Nigeria Blog: Day 1

After their travels to Uganda, Haleigh and Amber have issued a formal blog challenge to Ashwin and I, prompting the start of our week-long Nigeria Blog series. While I doubt, we will be able to contest with their humor and 45 days of blog dedication, here is our best shot!

We made it! After 20 hours of travel from the US, an additional two of struggling with some visa issues, and plenty of traffic that suspiciously reminds me of Los Angeles, we made it to Lagos. Our friend and collaborator Officer Tomi picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the Rome Business School, which had volunteered it’s spaces for the training of our first 350 lay first responders in Nigeria in partnership with the Health Emergency Initiative and the Nigerian Federal Road Safety Corps.

We got there just as some of our wonderful TOT trainers were finishing up a session and we were able to give a speech thanking everyone for participating before handing out vests and first aid kits at the end of the day. Paschal, the Executive Director of HEI, then drove us to our hotel, but not before picking up some bananas and peanuts from a roadside stand that we’re AMAZING and picking up his 13 year old twin boys from soccer camp- after which Ashwin and one of the boys got into a debate about their favorite EPL teams.

The hotel unfortunately messed up our booking but we got upgraded to the executive room which is amazing (even though it only has one bed which Ashwin and I will have to share) and oh my god a shower has never felt so good. After a nice walk around our neighborhood and shawarma at a local restaurant for dinner, we are ready to rest up before starting our day tomorrow with some program logistics management and some team bonding. Stay tuned for more updates from the LFR Team in Nigeria!

~Zach