Nigerian Journal #1

I’m on assignment for Rotary of Walla Walla to Nigeria. As Chair of the International Service Committee, I was instrumental in writing a $14,000.00 grant to construct a borehole and overhead storage facility that would provide portable and good drinking water to the students and members of the Achi Mbieri School in Owerri, Imo State. This has been completed and the Board of our club requested that I make an audit visit to the site and attend the opening of the facilities. Dr. James Opara, a fellow Rotarian and a native of Nigeria, who is the spark behind this project, enlisted the services of Dean Cummings from Newport-Priest River club in our Rotary District to write a travel grant for all 3 of us to travel here to make plans to extend this project to the larger district. I’m not up on all the technicalities; so you’ll have to wait for more details later.

It was a very long trip. We left home in Walla Walla at 4:45 Wednesday morning, and arrived at the hotel in Lagos at 8:00pm Thursday evening! – a 6.5 hours lay-over in Seattle; a 10-hour flight to Paris; running all over the airport in Paris, with many bus transfers with long security lines, etc., etc – my first time flying into Paris, and on Air France in Europe; an hour delay leaving Paris; a 6-hour flight to Lagos; 1.5-hours to clear Immigration and get our baggage; and dealing with heavy traffic after we left the airport to go to the hotel to stay overnight and getting some rest before we catch the flight in the morning for Owerri.

Opara is a good host; and his family living in Lagos came out in force to meet us at the airport. They gave me a Nigerian name: Chukwuma (which means, “God knows”). At the hotel they even brought a home-cooked meal for these hungry souls. The room that I’m in has no internet connection and there is no wireless around here. By the time we cleared Customs it was too late to get a SIM card for my phone, so I could not call back home. However, Opara called his wife in WW, and she made the 3-way connection so I could let Vie know that we got here safely.

My phone # here is: 011-234-703-381-7692