Day 20: Hey, Turn It Up! (September 23, 2008)

            Uncle Thomas took center stage this morning and gave a devotion based on how the Pharisees, a sect of religious rulers during Jesus’ ministry, were such hypocrites when they should have been godly men. He spoke on how we, as Christians, find ourselves so many times being individuals who can say wonderfully profound things but can’t find the passion within us to live out our convictions. Offering is a big deal in churches here so everyone in the congregation dances down to the plates on Sunday mornings. Thomas said that we like to do the dancing to the front of the church but many times only pretend to give a gift back to God. He does a great job of making things culturally relevant here.

            I started my new assignment today in the Monitoring and Evaluation section of the Clinic. It is the data processing group so my first job was to take the patients already put into the computer system and write them into a government directory which they will take in a few weeks. It is a bit tedious and, because of my attitude towards handwriting, really makes my hand hurt. Though my current task isn’t the most fun I really enjoy the atmosphere. The ten other M&E staff are my age, there is constant American and Nigerian hip-hop blaring from speakers, and all the girls wear heels. Basically I feel like I am back in my classes at Edison. I think I am going to have a more difficult time remembering everyone’s names since we don’t get to look at each other as much as other departments! This takes up my morning and afternoon shifts at Faith Alive so I will have to get used to writing hundreds of dates and names every day. If I wasn’t helping them out so much I would probably ask for a job that would allow me to step outside...

            Adrie started her task of calculating all ARV drugs given out over the past six months in the pharmacy so we were both really out of it by the end of the day. We ate dinner (Mac and cheese plus fresh papaya) and I started my first of several hundred loads of hand-washed laundry. It is pretty fun to try and wring out your jeans over a bucket in the bathtub. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be dry by next week! We decided there was not much we could do besides stare at the wall so we chose the next best thing and watched Across the Universe on my laptop. There is something very bizarre about finishing a movie and coming back to reality in Nigeria. Sometimes I forget that I am really here.