Bitter herb and pepper soup

09/08/2010

Bitter herb.  Anyone heard of that before?  I’ve read about it in the Nigerian literature as it gets mentioned quite often by different authors. 

A while back Revival (The Namibian ambassadors wife, remember?) gave me a stick to put into the ground to see it grow. I had that stick, which did start growing vigorously, in a sack on my back veranda for a month or more. Eventually last Wednesday I got Kenny, our driver, to stop along the road in search of the right size pot.  Roadside nurseries stretch along most of the main streets in Nigeria.  When I explained that I needed a pot and some soil, not a plant, the sales gent simply pulled out a plant and gave me the pot with soil and all, at a price of course.  And the stick plant got potted and its dignity back.  It looked good almost like a decorative plant and developed lots of nice leaves. 

That was yesterday.  Today it has just a few feeble leaves left.  The reason?  Pepper soup.

Fatima was going to teach me how to make the famous Nigerian pepper soup.  It is very easy, but … and there lies the trick, apart from lots of chilly peppers you need Nigerian herbs.  Lo and behold my back veranda had two of the herbs needed: A mint, also from Revival and my stick plant, the bitter herb.  Fatima is going to get me the other traditional herbs from the market because you cannot buy it in a grocery store: atariko (a kind of small chillie), uda (like a small thin mushroom), gbafilo, rigije and uyayak (all leafy herbs).  The internet gave me a list of substitute herbs for Nigerian herbs: aniseed, aniseed pepper, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, allspice, dried ginger, tamarind pods and fennel seeds.  However Fatima said it is not the same and then believe me, it is just not the same.

We have now a pot of hot, hot (really hot) cold pepper soup, waiting to be heated up for our supper tonight.  Maybe I should divide it, freeze the one half for another brave day and just heat up a small bit. Because I think, at least I, will only have a limited amount. Nick likes the hot stuff and is always smothering his food with tobasco.  Small wonder he likes all my cooking.



With the pepper soup and other soups and stews, the West Africans eat a dough like lump of yams, coco yams or cassava. They are all tubers which are dried, ground and steamed. The cooked product looks a bit like our stywe pap, but they present it in a ball, the size of a tennis ball, wrapped in plastic.  That is how you get it at all the big hotels here.  I am not sure how they presented it in the pre-glad wrap years and in the rural areas.  After opening this package, one pinch off a piece, roll it between your fingers into a small ball and then dip it into the soup or stew before eating it.  It taste very different from anything I have eaten before, but not unpleasant, though I will have to get used to it before it will become a selected choice.



Bitter herb



There is another handy purpose for the bitter herb.  Most useful here where foreigners found that they struggle to keep their stomachs stable and comfortable.  Mix the bitter herbs with water, liquidize it with something sweet such as an apple or honey (to make it more palatable) and drink.  Apparently this green drink is excellent to stabilize the tummies.  No wonder the locals do not seem to battle with upset stomacs, this bush grows every where and they just chew the leaves and  no wallah (pigen English for… yes you have guessed… no problem). The Hausas says Ba Komi, meaning more or less the same as no wallah.



Understanding language and fabrics

Understanding the local people can be difficult at times.  While spending some time painting in my friend Tyna’s studio I met another artist friend of hers, with a nickname of Perfect.  I asked him if it is not difficult to earn a living as an artist and how he earns an income as selling paintings can be very sporadic.  His response was that he makes “kik”.  My puzzled expression got Tyna to explain “He makes kik, mah”.  My brain was rushing to try to make sense of the word.  Surely he can’t be selling “kicks”, or maybe “chicks”, and the only other word I could think of was an unsavory Afrikaans word, which it could not be either.  And then after repeatedly being thrown with the word by both Tyna and Perfect….clarity: Cakes!!!! It turned out he bakes and decorates cakes for special occasions such as christenings, special birthdays, graduations and weddings. What a laugh we all had.  I then got shown some photos of his cakes….very professional.

Working once a week in Tyna’s studio has brought me in contact with a few Nigerian artist and I am enjoying their conversations, however badly understood sometimes.  They are young, ambitious and quite outspoken.  In the process I have been asked to join in a group exhibition to be held at the end of September coincidently right here in the same compound as where we are living: Ancestors court.  I was shown the draft invitation card yesterday:  50 years of  Nigerian woman artist.  I beg you, where do I fit in with my four months residency behind me? And my name is boldly on the invitation!!!!.

I went fabric shopping the other day:  Nigerian fabrics.  A friend told me you could get dress fabrics quite reasonably priced at Sahads.  Apparently a lot of expatriates turn their noses up for the shop, I was told, but they did not mind as things are in general a lot cheaper there. Parking is difficult as it draws quite a crowd of locals, exactly because of its price reputation.  The four story building does not look at all like a shop and my instinct told me to squeeze up the stairs to the first floor.  There were all kinds of groceries and only a small sign that gave me a clue that there are fabrics hidden around the corner in the grocery shop.  Fabrics in Nigeria do not get sold from rolls, from which you get cut the exact length of material you want.  It is all precut in 6 yard lengths.  This makes for a colourful display of different strips of colourful materials on the shelves – a display which had caught my eye repeatedly in the past in the markets.

The fabric shop area was full of people, men, women and even children, all comparing different patterns and colours.  Watching them I became aware of how different my choice of pattern and colours is to most of theirs. To my mind their choices are loud jarring colours and big unattractive patterns.  How on earth can they make dresses out of that?  Yet by now I have noticed that their dress makers are very skillful with placing patterns to compliment the figures and it does turn out very striking…. most of the time.  However when I came to chose a length of material, with in mind to get one of their dressmakers make me a Nigerian dress; I just could not go that bold.  I had to choose between either clashing colours or big, bold printed shapes.  I went for the big patterns and a more muted green blue colour scheme.  I managed to whip out my cell phone to pretend I was phoning but in reality I took some photos.

Tomorrow Fatima is going to show me how to make Nigerian pepper soup.  I must tell you pepper soup is only for the brave…and Nigerians of course.  It is one of the tastiest dishes I have ever tasted, but you have to have a glass of water ready.  In spite of the delicious taste I could not manage more than a few spoonfuls.  It certainly beats hot Indian curry.  Maybe if I make it I can keep the taste and bring down the heat..???

Kidnapping

07.28. 2010




Wahab Oba, chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Lagos State council, who was one of the three recently and much publicized kidnapped journalists, shed a thought provoking light on the increasingly disturbing phenomenon of kidnapping in Nigeria. He said it would be foolish to think that this is mere criminal activity.

Often out of shear desperation previously respected members of the community, police and traditional rulers are getting involved and see it as their only way of getting their share of the Nigerian profits.

Oba called it a wake up call to the complicated and extensive nature of kidnapping caused by the serious economic problem in Nigeria. He said the kidnappers claimed that they were “led into crime as a result of neglect by government”. To explain this he went on to highlight two aspects of neglect by the government: economic opportunities (jobs and infrastructure) and rewarding the right people for hard work done.

He explained that currently Nigerian society is littered with rich people who have not worked for the money they flaunt, and many poor people who have nothing to show for the hard work they have invested in the society. “It is a lopsided reward system that rewards corruption, waste and inefficiency, but penalizes hard work and diligence. In an environment like this, young people are inclined to look for means of getting rich quickly without working hard for it, and this includes kidnapping.”



My young artist friend Tyna, was saying last week that many young people her age leave the country when they complete their studies. I know this is a simplistic view, but one wonders if some of them end up in other countries not being able to get jobs and are forced into crime. Small wonder then that Nigerians are branded as criminals. A recent South African award winning film was banned in Nigerian because the criminal in it was portrayed as a Nigerian.



With a new president and cabinet and an election coming up next year, the country is hoping and crying for change. Apart from better power supply (electricity) they want, above anything else, the eradicating of corruption with growth of the economy as an outcome, which should benefit the whole population.



Many of the ordinary Nigerians are honest hard working people, with a friendly smile and a readiness to help. Not all of them are corrupt, but that does not mean they are less desperate and unhappy with the situation in the country.



However to change this country will be a bit like turning a huge ship, slow and difficult. We are talking here of a country that is just smaller than South Africa but with a population count of 140 million in comparison to South Africa’s mere 47 million. 70% of the Nigerians live below the breadline while in South Africa 50% live below the breadline.

Although one can only condemn kidnapping, in a climate like this, where people resent the injustice of the system, and have corruption as role models to justify their acts, the practice of kidnapping will be hard to stop. To change the mindset of the youth will be slow and difficult. But they are trying …..Billboards, radios, newspapers even graffiti are almost begging people to become morally accountable. In the newspapers you read about the overhaul of the stock exchange and banking systems which is in the pipeline. One wonders if all this action is not just to impress before the election.

Will change really come to this country that is so desperate for it after fifty years of inefficiency and corruption. Will they one day be a country that can stand proud, a country that can reach the potential it so evidently has. We hope so.

My Fatima and cooking

07.20.2010

I have big gaps in my education and one area is cooking. I like cooking and try to figure out how to do it using cooking books and the occasional cooking demonstration, but in reality there are areas that are dangerous for me. One of them is fish. I try from time to time and my family bears with me with no comment. Otherwise I just buy the already filleted, battered and frozen variety which only needs to be put into the oven for a while before eating it. But you can not find that here, the prepared frozen variety I mean. Otherwise the Nigerians are big fish eaters and there are lots of fish available: Giwan Ruwa(Niger Perch), African Salmon, Roga Rowa and their big favourite Catfish and Tilapia.

Fatima reading my cooking books in the kitchen door

My cleaning lady, also a Fatima, I discovered, is a trained cook. She took over one day when she saw me trying to debone a chicken, which I thought I was doing well. I was reluctant as I knew the Nigerian way to cut up a chicken was to just bash it with an ax right through the bones leaving splinters of bones in the meat. However her deft professional cut convinced me that I have a professional in my house. She went to cooking school in Lagos and her mother was a good cook from whom she learnt a lot. We cooked the chicken stock together and I realised that this lady knows a lot more than I do. She agreed with much laughter to give me cooking lessons once a week.

I had my first cooking lesson this morning. Yes you’ve guessed it: scaling, filleting and preparing….. fish. A whole Croaker to be exact. And now I’ve got the most delicious clean deboned fillets, waiting in the fridge to be cooked for supper, covered with lots of garlic, lemon, fresh coriander and parsley and whole crushed pepper. Yummy. (After report: Nick thought it delicious, I thought it was a bit on the dry side.)



More about Fatima: She is a cleaner by extraordinaire. So unlike the general Nigerian workmen she does everything super thoroughly. I’ve never had a cleaning lady (with all due respect to Evelyn, Lindsay, Dora and Sylvia) who actually upturn furniture when she cleans and leave the house in the afternoon with every cupboard and drawer in the house neatly cleaned and packed, including the fridge. How she does it I do not know. I got a clue for the reason for this when my Namibian friend Revival told me she actually sacked her first cleaning lady because of the dust on everything. That was before she realized you cannot keep the dust off surfaces for longer than a half an hour during the months of the dry Harmattan winds. These cleaning ladies are trained by the Harmattan.



With that kind of work ethic, needless to say Fatima does not have a high regard for her fellow countrymen and more specifically those who have to keep this building in decent working condition. She knows every fault in the building, how it should be fixed and the whole history of how long the different occupants have struggled with leaking pipes, broken window handles, gaps in the walls and doors that do not fit.

She is also a valuable and willing informant of everything you need to know. Currently there is a bad sewage smell invading the apartment from time to time. Fatima informed me that everyone is complaining, and that the health department is looking into it but they cannot find the culprit. There is a small river flowing between our building and the next building which is currently being built in the slow Nigerian fashion. I’ve got a strong suspicion that that is where it comes from. Their shack toilet is a lean to on the bordering wall to the river and looks dubious. Maybe the problem will disappear once the building is finish; however that may still take a while. Taking a walk yesterday, in this more posh area of an already posh by Nigerian standards city, we realized that the sewage smell problem is probably more wide spread, as you get a whiff of it every now and then. (Two days later…the smell is gone at last. They must have found the culprit!!!!)

I guess the solution is to just close your window when it gets too bad, turn on the aircondition and spray air freshener….. Fatima’s solution.

From my kitchen door

Dinner in Port Harcourt

Fatima, the colonel’s wife, flew down from Kaduna in the North, where she lives, to visit her husband. She joined us for the two dinners we had together in Port Harcourt. She is a lovely confident well spoken woman, wearing the wrapped attire of the Muslim women with some beautiful jewelry.

We exchanging information about our lives and found out it was not all that different. They have five children. The eldest a daughter is just one month younger than Alison (we were pregnant with our first children at the same time) and is studying economics. Her eldest son wants to be a doctor. He always loved horses and rode them until he developed a skin allergy which makes it impossible for him to continue with it. Apart from raising her children, Fatima liked planting her own vegetables and even raised her own chickens. As pets they have cats and she and her children also find it hard to depart for the kittens after naming them.



Recently she started working for the government helping to organize the forthcoming elections. Her dream is to start her own small business. She is an independent woman who had to fend for herself as being married to a military man she ended up on her own for long stretches of time, while he served in the peacekeeping force in places like Sudan. She calculated that in the twenty years of marriage they have only spent ten years together. Yet one pick up that there is a lovely relationship between them in the way she knows what he likes to eat and shares food with him and how they support each others discussions.



One of the most beautiful images of this trip was the view from the plane over the Niger Delta. Snaking waterways spread as far as the horizon and the river flowing thick and full this time of the year. The dilemma of the farmers in this area is that there are no good roads to markets, as building bridges over all these tributaries will be extremely expensive. Most farmers here just plant for their own needs. However the argument is raised that all the money the government makes from the oil in this region should really be spent on upgrading the infrastructure and fighting the immense poverty of the population. Dotted amongst the waterways you see the flames of the oil pumps every now and then, burning off the gas.



Another problem is that of the fishermen in this area: the waterways are getting clogged up with spilt oil which is seeping into the soil and killing all the fish. The oil companies and government are blaming the local population for pirating the oil pipelines. They steal the oil to make a crude kind of fuel for vehicles. The colonel showed us some pictures of how they do it with big drums on fire. Extremely dangerous, and they are not really making much out of it because petrol in Nigeria is dirt cheap, sponsored by the government. It makes you realize just how desperate these people are.



The Mexican oil spill helped highlighting the oil spill in the Delta area, which has been going on for years totally ignored by the rest of the world. Whether something can still be done to save this sensitive echo system is a big question. If the big oil companies start to take a responsibility here like in Mexico, they will have to start with the people of the area, maybe create jobs to clear the oil spill and build bridges and roads. Or will greed still prevail?

Wari and Port harcourt

07.08.2010




This is a land of contrasts.



We landed in Wari (pronounced like “don’t worry”) with quite a ceremony. Outside the plane on the runway two groups of brightly attired ladies were dancing. The one group wore bright yellow patterned wrap skirts with white blouses and gold head cloths and the other had on purple wraps, red blouses. A lively band accompanied them and a whole crowd dressed to kill was waiting on the fringe of the runway in front of the airport building. This colourful scene plus the green landscape around us dotted with hundreds of palm trees gave a festive relaxed feeling on our arrival to the troublesome and often dangerous area.



As soon as the plane stopped some in the crowd started running towards the plane. Airport security personnel tried to stop them but as I watched a formidable lady just pushed them aside and marched on towards the steps to the plane. Fortunately they managed to halt some of the crowd and by the time we have descended from the plane the way was open to walk pass this spectacle, because by then the object of their attention was in their midst and backs were turned towards us. It turned out to be the home coming of a chief who was elected as some or other president in Abuja.

Our host, who was travelling with us, directed us quietly to the one side of the room in which the baggage arrived, informing us that we will wait until the crowd has dispersed, explaining nervously that anything could spark violence in a crowd like this. And sure enough on our departure in front of the airport building we saw the armed soldiers on the ready if something should happen. Even our driver came to meet us with an armed guard in tow.

We were in Wari by invitation of the Nigerian Institute of Welders. The occasion was the opening of their new training premises and seeing off a bunch of about thirty young trainees leaving for South Africa in the next couple of days. They have been given practical training in Nigeria by South African instructors and now these chosen thirty were going to do their theoretical training in South Africa. They will become the future instructors to train welders in Nigeria whose main tasks will be to service the oil pipes. The pride and excitement amongst the guys were infectious and one can just envision how it is going to change their own lives coming from an area where poverty and lack of jobs were high.

Later that afternoon we flew to Port Harcourt. As our planned pickup arrangement was stuck in traffic, Muizz, Nick’s sidekick who was travelling with us and who made all the travelling and staying arrangements, ordered a taxi. A rattletrap Mercedes arrived, just to be rejected by Muizz. The second taxi looked a bit better until we were all piled into it. It battled to start, made a big screech, went backwards in stead of forwards before we got going at last. In the traffic it threatened to overheat and the aircon had to be switched off. We made it to the hotel but not before all of us visualized ourselves standing next to the road in the rain.

Our next transport that evening was the complete opposite. We were to have dinner at another hotel with a friend of our host. Outside the hotel arrived to pick us up, a military double cab. Beside the driver an armed military man was seated and in the open bakkie behind us, were four more armed militaries. We were careering through the Port Harcourt streets in true African style. At the President hotel we were introduced to the friend of our host: the colonel and in charge of all the military in the area, which explained our mode of transport.

The evening turned out to be fascinating. They were all Hausas at the table with the exception of Muizz. The three main ethnic groups in Nigeria is Hausa (predominantly Muslems), Joruba and Igbo (mainly Christians). There are more minority groups as well. To hear the complexities of their society from a military commander, who have to instill order between them was most interesting. For centauries these groups have often been in conflict. The Biafra war, for example, was ignited because the Igbos wanted to establish their own country as they felt threatened by the other groups. The Jorubas and Hausas in turn saw them as power hungry who owned most of the property. The Hausa is spread over six countries from Nigeria to Sudan, and the Igbo’s in the Delta and River estates are regarded as Cameroons by that country. Then how on earth are they going to have a free and fair election next year?



The fear and expectation of conflict is high.

Graffiti and expats

14.06.2010

Graffiti has a much more practical use in Abuja and I think Lagos as well. It replaces posters, official notifications, adverts and what not. You never see a house for sale sign, but you often see scribbled on a wall “This house is not for sale”.

Does that mean the property market is booming and there are no properties available? At the rate they are building one could well think that. However Nick discovered the reason – yes I think one should have guessed – it is to avoid scams. Alison said you have just had the first highly published scam in South Africa: people posing as owners selling a property they do not own, to innocent buyers. Well it seem to be old news here and the solution: write on the wall “This house is not for sale”.

They have huge billboards like we have in South Africa, but all most of them have on them are big skew handwritten telephone numbers. That puzzled me in the beginning as well, but yes it is apparently begging for advertisers.

And then the official notice on a wall with date and the lot: Abandonned structure, improve or remove, no approval and another date, three years ago. Very practical. And sometimes very bluntly in big red letters: STOP WORK. Looking at the number of collapse buildings there must be a reason for these notices.

Another interesting observation about Nigerian drivers etiquette: If you find yourself in the left lane (of three or four lanes depending on how many cars can squeeze in next to each other waiting for a rare traffic light or the traffic director to indicate go) and you want to turn right, you drive onto the pavement on your left, bypass all the waiting cars and swing out right in front of all of the waiting cars and join the front of the left queue, ready to go when the indication to go comes. And all the waiting cars just accept that without a single hoot!!!! It happens often enough to make you thinks it is acceptable.

Yes I do harp on all the idiosyncrasies of Nigerian life, I know, but it makes life interesting here. There are a lot of positive aspects too and one of the most endearing is the open relaxed friendliness of the Nigerians. They are keen to help you where you can. Originally you suspect they are just after some “dash”, just to be rudely embarrassed when you do offer them a tip to be embarrassingly refused. Not all though, but most of them just want to help you. However if they do take the tip, such as at the airports, they do not want small money and will throw it back at you.

The sad thing about expat life is the shortness of it. You have just made friends and then they are off to their next assignment. I have joined a wonderful group of ladies who want to learn from each other, organized by the Namibian High commissioners wife, Revival Smith. I attended three meetings, in a very short time made really good friends and last week we had to say goodbye to half of them: Revival and her family is posted to somewhere very cold in Europe, Ancha is leaving for Brazil, Norma is moving to Lagos, Yumika is going back to Japan etc. At least Irene from Egypt is still staying for another year and dear Angela from Kenya another two years. …And my Alison is going back to South Africa on Friday. O well luckily I’ve got my own creative outputs that will keep me absorbed and busy during the holiday months when Abuja seem to drain. And I do have all you on the other side of the magical PC. Thanks and lots of love to you all.

I’ve managed to collect a number of photos of Abuja and will send them in shifts. I have made them very small so they should not be a problem to download even in rural areas.