Now, back at the office, was able to start to organize my thoughts, notes and research from the trip.
Was able to reach a satellite teleport operator in Florida that does a fair amount of business in the West Africa region. He was very helpful in filling in some details on what the various satellite options were and what the relative costs of each were. Also, a US based teleport has a distinct disadvantage of European teleports in that these guys end up doing a double-hop satellite bounce to make it happen. This sounded like a tough business for US businesses, as it effectively doubles the cost of transmission...
I'm currently working on getting some information from PanAmSat as well, hopefully they'll be able to continue to fill in the gaps that I have as far as current capabilities and cost models for Internet access in the region.
Clearly, this multi-hop satellite based Internet solution is sub-optimal on several dimensions: cost, bandwidth, latency, capacity, reliability, locality.
As to cost, for example, a 256kbps dedicated both ways, C-band setup costs about $4k/month. I can get a full dedicated T1 (1.54Mbps) at just $400/month and that's not even the best deal. Latency -- I wish I had measured my latency from Abuja, but I can't imagine it being real good!
And then try to cover the $4k/month costs using the current market price of N100/hour at cyber cafes. At 100% capacity, each PC can generate some $500/month -- just to cover a decent dedicated network, one would need 8 full time fully utilized PCs. Since that just won't happen, what appears to be happening is the providers are opting for shared bandwidth (perhaps a 35:1 sharing ratio) to get the costs of bandwidth down, with a complete loss in quality of service and anything approaching broadband speeds.
Not the best situation, and since the connectivity continues to be fragmented with each provider solving the same problem over and over again, their is no market strength for the African providers...
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Back in the States
So, it's been over a week since last I posted and I've done a bit more traveling since then...
I was planning on a leisurely evening before I left Abuja, but my friends arrived at the hotel (Nsikan, Arvind, Joshua, Nsikan's sister Alma, her friend, and a friend of Joshua's), so I had to go have a final farwell beer (or 2). It was a good send off!
Wednesday morning, I get up around 5, check out, and head to the airport at 6. Had 3,000 Naira left to my name so that was what I ended up paying for the cab ride. At the airport good and early, which was good as I had to argue with the British Air folk in order to get them to check my luggage at least as far as Washington. Got that taken care of and hang out awaiting the flight. My last images of Nigeria...
On the long flight to London, I did get to at least see the Sahara out the window as we flew over a lot of sand. Very impressive, would love to experience just a bit of the desert in person...
...but it is a very large desert!And then it was fun seeing the European land mass appear...
And I was able to test my zoom from 37,000 feet moving at some 500 Mph to get a glimpse of some European city...wonder what city this is?
After switching planes at Heathrow, I took United back to Dulles...another hefty flight and fairly well packed in. Got some reading done and I think I caught a bit of a nap. Once in D.C., was very surprised to get through customs with all my luggage (given my luck going to Nigeria!). But I did, and it was about 7:30PM EST, and my flight isn't until 6:30AM on Thursday morning...
Tried to catch a late night flight to ATL, but they were all booked...couldn't get my boarding pass, so found a really comfortable (as if) chair in baggage claim that was close to an outlet so I could watch a movie (Tombstone) and catch a couple minutes of shut eye before my morning flight...You can see my morning alarm clock at Dulles...
Back in ATL, had another chance to experience MARTA before finally seeing my family at the pick-up spot. A very happy reunion!
It's good to be back home, if only for a few hours before we head off to celebrate Christmas in Jackson, Mississippi...another 7 hours on the road, but a good relaxing time is awaiting me at the end of the trail!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Last Day!
Well, unfortunately, my last day was spent mostly in a funk -- I apparently got something, ate something, or dranks something that didnt suit me. I was fighting a fever all day while trying to complete my outline for a Regional IXP position paper for Mrs. Emakpore.
I did get it done, but I struggled through it which was a drag.
My final meeting with Mrs. Emakpore occured this morning, where we discussed the framework and several issues that she wanted to make sure were included in the outline (things like national versus regional, where would it be located, coordinating across agencies/countries...). Big project, but lots of potential to spur a massive leap forward for the region in terms of connectivity and cost of said connectivity.
I also have been using SkpeOut the last couple days -- since my cell phone still doesn't have a charger (I decided to do an experiment and see if I could live without it). Apparently I can, but I have to find other outlets! SkypeOut lets you call from your computer to any old POTS phone out there. Actually called Arvind across the table -- would have been interesting to trace those packets, and then the return connection, to Nigeria and ultimately to the cell provider. Makes for an interesting delay, but hey, it's cool!
Finish packing tonight, head to the airport early in the morning to catch a 9:00 flight out. Sad and happy all at the same time. Eager to be home, definitely. Looking forward to a lot of things back home. NOT looking forward to the flights home though. At least I'm flying British Air and not some Nigerian airline...shikes, another near miss yesterday with an emergency landing of a Bellview (Nigerian) aircraft in Ghana flying from Lagos.
Well, likely my last post from Nigeria, so thanks for everybody who has read this, and feel free to repsond or leave comments!
Kipp
I did get it done, but I struggled through it which was a drag.
My final meeting with Mrs. Emakpore occured this morning, where we discussed the framework and several issues that she wanted to make sure were included in the outline (things like national versus regional, where would it be located, coordinating across agencies/countries...). Big project, but lots of potential to spur a massive leap forward for the region in terms of connectivity and cost of said connectivity.
I also have been using SkpeOut the last couple days -- since my cell phone still doesn't have a charger (I decided to do an experiment and see if I could live without it). Apparently I can, but I have to find other outlets! SkypeOut lets you call from your computer to any old POTS phone out there. Actually called Arvind across the table -- would have been interesting to trace those packets, and then the return connection, to Nigeria and ultimately to the cell provider. Makes for an interesting delay, but hey, it's cool!
Finish packing tonight, head to the airport early in the morning to catch a 9:00 flight out. Sad and happy all at the same time. Eager to be home, definitely. Looking forward to a lot of things back home. NOT looking forward to the flights home though. At least I'm flying British Air and not some Nigerian airline...shikes, another near miss yesterday with an emergency landing of a Bellview (Nigerian) aircraft in Ghana flying from Lagos.
Well, likely my last post from Nigeria, so thanks for everybody who has read this, and feel free to repsond or leave comments!
Kipp
Monday, December 19, 2005
Back to the grind...
Okay, so it's like Monday and all, so we schlepped into the office and spent the morning slaving away. Really sucks to be us!Actually, we did do work, all three of us were rather tied to this one spot -- we could have moved away every once in awhile, but this appears to be the only spot with outlets. So, while wireless in one sense, we were very much tied to a wire. And, if it's there, you might as well jack in, right?
I spent the day preparing for a meeting with my local boss, Mrs. Emakpore, I have a 10:00 meeting with her tomorrow to discuss the status and what the end result she can look forward to should look like. We'll see how that one goes...
Also, was able to take a bit of time to complete my shopping activities -- you know, giving back to the community and all! This time, did most of it on my own, so I think I gave, and gave, and gave...but that's okay, right (Pam, you got my back, right?).
Spent the evening doing some more work and had to take a break to get some shots of our office at night....
Arvind, hanging at the office, 'working' late
Arvind and Santa get real close!
Does the boathouse look inviting or what?
Across the pool view...Sunday
Sunday was mostly a day of rest and shopping. That's right, I travel all the way around the world just to shop -- I'm sure my man points have just gone down again...
Spent the morning reading and doing a bit of work. Then hung at the pool for an hour before heading to the Wuse Market again. This time to actually buy things. We were able to get Joseph (our host's driver as seen in the picture) to take us to the market and make sure we didn't get completely taken by the locals in the negotiation process. Really appreciate him helping us out -- we bought him a couple of things in appreciation.
It's a very lengthy process actually performing a transaction here, the art of price negotiation is certainly not one of my strengths. I think Joseph was appalled whenever I got involved! Both Arvind and I were able to find some items of interest and think we ended up doing quite well in the end.
Later in the afternoon, spent at the Boathouse for an early dinner, some work, then back to the room for an early night.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Abuja National Mosque
The Abuja National Mosque is not very far from the Sheraton, and provides a nice element to take some photos, especially during a sunrise on a Sunday morning. This first one was created using the 'illustration' setting on my camera and I thought it had a pleasing look about it.Note that many of my photos of Abuja include a hazy element to them. This is actually dust brought in by winds coming south from the Sahara -- it's called the Harmattan. This article talks about the Harmattan along with a number of other things that happen during this season.
Mosque highlighted by the sun hitting the the infamous "harmattan dust haze"
Close up of the mosque during sunrise in the dust
The market and steak
After Arvind (finally) completed some work he needed to get out, we decided to take a trip to the Wuse Market.
Traffic to the market was crazy busy. I thought we were going to die of asphixiation before we made it in!
Traffic to the market was crazy busy. I thought we were going to die of asphixiation before we made it in!
This market is quite large and stuffed with vendors hawking their wares. As we arrived rather late in the day (Arvind's fault), we had little time to actually shop, so we took the time to simply browse and explore the market.Our driver, Ishaku, graciously volunteered to walk us around the market and show us the various areas. Meanwhile, a kid Muhamed attempted to intervene and was roundly told off by our driver. For some reason, I think Arvind and I stood out a bit and made for an easy mark!
Into the market...The environment was somewhat reminiscent of my memories of our county fair. Lots of people yelling at you to come in to the shops, people stopping by to hawk their goods, carneys calling out, people moving about. A very full sensory situation.
We looked at several outfits (I can never remember all of the Nigerian terms for the clothes) as well as some raw material. At this point, we were rushed so I declined to purchase until I had more time and not be rushed by any external factors.
Ishaku then showed us to the food section of the market. Fruits and vegatables of all sorts and colors and sizes. The meat section was especially interesting -- from stacks of fish to odd looking things that I'd rather not know. Butchers were cutting up sections of meat in one area, lots of knives hacking away and flies buzzing. Probably could have gotten that goat head here!
When we took our cameras out to get a photo with Ishaku, the crowd started milling about. Ishaku was especially interested in seeing his picture! Some of the crowd would step out of the way of the photo, but would immediately surround us again. Very interesting.Arvind was able to get him a pair of what I would call flip-flops and what others seem to call slippers for N300 (down from the proferred N600). We examined some more material and then the shops were all closing down...
That evening we spent a few hours working by the pool before hunger overcame us. Off to the Ibuku Steakhouse for a nice dinner. I hadn't eaten yet, so food was tasting very good. New England clam chowder, a steak, and some mushrooms -- after that, I was pretty much ready for a night's sleep!
Immersion
Nsikan, Arvind and I spent a couple of hours with Dr. Raymond Akwule, formerly a professor at George Mason, and current CEO of the Netpost, a public-private entity attempting to span Nigeria with Internet access and services by leveraging the existing postal service infrastructure. Dr. Akuwle, a very professional, ambitious and visionary man has had his hand in world affairs for many years and in ICT in developing countries during that time as well.
He spoke of early 80's when he recognized the need for national telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria, his work in various countries helping create Internet gateways, of his work with establishing DBI, his work with the UN, The Gambia, Ghana, South Africa, and elsewhere.
Originally our team had targeted working closely with Dr. Akwule on our LMI project. During discussions, he had cooled on the idea and he gave his reasoning during our discussions. His argument was largely that the amount of time the team would be able to spend on the project would not be sufficient to produce 'real' results that would be useful to 'people like him'. I tend to agree that substantial, large-scale impact studies and research are indeed needed, there are a number of smaller and yet useful projects that can be completed in the time frame.
I would also argue that the likelyhood of success of projects such as ours are very dependent on the cooperation and assistance of people like Dr. Akwule -- that the 'immersion' process of understanding the culture, the situation on the ground, the background material -- all of that could and should begin and proceed throughout the semester culminating in the on-ground experience.
This, in fact, is what we were attempting to do early on in the semester when the original proposal was floated to do this project. One could imagine that with current field support, a small team of researchers could gain a better foundation in which to arrive in country with a well established background, ready to execute. Rather, what ended up was very little ground support with the team having to perform a lot of logistics and catchup work on the ground rather than back home. In my estimation, not the most effective use of our time.
Nonetheless, Dr. Akwule provided many insights into the evironment, some useful advice and perhaps some additional contacts that we can leverage in our reserach. His knowledge of the cyber cafe scene is fairly extensive (even going of into a discussion of C- versus Ku-band satellite capabilties) given that that is one element of the Netpost strategy. His thoughts on this topic could be very useful for our understanding of the situation and a faming of the problem sets.
He spoke of early 80's when he recognized the need for national telecommunications infrastructure in Nigeria, his work in various countries helping create Internet gateways, of his work with establishing DBI, his work with the UN, The Gambia, Ghana, South Africa, and elsewhere.
Originally our team had targeted working closely with Dr. Akwule on our LMI project. During discussions, he had cooled on the idea and he gave his reasoning during our discussions. His argument was largely that the amount of time the team would be able to spend on the project would not be sufficient to produce 'real' results that would be useful to 'people like him'. I tend to agree that substantial, large-scale impact studies and research are indeed needed, there are a number of smaller and yet useful projects that can be completed in the time frame.
I would also argue that the likelyhood of success of projects such as ours are very dependent on the cooperation and assistance of people like Dr. Akwule -- that the 'immersion' process of understanding the culture, the situation on the ground, the background material -- all of that could and should begin and proceed throughout the semester culminating in the on-ground experience.
This, in fact, is what we were attempting to do early on in the semester when the original proposal was floated to do this project. One could imagine that with current field support, a small team of researchers could gain a better foundation in which to arrive in country with a well established background, ready to execute. Rather, what ended up was very little ground support with the team having to perform a lot of logistics and catchup work on the ground rather than back home. In my estimation, not the most effective use of our time.
Nonetheless, Dr. Akwule provided many insights into the evironment, some useful advice and perhaps some additional contacts that we can leverage in our reserach. His knowledge of the cyber cafe scene is fairly extensive (even going of into a discussion of C- versus Ku-band satellite capabilties) given that that is one element of the Netpost strategy. His thoughts on this topic could be very useful for our understanding of the situation and a faming of the problem sets.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Diet coke
So, I've been good and haven't had any diet coke (my usual mainstay for beverages back home) since I left ATL. Decided today to give the local Diet Coke a try. Interestingly, Diet coke costs N450 while regular Coke is only N300. Too bad for me! And that is for .5L, so I'm much better off drinking Star beer than Diet Coke!
Back at the pool
Just to torture some of the other teams (I IMd with Mike in Rwanda yesterday and they hadn't showered in like 4 days), here is another picture of how I've been spending my morning.
I'm actually getting something like 491kbps today! Awesome connection, and after about 2 liters of water, I'm feeling much better.
We have a meeting with Professor Raymond Akwule who is a professor at George Mason University and has done a lot of work in ICT4D. The meeting is scheduled at 1PM this afternoon over at the Nikon Hilton....probably go back to the room soon and prepare.
But first, a quick dunk in the pool!
Friday, poolside, and friends
So, Friday afternoon, the wifi network came back to life which made me happy. Hanging by the pool doing work and catching up is a good way to hang.
I was able to skype with my wife (since my cell phone is still lacking a charger, I've been living without and/or leveraging Arvind's phone for connectivity in the vocal dimension). The skype call was great, however, holding my laptop up to my head like a cell phone isn't as comfortable! Actually, it was funny, as our phone call was dropped...but it wasn't on my side, my wife's network dropped the connection -- somewhat ironic, eh?
Also was able to do a bit more research on regional IXPs, still gathering relevant literature and trying to get contacts in country to dig out additional details...
Sun goes down and head back to the room for a bit of relaxing. Around 8, Arvind and I meet up and have a bit of food. He's busy finishing a paper that is due, so Nsikan and Joshua come and pick me up for a bit of eating and drinking.
A very close group that I was able to hang out with – Ben, a soft spoken gentlemen whose wife recently came home, father of 4 (3 boys and 1 girl of 11). Nsikan, my colleague from Tech, who has a rich history within Nigeria with his father having been a well respected official within the foreign affairs(?) department. Joshua, a very vibrant fellow who has a lot to say about the problems within Nigeria and how to solve them. A new fellow I met tonight, Robert(?) who is an officer of Protocol for some lady within the Ministry of Health – not a lot to say, but pleasant to be around. And lastly, Zacharia, a Lietenant Colonel within the Nigerian Army who was exceedingly eager to bend my ear. “Tomorrow, we will talk”, was his incessant murrurm in my ear…
Regardless of their differences, they are a deeply personal people – much regarding the touch of human flesh and the acknowldgement that comes with personal contact. You can feel it, you can see it, you can hear it….nothing goes on without a personal touch. It’s warming to be included and completely embraced by them…there is no way to not just simply enjoy being around them.
It was pleasant and I was able to sample the local cuisine. In particular, I did like the isi ewu (goat head) which had a good flavor. The other one, I think it was cow leg(?) was okay, but not as tasty as the isi ewu. And the last one I declined was the tongue, something that is actually eaten in Nebraska, but not something I've been too interested in over the years.
It was also nice as the Star beer were about N120 for .6L --- so I figured I could get 3 for the price of 1 compared to the Sheraton, so I stocked up!
The crew dropped me back at the hotel and poured me out of the car...
Digital Bridge Institute
FRIDAY
7 AM WAT – time for a Friday! Quick shower, some work in the room, then off to the pool
8:30 AM WAT – poolside, but no Internet access today. Looks like the access point is just fine, but the Internet uplink is toast. Bummer…go find the group and prepare for our 9:30 meeting.
9:30 AM WAT – Arrive at DBI (Digital Bridge Institute) for a meeting with the Director/CEO of the organization. We brief Dr. Olasupo Ogunfemi and his staff on our activities. He apparently has been in communication with Raymond Akuwle regarding our mission, but was waiting for us to arrive to actually discuss it with us. It would have been much better if he had communicated directly with us prior to our arrival in country as we likely could have arranged the logistics a bit better for an effective stay with them…
DBI has as its mission to build human capacity in the ICT sector, offering certificate courses and programs as well as a post-graduate degree program.
We get a tour of the facility, interrupt a class on CDMA and microwave propagation properties to introduce our research, a couple of questions, but mostly welcomes were extended by the students.
The institute has both a vocational and an academic track, the academic track being only 10 weeks old and still under development. They have several active courses going on during most weeks. They bring in industry experts, subject matter experts as it were. Sounds like they get some folk who know their stuff -- 10 plus years practical industry experience in the field they are teaching.
Mostly very centric around telco -- wireless, microwave, vsat, switching and all of the mobile technologies. I asked about the Internet side and he said they do some, but it really sounds almost exclusive on the telephony and very little on the data side. Seems to me a big gap.
They have very nice facilities and at least some of them are being put to good use. They have their own VSAT connectivity with some 1Mbps up and 5Mbps down, allowing them to do videoconferencing.
They have trained some 800 professionals to date and appear to be going strong. Many of the folk in the training have been sent by the operators, others are attempting to get the education/training to join the operators.
We will do a teleconference in mid-January to disseminate the results of our research to DBI and perhaps some of their students.
11:30 AM WAT – Back at hotel – go change into shorts and head to the pool – alas, still no network…very sad…
7 AM WAT – time for a Friday! Quick shower, some work in the room, then off to the pool
8:30 AM WAT – poolside, but no Internet access today. Looks like the access point is just fine, but the Internet uplink is toast. Bummer…go find the group and prepare for our 9:30 meeting.
9:30 AM WAT – Arrive at DBI (Digital Bridge Institute) for a meeting with the Director/CEO of the organization. We brief Dr. Olasupo Ogunfemi and his staff on our activities. He apparently has been in communication with Raymond Akuwle regarding our mission, but was waiting for us to arrive to actually discuss it with us. It would have been much better if he had communicated directly with us prior to our arrival in country as we likely could have arranged the logistics a bit better for an effective stay with them…
DBI has as its mission to build human capacity in the ICT sector, offering certificate courses and programs as well as a post-graduate degree program.
We get a tour of the facility, interrupt a class on CDMA and microwave propagation properties to introduce our research, a couple of questions, but mostly welcomes were extended by the students.
The institute has both a vocational and an academic track, the academic track being only 10 weeks old and still under development. They have several active courses going on during most weeks. They bring in industry experts, subject matter experts as it were. Sounds like they get some folk who know their stuff -- 10 plus years practical industry experience in the field they are teaching.
Mostly very centric around telco -- wireless, microwave, vsat, switching and all of the mobile technologies. I asked about the Internet side and he said they do some, but it really sounds almost exclusive on the telephony and very little on the data side. Seems to me a big gap.
They have very nice facilities and at least some of them are being put to good use. They have their own VSAT connectivity with some 1Mbps up and 5Mbps down, allowing them to do videoconferencing.
They have trained some 800 professionals to date and appear to be going strong. Many of the folk in the training have been sent by the operators, others are attempting to get the education/training to join the operators.
We will do a teleconference in mid-January to disseminate the results of our research to DBI and perhaps some of their students.
11:30 AM WAT – Back at hotel – go change into shorts and head to the pool – alas, still no network…very sad…
Friday, December 16, 2005
Wednesday and Thursday
Notes from the events that took place on Wednesday and Thursday:
WEDNESDAY
7-9 AM WAT – Studied the materials downloaded from Net yesterday, wrote up an outline for a Regional Internet Exchange proposal for WATRA. They would like to get the region moving in this direction such that Internet traffic is not all routed internationally even when it is regional traffic.
Spoke briefly with Nsikan from Pittsburgh(?). He’s on a long lay-over and will be heading to London soon, then on to Abuja by Thursday morning local time.
9-10 AM WAT РArvind and I went on a hunt for cyber cafes. During our walk last night, a lady told us there was one about 4 blocks away from the hotel right next to the Mr. Bigg (looks like a McDonalds type of place). The place she mentioned had a bunch of shops, but no cyber caf̩. They directed us to another place.
Found the place they were talking about, but when we went in, they had no power. Bummer.
Decided to see if we could navigate our own way towards WATRA headquarters where we knew there is a cyber café and look for others while we were at it. Found our way there, had to ask several times for directions, but eventually made it, about a 45 minute walk or so.
10:00 AM WAT Рat the Mon-Aden Caf̩ (1 Koforidua Street, Zone 2, Wuse, Abuja). N100 for 1 hour so we each get an hour. About halfway through, the net goes down so I recon the place. About 12 X 15 feet room, 9 computers, plus 1 controller computer running software called CafeStation. They use DirectOPC (?) as their ISP. CafeAgent is the client software on each PC. Running Windows XP (2002).
A view during our walk across town.
Whilst on our walk to WATRA, spotted this Ministry of Health -- you may be able to notice that it is the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme....I didn't know that leprosy was still an issue, being a naive american and all...
From within the WATRA compound, spotted what looks like a soldier getting hsi boot shined. Framed in the razor wire gave it a nice look. Actually the building to the right is where the cyber cafe is that we have used several times on our trip.
11:30 AM WAT – head back to hotel.
12-7 PM WAT - decide to check out the possibility of Internet by the Boathouse. Discovered Live wireless Internet via CTAccess – a new launch of what is planned to be a citywide wireless Internet access system. The current system is in 4 places, one of which is at the Sheraton. Access is free for now, but as it grows they will likely start charging – word is about $30/month (N4000/month).
Life on the wireless Internet is good!
Spend the rest of the day working, pulling in research, and just catching up on computing and networking. Found some good material on IXPs and especially some interesting stuff on regional IXPs in Africa. This appears to be gaining some major momentum.
7-10 PM WAT – not feeling so well, hang with Arvind at a restaurant, but then have to head to bed…phone call from Joseph indicating Dr. Best had arrived…excellent.
THURSDAY
7-8 AM WAT – feeling better, had a bit of a feverish sleep, but better now. Head down to the Boathouse to catch up on email, preparation for the day. We travel to WATRA to meet again with Mrs. Emakpore.
Arvind and Dr. Best at the WATRA facilities.
8-9 AM WAT – dicuss/verify research plan with Mrs. Emakpore. 4 research projects are under way:
1) Sustainability of WATRA – general framework
2) Regional IXP working plan/business case
3) Characterization of Regulatory bodies in WATRA
4) Internet usage in Abuja
Prepare for a trip to NCC.
9-10 AM WAT – Meet with Ernest C.A. Ndukwe, Chief Executive, NCC. A very influential gentleman, especially as head of the regulatory body within Nigeria. We briefed him on our research efforts, gaining some insight into the attitudes of NCC. I was also able to gather some information regarding IXPs.
Apparently this has become a national priority (an IXP in Nigeria first, but a regional IXP would be next). Apparently the WSIS meeting in Tunis provided President with some fire, as he has now declared this a goal in 2006 – to have a Nigerian IXP in place.
Even though Nigeria has 3 companies that have received licenses for IXPs, none have actually happened. Mr. Ndukwe cited the mistrust between operators as a key impediment to progress. The regulations within Nigeria are very open and encourage this type of interconnection. NCC as a regulatory body appears to be doing well – on many levels, organizationally, leadership, financial, and enforcement.
Very helpful meeting and much appreciated to have Dr. Ndukwe take his time to meet with us.
11ish AM WAT – arrive back at hotel to spend a bit of time online working until our driver arrives to take us to the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, car should arrive around 12:30. Grab a bit of chow at the Boathouse (while the Business Center at the Sheraton may be losing some revenue, I think the Boathouse is making up for it by up campers in the bar).
12:45 PM WAT – Driver finds us and we cram (really) into the back of a car to take the quick ride over toe the Directorate.
1ish PM WAT – Arrive and head towards the Directorate. Of course I’m assuming it’ll be similar to our last meeting, our team sitting down with somebody and maybe their assistant or other exec and briefing them on our activities. Wow was I wrong!
We walk into the room, very formal setting, a large official conference table, with some 12 people already at their places, a camera crew follows us in and begins videoing the session. Okay, this is not what I expected!
Engr. Dr. Lule Yakubu Bassi is the Director General (DG as Mike calls him) of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, Ministry of Cooperation & Integration in Africa. He proceeds to fill us in on the mission of their ministry, namely:
1) Advocacy – connecting with Nigerian experts inside and outside of Africa. There are some 37 million Africans that live outside of Africa, 17 million of them are Nigerians. They are trying to reconnect these xpats to Nigeria. As he is fond of saying (I may lose something here) --- When Nigerians die, they want to be buried back home – they are tired of just receiving bones, they would like to receive some live bodies to help!
2) Expatriates – they have a growing database of xpats willing to server in Africa
3) STEP – Scientific & Technical Exchange Program – this has some $25 million dollars in the African Development Bank with the ability to spend $2.5 M each year as seed funding for new programs. The eLearning program that Dr. Best has been involved with is one such program.
4) Collaboration with other Institutions – both inside and outside of Africa, funding agencies, NGOs, etc.
We then introduce ourselves and brief the group on our research. In particular he was interested in Arvind’s work on Internet usage and indicated that one of their program officers should work with Arvind to provide some additional information.
One anecdotal note that came out during this: there is some tension in and around the city regarding the demolition of a bunch of structures. From several conversations, I’ll try to summarize my understanding. Back (late 80’s, early 90’s) when the capital was being moved from Lagos to Abuja, a city plan was constructed (ostensibly to overcome the problems that occurred in the mostly unplanned Lagos). This city plan was quite extensive and very functionally (and exclusively) zoned.
Unfortunately, as the ministries were moved to Abuja, the city could not really support the full build out as per plan. This encouraged people to break the zoning rules in order to get things done. Houses built in a zone intended to be a technology park, ISP’s built where they shouldn’t…all sorts of things that just weren’t to plan.
Well, they decided that the way to fix this was to demolish the structures that were not ‘right’ according to plan. Apparently, they notified the people living/working in these structures that they were going to be demolished, but that is the extent of the compensation that was received (if I’m wrong, nobody has identified any type of compensation as yet).
One of the places that was razed was an ISP that the DG and staff had worked with quite extensively over the years. Interestingly, the cite of the building was across the street from the Sheraton in what is now a dirt field (well, dirt and rubble).
This demolition, reasonably, has caused some tension. Not only has it been disruptive, but there is no specific intention of using the land that has been cleared…very odd way to make things ‘right’.
Okay, back to the here and now – the DG has arranged a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja. Not just with us, but with a large portion of his team as well…
2:00 PM WAT – we all pile into 3 cars (of course ours had no AC!) and drive about 35 minutes out to the University of Abuja. I was in the car with Nsikan, the driver and two of the Ministries staff. In particular, Ogwo Christiana C. (Christy) who is the Principal Program Officer, and one Theodore O. P. Sefia, Esq., LL.B., B.L. – Assistant Chief Legal Officer. Theodore is quite animated and discusses many topics that are affecting Nigera (I note an undertone of frustration at the lack of progress).
2:45ish WAT – Arrive at the university and are ushered into a similar (albeit without the imposing table) meeting as before. In this instance, we are meeting with Prof. Nubu O. Yaqub, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja.
The DG rolls out his speech again, we do another round of introductions and research briefings. Then the VC gives his little bit.
UofA has about 8000 students plus some 25,000 distance learning students that come into campus on weekends. It was established in 1988, many different programs.
Sadly, they lost their Registrar in the recent plane tragedy on the flight to Port Harcourt and were in mourning.
The VC has been there for 1.5 years, they are currently in temporary campus, with a massive, massive piece of land granted to them (11,800 hectares), but without a budget to develop the land.
Interestingly, the school has no Internet access – WHAT? And this didn’t seem to bother the VC much…
Things were wrapped up very quickly (like, can you say “get the heck out!”) as they took a group photo and ushered us away so that the Governor would not see us when he arrived….
Head back to hotel…crammed into a non-airconditioned car full of people…but with pleasant conversation with Theodore. Meanwhile, Nsikan takes a nap in the front seat!
4-7 PM WAT – Nsikan and Arvind head over to WATRA to complete some work with Mrs. Emakpore – Nsikan to do some survey approval, and Arvind to complete the silly IRB stuff…
Evening WAT - Nsikan and two of his friends (Joshua and Ben) took us to a local Nigerian restaurant. Outdoor seating and a beautiful evening. Apparently an evangelical gathering is going on next door, sounds like they are getting quite into it…
Order a couple of beers and pepper soup. Apparently comes in several varieties, including:
- cow tail (ox tail)
- chicken parts
- fish (parts?)
Being the chicken that I am, I go with what appears the safest choice of chicken. Several hours go by.
They introduce me to some type of nut(?) that is way bitter, apparently has some caffeine, and perhaps some nicotine(?). Ick…but had to try it!
Soup arrives, definitely has chicken parts in it (should have gotten a picture). It’s rather dark, which is likely a good thing! Oddly, the American crew gets their soup, but none of the Nigerians got theirs – something got messed up with the order, they were not happy at all. I still think it was a ploy to see how the Americans would do eating this soup!
So, the soup is definitely spicy and peppery, very yummy! Once I figured out what the chicken parts were, it was fine, but that first bite…hmmm. Actually ended up being a boat load of chicken with a spicy pepper broth. Good stuff, thanks Nsikan!
Back to hotel and a nap…
WEDNESDAY
7-9 AM WAT – Studied the materials downloaded from Net yesterday, wrote up an outline for a Regional Internet Exchange proposal for WATRA. They would like to get the region moving in this direction such that Internet traffic is not all routed internationally even when it is regional traffic.
Spoke briefly with Nsikan from Pittsburgh(?). He’s on a long lay-over and will be heading to London soon, then on to Abuja by Thursday morning local time.
9-10 AM WAT РArvind and I went on a hunt for cyber cafes. During our walk last night, a lady told us there was one about 4 blocks away from the hotel right next to the Mr. Bigg (looks like a McDonalds type of place). The place she mentioned had a bunch of shops, but no cyber caf̩. They directed us to another place.Found the place they were talking about, but when we went in, they had no power. Bummer.
Decided to see if we could navigate our own way towards WATRA headquarters where we knew there is a cyber café and look for others while we were at it. Found our way there, had to ask several times for directions, but eventually made it, about a 45 minute walk or so.
10:00 AM WAT Рat the Mon-Aden Caf̩ (1 Koforidua Street, Zone 2, Wuse, Abuja). N100 for 1 hour so we each get an hour. About halfway through, the net goes down so I recon the place. About 12 X 15 feet room, 9 computers, plus 1 controller computer running software called CafeStation. They use DirectOPC (?) as their ISP. CafeAgent is the client software on each PC. Running Windows XP (2002).
A view during our walk across town.
Whilst on our walk to WATRA, spotted this Ministry of Health -- you may be able to notice that it is the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme....I didn't know that leprosy was still an issue, being a naive american and all...
From within the WATRA compound, spotted what looks like a soldier getting hsi boot shined. Framed in the razor wire gave it a nice look. Actually the building to the right is where the cyber cafe is that we have used several times on our trip.11:30 AM WAT – head back to hotel.
12-7 PM WAT - decide to check out the possibility of Internet by the Boathouse. Discovered Live wireless Internet via CTAccess – a new launch of what is planned to be a citywide wireless Internet access system. The current system is in 4 places, one of which is at the Sheraton. Access is free for now, but as it grows they will likely start charging – word is about $30/month (N4000/month).
Life on the wireless Internet is good!
Spend the rest of the day working, pulling in research, and just catching up on computing and networking. Found some good material on IXPs and especially some interesting stuff on regional IXPs in Africa. This appears to be gaining some major momentum.
7-10 PM WAT – not feeling so well, hang with Arvind at a restaurant, but then have to head to bed…phone call from Joseph indicating Dr. Best had arrived…excellent.
THURSDAY
7-8 AM WAT – feeling better, had a bit of a feverish sleep, but better now. Head down to the Boathouse to catch up on email, preparation for the day. We travel to WATRA to meet again with Mrs. Emakpore.
Arvind and Dr. Best at the WATRA facilities.8-9 AM WAT – dicuss/verify research plan with Mrs. Emakpore. 4 research projects are under way:
1) Sustainability of WATRA – general framework
2) Regional IXP working plan/business case
3) Characterization of Regulatory bodies in WATRA
4) Internet usage in Abuja
Prepare for a trip to NCC.
9-10 AM WAT – Meet with Ernest C.A. Ndukwe, Chief Executive, NCC. A very influential gentleman, especially as head of the regulatory body within Nigeria. We briefed him on our research efforts, gaining some insight into the attitudes of NCC. I was also able to gather some information regarding IXPs.
Apparently this has become a national priority (an IXP in Nigeria first, but a regional IXP would be next). Apparently the WSIS meeting in Tunis provided President with some fire, as he has now declared this a goal in 2006 – to have a Nigerian IXP in place.
Even though Nigeria has 3 companies that have received licenses for IXPs, none have actually happened. Mr. Ndukwe cited the mistrust between operators as a key impediment to progress. The regulations within Nigeria are very open and encourage this type of interconnection. NCC as a regulatory body appears to be doing well – on many levels, organizationally, leadership, financial, and enforcement.
Very helpful meeting and much appreciated to have Dr. Ndukwe take his time to meet with us.
11ish AM WAT – arrive back at hotel to spend a bit of time online working until our driver arrives to take us to the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, car should arrive around 12:30. Grab a bit of chow at the Boathouse (while the Business Center at the Sheraton may be losing some revenue, I think the Boathouse is making up for it by up campers in the bar).
12:45 PM WAT – Driver finds us and we cram (really) into the back of a car to take the quick ride over toe the Directorate.
1ish PM WAT – Arrive and head towards the Directorate. Of course I’m assuming it’ll be similar to our last meeting, our team sitting down with somebody and maybe their assistant or other exec and briefing them on our activities. Wow was I wrong!
We walk into the room, very formal setting, a large official conference table, with some 12 people already at their places, a camera crew follows us in and begins videoing the session. Okay, this is not what I expected!
Engr. Dr. Lule Yakubu Bassi is the Director General (DG as Mike calls him) of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, Ministry of Cooperation & Integration in Africa. He proceeds to fill us in on the mission of their ministry, namely:
1) Advocacy – connecting with Nigerian experts inside and outside of Africa. There are some 37 million Africans that live outside of Africa, 17 million of them are Nigerians. They are trying to reconnect these xpats to Nigeria. As he is fond of saying (I may lose something here) --- When Nigerians die, they want to be buried back home – they are tired of just receiving bones, they would like to receive some live bodies to help!
2) Expatriates – they have a growing database of xpats willing to server in Africa
3) STEP – Scientific & Technical Exchange Program – this has some $25 million dollars in the African Development Bank with the ability to spend $2.5 M each year as seed funding for new programs. The eLearning program that Dr. Best has been involved with is one such program.
4) Collaboration with other Institutions – both inside and outside of Africa, funding agencies, NGOs, etc.
We then introduce ourselves and brief the group on our research. In particular he was interested in Arvind’s work on Internet usage and indicated that one of their program officers should work with Arvind to provide some additional information.
One anecdotal note that came out during this: there is some tension in and around the city regarding the demolition of a bunch of structures. From several conversations, I’ll try to summarize my understanding. Back (late 80’s, early 90’s) when the capital was being moved from Lagos to Abuja, a city plan was constructed (ostensibly to overcome the problems that occurred in the mostly unplanned Lagos). This city plan was quite extensive and very functionally (and exclusively) zoned.
Unfortunately, as the ministries were moved to Abuja, the city could not really support the full build out as per plan. This encouraged people to break the zoning rules in order to get things done. Houses built in a zone intended to be a technology park, ISP’s built where they shouldn’t…all sorts of things that just weren’t to plan.
Well, they decided that the way to fix this was to demolish the structures that were not ‘right’ according to plan. Apparently, they notified the people living/working in these structures that they were going to be demolished, but that is the extent of the compensation that was received (if I’m wrong, nobody has identified any type of compensation as yet).
One of the places that was razed was an ISP that the DG and staff had worked with quite extensively over the years. Interestingly, the cite of the building was across the street from the Sheraton in what is now a dirt field (well, dirt and rubble).
This demolition, reasonably, has caused some tension. Not only has it been disruptive, but there is no specific intention of using the land that has been cleared…very odd way to make things ‘right’.
Okay, back to the here and now – the DG has arranged a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja. Not just with us, but with a large portion of his team as well…
2:00 PM WAT – we all pile into 3 cars (of course ours had no AC!) and drive about 35 minutes out to the University of Abuja. I was in the car with Nsikan, the driver and two of the Ministries staff. In particular, Ogwo Christiana C. (Christy) who is the Principal Program Officer, and one Theodore O. P. Sefia, Esq., LL.B., B.L. – Assistant Chief Legal Officer. Theodore is quite animated and discusses many topics that are affecting Nigera (I note an undertone of frustration at the lack of progress).
2:45ish WAT – Arrive at the university and are ushered into a similar (albeit without the imposing table) meeting as before. In this instance, we are meeting with Prof. Nubu O. Yaqub, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja.
The DG rolls out his speech again, we do another round of introductions and research briefings. Then the VC gives his little bit.
UofA has about 8000 students plus some 25,000 distance learning students that come into campus on weekends. It was established in 1988, many different programs.
Sadly, they lost their Registrar in the recent plane tragedy on the flight to Port Harcourt and were in mourning.
The VC has been there for 1.5 years, they are currently in temporary campus, with a massive, massive piece of land granted to them (11,800 hectares), but without a budget to develop the land.
Interestingly, the school has no Internet access – WHAT? And this didn’t seem to bother the VC much…
Things were wrapped up very quickly (like, can you say “get the heck out!”) as they took a group photo and ushered us away so that the Governor would not see us when he arrived….
Head back to hotel…crammed into a non-airconditioned car full of people…but with pleasant conversation with Theodore. Meanwhile, Nsikan takes a nap in the front seat!
4-7 PM WAT – Nsikan and Arvind head over to WATRA to complete some work with Mrs. Emakpore – Nsikan to do some survey approval, and Arvind to complete the silly IRB stuff…
Evening WAT - Nsikan and two of his friends (Joshua and Ben) took us to a local Nigerian restaurant. Outdoor seating and a beautiful evening. Apparently an evangelical gathering is going on next door, sounds like they are getting quite into it…Order a couple of beers and pepper soup. Apparently comes in several varieties, including:
- cow tail (ox tail)
- chicken parts
- fish (parts?)
Being the chicken that I am, I go with what appears the safest choice of chicken. Several hours go by.
They introduce me to some type of nut(?) that is way bitter, apparently has some caffeine, and perhaps some nicotine(?). Ick…but had to try it!
Soup arrives, definitely has chicken parts in it (should have gotten a picture). It’s rather dark, which is likely a good thing! Oddly, the American crew gets their soup, but none of the Nigerians got theirs – something got messed up with the order, they were not happy at all. I still think it was a ploy to see how the Americans would do eating this soup!
So, the soup is definitely spicy and peppery, very yummy! Once I figured out what the chicken parts were, it was fine, but that first bite…hmmm. Actually ended up being a boat load of chicken with a spicy pepper broth. Good stuff, thanks Nsikan!
Back to hotel and a nap…
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Thursday, December 15
Okay, today is a big day. Dr. Best arrived last night, and Nsikan should be in country now. We have several big meetings with WATRA, NCC, and I believe one other organization today. Perhaps get an idea if/who we should meet with at DBI while we are at it.
Feeling better today, got up, and I'm getting 176kbps on the wireless network by the pool this morning. Life is much better now! I have my own clothes, I have Internet access -- Kipp is happy!
Of course, Arvind is still going through the lost luggage scene -- what a drag!
More on the meetings later in the day.
Feeling better today, got up, and I'm getting 176kbps on the wireless network by the pool this morning. Life is much better now! I have my own clothes, I have Internet access -- Kipp is happy!
Of course, Arvind is still going through the lost luggage scene -- what a drag!
More on the meetings later in the day.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Internet connectivity
Well, after some frustrating first days here, I'm feeling connected and much better about my ability to operate...I appear to be over dependent on the Internet, I almost cease functioning without it (which really isn't that far from my normal operating mode!).
The hotel has Internet connectivity at the Business Center. It costs (Naira) N50/minute, which is about $.33/minute -- ouch!
Getting to a cyber cafe is within about 5 minute walk from the hotel, rates at most of these are N100/hour, which is less than $1/hour! That's quite the difference!
Of course the first cyber cafe we visited today had no power...so there is that. We decided to trek on over towards WATRA and find the cyber cafe across the street. This was just fine...until the network went down....oh well.
Back at the hotel, we discover the mother lode. Apparently, the Sheraton is one of the points for the new city-wide wireless network that they are launching. We discovered that the bar/restraunt out by the pool has most excellent wireless access! Well, if you consider we're getting it for free, and it's about 100kbps last I checked. A great deal and way better than I was used to over the last couple of days.
And just to do it, I placed an order on my Schwab account -- wanted to do some ecommerce from Abuja! I hope I wanted those shares...
Happy connectivity!
Kipp
The hotel has Internet connectivity at the Business Center. It costs (Naira) N50/minute, which is about $.33/minute -- ouch!
Getting to a cyber cafe is within about 5 minute walk from the hotel, rates at most of these are N100/hour, which is less than $1/hour! That's quite the difference!
Of course the first cyber cafe we visited today had no power...so there is that. We decided to trek on over towards WATRA and find the cyber cafe across the street. This was just fine...until the network went down....oh well.
Back at the hotel, we discover the mother lode. Apparently, the Sheraton is one of the points for the new city-wide wireless network that they are launching. We discovered that the bar/restraunt out by the pool has most excellent wireless access! Well, if you consider we're getting it for free, and it's about 100kbps last I checked. A great deal and way better than I was used to over the last couple of days.
And just to do it, I placed an order on my Schwab account -- wanted to do some ecommerce from Abuja! I hope I wanted those shares...
Happy connectivity!
Kipp
Tuesday evening
Arvind and I decided to do a bit of exploration around the area, ostensibly looking for a cyber cafe. Walked around a bit, had about 2 dozen people ask us if we wanted to exchange money, but never found a cyber cafe.
On the way back to the hotel, a lady told us where we could find one...we'll check it out tomorrow.
It was a good chance to just see the evening environment and activities, at least in this one small cosm of Abuja.
Interesting how prevalent the mobile phone ecosystem is here. The photo is a mobile recharge booth, manned even after dark to sell these things. Everybody, everywhere is selling sim and recharge cards. They attack your car when you drive by, they approach you on the street...just very different than I'm used to for mobile phones, having had a subscription service for some 10+ years now...As we were walking into the hotel 'campus', I stopped to take a night scene of the Sheraton. As I was taking the shot, 2 officers walked up, I guess we looked a bit suspicious, so we wandered off....the one thing my wife told me was not to end up in a Nigerian jail!
Kipp
Regional Exchange Points
The first thing Mrs. Emakpore has me looking into is around the initiative to bring regional network exchange points into the West Africa region. This region consists of some 15 countries, nearly identical to the ECOLAS region.
Problem is, most traffic that travels between these countries goes international at extremely high rates (about an order of magnitude). Regional exchange points allow this traffic to stay local to the region and not traverse the international links such as the Sat-3 submarine cable that runs along the west coast of Africa.
Lots of good reasons to do IXP and RXPs but you need funding, cooperation, and a lot of work on regulations, policies and working with encumbents. Apparently there were over 264 IXPs in the world as of July 2004. This would indicate that a number of the issues that face the WATRA region have been overcome somewhere else. Doesn't make it easy, but we should be able to lean on that experience to ease the way.
I produced a draft summary report for her on the topic today.
Kipp
Problem is, most traffic that travels between these countries goes international at extremely high rates (about an order of magnitude). Regional exchange points allow this traffic to stay local to the region and not traverse the international links such as the Sat-3 submarine cable that runs along the west coast of Africa.
Lots of good reasons to do IXP and RXPs but you need funding, cooperation, and a lot of work on regulations, policies and working with encumbents. Apparently there were over 264 IXPs in the world as of July 2004. This would indicate that a number of the issues that face the WATRA region have been overcome somewhere else. Doesn't make it easy, but we should be able to lean on that experience to ease the way.
I produced a draft summary report for her on the topic today.
Kipp
Small world
So, just in case you get to thinking I'm a long way from home...
I noticed a couple of American dudes wandering around the lobby yesterday. Decided to see what they were up to. Turns out that they, like me, are from Nebraska! Bizzare. They work for a company in Lincoln called Norland that builds water bottling equipment and have been in Abuja for the last 4 weeks installing and training the folks on how to operate the new equipment.
If that is not odd enough, one of the guys (Dave Eurek) has a brother in Atlanta. His brother, Paul Eurek, is somebody I've met and I believe he owns a company called Xpansion.
Strangly small world...
Kipp
I noticed a couple of American dudes wandering around the lobby yesterday. Decided to see what they were up to. Turns out that they, like me, are from Nebraska! Bizzare. They work for a company in Lincoln called Norland that builds water bottling equipment and have been in Abuja for the last 4 weeks installing and training the folks on how to operate the new equipment.
If that is not odd enough, one of the guys (Dave Eurek) has a brother in Atlanta. His brother, Paul Eurek, is somebody I've met and I believe he owns a company called Xpansion.
Strangly small world...
Kipp
Getting to Nigeria
These are my notes from my trip and my first few days, pictures to follow soon.
Trip to Abuja, Nigeria
THURSDAY
3PM EST – dropped off by Pam and Risa at the MARTA station for a ride down to the airport.
4-5PM EST – wander around trying to figure out where I’m supposed to check in. Finally discover it is the international checkin, which has a 45 minute wait (of course).
5-6:30 PM EST – hanging at my gate, flight is getting delayed. This is the flight from ATL to Dulles…apparently bad weather elsewhere is causing delays. It looks like it’s now going to be too late to catch the connecting flight from Dulles to London. Trying to contact Delta to re-route.
7-9 PM EST – growl...2 hours in line at the Delta International terminal (terminal E). Been on the phone for 2 hours while waiting in line. Delta says they can’t help, as my flight is a combo across three airlines (Delta, United, British Air) and United ‘owns’ the deal – in otherwords, United gets the money, and then pays the other airlines some chunk of it. Talked to United, talked to Delta. Back to United when I get to the counter. So now I have both a United agent and a Delta agent working on it, but not getting very far. About 20 minutes of this and I hand the mobile to the Delta agent and told her to work with the United agent to get me to Abuja.
9:30 PM EST – finally found a way, going to have to catch a 9:50 flight to JFK, then a flight to London on BA in the morning. The Delta agent told me that she had taken care of the luggage and booked it all the way through. Of course all I had were the original bag tags that said to go to London and wait for me. As an aside, they told me originally that I couldn’t check them all the way through because I had an over 6 hour layover in London. Although, Arvind was able to check his all the way through (but he did fly BA all the way).
9:50 PM EST – at my new gate, but the flight to NYC-JFK has been delayed (why not) until 11:30 – going to Benigans to drink a beer. Met a lady from Ft. Lauderdale who had just spent some time in New Orleans, sounds like the city is still a mess.
11:30 PM EST – flight heads to NYC. On the flight, met a man from Connecticut, works for a helicopter company (some Russian name, dude bult the first(?) helicopter). His nightmare was that he was down in south Alabama earlier today when his flight was cancelled, so they had to take a bus to ATL. Boo hoo,
FRIDAY
1:30 AM EST - Flight lands in JFK. Cold but new snow hasn’t arrived yet. Idiots at the gate can’t work the stinking jetway (I mean how hard can it be!). Have to exit the plane from its butt.
2:00 AM EST – As expected, luggage did not come with me, likely headed to D.C. I find a seat, sorta comfortable and start watching Pulp Fiction.
3:30 AM EST – Okay, getting sleepy. Ask a quintessential NYC police officer for British Airways terminal and he oh so kindly directs me to the AirTrane, heading for terminal 7.
3:50 AM EST – Terminal 7 doesn’t open until 4:30 AM (yeah, this is how my trip is going to be, you can just feel it). I go back to the AirTrane station, sit down finish Pulp Fiction.
4:50 AM EST – go to terminal 7 – oh yeah, BA doesn’t open until 6:30! Snowing outside...
5-6:30 AM EST – wander around aimlessly, read, snooze (ish), brush teeth (ah).
6:35 – BA dude (another NY classic) tells me I’m pretty much screwed with my luggage, also that I don’t really have my ticket to London. Sends me to their ticketing office and to talk to UA baggage services.
6:45 – 7:30 – BA ticketing – agent is not ready, so I wait. Finally helping me locate things, got my ticket straightened out, but very worthless wrt my luggage.
7:30 – 9 – Hang out @ gate awaiting flight from NYC to Heathrow. Check in, and (of course) my ticket was kicked out (after spending all that time with the ticketing agent!) and they had to re-assign my seat – bulkhead, swell.
9-11 AM – Sitting on the plane for 2 hours while they deal with the snow storm and the ice that has formed on our wings.
11 AM EST – 10PM UK – 6 hour flight (lost 5 hours) not a horrible flight. Read, watch parts of Dukes of Hazard.
10 PM GMT – Of course the flight being delayed means I have to deplane and run through Heathrow to catch my flight to Abuja. I just know the luggage is toast, but decide to get myself there and then worry about the luggage (bad decision as we’ll see later).
10:20 PM GMT – As the BA attendant if she could look into my baggage situation. As per normal, she says she can’t help since they were originally checked in with Delta/United…great advice, she says to check with the agents in Abuja.
11:40 PM GMT – in flight about 15 minutes out from London…
SATURDAY
6 AM WAT – arrive in Abuja! Yeah. Get off plane, immigration gave me no hassle, must’ve known what hell I’d gone through to get here!
6:30-8:00 AM WAT – wait in line to talk to BA agent about my missing luggage. As expected, it is not here. Pathetic organization, people milling about butting in line, as organized as…not sure. Finally get to an agent, fill out a paper form, and that’s about it.
8:30 AM WAT – walking out of the terminal, was surprised (pleasantly) to see somebody there holding a sign that said Kipp Jones – now how often do you think that happens in Nigeria? The driver for WATRA and Mrs. Emakpore had slept all night at the airport waiting for my late butt. Thanks Joseph!
9 AM WAT – Arrive @ the Sheraton Abuja. Not quite ready to check me in, so I ask Joseph to take me around a bit of the town.
9:30 – 10:30 AM WAT – Buzz around town, getting a good tour of the city. There was a political convention going on (the People’s Democratic Party, apparently the largest was having their, what I would call primary, in Abuja. Traffic had some interesting Atlanta like characteristics, except that most people who didn’t want to be in the traffic took the sidewalk back, which was quite interesting.
On the way around town, I asked Joseph to help me exchange some cash. We stopped by the side of the road (there is a name for these money exchangers, I’ll have to figure it out and post it). Joseph has become my negotiator, he got us up to N139 from a starting point of N130. Naira in the hundreds, it’s hard to get used to paying thousands for things…
10:30 AM WAT – Go to get a SIM card for my phone. Decided to go to MTN so Joseph took us to the MTN office. Note that there are people selling sim and recharge cards by the dozen on the street nearly everywhere, wild for me. I had to go through a metal detector to get into the store to buy my card. N480 for a card and some time (I’ll help out, that’s about $3.50). As we were walking out, were conversing with Jane, a friendly seller of MTN supplies. She sold me a recharge card, but couldn’t get my phone to work. Ah, my phone is still locked to the current SIM – damn Cingular! Had Jane show us to a little shop where a dude came out, Joseph negotiated, and I paid N1000 to have my phone unlocked. The sim worked, but still couldn’t get the recharge…
11:00 AM WAT – Fill up the gas tank for Joseph. N3300 to fill the Peugot (interesting, gas stations have attendants that put the gas in and then you pay cash – is that weird or what?). I gave him an additional N500 for driving me around. I have no idea if I insulted him or not.
11:30 AM WAT – Back @ hotel, of course they are having problems with the computer checking me in, it doesn’t like the rate I booked on the Internet ($78/night). Finally it goes through and I am escorted to my room. Oddly, Joseph follow me to my room as well.
11:45 AM WAT – Kick the steward and Joseph out and finally have my room!
Noon PM WAT – Shower and wash my clothes, since I have:
- No meds
- No chargers
- no power converter
- no clothes!
I figure I should make some clean ones…
1-6 PM WAT – Nap, watch TV, read, phone home – briefly as I’m about out of power on my phone.
6:30 - 10 PM Going to go to one of the hotel restaurants for dinner. I’m guessing N2500…
Wandered around the hotel, found a bar by the pool (the Boat House). A party of Europeans (me thinks Dutch) and a couple of other folk populated the place. Had to test the Nigerian Star beer. Not bad, and .6L for N380 or about $2.50. A few bears, some local beef Suya, spicy with green & red peppers, onions, on skewers. Yummy and spicy, good stuff and fries to boot.
Waitress and bartender had a spirited discussion about the Koran versus the Bible. Unclear, but seems some tension around here – political and religious (not surprising given where I am!).
Been very comfortable here, nice place, pleasant atmosphere…just darn nice.
Tomorrow, I’ll get out a bit more, maybe by some clothes, since mine are going to be stinky real soon now…
SUNDAY
6:30 AM WAT – woke up, thought some additional water would be nice & wanted to catch the sunrise. Too hazy to see, but still a pretty sight. N400 for a 1.5L bottle of water. Not bad, figure that and my Clif Bar will ge me through to dinner.
Today’s plan, get Internet access, catch up on email, post this (like that happened!) and some pics, catch a nap, find a shirt to wear, and do some WATRA planning. Would be really like to find out where my luggage is – maybe send enough info to Pammy to make some phone calls.
Last night a gentleman at the Boathouse mentioned wireless Internet by the pool…wonder if he was hallucinating or if it could be true, guess I should check (still haven’t checked, but all other mentions of wireless in the hotel have been wrong!).
8 – 11 AM WAT – took nap, feel much better.
11 AM – 2 PM WAT – check out Internet access. The business center has access @ N50/minute – N1000 and 20 minutes later was able to send a couple of emails and check for critical messages.
Also determined certain rooms have dial-up access for N3000/day.
Lastly, the report I overheard last night was echoed by another person, supposedly available in the lobby as well…
Checking @ the lobby, found no APs, but confirmed with a lady that it was apparently working yesterday (suspect an AP with dial-up?). No matter, I only have about 15 minutes left on my laptop battery.
I have a power cord, unfortunately my power converter/adapter is with my luggage…
Speaking of which, I received a call indicating that my luggage had NOT arrived at the airport…thanks for that message!
Bought an outfit, shorts and shirt so I could blend in – actually so I wouldn’t be quite as stinky.
3 PM WAT - @ pool writing and reading. Wearing my new shorts…
5:30 WAT – back @ room, spoke to Pammy, she is working on getting my luggage here. It still seems the luggage is @ Heathrow, as expected. No clue whether it will ever make it here.
6:30 – on – back to Boathouse to eat a pretty good burger. Back to room, reading and writing…then sleep…
MONDAY
2:30 AM WAT – Wake up – silly brain won’t let me sleep. Still wish I had my luggage!
So, the next time I do this, I’m definitely going to have a duffle bag with me that will have enough clothes, bathroom stuff, extra shoes, power sources, socks, undies to go a couple extra days.
Read until 6:30, wander around, another N1000 on Internet access, then back to the room to await the arrival of Arvind.
8:30 – 10:45 AM WAT – Hang with Arvind, he also lost one of his bags – go British Airways – awful, I tell you!
11 AM WAT – received call from British Air, my luggage arrived!!!!! YEAH!!! Unfortunately, have to go to a meeting and they don’t deliver…
11:30 AM WAT – Joseph buzzes me over to the WATRA offices (West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly) to meet with Mrs. Lolia Emakpore (I can even pronounce it now!). Mrs. Emakpore is the Executive Officer of the organization. Received some clearer information about the mission, status, goals, and needs. Will take her input back with me to formulate what I can actually deliver during my time on this project.
6:30 PM WAT – Finish up at WATRA and head back to hotel – WITHOUT MY LUGGAGE!
TUESDAY
I’ll stop my diary here, but spent the morning trying to get Joseph to take me to the airport, finally got there around 1:30 PM, about 25 minutes of hassles to get my luggage out of luggage jail – never been so happy to see luggage (and you should have seen how much lost baggage BA had in their baggage jail…I would have been ashamed to have opened that door).
Get back to the hotel around 2:30, showere and put on new clean clothes!!!! Ah…much better!
Only thing that doesn’t work now is my phone charger…that doesn’t make me happy. Oh well…could be worse, I could be without my luggage!
Noticed this reminder from home on the way back from the airport...
The rest of my posts will concentrate on my reason for being here!
Trip to Abuja, Nigeria
THURSDAY
3PM EST – dropped off by Pam and Risa at the MARTA station for a ride down to the airport.
4-5PM EST – wander around trying to figure out where I’m supposed to check in. Finally discover it is the international checkin, which has a 45 minute wait (of course).
5-6:30 PM EST – hanging at my gate, flight is getting delayed. This is the flight from ATL to Dulles…apparently bad weather elsewhere is causing delays. It looks like it’s now going to be too late to catch the connecting flight from Dulles to London. Trying to contact Delta to re-route.
7-9 PM EST – growl...2 hours in line at the Delta International terminal (terminal E). Been on the phone for 2 hours while waiting in line. Delta says they can’t help, as my flight is a combo across three airlines (Delta, United, British Air) and United ‘owns’ the deal – in otherwords, United gets the money, and then pays the other airlines some chunk of it. Talked to United, talked to Delta. Back to United when I get to the counter. So now I have both a United agent and a Delta agent working on it, but not getting very far. About 20 minutes of this and I hand the mobile to the Delta agent and told her to work with the United agent to get me to Abuja.
9:30 PM EST – finally found a way, going to have to catch a 9:50 flight to JFK, then a flight to London on BA in the morning. The Delta agent told me that she had taken care of the luggage and booked it all the way through. Of course all I had were the original bag tags that said to go to London and wait for me. As an aside, they told me originally that I couldn’t check them all the way through because I had an over 6 hour layover in London. Although, Arvind was able to check his all the way through (but he did fly BA all the way).
9:50 PM EST – at my new gate, but the flight to NYC-JFK has been delayed (why not) until 11:30 – going to Benigans to drink a beer. Met a lady from Ft. Lauderdale who had just spent some time in New Orleans, sounds like the city is still a mess.
11:30 PM EST – flight heads to NYC. On the flight, met a man from Connecticut, works for a helicopter company (some Russian name, dude bult the first(?) helicopter). His nightmare was that he was down in south Alabama earlier today when his flight was cancelled, so they had to take a bus to ATL. Boo hoo,
FRIDAY
1:30 AM EST - Flight lands in JFK. Cold but new snow hasn’t arrived yet. Idiots at the gate can’t work the stinking jetway (I mean how hard can it be!). Have to exit the plane from its butt.
2:00 AM EST – As expected, luggage did not come with me, likely headed to D.C. I find a seat, sorta comfortable and start watching Pulp Fiction.
3:30 AM EST – Okay, getting sleepy. Ask a quintessential NYC police officer for British Airways terminal and he oh so kindly directs me to the AirTrane, heading for terminal 7.
3:50 AM EST – Terminal 7 doesn’t open until 4:30 AM (yeah, this is how my trip is going to be, you can just feel it). I go back to the AirTrane station, sit down finish Pulp Fiction.
4:50 AM EST – go to terminal 7 – oh yeah, BA doesn’t open until 6:30! Snowing outside...5-6:30 AM EST – wander around aimlessly, read, snooze (ish), brush teeth (ah).
6:35 – BA dude (another NY classic) tells me I’m pretty much screwed with my luggage, also that I don’t really have my ticket to London. Sends me to their ticketing office and to talk to UA baggage services.
6:45 – 7:30 – BA ticketing – agent is not ready, so I wait. Finally helping me locate things, got my ticket straightened out, but very worthless wrt my luggage.
7:30 – 9 – Hang out @ gate awaiting flight from NYC to Heathrow. Check in, and (of course) my ticket was kicked out (after spending all that time with the ticketing agent!) and they had to re-assign my seat – bulkhead, swell.
9-11 AM – Sitting on the plane for 2 hours while they deal with the snow storm and the ice that has formed on our wings.11 AM EST – 10PM UK – 6 hour flight (lost 5 hours) not a horrible flight. Read, watch parts of Dukes of Hazard.
10 PM GMT – Of course the flight being delayed means I have to deplane and run through Heathrow to catch my flight to Abuja. I just know the luggage is toast, but decide to get myself there and then worry about the luggage (bad decision as we’ll see later).
10:20 PM GMT – As the BA attendant if she could look into my baggage situation. As per normal, she says she can’t help since they were originally checked in with Delta/United…great advice, she says to check with the agents in Abuja.
11:40 PM GMT – in flight about 15 minutes out from London…
SATURDAY
6 AM WAT – arrive in Abuja! Yeah. Get off plane, immigration gave me no hassle, must’ve known what hell I’d gone through to get here!
6:30-8:00 AM WAT – wait in line to talk to BA agent about my missing luggage. As expected, it is not here. Pathetic organization, people milling about butting in line, as organized as…not sure. Finally get to an agent, fill out a paper form, and that’s about it.
8:30 AM WAT – walking out of the terminal, was surprised (pleasantly) to see somebody there holding a sign that said Kipp Jones – now how often do you think that happens in Nigeria? The driver for WATRA and Mrs. Emakpore had slept all night at the airport waiting for my late butt. Thanks Joseph!
9 AM WAT – Arrive @ the Sheraton Abuja. Not quite ready to check me in, so I ask Joseph to take me around a bit of the town.
9:30 – 10:30 AM WAT – Buzz around town, getting a good tour of the city. There was a political convention going on (the People’s Democratic Party, apparently the largest was having their, what I would call primary, in Abuja. Traffic had some interesting Atlanta like characteristics, except that most people who didn’t want to be in the traffic took the sidewalk back, which was quite interesting.
On the way around town, I asked Joseph to help me exchange some cash. We stopped by the side of the road (there is a name for these money exchangers, I’ll have to figure it out and post it). Joseph has become my negotiator, he got us up to N139 from a starting point of N130. Naira in the hundreds, it’s hard to get used to paying thousands for things…10:30 AM WAT – Go to get a SIM card for my phone. Decided to go to MTN so Joseph took us to the MTN office. Note that there are people selling sim and recharge cards by the dozen on the street nearly everywhere, wild for me. I had to go through a metal detector to get into the store to buy my card. N480 for a card and some time (I’ll help out, that’s about $3.50). As we were walking out, were conversing with Jane, a friendly seller of MTN supplies. She sold me a recharge card, but couldn’t get my phone to work. Ah, my phone is still locked to the current SIM – damn Cingular! Had Jane show us to a little shop where a dude came out, Joseph negotiated, and I paid N1000 to have my phone unlocked. The sim worked, but still couldn’t get the recharge…
11:00 AM WAT – Fill up the gas tank for Joseph. N3300 to fill the Peugot (interesting, gas stations have attendants that put the gas in and then you pay cash – is that weird or what?). I gave him an additional N500 for driving me around. I have no idea if I insulted him or not.
11:30 AM WAT – Back @ hotel, of course they are having problems with the computer checking me in, it doesn’t like the rate I booked on the Internet ($78/night). Finally it goes through and I am escorted to my room. Oddly, Joseph follow me to my room as well.
11:45 AM WAT – Kick the steward and Joseph out and finally have my room!
Noon PM WAT – Shower and wash my clothes, since I have:
- No meds
- No chargers
- no power converter
- no clothes!
I figure I should make some clean ones…
1-6 PM WAT – Nap, watch TV, read, phone home – briefly as I’m about out of power on my phone.
6:30 - 10 PM Going to go to one of the hotel restaurants for dinner. I’m guessing N2500…
Wandered around the hotel, found a bar by the pool (the Boat House). A party of Europeans (me thinks Dutch) and a couple of other folk populated the place. Had to test the Nigerian Star beer. Not bad, and .6L for N380 or about $2.50. A few bears, some local beef Suya, spicy with green & red peppers, onions, on skewers. Yummy and spicy, good stuff and fries to boot.
Waitress and bartender had a spirited discussion about the Koran versus the Bible. Unclear, but seems some tension around here – political and religious (not surprising given where I am!).
Been very comfortable here, nice place, pleasant atmosphere…just darn nice.
Tomorrow, I’ll get out a bit more, maybe by some clothes, since mine are going to be stinky real soon now…
SUNDAY
6:30 AM WAT – woke up, thought some additional water would be nice & wanted to catch the sunrise. Too hazy to see, but still a pretty sight. N400 for a 1.5L bottle of water. Not bad, figure that and my Clif Bar will ge me through to dinner.
Today’s plan, get Internet access, catch up on email, post this (like that happened!) and some pics, catch a nap, find a shirt to wear, and do some WATRA planning. Would be really like to find out where my luggage is – maybe send enough info to Pammy to make some phone calls.
Last night a gentleman at the Boathouse mentioned wireless Internet by the pool…wonder if he was hallucinating or if it could be true, guess I should check (still haven’t checked, but all other mentions of wireless in the hotel have been wrong!).
8 – 11 AM WAT – took nap, feel much better.11 AM – 2 PM WAT – check out Internet access. The business center has access @ N50/minute – N1000 and 20 minutes later was able to send a couple of emails and check for critical messages.
Also determined certain rooms have dial-up access for N3000/day.
Lastly, the report I overheard last night was echoed by another person, supposedly available in the lobby as well…
Checking @ the lobby, found no APs, but confirmed with a lady that it was apparently working yesterday (suspect an AP with dial-up?). No matter, I only have about 15 minutes left on my laptop battery.
I have a power cord, unfortunately my power converter/adapter is with my luggage…
Speaking of which, I received a call indicating that my luggage had NOT arrived at the airport…thanks for that message!
Bought an outfit, shorts and shirt so I could blend in – actually so I wouldn’t be quite as stinky.
3 PM WAT - @ pool writing and reading. Wearing my new shorts…
5:30 WAT – back @ room, spoke to Pammy, she is working on getting my luggage here. It still seems the luggage is @ Heathrow, as expected. No clue whether it will ever make it here.
6:30 – on – back to Boathouse to eat a pretty good burger. Back to room, reading and writing…then sleep…
MONDAY
2:30 AM WAT – Wake up – silly brain won’t let me sleep. Still wish I had my luggage!
So, the next time I do this, I’m definitely going to have a duffle bag with me that will have enough clothes, bathroom stuff, extra shoes, power sources, socks, undies to go a couple extra days.
Read until 6:30, wander around, another N1000 on Internet access, then back to the room to await the arrival of Arvind.
8:30 – 10:45 AM WAT – Hang with Arvind, he also lost one of his bags – go British Airways – awful, I tell you!11 AM WAT – received call from British Air, my luggage arrived!!!!! YEAH!!! Unfortunately, have to go to a meeting and they don’t deliver…
11:30 AM WAT – Joseph buzzes me over to the WATRA offices (West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly) to meet with Mrs. Lolia Emakpore (I can even pronounce it now!). Mrs. Emakpore is the Executive Officer of the organization. Received some clearer information about the mission, status, goals, and needs. Will take her input back with me to formulate what I can actually deliver during my time on this project.
6:30 PM WAT – Finish up at WATRA and head back to hotel – WITHOUT MY LUGGAGE!
TUESDAY
I’ll stop my diary here, but spent the morning trying to get Joseph to take me to the airport, finally got there around 1:30 PM, about 25 minutes of hassles to get my luggage out of luggage jail – never been so happy to see luggage (and you should have seen how much lost baggage BA had in their baggage jail…I would have been ashamed to have opened that door).
Get back to the hotel around 2:30, showere and put on new clean clothes!!!! Ah…much better!
Only thing that doesn’t work now is my phone charger…that doesn’t make me happy. Oh well…could be worse, I could be without my luggage!
Noticed this reminder from home on the way back from the airport...
The rest of my posts will concentrate on my reason for being here!
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
luggage
Okay, for the first time since Thursday morning, I was finally able to put on clean fresh clothes! My luggage arrived and we were able to get it out of luggage jail (after about 45 minutes) at the airport. Pam was surprised that they didn't deliver it to the airport or that the conceirge didn't help me out! Funny, I couldn't find that person...
Anyway, really starting to dig in working with WATRA. I have my marching orders, a number of rescearch tasks, and a pretty good idea of what I need to get done for my deliverables. I'll continue to fill in the details as well as give a nice coverage of my trip here.
Tomorrow I'm to produce a 2 page document on the value and benefits of a Regional Internet Exchange Point. That's a#1 for me.
Till next time,
Kipp
Anyway, really starting to dig in working with WATRA. I have my marching orders, a number of rescearch tasks, and a pretty good idea of what I need to get done for my deliverables. I'll continue to fill in the details as well as give a nice coverage of my trip here.
Tomorrow I'm to produce a 2 page document on the value and benefits of a Regional Internet Exchange Point. That's a#1 for me.
Till next time,
Kipp
In country!
I apologize for the dearth of information I've been providing, next post I'll try to explain my absence...
Suffice it to say, I am safe in Abuja, it's quite nice here with clear weather in the 90's on a daily basis. Yummy food, great hosts and I'm actually starting to make some progress on my research.
Of course nobody wants to get too close to me, as I've been in the same basic outfit since Thursday -- my luggage is yet to meet up with me, but I'm real hopeful that today is the day!
Internet access is, as expected, somewhat limited and rather expensive when available (one of the reasons for not posting more). The other being all of my power has been hanging out in my luggage in London...
Abuja is a city of about 2.5-3 million people last I heard. Rather spread out, but not nearly as much as Atlanta. I'll post more about the area later.
Until then...
Kipp
Suffice it to say, I am safe in Abuja, it's quite nice here with clear weather in the 90's on a daily basis. Yummy food, great hosts and I'm actually starting to make some progress on my research.
Of course nobody wants to get too close to me, as I've been in the same basic outfit since Thursday -- my luggage is yet to meet up with me, but I'm real hopeful that today is the day!
Internet access is, as expected, somewhat limited and rather expensive when available (one of the reasons for not posting more). The other being all of my power has been hanging out in my luggage in London...
Abuja is a city of about 2.5-3 million people last I heard. Rather spread out, but not nearly as much as Atlanta. I'll post more about the area later.
Until then...
Kipp
Thursday, December 08, 2005
I'm off
Okay, all packed heading to the airport. Quick visit through DC. All day in London tomorrow, then onward to Abuja.
I'll post as bandwidth is accessible.
Kipp
I'll post as bandwidth is accessible.
Kipp
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The day before
Well, tomorrow is the day I head out for Abuja. Finished up my classes with my final presentation this morning. Now, just clearing my plate for being gone two weeks, making sure I have everything done so I don't come back to a mess!
Walking on campus this morning, was a beautiful fall (some would say winter) day and just had to snap a shot.
Checked the weather for my trip. While London looks to be pretty cool (mid 40's on Friday), Abuja will be mid to upper 90's with lows in the 70's. Sounds like it should be a nice warm trip once I get there.
Received my follow up shot of the Twinrix (Hep A+B) today. That should fill me up on my shots for now, at least I hope so.
My first meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 12th. Arvind and I are planning on meeting with Mrs. Lolia Emakpore, the Executive Officer for the WATRA Secretariat. WATRA is the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly, which is composed of some 11 West Africa regional telecommunications regulators. We'll likely be working closely with Mrs. Emakpore during our stay in Abuja.
The journey starts tomorrow!
Kipp
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Nebraska trip
So, I recently got back from a trip back to the plains over Thanksgiving. Yup, I'm from a little itty-bitty town in southwest Nebraska -- Lebanon be the name, and some 70 people now call it home (it was over 100 when I lived there and I think they are exaggerating at 70!).Took the family and had a chance to visit with more family and friends. It was good to get back, but truy a journey (perhaps in preparation for my next one?).
I also wanted to test my camera in conjunction with the blog, so
here is a view from a few yards east of my house (facing southwest). The closest neighbor is in the other direction, about 1/4 mile away. The town of Lebanon is about 2.5 miles east, and the nearest 'big' town is 24 miles away, McCook with a population of something around 10,000.And to get a sense of what my high school was like. A few years back, it was closed and sold to somebody who apparently is trying real hard to become the quintessential redneck. Only he's failing miserably, in my opinion. What good, red-blooded, redneck wouldn't be keeping the football field in good condition and what a waste of a scoreboard! Although you have to admit, they are doing a fine job with the junk in the front, the weeds, and the number of cars parked in front!
Ah, home...
Preparation for the trip
Okay, so it's getting down to the wire for the trip to Nigeria. I've had my shots (well, except I need another dose of my HepA+B). I've got my Yellow Fever card, I've got my Meningitus shot, my MMR shot, my Tetanus shot, I took my Mefloquine (no hallucinations yet!).
My shopping list for the trip:
- shots (I really dislike those intramuscular injections!)
- diarrehea drugs (really looking forward to getting to use these!)
- flashlight (while I'm staying at the Sheraton, I just want to be sure)
- power converter (Nigeria runs at 220 volts/ 50 Hz, so you need a converter)
- phone jack converter (reportedly Nigeria uses the UK phone jack, but I'll be taking my chances)
- deet or Picaridin mosquito repellent (apparently the Cutter Advanced with picaridin is much nicer to use than deet, with no smell and a light, clean feel on the skin -- http://www.cutterinsectrepellent.com/ProductCategories/PersonalRepellents/Advanced/ )
- food (I grabbed some things from REI so I could save a little cash and have some food when I didn't want to go out)
- knife/leatherman tool - hey, you just never know what you'll need
- water filteration and treatment - I picked up a water bottle from REI with built in microfilteration system as well as a 2 stage iodine water treatment kit just in case
- batteries (my camera and flashlight both run off the same AA batteries)
- little gifts for folk I bother while I'm there
- Visa
- Passport
- Travel docs (copy of flight, visa, passport, etc.)
- cash (some, but I'm not telling you how much!)
- clothes (not sure yet, since I haven't packed, but it'll apparently be pretty hot (90's) during the day and I don't expect to be out too much during the night)
- computer (if you want to know, it's an Apple PowerBook G4)
- camera (casio EX-Z120)
- phone (turns out my little Noika is triband, so I should have GSM coverage using my phone and a new SIM card when I get there. http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml)
- power supplies
That should just about do it, or at least I sure hope so!
My shopping list for the trip:
- shots (I really dislike those intramuscular injections!)
- diarrehea drugs (really looking forward to getting to use these!)
- flashlight (while I'm staying at the Sheraton, I just want to be sure)
- power converter (Nigeria runs at 220 volts/ 50 Hz, so you need a converter)
- phone jack converter (reportedly Nigeria uses the UK phone jack, but I'll be taking my chances)
- deet or Picaridin mosquito repellent (apparently the Cutter Advanced with picaridin is much nicer to use than deet, with no smell and a light, clean feel on the skin -- http://www.cutterinsectrepellent.com/ProductCategories/PersonalRepellents/Advanced/ )
- food (I grabbed some things from REI so I could save a little cash and have some food when I didn't want to go out)
- knife/leatherman tool - hey, you just never know what you'll need
- water filteration and treatment - I picked up a water bottle from REI with built in microfilteration system as well as a 2 stage iodine water treatment kit just in case
- batteries (my camera and flashlight both run off the same AA batteries)
- little gifts for folk I bother while I'm there
- Visa
- Passport
- Travel docs (copy of flight, visa, passport, etc.)
- cash (some, but I'm not telling you how much!)
- clothes (not sure yet, since I haven't packed, but it'll apparently be pretty hot (90's) during the day and I don't expect to be out too much during the night)
- computer (if you want to know, it's an Apple PowerBook G4)
- camera (casio EX-Z120)
- phone (turns out my little Noika is triband, so I should have GSM coverage using my phone and a new SIM card when I get there. http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml)
- power supplies
That should just about do it, or at least I sure hope so!
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