Baturi

Here in Nigeria we are called Baturi, white-people, and Monday, March 30, we had our first experience in the Baturi Market. Although I have travelled extensively and been in many outdoor markets I am always amazed at how different markets can be. Here in Jos there was a large open air building that housed the market at one time. However, in 2001 the market burned down, so now, rather than rebuild the market, it has spread out into the streets surrounding the building. And the area it covers is huge! We went to the part of the market that sells things Westerners seem to prefer…thus the name Baturi Market. However, among the broccoli, strawberries, shoes, fabrics, and plastic containers were dried fish, dried other things (I didn’t ask what), fresh meat, live chickens, and probably other live things. It was also more crowded than any market I have ever been in.

Monday began rushed as we overslept and still are not sure how long it takes to get ready for the day here. I have been making breakfast each morning but yesterday we were just having toast and jam and coffee…even that took a while (and yes, Toby has begun drinking coffee too- he say’s it’s the one thing besides water that is usually free so why not get used to it- and when you put lots of milk and sugar in it…yum)…even toast and jam took a while. Luckily we had electricity so we actually got to have toast.

After breakfast my brother-in-law, Kyle, picked up Caden and an SIM driver came for Toby and I. He took us to the SIM office where we had our first formal lesson in Nigerian culture and customs and a tour of the downtown area where the “supermarkets” and market are. It was a fascinating morning. We learned “20 ways to offend Nigerians” (so we won’t do it), how and why we should dress a certain way (skirts for me, pants for Toby anytime we are off our compound), and a few basic words in Hausa (the native language predominately spoken in the northern region of Nigeria as well as in many other African countries). We tried to focus on phrases used in greeting someone as greetings are very important here. They don’t say simply, “hello, how are you today?” Rather they ask about how you slept, how your family is, how your work is. A greeting can go on for quite a few minutes so it is important that we learn the phrases to say. I was able to almost master one phrase yesterday, Sannu (sah-noo), which means hello. Maybe today I can get the response figured out.

After our introduction to Nigerian culture and customs we walked a few blocks to the market area. We enjoyed a hamburger for lunch at one of the more Western restaurants (owned by a Lebanese family) then went deep into the market to purchase fabric for our first Nigerian outfits. After purchasing the fabric we found some vegetables to buy, looked at cell phones (no-one has a land line here), bought chicken and minced meat (ground beef), and visited a “supermarket”- indoor store that has canned and packaged items like pasta, juices, powdered milk, etc. Oh yeah…we use powdered milk for our milk. It actually tasted quite good and Caden likes it when it is cold.

Needless to say, when we returned home in the afternoon we were rather tired so we rested a while until joining a missionary family for dinner. What a blessing it has been to share a meal each day with families who have been here for some time already.

Now, if you’ve read this far, you may be wondering, ‘What is up with the electricity?’ So, I’ll try to explain. We are supposed to have electricity from noon to midnight; however, this is not normally true. A couple of days we have had electricity most of the day, and a couple of days we have only had it a couple of hours in the day. At the moment the house we live in does not have a generator, so when there is no electricity there is no light, no fans, nothing. We believe that the hostel does have a generator, so in June, when we move in there we will be able to us that. Therefore, we keep bottles of water in the freezer to help keep things frozen and keep all of the windows open all of the time to keep air moving as much as possible.