Abuja, Nigeria First Day (Impressions and Street Scences)

January 22, 2009
Arrived in Abuja (love the ripeness of this word when it rolls off my tongue) this morning about 5:30 AM. We had a little excitement at check-in -- our rooms weren't ready. This wouldn't have been so terrible had not the desk person tried to jack up the price of our rooms by ~100% when she saw we were foreigners. We'd been warned in advance that credit cards weren't accepted. But we weren't prepared to pay 565 for a two night stay).

Given my jet laggedness I seriously considered yeilding and bunking with David (Hans-Olov's assistant). I was in desperate need of ZZZZs. We called our host who quickly settled everything. Our room rates were reduced to ~$150/night and we got free breakfast. Hans-Olov, who is usually slow to anger, was pissed. He kept grumpbling about Nigeria's corruption souring the deal. I was assigned a room about 11 AM. I slept until about 1 then was off to my first meeting at the Institute of Human Virology.

I site-visited the facility solamente (which I wasn't prepared to do but hey, it felt good to fake being a grown-up). I met their COO, CFO saw all of their core facilities, met their internal auditors, IT team, media relations team and senior managers. It was pretty interesting. I discovered a small flaw in their operation which is that they're an entity of University of Maryland. Any project we would propose would have to be vetted by their scientists and administrators. Not sure anyone on my team knows this). Also, like in the other African countries we visited all the resouces flow HIV/AIDS. The CFO assured me, when I asked, that the Institute was prepared to take on other initiatives. As an example he cited they were able to "drop everything" to manage an Avian Flu crisis in 2007. He told meother health priorities were managing non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes. I like I earned the trip gleaning these simple facts.

The CFO divides his time between Baltimore and Nigeria. I'm a little like a fish out of water without Pam and now without my team but I'm enjoying this unsettled feeling. It's challenging to walk in this new world. And to be able to speak admin speak with surety. I even took notes!

The city is modern what little I've seen of it, very 70s. With small industrial complexes everywhere. It's not unlike other African metropolis' (signs of agrilife are everywhere). It's very brown. Lots of bad drivers who toot their horns non-stop for no apparent reason. You're just as likely to see veiled women with black chadors as women in colorful native turbans with matching dresses as women in tank tops and skin tight jeans. On the way to the Institute I saw two huge edifices -- the national mosque and the national church, side by side. The visual symbolism of the balance between Muslims and Christians is very interesting.