Thanksgiving in Nigeria

I know it's been a while since my last post. I will fill you in on the details of what has happened since my last post: Lots and lots of school work.

I'm still really enjoying teaching here and things are in the works for my first ever concert, where we will have a jazz ensemble, the AISA Beginning Band, AISA Combined Band, and the AISA Returning band. In total, I have 27 students in the band here, and it has been challenging to spread the rehearsal time evenly to prepare for the concert. Even with the challenges, I think that I have taught some good fundamental techniques and concepts and I anticipate a great concert this Thursday night.

With all of that aside, this Thanksgiving marks the first ever holiday that I have not been home to celebrate. It was a new and strange experience for me, but the people here have been so accomodating and genuinely accepting that the change of scenery from my 'traditional' Thanksgiving celebration was very enjoyable.

A group of 14 teachers planned a trip to an ex-President's villa 3 hours outside of Abuja. This place was built in the late 1990's and looks like something out of a movie. The group of teachers split 4 of the 5 available rooms, and were able to do whatever we wanted for the 3 days that we were there. The place has a pool with a tiki-bar, a large covered seating area where we ate dinner, a huge kitchen, and a mulitpurpose hall with snooker and pingpong table. The highlight of the estate is the animals that run freely within the walls of the compound; peacocks, rabbits, and small african deer can be seen all day.

We relaxed for 3 days from Thursday to Saturday and left on Sunday morning. The highlights of the trip include the excellent meals made by various groups of teachers on each night, lounging by the pool during the day and playing snooker and foosball at night, and getting to know my colleagues a little better in the process. Even though I was far away from what I know as Thanksgiving, I was thankful to have a psuedo-family to celebrate with.

I shouldn't forget to mention that we rented motorcycles for a few days and had some fun driving through the local villages. We most definitely had an excellent time.

Everything went flawlessly until the time came to pack up and drive home. We departed from Minna around 9 AM as a 4 vehicle caravan. Nigerian roads are pothole-laden, and all it took was one distraction for me to miss Nigeria's biggest pothole on the road. 100 meters beyond the pothole, we pulled my car over and assessed the damages: two bent up rims and flat tires. It was great that we had just passed through a village, so that after I pulled off the two flats, local people helped me find a tire repair shop, where the man used hand tools to pound out the dents and reseal the tires to the rims. Less than an hour later, we were able to resume travel