Nigeria: Sharing the Love of Yola, Blog Style

There are a few of us here in Adamawa State who try to share our vision and experience through our blogs. This blog of course focuses on design, and random places I really enjoy, with Adamawa State featured often. My friend Dani shares her life specifically in Yola with lots of photo albums, a blog, and a short description about her. Her photos and short descriptions really capture the vibe. All of this information is a great way to show folks who have never made it here - or are about to make it here - what Adamawa State has to offer. Dani in particular provides great insight into family life in Yola/Jimetta, both her own and those around her. Peruse as you see fit...

Nigeria: Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls, Stick to the Rivers and the Lakes that You're Used To

I admit it. I listen to old and probably really bad music. That's what you get when you are an American living in Africa for so long. Radio is king here (being the whole continent), and so is anything that makes your hips move or your heart long for your former lover who now is with someone else. On this Thanksgiving with the internet working so well and with a few glasses of wine enjoyed with friends, I can tell you that I am thankful for the Gwara Falls that we visited, about a two and a half hour drive from Yola. This place was so untouched except by the thirty or so Nigerian residents who live in the area. I am always in complete awe of what earthly designs this place has to offer. Even if I like listening to hip-hop from twenty or so years ago, or reminiscing over photos taken about ten years ago that I thought would never be seen again. This place works in mysterious and wonderful ways...

Nigeria: Living Room Stripes and Daggers

Lemme just keep going with this luck and show you my dividing wall in my studio that I painted all by myself (I'm going to paint the wall at the foot of my bed on the left of this picture next year). AND of course, all the daggers and the big knife I picked up in the Fulani Market - for about $3 each. There is absolutely no worry of personal security risk around here, but I still feel brave just looking at them.

Nigeria: Trucking in Style

Wow, look... a PHOTO uploaded from Yola! Of course I don't have the sari pictures with me, so I thought I'd give you one of my favorites since arriving to this dare-to-dream place called Yola. On one of our many weekend road trips to assess the area, we stopped somewhere random to get some petrol and this truck was just sitting there (Broken? Abandoned? We will never know). I'm guessing many of the work trucks being driven around Nigeria are with a Pakistani/Indian influence in terms of decoration, but I was struck by the saying on this particular one. Indeed, to be a man is definitely not a day job. We need to all take this to heart in celebrating American Thanksgiving, and in keeping in mind the current crisis in Mumbai. Bless us all.

Sorries and Saris

After about a week of not properly being able to access the internet, here is a post. Not a post with pictures however, since the internet is still holding something against me and my colleagues here in Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria, but a post none the less. I apologize on behalf of the server, of which I have no control or interest to control.

I now am a proud owner of the most beautiful sari from India I have ever seen, and that when I can post pictures I definitely will. It's a black sari (something I would have never picked out myself), with strong pearl and sparkly accents. Since I am going to a wedding in Delhi in the middle of December and only brought one sari with me to Nigeria, I thought it would be best to send a friend going for her one month vacation back home to India with some money to pick the most luxurious sari she could find for the modest amount I gave her. She delivered in a big way. Are you on the edge of your seat yet, shaking with anticipation? Maybe tomorrow (just maybe) you can see just how fabulous this particular sari is...

Lamu, Kenya: House & Garden Enchants

Ok, so I have a bit of an obsession with Lamu and sometimes can get very caught up in expensive design magazines, but I didn't know the two would come together like they did last week. There I was, going through the Abuja airport, when the December edition of the British House & Garden caught my eye. I bought it for a whopping equivalent of $18 and got on the plane for the one hour ride back to Yola. There are lots of great articles and photos about all kinds of things in this magazine, but there on page 128 is a beautiful six page spread of a house built on a Shela Beach 'hillside' on Lamu Island (which is not featured on their website). I read plenty in between the lines that someone who has never been there before would not notice (ie, how permission to build came to be, etc.) or get wrong (Maasai people don't make beaded chairs that come from central or western Africa), but it still made me nostalgic for the simplicity of Lamu Island life.

Nigeria: Slow Internet, Tulsi Chanrai Foundation, and Motherly Love

Internet is soooooooo slow I can't comment to folks that I want/need to or get into my email - so if you're back to find out why I haven't responded, the answer is YES to Amani and I KNOW DC IS A PLANNED CITY BUT I BLOCKED IT FROM MY MEMORY to Fly Brother. Whoops! And to former students, RECOMMENDATIONS ARE ON THE WAY...

With all this annoyance about slow technology to get myself back in a decent mood I remembered the day that I went to visit the Yola Primary Health Care Project funded by the Tulsi Chanrai Foundation. Twenty clinics in the area are now where dedicated and trained health attendants empower mothers (and their partners) during and after pregnancy - with a lot of local education and without high technology. Adamawa State had the worst recorded maternal deaths in the world (over 5700 in 100,000), but the Project within the nearly three years of its existence is reversing this trend in a remarkable way. I took the photo above as I was walking out of one of the Project's clinics during an immunization drive. The little boy pictured was wearing a hat to big for him and as he ran outside his mother (on the left) called after him to make sure it stayed on his head. I don't speak Housa (only after two and a half months in Nigeria I can now say hello, fine, and thank you), but in any language you can always tell when a mother is looking after her child - and that is a beautiful thing.

Nigeria: Karatu Library Project and Amadi's Snowman

Karatu (the word means reading in Housa) Library Project was started by Martha Speirs, the head librarian for American University of Nigeria. During her (not so) free time, she wanted to share her love for books and reading by helping to make books accessible to the local Yola/Jimetta community in Nigeria, so she started Karatu. With a variety of well wishers and volunteers (and very little money), Karatu distributed donated books to eight already existing community libraries and schools in the area, and just recently they opened their own one room headquarters in the Shagari Shopping Center of Yola. With this office/library/resource center run by dedicated volunteers, they now have children and adults coming to them to borrow books or to be read to. The headquarter photos above and the partners Karatu has are shown in Karatu photo albums here.

Karatu's vision fits in well with the author of Amadi's Snowman, Katia Novet Saint-Lot, who wrote about Karatu on her blog. Her explanation about how the book came to be with associated photos can be found here. She is interested in how children around the world interpret her book about a Nigerian boy who doesn't want to learn how to read into their own world views, so she is doing a global virtual book tour that will ends the last day of November. Pass it on...


Encompassing the nomadic housewife in me, both Karatu and Amadi's Snowman bring a sense of usable purpose and design that is wonderful and rare. Enjoy!

Northern Michigan: Watervale

There is nothing like eating in the dining room at Watervale Inn. And that's all I'm going to say for fear that the whole world will now know about it. Being hungry in Nigeria with a blog can make an American girl delusional for good, homemade food...

Kenya Fashion in America: Amani Ya Juu

In Nairobi I became very familiar with Amani Ya Juu, a beautiful, welcoming fashion house and cafe where marginalized women create a sewing and design haven - and well prepared meals - that cater to wowed customers. Amani, as it's lovingly called to those in the know, is an impressive establishment that is very interested in doing things right rather than doing things big. Lately though, both ideals have been used to create a 'fashion narrative' that brings their clothes and wares to the States, where they are planning on opening an Amani Ya Juu store in Washington, D.C. Check out their show in Charlotte, North Carolina at Forest Hill Church here. I admire Amani for so many reasons, including because they use a business model to make their NGO successful, they take the term 'fair trade' to a whole different level, and they produce quality items that can be loved because of their design and function - not just because they were made by strong, proud women in Africa...

Picture taken by Jillian Pichocki Photography from the Amani blog

Nigeria: Fulani Bracelets and Fabric

I bought these Fulani bracelets for about $1.50 each. They seem to be made out of plastic, straw-like material. I like them because they come in all different colors and patters and look good with many of them worn together. The fabric underneath them is a kitchen apron made by my friend, Wale, and a head scarf I picked up in the local market. More fabric that I take delight in!

Nigeria Fabric: Style with a Seemingly Indian Influence

I'm going to a friend's wedding in Delhi, India in December (and staying four more weeks there... if you're around look me up). I've been to India three times before, so when I had a Nigerian friend take me to the local Jimetta market to find out who her favorite vendors are, I couldn't stop staring at this (what seems) Indian inspired piece. After having the store owner swear it was made in Nigeria (confirmed by my friend) and haggling a good ten minutes, I bought it for about nine US dollars. I love that it's really intricate, and that the gold outline is a bit off the base design so that it almost feels like I have double-vision when I look at it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, since right now I don't even want to unfold it because it's so perfect as it is...

Mecca: Cake Toppers and Glitter

My friend Marcy runs an amazingly mind blowing creative business called Mecca in Benzonia, northern Michigan, which specializes in all things glitter and fun. Her creativeness shows in every nook and cranny of the restored 1880's shop itself, with sequenced tree branches (weeks of work!), a bright pink foiled wall, a Mexican themed bathroom (yes, I still appear to be obsessed with bathroom design), and her own cake toppers. Marcy's passion is making cake toppers for all kinds of occasions out of unusual finds, which as she describes are "one-of-a-kind and quite sparkly! using vintage flowers and felted sweater leaves, ribbon, and nostalgic found objects, each creation is a keepsake box that opens. the smaller ones can sit on top of a cake with a trinket inside."

Until recently you could only find her toppers in her store or in a local craft fair or two. NOW she's made her way into the broader world by advertising her work on the web. Please visit her site and then call her to order your own special cake topper, or to purchase one of her already made specialties. (in order of appearance above: 'penelope' (special order sold), 'home on the range' $26, 'martha cake box' $42, 'tattoo parlour' $26)

More on northern Michigan design havens to come...

Kenya: Lamu's Takwa Ruins

I am a lover of the Lamu archipelago in Kenya (as you either already know or will have plenty of evidence of soon enough), and one of the reasons in a list of many are the Takwa Ruins. Takwa is an ancient abandoned town that's remarkably intact and has become a nice, quiet place to visit for a morning or afternoon walk into the past. It has within its walls a beautiful archway and just outside huge Baobab trees that remind me of old, wise men. This morning I needed a spiritual pick me up, so I started to look through all my Takwa photos and then felt like sharing...

Thank you/Nagode/Asante

Well, the world was watching (as I can personally attest to from Nigerian and Kenyan perspectives - along with hours and hours of watching CNN). I am very, very proud to have participated in being part of one of the largest voter turnouts in US history - even though my state didn't 'need' my absentee vote. How wacked would it be to look back on this and say, 'noooooooo, I didn't vote during a time when my country needed to hear my voice the loudest'? Congratulations, America.

Nigerian Wedding: Igbo Style

My friend Laureta got married a few weeks ago, and I was so taken by her personal style in the wedding photos (LOVE the way the beads are placed in her hair) that I asked her if I could share a few. She was nice enough to allow me the pleasure of showing her raw beauty to the world...

Laureta was married in proper traditional Igbo (pronounced hard 'e' and then 'bow' as in bow and arrow - the 'g' is silent) fashion in Amucha, Imo State (down south), Nigeria. Simply put, the day involved Laureta greeting folks at her place as a maiden (pictured above and with her sister), and leaving maidenhood to be a married woman (pictured below and with her sister-in-law) at her new husband's place. Laureta and her husband plan on a white-dress-church-wedding (which seems so boring to me now), but since the bride and the groom are from different christian faiths, they have to agree on the ceremony and location first. Stay tuned...

VOTE! mantra

vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect be neighborly be neighborly be neighborly be neighborly be neighborly be neighborly vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote calm calm calm calm calm calm calm calm calm act with grace act with grace act with grace act with grace act with grace i have a dream i have a dream i have a dream i have a dream family family family family family family one world under god one world under god one world under god one world under god vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote love love love love love love love love love love

Abuja: National Gold

The official Nigerian capital city of Abuja has less than 800,00 residents (Lagos is the most populated city with more than 15 million people). Abuja became official in 1991 mostly because Lagos needed to relieve population pressure and the Abuja land didn't initially 'belong' to any of the hundreds of ethnicities here. It is by far the calmest capital city - and the only planned one - I've ever been in. Most people say it has no soul, but it's such an anomaly so I quite like it. The Nigerian National Mosque is the most beautiful architectural splendor the city can boast, but since I'm not Muslim I can't go inside to compare it to the outside. If anyone can give me a visual on this I'd love it...