The connection through Paris and Air France gets you into Abuja a few hours earlier than the Amsterdam and KLM connection. We arrived at 5:00PM Wednesday after leaving Minneapolis at 5PM on Tuesday. Mori, who was to meet me at the airport to hand over the computer she asked me to buy and bring along did not make it to Abuja. I went to buy my ticket to Yola for the next day. I found that the IRS Airline 6PM flight was running late. I quickly exchanged $200 for 31000 Naira and got on the 6PM flight.
People here are used to people being late, travel is unpredictable. Normally, a 5 PM International arrival and 6PM Domestic departure is not possible. But the Domestic terminal is being upgraded so the domestic flights are going out of the International terminal and is a simple walk from one building to a connected smaller building. The plane departed at around 6:15. IRS is not my preferred airline. They only have two planes working. The third crash landed in Lagos and the duct tape and Bondo has not cured yet. We made it without incident. By 8 PM Yukubu Bulama had picked me up at the Yola Airport.
They had not expected me until the next day. Yakubu had asked James to clean the old mission house for me. The lady that usually does this has been ill lately. James had the only set of keys for the house. No one knew where James was. James is a teacher at the LCCN Deaf Centre. We finally, got a text message to James and I got into the house by 10PM Wednesday night. The house did not have any power even though the areas around the house had power. We found out Saturday that the wire from the well house to my house and to the other missionary house has shorted out and been disconnected.
Thursday we got a push cart of water brought over and filled my two barrels. The house is quite dusty. The Hamattan was mild on Thursday. You could see the brightest stars and the air is a brownish red haze. The dust cloud has the effect of suppressing the temperature. It was pleasant sleeping weather if being able to taste the air can be pleasant.
When I arrived my old phone worked fine but I got a message telling me I had to register my new SIM card. This card was registered in 2011 and should be OK. I decided not to spend a large sum of money for a data plan until I found out if I could register. Saturday afternoon, we drove to the AirTel office and they checked the phone and found it was registered. I bought the 500 MB 30 day plan for 2,000 Nairs ($12.90). The phone says I am connecting at 3G. The speed test shows much faster than last year. 0.3 to 0.5 Mbps download and 0.35 Mbps upload and this was from Yola to Lagos. It was faster on the download 0.63 Mbps and slower on the upload 0.25 Mbps from a server in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
On Saturday, we paid the electrician 6,000 Naira ($38.75) to string a new wire to the mission house I live in and to the mission house that is Yakubu's office. Power from the grid has been almost continuous since I arrived. But was almost 5PM on Saturday before I had power. The electrician is on the Church Works Committee so he does not charge for his labor. My battery on my laptop decided to stop holding any charge as soon as we got here. Now I can only surf the net on the phone or when there is power on the lap top.
Earlier this afternoon we sat and went over the projects and put together a schedule of activities for the rest of February. It will be a busy month. It looks like I will not have time to go to Bali during this visit. I will see Pastor Buduku at the National Convention and 11X17 color posters of the Aikkaku.
I also discovered that powdered milk does not last in opened containers for 10 months.
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