Day Nine: Some Stories of the Nigerian Police

So I have talked about how the Nigerian Police or as we call them, our guards, are around us at school and on our drives to and from the hotel at all times. At first I was hesitant to have these men around thinking they would bring negative attention to us, but I have grown very fond of them.

They work so hard and are on duty at our school location 24 hrs a day, sleeping in chairs and having no food and water...but they are so excited to have us here.

The highest ranking officer in charge is Paul, he wears awesome glasses and has a great sense of humor, they all do..except for a few that seem to be the enforcers (meaning the guys with the gigantic arms) Anyway today Paul got his friend to come to school in the morning and take a picture of a few of us together with him (and it was a film camera mind you) and by the end of the day he had his friend bring copies of the pictures for everyone, such a nice guy.

Mike, Jaks, Jake, Ernie, guard, Joe, guard, me, Paul, Carolina, Travis, James, Nick

There are so many of these guards around us all the time...and at first I was a little intimidated by these military esque men with AK47s in their hands at all times, I have never seen any of them put down their gun ever....and the first few days as a barrel of a gun would swoop past my direction i found myself ducking and moving out of the way, but they are so casual with their guns...to the point where we HAD to ask that there were safeties on their guns. But now I seem to barely notice their guns...they are so accustomed to having them, and as the heat blazes on and they has gone hours with little to no water they line themselves up in chairs legs open AK47 between their legs and chin resting on the barrel of the gun...if they feel comfortable with their chin on the gun, I can get used to seeing guns guns guns.

Oh and I must say they have the most fashionable uniforms i have ever seen. One i love the green beret and two their pants are so beautifully made with intricate seams and basically yeah I want a pair of those pants. I'm hoping to convince Paul to give me a pair by the time I leave.

**and I had my first mango in Nigeria today, and it was delicious...thanks to Pablo for getting them for us!

Day Eight: Working Hard & Swimming Pools

Everyone is officially here from New York and LA...we got in our last shipment of teachers yesterday and start our first day of school tomorrow.

We did quite a lot of work over the last few days, carrying and unpacking 108 boxes full of equipment, setting up classrooms and troubleshooting (a lot). Turns out our facilities lose power quite often...not the best thing for a film school. We also had a smoking dvd player today and need to figure out how to trouble shoot that for class tomorrow...but yeah I can't go into too much detail tonight as I am tired of thinking of it now and need to hop in bed....

But the best thing I have ever experienced and will continue to do every day after work while I am here is jump in the pool after a long days work...sorry all you New Yorkers, but it is absolutely amazing!

our hotel pool*

I also just want to take a moment to talk about the 300 hundred Christian Nigerians that were slaughters this morning in a village about 3 hrs from here called Jos. This was a religious retaliation from some Muslims, who suffered a similar fate by the hands of some Christians a few months ago. You can read about it here. This conflict will not and has not put me in any type of immediate or future danger, so you don't need to worry about that, but this fighting and brutality is something that is such a reality here.

a man selling drinks on the high way*

*pictures taken by Eliana Alvarez