Polio is again on the rise...

So, it has been a few weeks since I last wrote, and it is not because I have had nothing to say, but more because work is just a little out of control right now. I am sitting in the north of the country, in Borno state, right on the border of Cameroon, which is insanely hot, and the sandstorms have started, so it does not make for good times….however the hotel we are staying at is also our meeting location, so I have not actually gone outside in 5 days…apart from our trip across the border to eat fresh fish from Lake Chad in Cameroon!

Polio is worse than even. We now have over 900 cases of wild polio in Nigeria, and it has spread to neighbouring countries, like Niger and Ghana (they haven’t had a polio case in over 10 years!!). So, we are in pandemic planning and figuring how we can contain the virus and get government and religious officials on board to support the vaccination campaigns we are planning to do throughout November. I have been involved in day long and all night meetings for basically the last two weeks. I am still not sure why I go to these meetings, as I am not a technical person (meaning I know nothing about the disease), but there has been a lot of (unsuccessful) facilitation, but I am also pretty sure that my skin colour has something to do with it! We have brought in some very well respected Nigerian officials to help support our initiatives, so we hope this will have some impact on our results. Only time will tell! But, it is making time go by very fast…I have already been here 3 months, so only 8 more months to go here, before I figure out where to go next…I do have a bet on the line that if I lose “I won’t come back to Africa”…there is a possibility for Laos, in south east Asia, which could be interesting…but house prices are dropping in Toronto, so we’ll see

While in the north of the country, we paid a ‘courtesy’ visit to the man with 87 wives and 219 children (and counting), as he has become rather famous for his habit of marrying every woman born in his village…he was looking at me funny, with a sort of “maybe that oyibo can be #88?!”

I am again having some immigration issues here…got the strangest call from the Nigerian Embassy last week saying I must bring down passport photos within 24 hours or risk being “removed” from the country…I did not quite believe it…for a few reasons…we often get “threatening phone calls”, where people just call random numbers and make idle threats….they don’t know our name or where we live, so I am not sure how it works, but I will say, these Nigerians sure are “entrepreneurial”…the call turned out to be a real call, and I had to immediately bring down 2 photos…this is after I already gave them at least 10 other photos…so we will see what happens.

Anyways, that is it for me for now this week. I am going to be out on missions most of the month of November, so looking forward to a relaxing Christmas break, in a location still to be decided! I just hope it includes a white, sandy beach, crystal clear water and a swim up bar! We are also working on finalizing the Thompson family safari trip in East Africa in March, which will be very exciting…so lots to look forward to! Congrats again to my brother and Maggie, who are finally getting married…it’s about time!

Once I get back to Abuja later this week, I will be posting some photos of my new flat and the compound....apart from the noise from the highway, the gunshots, and the ridiculously annoying birds, it is a nice place!

Hope you are all well!
Love, ange