The changing world (18) Feb - Mar 1971

Eid el Kabir public holiday. One has to get used to the two annual two day Muslim ones and as they are dependent on moon sightings you never know exactly when but they do have a faculty for timing them to join on a weekend.This one was a Friday.
   Apollo XV men walk on the moon. Midwife Grace Stokes returned from leave. Also among out staff were Alan and Georgie White but I cannot remember their roles. I think he was maintenance. Katy started piano teaching at Hillcrest School for missionary children in Jos. Enjoyed a Valentine's party at the Cato's. Gordon is accountant for NESCO the hydro-electric generating company for the plateau tin mines and the hospital. Ann is daughter of our pioneer missionaries the Burroughs whose granddaughter Miriam e[was later to marry our Jonathan. David Morris at ANMC told us the Burroughs were sent to the north, a Muslim village where they were given an unhealthy plot of land and the local Muslims mocked when their two boys died.
   Jonathan, Sharon Balfour and Florence Dabwang dedicated by Zwamun. The latter was hilarious. He had rehearsed the two expatriate baby names but never thought to rehearse the Nigerian baby's name not suspecting would be a name after a missionary, Florence Chandler, pioneer in Gwoza. His attempt went, 'Flo. Flor, Flow, Flowence'. UK went decimal on the basis of the £. When Nigeria did it they were more honest and £1 became two Naira so the pennies remained much the same and it was less inflationary. With the strength of the oil economy the naira doubled in value to parity with the pound before we left in 1982. Now it is over 500 to the pound, a tribute to Nigerian corruption and inefficiency.
   Buying supplies in Jos was always a trial. The customer is not in the right. Supplies are short, delays usual. There is only one sizable supermarket with imported groceries and a couple of smaller ones. Outside of the shops, all is bargaining. England win the Ashes down under. Holiday at SIM Mango rest home., a treat except sometimes their USA cuisine was strange with sweet and savoury mixed like iced buns and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Enjoyed table tennis and croquet there. Visited the old suspension bridge which Dr Barnden built so the locals could cross the river to get to the hospital. Before medicine he had been an engineer. Miango is by two extinct volcanoes and there is an airstrip used by mission planes. It is but grass cleared of rocks. Nearby there are fine views off the plateau escarpment but often obscured by harmattan dust. Wing blows dust from the Sahara. it can prevent planes landing. All one furniture is covered so that if you dust one day the next it is covered in dust again. It also leads to dry throat and coughs.
   We had two seasons, wet and dry. The former starts around Easter with intermittent heavy storms. Each one is preceded by a wonderful characteristic odour of land first moistened. It can be experienced in England after a drought but not as strongly. There is a name for it which escapes me now. Rains cease in October after an August peak. One year we had freak rain Christmas eve.
   Mango cost us 18/- a day. Back at the hospital we heard cholera was in the south of the state so we were not accepting patients from those parts. The UK postal strike ended after about five weeks of no airmail for us. By mid March it started to be uncomfortably warm and more humid before the rains came. 101F on front porch. Usually the plateau is a beautiful temperate climate, the hill station of West Africa. Only December can be dry cool and August wet cool. March 11 received airmail posted 18 January! We subscribed to the airmail edition of the Guardian and sometimes kind folk like the Cato's let us see UK Times etc. Time and Newsweek from USA were on sale. From them I learnt our local vet Alf White was a top selling author as vet James Herriot. His books were the only things ever to make me homesick.
   Teaching my student I found the two things prohibited which the boys wanted was alcohol and polygamy. The latter was not welcomed by the girls. The boys did not believe that the birth rates of the sexes is the same with any imbalance due to war.
   Seven years after his crash, dad received his insurance settlement. We never did find out what was. When he died we found no record.
   Joan Crockford was another lab worker at Vom. March 22 first rain. We had Dominic as our houseboy/cook and Boys as nurse for Jonathan. A Nigerian man will only cook European food. That is a man's job. If we wanted Nigerian chop he would call in his wife for that was woman's work.
   Visitors from USA, England, Germany and Nigeria.