Day 18
Aayush and Haleigh’s final training day (Mary will be leaving much later Friday night so stay tuned for the training and blog for that day)! We headed over to the office at our usual 7:30ish time, and HEI Mary called Haleigh a workaholic for trying to call responders all morning. Chika came bearing gifts, as she had picked up the clothes we had bought from the tailor and we were all in love with what we got. Mary and Haleigh decided to wear the tops from their new fits to the training while Aayush wasn’t ready to bring his beautiful new two piece set out yet. Also, fans of the blog will be delighted to know Aayush has clinched the NYT Crossword championship against Haleigh with a victory this morning. A final score of 9-6 prompted Aayush to request a playing of “we are the champions.”
After arriving at the training of the Lagos State Transportation Management Authority, Aayush, Haleigh, and Chika started setting up, expecting Mary and HEI Mary to show up shortly after. Turns out though that their Uber driver had taken some creative liberties with the route, which is never really ideal. The Mary’s ended up coming about an hour after the first car, what a debacle. From there we welcomed in our TOTs and started up the online training theme music, which at this point is seared into all of our brains. Aayush is also pretty confident he has memorized most of Zach’s lines from the videos. Midway through the training we had everyone reconvene as the General Manager of the Lagos State Transport Management Authority offered some words along with the Chairman of the HEI board. Much to Aayush’s delight, they keep introducing us as LFR Michigan. These two were followed with a mini-speech by Haleigh, who was also interviewed by a few photographers and journalists afterwards as well. They requested her “signature” so she signed a document thinking they needs consent for the video (Aayush claimed she just wanted to give out her autograph), but they really wanted her title at LFR. After some photo ops and some HEI slogan chants (HEI.. That no one should die!) we finished out the second half of the trainings and conducted our usual assessments with a very coordinated effort of training the TOTs while ensuring our numbers for each scenario were relatively even.
As we ate our classic post-training 3 PM lunch, the pressure mounted on Chika as her and Mary figured out their plans for the evening. After a back and forth on whether to stop back at the hotel first or not, the pair left to get their nails done and then head to Bible study, with Aayush not being invited (thanks) and Haleigh taking a rain check. So, Aayush and Haleigh headed back to the hotel.
Chika and Mary decided to get Mary’s nails done somewhere near church so that they could go to Bible study right after. When Chika and Mary got to what appeared to be a market near the church, they walked around for a bit before finding someone that could do nails. At the same place was a hair braider, which made Mary add something else to her to-do list. Chika suggested that maybe Mary wait until Friday after the training since there will be a lot of time before her 11:30 PM flight (trainings usually end 4-5 PM). Stay tuned to see if Mary actually gets her hair braided. Anyways, the nail lady was super nice but she wanted Mary to pay the same amount she paid for the tailor, which seemed quite bizarre. After Chika’s excellent negotiation skills, the nail lady ended up agreeing to do Mary’s nails for 4000N, which is equivalent to $4 and about half the price of the tailor. She did a wonderful job but did indeed cut Mary’s finger by trimming too much of the dead skin on her nail bed. It wouldn’t stop bleeding, even with pressure, until the nail lady dipped Mary’s whole finger in alcohol. EMT Mary coming out here. Mary was in pain but she knew it had to be done so she toughed it out. The nail lady wanted to immediately put the acrylic on but Mary told her she needed to wait a little bit so they did and then a few hours later (literally) her nails were finished and all was fine and dandy. She even got to be a hand model, pic below.
Right after, Mary and Chika headed to church even though they were a few minutes late. The Bible study was about having undeniable impact, which was very empowering and transformative. On our way home, Mary expressed her long-standing desire to try the corn they roast on the street. And Chika, designated at the “best personal tour guide” by Mary, made the uber stop so that she could grab some corn. She got enough for Mary to bring back to Haleigh and Aayush, who both were not the biggest fans. While this was happening, Haleigh and Aayush grabbed dinner at, you guessed it, Red Peppe, with our traditional large veggie pizza and mini margherita with chicken. There really needs to be a loyalty program at that place. Exciting though, out of the 61 LFRs Haleigh and Aayush called yesterday, we got a whopping 7 interviews, bringing us to a grand total (and our goal number) of 33. Well 33.5, one person had to hang up with three questions left and hasn’t responded to our follow up texts asking to finish. Aayush spent his night calling even more responders to beg them to do the psychosocial survey and Haleigh wanted to punch her laptop while trying to complete a presentation our US Embassy meeting where the wifi cut out every 10 seconds for 5 minutes.
Stay tuned for Aayush and Haleigh’s last day & some pictures of our tailored Nigerian clothes!!
Also if you are very bored and for some reason want to listen to a 54 minute radio interview about HEI and LFR, here’s a link (if it doesn’t open on your phone try it on a computer).
Aayush dutifully carrying our projector from the hotel room, Chika would be proud of his chivalry
The pattern of these conspicuous cars triggered Haleigh after her devastating crossword puzzle loss this morning
Paschall giving one of his impassioned speeches
Haleigh very confused why she’s giving this person a certificate halfway through the trainings (turns out they were the TOTs)
Haleigh and Mary excited to show off their clothes, only for Haleigh to take her jacket off as soon as she got to the training venue (it was hot ok, we had to drag heavy bags up the stairs)
When we got to the HEI office this morning and it wasn’t open, Mary forced HEI Mary and Vivian to take a walk with her. You can really tell how much they enjoyed themselves
One of the TOTs just told HEI Mary, Chika, and Mary to smile…so of course they did!
Moments before Mary’s bleeding incident
After a million pics and many different positions, Mary got to be a little hand/nail model