This & That

"This world is under the rulership of the evil one ..." - The man on the television would have his audience believe that if they do not accept Christ into their lives, they must be under the control of the devil. Usually, my reaction would be to laugh or dismiss it as propaganda and move on, but, as the only 'non-believer' in an office of believers, I'll hold my tongue and be content to smirk in the privacy of my office. In my experience, these televangelists prey on fear of the unknown in order to divest people of their money. It's dispicable, really.

So, yes, there is a television in our office. At first this struck me as rather strange, but, as with most things that baffled me in the beginning, I've grown to accept it as par for the course.

Putting aside the nuisance of TV for a moment, I will now provide a brief update on happenings here in cappacity Nigeria ...

Over the past few days I managed to come down with a nasty sinus cold a la Canada. I just hope it clears up more quickly than the cold I had before I left home. Everyone at the office keeps saying "sorry". In fact, before I came here I thought that Canadians said 'sorry' a lot, but now I realize that we've got nothing on Nigerians. If you stub your toe, someone says 'sorry'. If you say you're having a bad day, someone says 'sorry'. Actually, my favourite 'sorry' moment came when I was watching a film called 'Les Boys II' at an outdoor French-Canadian film fest at the French Cultural Centre last week. It happened during a point in the film where a hockey game was being played: one of the characters was injured and someone in the audience exclaimed "sorry!" I could hardly contain my laughter. Amused though I was, this is also one of the things that I like about Nigerians. The best explanation of 'sorry' that I've heard to date came from my friend D who said: "Sorry is a medicine, it cools everything down."

Hm, what else ... Well, work's picking up. Our grant's been approved, though it's substantially less than the previous one. We've definitely got out work cut out for us. I'm looking forward to actually learning how to do new things, etc.

As for the social aspects of life here, it's been okay for the past little while but it still pales in comparison to my social butterfly lifestyle back home. I spend a lot of time alone. This used to really bother me, but recently I've grown to enjoy solitude. Nevertheless, I crave companionship. A friend from Lagos came into town this past week and treated me to a couple of meals at the Hilton. As well, he put me in touch with a Canadian intern based in Lagos and we've been firing emails back in forth for the past couple of weeks. Hopefully she'll be able to come for a visit in January. She has also provided me with contacts and I hope to make use of nthis information soon. It's a busy time, though, with xmas break looming. So it goes ...

Well, that's really all I have to say for now. I've got some work to do and we're off early on Fridays, so I'd better get on it.

Oh, last but not least, props to my brother, Irene and Mike, and mom for keeping in touch!