Plan C....or was it D?!?

One thing that I learnt pretty soon after arriving in Jos, is to expect the unexpected! This makes planning kind of hard wok, and helps me to understand why it is not a strength of so many Nigerians.

For example, two weeks ago we had elections on the Tuesday, making it a none movement day. These had originally been scheduled for the Saturday before, but due to previous cancellations and Easter they ended up on that day. Easter Monday was also a bank holiday, but it was only announced on the Thursday before that the Hospital was actually going to observe this. Therefore, my 5 day working week became 3 days long.

We had planned to go on outreach in the brothels on the Monday morning, as the previous week we had had to cancel due to security concerns. However, another commitment came up for the other ladies, who participate in this, which it was not done on the Monday could not be done for another 3 days (forgot to mention that Wednesday morning was also no-movement in case there was any trouble following Tuesday’s elections. Therefore 3 “normal” working days was actually 2 and a half). We therefore changed our plans for the outreach to Friday.  Still with me?

So, Friday came, and we went. As it was Easter and elections many of the women we would usually talk to had travelled, but some good conversations were still had. It was the birthday of Angie, one of the girls in the outreach team, so we had planned to go out for lunch to celebrate. We finished in the brothels by 11:45, and needed to leave for Gyero (Kid’s centre) by not long after 2. Plenty of time for lunch right? Wrong….the car broke down.

After a few frantic phone calls to various mechanics, drivers, husbands and friends we managed to leave the car in the hands of a mechanic, arrange a ride home for those who needed it, and borrow a car to take to Gyero, as mine would not be able to make it down the road we needed to get down (at least not without causing some serious damage!). We ate lunch in record time, and made it to Gyero only 10 minutes after the class was supposed to start. However no-one else had started, so why worry about little details like that?!

The class went well, and we then spent some time with the children….mostly dancing on the rain. What better way to end a slightly “unplanned, but it all came together in the end” kind of a week?