Week One In the Books

I officially have one week down in Nigeria and, honestly, I can't believe it's only been a week. I feel like I settled in very quickly and already feel like I've been here awhile. Somehow I already get a holiday and have today off from work (it's Nigerian Independence Day). Not a bad start to my second week. So far I've spent the day sleeping in, watching a movie in bed, and laying by the pool reading for awhile. Almost feels like I'm still in Cali (and even got some of the tan back today).

It really has been a great experience so far though, and I've been completely reassured that I'm going to love my time here. There are tons of activities always going on at the compound to keep everyone busy and everyone is super friendly. It's a very tight-knit community, which I feel is necessary being so far from home. The only part that makes it a little strange is that the people you hang out with on a regular basis are also your coworkers and bosses. In the last week I've already been over to one of my boss' house for dinner and shared a few beers, been out grocery shopping with another manager, and attended a wine club event last Friday night with the both of them and their families. Yesterday I went out to dinner with a group of people, one of whom is my supervisor, and then a few of us came back to his house after for drinks and a movie. These are just things that would never happen back in the states. You see your supervisors and managers at work and maybe go out for an occasional lunch or two, but would seldom frequent their homes on the weekends or rendezvous for a late night beer. Yet, this is something I've already learned to be commonplace over here. You are constantly surrounded by the same people you're working with, so you really don't have any other choice unless you prefer solitude and loneliness. It's pretty cool.

I mentioned above that there are many activities to keep you busy here. A few of these scheduled activities and a couple spontaneous ones have already made my week here quite fun. Every Tuesday there is a group that gets together to play basketball - there is both an indoor and outdoor court. I heard about this last week on my first day (coincidentally Tuesday) and knew I'd have to get in on this. I went out last week and had a blast playing with these guys. It was me and about 7 other local Nigerians that work here and stick around to play in the evening. We didn't have enough to run full court so we played half, but still ran some good games. We played for about an hour and a half outside and worked up a dang good sweat. Needless to say, I'll be partaking in this every week for sure. There is also organized soccer every Thursday, which I didn't get out of work early enough to play this week, but will certainly check it out in weeks to come. I don't think I've played soccer since middle school, but hopefully still at least have a little skill left in me. As I also briefly mentioned, there was a wine club event Friday night which takes place once a month. I went to this with my two managers and had a great time meeting more people from the camp and sampling some English wines. Also, despite me keeping it hush, my boss managed to find out it was my birthday and decided to make an announcement and have everyone sing to me. That was a nice little icebreaker and was truly welcoming - I was very appreciative.

Now, a couple of the spontaneous events that also made this week great... Throughout the week I've been introduced intentionally to a few of the younger guys around camp closer to my age. Friday night a couple of them decided they wanted to take me out to a couple of the local spots outside the camp they usually go to. We met up at one of their houses after wine club to get organized and head out. Sidenote: rarely do people ever drive themselves outside of camp here. Most families have drivers that are on salary and work for them year-round, and some (like me) who aren't here long-term can just borrow other people's drivers when they're not using them and just tip them on the side. Also, whenever you leave camp after 7 PM, or know you will be out after 7, you are required to have security with you. The security is basically a truck full of 3 or 4 Nigerian police officers. They call it "chase" because they wait for you at the gates to come out, and then literally "chase" your vehicle anywhere you go. Whenever you stop somewhere to go inside, they wait outside for you with your driver and then again "chase" you to any other locations and ultimately back to the camp at the end of the night. They are all armed with rifles, so it really actually did make me feel a whole lot safer. I will attempt to get a picture with some of these guys before my trip is over. Anyways, we went to two different spots that night, and both proved to be quite different than anything I'm used to. The first was a sports bar that's a classic ex-patriot hangout and the second was a combination of an outdoor lounge for smoking hookah and an upstairs dance floor that gave it more of a club feel. I had a good time getting to know the guys and making some friends, but the experience at these places was definitely unique to the setting here. I won't elaborate much, but it was unlike anything I'd seen before in the states.

The last thing I'll mention for today has probably been my favorite experience thus far. There is currently a guy in my office who is here for three weeks training from Liberia. Chevron currently has a growing presence in Liberia and they're beginning to beef up their finance group, hence why he's here. I've interacted with him a little bit in the office and actually played basketball with him last week too, but Saturday night we both found ourselves in the guest house for dinner. I was already seated when he came in and invited him to join me. We got to talking about sports, work, the US (specifically Houston where he'd spent some time), our paths to Nigeria, and then ultimately the topic of faith came up. He mentioned that he met his wife through a church group he's been involved in in Liberia, which prompted me to ask if he's a Christian. His response was a very adamant, "yes." He returned the question and I responded in kind that I am Catholic. From this point, our conversation changed; it was really incredible. We began talking about faith and family, shared values and upbringings, and things we deemed most important in life. It was quite the experience. To be sitting here talking with this man from a completely different part of the world and yet have so much in common really struck me. He - from a rather undeveloped country that has been torn by civil war for a large part of its history up until the last decade, I - from the US, and yet we found so many shared qualities through one common link - our faith. How great is our God?

I'm not even sure what led to this, but somehow ping pong was brought up in our conversation as well. We found out that we both loved to play and decided to head over to the gym for a late night session around 9 PM and ended up playing till 11. What a great way to spend a Saturday night, am I right? Through this, I honestly think we developed a pretty solid friendship and I hope to stay in touch going forward. He heads back to Liberia next week, but shared with me that he ultimately wants to end up back in states, possibly in Houston with Chevron if the opportunity presents itself. How cool would that be? We got lunch yesterday in the cafeteria together as well and I finally sampled some of the local cuisine. It really was pretty good, although I didn't get too creative. I'll experiment a little more each time I try it I'm sure. Our conversation is seldom effortless, as our different dialects and accents prevent challenges and force us to repeat a lot, but it still works and we understand most everything that comes out after a few tries.

I still feel like there's plenty more I could share, but I'm pretty sick of writing now and want to get outside and do something. Basically, it's been a great first week and I'm very excited for the months ahead. I know before long there will be plenty of things I really start to miss, but for now I'm just going to soak it all up and enjoy it while I can. Everyone's been saying you have to really keep yourself busy or else you start to think about where you are and drive yourself crazy, so I guess that's my main goal: staying busy. Luckily I really haven't had a problem so far! Until next time...