Microwave vs. Nigeria

Our microwave broke down a couple weeks ago while my parents were visiting for Christmas. We hurried off to the store to order a new one, but it won't arrive until this Friday. So we've been reheating food in the oven, toaster, or stove top for - almost like our pioneer forefathers. ;)


We have this saying that we still use. When the lights go out, it reminds us of the 'privations' we had in Nigeria - specifically the routine power outages 3-5 times a day. We turn to each other and say, "Welcome to Nigeria!"

Joy has commented twice now that we can't even say that. In Nigeria, AUN supplied us with a microwave. And though the electricity would shut off regularly, and sometimes for a few hours at a time, we were never days on end without a microwave to complement our stove and oven. She says: "Isn't it funny to feel like there could come a day when we feel how spoiled we were in Nigeria" compared to the US?

We were always aware of how good we had it in Nigeria compared to other Nigerians, and regular contact with other friends living abroad helped us recognize how pampered we were by our institution compared to theirs. But it's one of the very few times that we have felt better off in Nigeria than here. "Ode to having a new microwave by Friday!" quothe the Joy.

Student Expectations

This was is my first week teaching at TSU and I think I may be in love.

See, AUN was my first teaching job and I got used to the student norms there. Some of my colleagues there ranted pretty heavily about how almost no one came to class prepared to take notes, only 1/4 of the students bother to show up the first two days of class (one class I taught NO ONE showed up the first day) and some don't come until 3 weeks in, students regularly needed to borrow supplies from their prof, and they never came to class on time especially after the midterm when classes often couldn't start until 5-15 minutes after class began. There were a handful of exceptions, students who were bright, ready to work, and would have succeeded at Cornell or BYU, but usually only a couple in a class. This was all I knew, figuring my own preparedness as a student was a fluke and some of my colleagues were merely complaining about the younger generation's lack of preparedness which has been going on for decades. I adapted and tried to help teach some basic college skills as best I could.

Monday I walked into my first TSU class 10 minutes early to have plenty of time to set up before the students got there. The room was already packed. Only about 5 students entered after I did in a class of 115, and only 2 of them were late, both by less than 5 minutes.

I put the syllabus up on the projector and showed them my contact information. Instantly and in synch, 115 heads lowered as 115 sets of fingers started writing the information down on paper and devices. Any time a new slide appeared, the same thing happened.

A few students have already informed me of planned absences for school functions months in advance. Before classes started I had multiple emails asking about the textbook.

This is ... so beautiful! At first seeing so many students ready was a little intimidating, but I VERY quickly warmed to the excitement of it. Students who are actually ready to WORK! It is amazing to me. Who knows, maybe these students won't even think my tests are hard and I'll have to actually raise standards.

Today's Thunder Storm - Nigerian flashbacks

Today we had quite a down pore of rain. It was also a thunderstorm and Princess was getting into a bath and was nervous about the noise. The electricity went off a couple of times, but it did that yesterday when it rained as well. Then the electricity went off completely and stayed off.

Derrill and I say to each other in such a circumstance "Welcome to Nigeria."

The real difference of course that we expect the electricity to be on all the time here and in Nigeria we plan for when it will be off (always have things charged, use surge protectors, etc) and the private generator nearly always kicked in right after. So since we expect the power to always be on here, having it out is less convenient here. But in Nigeria we are trained to do without it when necessary. I must confess I was grateful just to have some electricity in Nigeria. How quickly we forget or come to expect. I am grateful for the ability to expect again. ;)

Oh I should mention that we got our electricity back on an hour later. Thank you land of the free and New Mexico customer support or whoever.

 - Joy

A very traditional Thanksgiving

Left to right: cole slaw, cranberry sauce, some bird,
apple pie I mistook for meat pie, carrots, wait-that's-not-chocolate-
it's-a-cinnamon-brownie!, rice that's hotter than the hot sauce,
and some kind of crumble that was too hot for me.

The last two years, I think I've done better at celebrating Nostalgia Day than Thanksgiving Day. While still being thankful overall, I thought a lot about what was missing, what was unusual, what was uncanny, and especially what was just Wrong about Thanksgiving in Nigeria. Much of it isn't even Nigeria's fault - I mean, in order to be a Traditional Thanksgiving, it has to be at my aunt's house, the one they sold more than 20 years ago. Some crowning foods just don't exist here.

I wondered what traditions and nostalgias my little boy was picking up, celebrating American Thanksgiving in Nigeria. Would I some day read his blog post titled "It's just not Thanksgiving without jollof rice and bleached cabbage"?

Ah well. We do the best we can. We are grateful for what we have, not for what we don't, right? Of course right. AUN is a wonderful institution for even planning a big celebration.

Today though I realized I am actually celebrating a Very Traditional Thanksgiving. In some ways, you can't get more traditional than to celebrate Thanksgiving as an expat.

My four pilgrim forefathers who were there on the Mayflower were wanderers in a strange land, a tiny and very opinionated minority in a land of people who looked and spoke differently and who ate strange foods. The first two years were very hard. They watched as friends left one by one - in their case to death and in mine to other jobs in other lands. Finally they threw off their socialist ideals, embraced private property, and enjoyed the bounties of the land with new friends. As far as Hallmark versions of the holiday go, I think I've done this just about right!

I leave for home in two weeks. 14 days. I am thankful for the number 14.

The Passive-Aggressive Professor

On Thursday one of my classes was decidedly empty - only 2 students showed up, and both of them were more than 10 minutes late. I was ready to leave.

Today there was no one there at 8-10 minutes late and I was getting mighty frustrated. Finally most of the class showed up. There was a quiz today and they did not have much time left to solve it.

Because most of the class was not there on Thursday, I decided to be a very nice guy and hold some extra class time after our normal class to review what they missed. When normal class ended, I told them they were free to go and, if anyone wanted, I would quickly review what we did last time.

When someone grumbled about not wanting to stay for an extra hour and a half, I told them I needed to catch my bus too; this would be mighty fast. And then I said something in all sincerity:

"I'm just doing something nice to be of service and help. Don't feel that you have a responsibility to stay."

I meant that. I was not providing a burden of guilt.

I wanted them to feel that I was being helpful, and if it wasn't helpful, they should go do something else.

But as soon as the words were out of mouth, I heard a different prof with a different voice use those exact same words to mean the exact opposite. "How dare you be so ungrateful! Here I am busting my chops, taking all this extra time so you lazy ...." ouch.

So if any of you are my students, just know that I meant what I said sincerely and please don't take it the wrong way.

Finding common ground: Karl Marx

This semester I'm teaching an independent study course on "heterodox economics" - which is to say, the stuff that doesn't typically make it to the textbooks. I was pretty confident in picking the readings for the sections on Austrian and new institutional economics, but decided to chat with my next-door colleague, an avowed Marxist, to see what he would suggest for covering Marxism. He recommended the first volume of Das Kapital in the gleeful knowledge that he was getting ME to read it as well. He knew I was not about to assign something to my student I hadn't read myself and the recommendation is a sensible one since I'm assigning very sympathetic readings for the other topics as well. I've been meaning to read Smith, Keynes, Ricardo, Marx, et al "someday" anyway, so I took this as a chance to cross one off my list.

Primarily, I confess, I was reading so I could voice better objections to Marx than that I don't like his conclusions or rehashing other people's criticisms. I've found those objections and I'm quite pleased with the understanding I've gained in the last couple weeks. My opposition to Marxism is now founded on firmer grounds*. I also found two things that I liked.


The first was a lovely quote in praise of the labor market as

"a very Eden of the innate rights of man. It is the exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham [the greatest happiness for the greatest number]. ... And precisely for that reason ... under the auspices of an all-cunning providence, they all work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal, and in the common interest."

I found myself in ready agreement with that characterisation.

The other idea was one I had never before considered, but I found it profound in my circumstances.

Sickness: stomach bug or mosquito?

This was a very hard week. Sunday, Joy was able to fast for the first time in years, so we fasted together while the getting was good. In our church, fasting means going without food or water for two consecutive meals. Then we had a nice, normal dinner.

Joy and I sat down to spend some together after putting the kids to bed, and I was not feeling well. My stomach was processing dinner much too quickly and much too frequently, let's call it that. I kept feeling worse. I finally got out the thermometer and started tracking my temperature. In 90 minutes my temperature went up 2 degrees. I hurt.

I spent the entire night getting up to go to the bathroom, then laying back down for maybe 5 minutes until I returned to the bathroom, maybe for an hour before the next stomach cramps. I was so miserable at one point I TMI TMI TMI TMI TMI TMI TMI TMI. Oy, was that a terrible image that will burn your retinas!

Mom reminded Joy to remind me to take Vicodin and that was a lifesaver.

Aftermath of the Adventures and more Thanksgiving

Thursday afternoon I got an email from the National Hospital with my diagnosis: a herniated disc. Happy Thanksgiving! Brother-in-law DeWayne the doctor called me from Boston to discuss what it all meant and options. Friday I finally cornered the AUN Clinic doctor who agreed: Derrill needs an operation and it shouldn't be done here. He also gave me a new prescription for an NSAID that actually works. I've been mostly pain-free since and have enjoyed and relished lack of pain.

Thursday we also had a Thanksgiving dinner with the AUN community. The kids had a great time. 

Friday evening I attended a dinner for our illustrious keynote speaker, the former head of the Central Bank and key financial adviser (left). Next to him is AUN's Founder, the former vice president - that  week is also his birthday so we celebrate Founder's Day most of the weekend. Next to him is the Chairman of the Board.

Near me (not pictured) was the Adamawa Peace Council, an initiative AUN has helped spearhead to reduce violence in the area, and several members of the US Embassy. From AUN were ... the economists. I think originally the idea was for a quiet dinner with the economists [two of them behind the chairman], AUN's President (an economist) and the keynote speaker (an economist), but somewhere along the line a few more guests and then a few more were invited.

At dinner, Pres. Ensign and I talked very briefly about the possibility of sending me, not to Switzerland or Tulane, but to UCLA for my surgery. In emails since then, Joy and I found a doctor on the insurance in Santa Barbara and our travel has been approved to have the surgery done at home! So ...

We'll be home for Christmas!

Further Adventures in Medicine - part 1

Monday I flew to Abuja to have an MRI done. There are only a handful of large cities in Nigeria where there is a hospital with the right machinery. I stayed overnight at the 3Js hotel, my second trip there. The in-room internet still gives me trouble, but at least they have a cyber cafe where I can pay $1.25/hour or sometimes convince the guy in charge to let me work for free since my laptop has problems with their systems. I was thankful to have had a pleasant flight (if 2-3 hours late) and no problems getting to the hotel. I was also thankful the travel guy at HR got everything set up in record time and I made it to the airport on time despite not knowing when I was leaving until an hour before the flight ... in the middle of a class!

Nigerian beds remind me of hymn 86: How FIRM a foundation. It's sleeping on a board, almost literally. No bedsprings. Just a board and a mattress. I am thankful every night for the memory foam pad we brought with us to sleep on. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I was in agony. I needed both my cane and the support of the furniture around the small room to be able to move at all. Though I finally walked off most of the stiffness, I was in a quiet agony all day long.

I got to the hospital for my 9am MRI appointment and all wahalla broke loose (that's Hausa for problems).

Adventures in Birthdaying 2 - in which happier times are foretold

The best way to start a birthday is by having crepes. I'm so thankful that Derrill made me crepes for my birthday. They were so yummy.

Princess kept wanting pieces of my crepes with nutella on them.



Prince wanted a crepe-Nutella-crepe sandwich, as you can see from the picture of Prince with his tongue sticking out.




We had pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies too, and opened presents. I got a trip to Disneyland [during the summer], a Christmas advent calendar, the first season of Bewitched, and Dominion: Hinterlands. Yay!

Some of my presents had not yet arrived via Whispernet. Then I got a nap

[A very important birthday present, that. - DW]

I had a longer nap today. When I got up [yesterday] it was time to get ready to go to the Thanksgiving party we'd been invited to. It was very nice to have turkey and pumpkin pie and masheyed potatoes...


We got to see some friends and let our kids play outside (on the rocks). I'm glad we went. We ought to get together with these friends more often over Christmas break. [DW - I made a pumpkin soup which was eaten alllll up.]

[DW - I had an interesting conversation with the head of AUN's various supporting schools. Her Farm School students meet with my freshmen once a week so that my students can tutor her students in English conversation. I give my kids some training and then step back to let them do it. She said she was extremely pleased with her students' progress, that they were speaking up and speaking out as never before, and that it was clear she felt I was doing a wonderful job. In my student evaluations, my students also love it - they universally feel they are learning from the experience and it's their favorite day of class each week.]


On the way to dinner, I got to open four more presents - some yummy books to read. One was Ally Condie's new book Reached, which I don't get to read for a little while cause Derrill and I want to read it together


[DW - but we're reading 3 Musketeers right now.]

And I got three more Georgette Heyer books: my third of the Alistair trilogy An Infamous Army, The Quiet Gentleman, and Venetia. I have to recommend Georgette Heyer. She is such an awesome writer. I have fallen in love with many of her heroines. I still like the books that I didn't fall in love with, but I really like the way she writes and, if you like Regency romance, she's very clean and a great author.

Prince bought me The Quiet Gentleman and I made sure to thank him a few times, because it's one of the first times that he got me something that I was really asking for instead of something he really wanted for himself. I think that's amazing for a 4 year old.

When we got home, we watched the first episode of Bewitched. It was a little over the kids' heads, ... which was a good thing. [I had no idea they had scenes like that in Bewitched!] But Prince really got into Little House on the Prairie after dinner - I had told him that it was one of my favorite shows and so he wanted to watch it. And we ended the evening playing Dominion after the kids went to bed.

It was a nice, comfortable, relaxing birthday.

Thankfulness: Week 1

A lot of friends are being grateful for something every day on Facebook and I wanted to join them over here. in some catch up. We have a lot to be thankful for, ________ living in Nigeria.

Why did I put a blank there? Well, there are just too many connecting words that fit. "Despite" and "even" might come to mind, but they're not very thankful; "because of" sounds more thankful; "especially" would suit the purpose well; "while" suggests that some of these things we can be thankful for here won't last and so we should enjoy them while we can. Pick your favorite or mad lib some more.

Nov 1 - I'm thankful for my father. That's an easy one because he was born Nov 1. Happy birthday, Pop! I'm thankful for a father who taught me to grin and bear with pain and keep working, who showed me you can be successful and play games occasionally at the office, and who made sure his kids knew they could come invade his office daily to spend a few minutes jabbering at him. I'm thankful for a father who taught me public speaking by precept and example - some of my best professional training. I'm always thankful when he takes the time to mention that he appreciates these blogs and status updates. Love you, Dad.

Nov 2 - I'm thankful for the new taxis!

Busy Week (as always)

Princess' hair is finally long enough for pigtails. They don't stay in very long, though, so enjoy em while you can.

I think things are far enough along that I can admit this publicly: I am the new Economics Department Chair. Our former chair is a dean, an interim dean, AND an associate dean all at the same time. It was felt it was time for someone else to chair the department.

On Friday we went to a party to welcome new faculty and staff. There were a few too many people there for Prince's comfort, so we went outside to play on the brand new playset at the Club.  The #1 thing we were worried about missing from the States (other than family) was a park or playground. We're very happy to see this.

We were very sad to learn one of our dear friends here is leaving rather abruptly.  We and most of AUN are saddened to see him go. He did a lot for this university and will be greatly missed.

Joy got to do the socializing at Friday's party. This was a very good thing since you can see how stir-crazy she has been.

Not really. What you see before you is Joy's latest toy: a mortar and pestle for making pounded yam. You take the bark off these enormous yams, boil them so they aren't poisonous anymore, then pound them in that drum.

"I had a nice Saturday afternoon," Joy reports. "Prince played with our neighbor kids and I visited with the Mom. Princess explored and got to know their little baby. A good time was had by all. We plan on having them over on Fridays regularly."

We hadn't been back long before the bugs welcomed us back. Prince had 11 bites just on his arm in one night. More were on his face and other arm. I sprayed his room, only to come down with half a dozen on my ankles the next morning. When you get bit out here, you really know you've been bit.

I'm teaching development economics again, intermediate macroeconomics for the first time, and two sections of the AUN Freshman Seminar for the first time. I finally have all the textbooks I need (two weeks in) but at least one class is still trying to get hold of their copies.

The good news is that we are now finally all on the same time zone. Derrill has been on Middle East time falling asleep during dinner, and Joy's been somewhere in the Atlantic unable to get to sleep. It was kind of like Bizaro World.

New at AUN this week

The strange new work I showed you earlier turned out to be more shaded parking. They also extended the new line of saplings (right in front of me) and are starting on a shaded path to the cafeteria (the line of poles extending to the left). So much you can see. The new graduation building roof is growing rapidly by the day and the library is continuing it's slow progress.

From the fact that you cannot see the mountains, you also know the dust is still present this week. Every day. This week it's been all I can taste or smell. There is widespread agreement this is a much longer dusty season than normal. Even when I step on the green grass - watered daily - dust clouds billow at my feet. A little dust devil grew up and blew in my face yesterday.

Shuffling the cards at AUN

I was sitting very comfortably, going from 5 classes and 4 preps* last semester down to 3 classes and 2 preps. I have been told by non-economists with more teaching experience that last semester was yoeman's work. I was ready for some sanity and some research time. I did (and do) feel sorry for my colleagues who had more classes to make that happen. But for the most part, I was looking forward to a much easier semester.

For about two weeks.

In order to accommodate Economist #7's arrival mid-semester (this week!) I traded one of my repeated classes for a new class: Game Theory.

I am very much of three minds about of this.

My freshmen seminars

AUN has a freshman seminar all new students are required to attend. It gives them a common experience, plus aids in the transition from high school to college. There was some hope originally of having me be one of the teachers, but the econ department has been running thin, so we couldn't spare both me and Dan Barkley who is also teaching it. Maybe next semester.

However, since I do love the idea, they did get me to agree to do a couple lectures - one on how to succeed in college and one on agriculture and food security. I was up this last week.

I had too much fun. For me, the best part was coming up with a parody of Sam Cooke's "What a wonderful world this would be" (Don't know much about history .... that one) to remind them of the tips I had given. I had graphs (I'll upload them later) showing that students who didn't attend class tended to flunk, that students who turned in their homework did well, and so forth.

This is how we do things here

We have now lived in Nigeria for six months. This is how we do things here ... this weekend.

I'm flying to Addis for a conference in a couple weeks. There are two airlines that service Yola to the capitol, each of them flying at a random time in the "morning" and "afternoon". My flight from Abuja to Addis leaves in the early afternoon, so I need the flight that really is in the morning. I dropped by the airport to buy my ticket (which you can't do online) in cash (another necessity for the time being).

There I was informed that they are no longer doing morning flights. This has been the case for ... 3-4 days now. They'll probably start up again, another source informed me, sometime this week. So I asked them, if I come back next week and you do morning flights then, can I get a ticket then? Yes. Okay. So I'll go get my ticket next week. If they still aren't, I'll have to fly out the night before and overnight in Abuja.

Three little fishies swimmin in the water

In Nevada with family. Prince's firstish time in a pool.

At the AUN Club pool, trying out his new boat

Teaching him to paddle

Safe and Sound

Today was a quiet day. We got some extra cleaning done, Princess was adorable, we played a lot of board games (including introducing Prince to Solarquest, a galactic version of Monopoly) and made chocolate cake. Prince and I finished reading the Wizard of Oz and he asked to go on to read book #2 in the series. Oh, and I cut my own hair and did more than just shave it all down for the first time. It turned out more layered than tapered, but it works. Everything was quiet outside.

If you want to know what's going on in the rest of Nigeria, look under the fold. The point of this post is that we are happy and healthy and well provided for. Only look under the fold if you want things to worry about or to make your prayers a bit more specific. We're fine and feel at peace.

Feeling Very Blessed

This is one of those "I cursed my fate that I had no gloves until I heard about a man whose $100 cashmere gloves would cost $100 to repair" things.

As we prepared to leave for Nigeria, we were told by more friends than I can count that the only thing keeping them going through their trials was the happy thought that at least they weren't going to Nigeria. ... Gee, thanks. Don't mention it, really.

        Did I just say I have more friends than I can count? When and how did that happen? How blessed I am!

And now my friends are returning the favor - at least I don't have their problems!

I've been overwhelmed on my overtime semester - working every night til midnight or 2am for months, only taking time off for family time on those nights I was actually home and then going back to it, and spent the last week in a feverish rush to get all the grading done for 120 final exams and over 150 papers in under a week.

       And how thankful I am I have had a job this entire time. Not all my friends have, like M&M. My first job market did not have the wonderful outcome this one did. I have colleagues and supervisors who appreciate and praise me. Not everyone has that either.

Coming out here was expensive. There was stress and misery and expense. It was really hard. Joy still gets a catch in her throat remembering it.

        Not nearly as hard as J&S had it. I just read on their blog what a terrible time of it they had! It was an expensive move for both our families, but we still had some savings to fall back on that has been replenished and doubled again. We had people at the airport waiting to greet us, a cool home to walk into, dinner ready for us, a dedicated bureaucracy who took care of everything for us at the embassies and prepped us for everything.... AUN takes good care of us. We are blessed.

Giving Thanks in Nigeria

AUN gave a Thanksgiving meal Thursday at the cafeteria freely to all staff, students, and faculty. The line was tremendous. I've never seen so many people in the cafeteria at one time. It was so packed, the fellow who runs the place was trying to help people find open chairs. The special meal is seen on the right: BBQ turkey (your choice, chicken or turkey) with turkeys specially flown in, rice pilaf or spicy rice pilaf, and the usual assortment of miscellaneous sauteed veggies. Oh yes, and the Coke so cold there were ice chips in it - a pretty good trick around here. I worked Thanksgiving, getting home around 7:30pm - a bit earlier than usual because a neighbor gave me a ride.

Fri and Sat, I spent some time preparing a pumpkin pie using pumpkin I imported from the States during my trip there in October. I also cooked a chicken. Joy prepared some garlic mashed potatoes and deviled eggs. Then the Austins brought over some cookies for Joy's birthday and we had ourselves a family Thanksgiving celebration.

No pie pans, no crusts,
no evaporated milk, no whipped cream
We improvise

I am occasionally amazed at my students' papers. I have never heard any group of people defaming their own country with the vehemence I have encountered here. More than a third of my papers are about how terrible it is here. I've started correcting some of them, showing them real data of how Nigeria is getting better, that real progress is being made, and that some of their stories about why things aren't what they should be simply don't hold up to careful thought and scrutiny. I hadn't planned on coming here to defend Nigeria, but I didn't plan on becoming a defender of Utah in Ithaca either. If people don't believe good things are even possible, what hope is there except to get a degree and get out of town? They need hope, something to be proud of, and a sense of gratitude. The more I study, the more I actually think this place gets far worse press than it deserves.

Joy started off our giving thanks by saying how happy she was to all be together in Nigeria.

We are thankful to be able to talk to family on the internet.