We did make it back without falling or losing anyone, and I managed not to get cut up by the brush or sunburned or bitten by mosquitoes. All the kids made it, too, although most of them were piggybacking it for the last miserable kilometer.

At the end, we piled into cars and chopped (Nigerian for "ate dinner") at the house of one of the hares (hash leaders). All told, it was a pretty miserable end to the day. I hate being cold and wet. Next time, I'll bring a change of clothes!

There was one image from the day that I will carry with me forever. The pastor of my church here brought his wife and 3 daughters to the hash. They are little girls, and the smallest can't be more than 5 or 6.
Honestly, I was impressed she made it without being carried. I thought I had it rough getting smacked in the face with trees, and that poor little thing was getting smacked in the face with all the brush.
When Iona began to complain (I'm not blaming her; I would have, too), her father simply stepped directly in front of her, with one hand behind his back so she could hold on to his finger. For every step he took, Iona took 3, but her father was taking the brunt of all the brush.
After a while of shielding her, we came upon some rough terrain, and my pastor had to step aside to navigate them both. When he moved, however, and little Iona had to forge her own way through the undergrowth, he continuously encouraged her. "You're doing brilliantly, Iona." "Imagine how strong your legs will be when we're finished." He encouraged her all the way.

My heart was touched (read: I teared up) as I imagined how much more our heavenly Father shields us and encourages us as different times in our lives. Sometimes we need shielding, and sometimes his encouragement has to be enough sustain us while we're getting hit in the face with the brush.

It also reminded me of the daddy-daughter dates I had when I was small. (It doesn't help that Iona looks a lot like I did as a little girl.) My memories aren't as clear as the pictures taken, but I remember the puppy dog backpack filled with our sandwiches and picnicking in a forest. I also remember picking my way through a field (or a marsh maybe?) of reeds/grasses that were taller than me.

Hiking in the bush is a little bit different than that, but the idea is the same. Sometimes a little girl needs her Dad to shield her; sometimes his encouragement is enough, even when she's no longer a little girl and living far away in Nigeria.

I love you, Dad.

On Being Miss Thomas

When I consider my girlhood aspirations, which included being a ballerina/singer and owning a pony, becoming a teacher was not among them. Indeed, I spent 5 years of my life ensuring everyone that while I majored in English, I had no intention of teaching. It is laughable how mistaken I have proved myself to be.

Now that I find myself in the throes of lesson planning, classroom management, and grading, I have developed a deep appreciation and respect for my teachers from elementary school to college. It is a hard job. It's hard to stand in front of a classroom of--count them--24 6th-graders and command their attention. It's hard to force a discussion on Navajo Origin Myths with 4 11th-graders. It's hard to know what to do when the Nigerian 7th-graders turn against the American and British 7th-graders.

The toughest part of my job isn't actually interacting with my students. It's grading them. I knew coming into this that some of my students would have a better command of English than others. I just didn't expect there to be such a disparity between the ones that do and the ones that don't. In one class, I have a Nigerian child who can't spell "doesn't," another who began learning English in 2008, and another who daydreams in class because he can't follow along in the textbook when we read aloud.

At ICS, we practice differentiation, which basically means that we grade subjectively based on a child's English proficiency. As the English Literature teacher, I feel this pressure most profoundly. Differentiation doesn't mean playing favorites; it means grading a student based on what they know, and depending on the class, up to half of the students are differentiated in my gradebook. Out of 59 students in my 5 classes, up to 30 of them are graded on an individual basis. That's a lot of extra work, but mostly, just extra thought.

I so badly want to see my students succeed. I want to be Miss Thompson from that story "3 Letters from Teddy" in Chicken Soup for the Soul. I want to believe in my students until they believe in themselves. I want to champion in them a love of literature.

But the grades are in on the first round of tests, and it's not looking good. I won't curve and I won't give pluses or minuses. My grading is straightforward, but apparently my test questions are not. After reviewing a particular question on the 10th grade test, I decided to throw it out. Doing so, I learned afterwards, made the difference between a D and C for one of my students. I cannot express the delirious relief I felt when I changed his grade.

I know I'm a new teacher, but in the reading and research I've done, I've come to see that the responsibility for learning rests 100% on me as a teacher (and 100% on them as students, but that's another topic for another time). Based on that principle, a test is a reflection of me, the teacher, and my ability to make my students learn, so I feel the pinch and pain of every D.

I want to make sure my students see that literature can be fun. I'm contemplating a partial overhaul of some parts of my curriculum to allow for a week of supervised fun reading culminating in a book report. I want my kids to love reading as much as I did when I was a kid. Now that I'm teaching, I realize just how much I really do love literature. After 17 years of education and forced reading and college classes and the English major, I'd forgotten. Literature is my passion. I can't imagine teaching anything else.

More Pictures!

Thanks to Mom and her high-speed internet, I'm able to share a couple more pictures from Nigeria!

This picture was taken on my very first night in Abuja. If I look absolutely out of it, it's because I was. :) The white woman is my Canadian/British flatmate Jan and the Indian woman is Rachel. We're in her flat, which is directly above ours.


















I have adopted Nigerian fashion with open arms, and take great joy in wearing traditional dress to school on Fridays. I get tons of compliments for trying to "fit in." I bought this dress ready-made in the market, and top is a bit constricting, so I might have a tailor let it out. (I'm also having 2 other traditional outfits made - I should have those within the next 2 weeks)

See? Could be worse...

Dear Mom and Dad,

Today I spent the afternoon with K, a sweet lady from the South who moved to Nigeria 14 years ago. Apparently, she met her husband (a Nigerian) in the States, went to visit him in Nigeria, stayed for a month, and then decided to move here. She came home to tell her parents she was moving to Nigeria to be with a man they'd never met.

See, Mom and Dad? It could be worse...at least you had a month to process my leaving!

Just putting it into perspective.

Love,
Maggie


[On a more serious note, it appears that most of the women I've met who relocate from the US to Nigeria do so because they've fallen in love with a Nigerian. I appear to be in the minority, coming to Nigeria for the sake of employment, and because I'm recklessly independent. I think I still like being me.]