Nigeria - More about Obeledu

This morning, I was woken up by the sound of a rooster crowing and goats bleating. Yeah, countryside.

So yeah, my dad has a dog. His name is Prince and he’s very unruly. Well, he’s still young and wants to play all the time, even when he’s covered in dirt and mud. He ruined 2 shirts of mine in about a 30 minute span. I like him and all, but stupid dog.

Oh, right. The flight out here was pretty interesting. I should be used to it from the couple times that I’ve done it, but it’s still pretty crazy to me. The terminal building was very manual. Signs hanging from the ceiling showed the flights. There were no screens or LEDs or anything like that. I guess I just thinking of airports as requiring a minimum amount of technology in them, but when there are only maybe a handful of flights in and out any given day, I guess it works. Needless to say, there aren’t any gates so to speak, only a door out to the field and the mobile stairs they put out next to the planes. Also, the baggage claim in Enugu (the airport that we arrived in) was a trip. Think tractor pulling trailer of bags into a room where the bags are put on a desk.

Oh, I didn’t mention this before, but right now it’s the season called Harmattan in Nigeria. That’s when desert wind picks up sand from the Sahara and covers the country in a blanket of haze and absolute dryness. It’s hazy everywhere, all the time. Thankfully, it’s also relatively cool (“cool” meaning in the high 80’s, low 90’s during the day with no humidity).

So what happened today? I watched my dad’s helper guy split up the meat from a cow that they had slaughtered this morning. The meat was split in order to give to my dad’s siblings’ and friends’ families. It was pretty crazy watching him cut everything up. But thankfully, I didn’t see the slaughter itself. That might have been too much. Oh, and apparently, they squeeze the feces out of the intestines with their hands while preparing the meat. Nice.

There was more heading around and visiting family and friends. Tomorrow is when the crazy celebration and stuff starts.