I had a slow work week but a very inspiring Friday. I was invited to a climate change workshop and Earth day celebrations by a cool Nigerian girl that I had met in COP15 last December. Discussions on the roles of developed and developing countries in climate change mitigation and adaptation with these passionate and bright young people was great!
In Europe we’re constantly presented lots of information on how to cut down carbon emissions, save energy and conserve our planet, and I’d say that a lot of my friends are quite environmentally conscious. I understand that the average Nigerian might not be very aware, or able to worry over these issues, as there are more pressing matters like earning enough money to buy food. However, I’ve been quite suprised of the average expat attitude. While me and Anna are the ones switching off lights and using A/C only when needed, the personnel of the Embassy leaves A/C running during the night or in the empty sauna’s dressing room and our expat friends drive their city jeeps everywhere. Besides Nigeria really needing these young environmental activitists, I think there’s still a lot of work to do in the attitudes of us from the West.
Earth day climate meet up
On Friday night we went to see a play. Abuja doesn’t have any theatres, but there is a group from Jos that comes in once a month or so. The beautiful French cultural center acted as a venue, with a stage set on its courtyard. I really liked the atmospheric setting, with the dark palm tree figures around, and the moon and the stars above. Despite the play being fantastic, the audience consisted almost only of expats. The Nigerians seem to prefer their movies to live performances.
The Dutch hosted an annual orange ball on Saturday. The party was centered around a competition on four activites, and it brought me lots of fun memories from my freshman year at TKK. My favourite one was the throwing of the sponges across a pool to a container adjusted to four helmets, worn by some of our team members!
Etkot & preparing the team outfit for Orange ball
fake nigerian girl 