Not Hot

We're in the thick of rainy season, meaning it's been raining a lot. Most of my days have been cloudy or overcast, with windows of sunshine, or perhaps a 20 minute or so sunblast--which is hot--throughout the day. Another way of looking at it, I've been quite comfy in cotton Carharts and a shirt.

I talked or texted with the Purdue team today. Everyone is in good spirits, a combination perhaps of getting into a groove here, enjoying the people we are working with, and, if I may, also knowing we're inside a week now before we return to our loved ones in Indiana.

Role-playing is my favorite part of the trainings, especially when we have them "act out" how they will approach the village chief to ask for permission to do a training/demonstration in the village. Nigerians love to laugh, and they really get going with this part of the training. My team leader, Damisa, always has at least one woman play the role of village chief. That is a hoot, and a very interesting thing to see, as women are not village chiefs in Nigeria. However, they surely know how chiefs act. When the extension agent comes into the village during role playing, the female chief actresses are quite tough! They ask difficult questions about the project and the bagging technology. The male agents laugh and roll along with it, but also they seem a bit nervous about how they will perform/how well their answers may be/what others may think.

Food: moi moi is one of my favorite dishes. It's cowpea that is ground into flour, more or less, and then water is added to thicken it into an airy dough of sorts, from what I understand. Add in some peppers, onions, spices, maybe a hard-boiled egg, or even some meat. Then you boil/steam it in a cup mold or plastic bag. In Jalingo the other day, I had the best moi moi ever! My Nigerian colleague agreed, saying it was delicious.

This is my 3rd time working in Nigeria, and I have to say it's been my most enjoyable. I have to chalk that up to our counterpart here in Nigeria--IITA, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. What a great group of people!

It's Saturday evening, 5:46 p.m. I have a solid/fast inet connection. Doing fine...

--Jim