It has been quite the school year! We began by postponing our start date in August, due to Ebola, and wound up doing online school for 6 weeks. After the October break, our students slowly began to trickle back to Nigeria, though some didn’t arrive until after Christmas.

We then went through the stockpiling of water and food due to the uncertainties of the federal election in February. Days before the event, the election was postponed for six weeks due to Boko Harem activity in the north. The elections took place peacefully at the end of March, and it looked like smooth sailing to the end of our school year.

However, since then we have been experiencing fuel shortages in Nigeria. Although Nigeria produces about 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, they don’t have the capacity to refine enough of its own oil to meet the needs of the population. We’ve been noticing the fallout for the last few weeks (fewer cars on the road, slightly higher prices in the stores), but it’s this last week or so that it has really hit home for us. Our staff who live across the road in the 1004 complex have been without power for days. Here in Nigeria, fuel is used to power the generators for homes and businesses, and without them, most Nigerians only get a few hours of electricity each day. Some of our friends and colleagues have been spending the night in their classrooms where they are able to have aircon. (The temperature only drops to about 27C at night, with daytime temps in the mid to high 30s.) Our driver took the jerry cans with him yesterday, and is going to look for fuel for our car further out of the city. We were informed yesterday that there is enough diesel fuel to run the school generators until Tuesday. The flats will be without electricity from 9-3, which isn’t a big deal for those of us at work all day, but we have 4 children under the age of 3 in our building… I’m not sure how they’re going to cope. We’re busy getting laundry all done, freezing bottles of water that we can put in the fridge during the day, and filling up large containers of water to flush toilets. There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not the school year will end early, and of course people are worried about being able to get to the airport when it’s time to go. Many domestic flights are cancelled, but for now the international flights are a go, as they’re coming with enough fuel for a round trip or stopping in neighboring countries to refuel. The next few days should be interesting, and it will definitely be a school year for the history books! We’ll have some good stories to tell this summer!

Further information via CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/21/africa/nigeria-fuel-shortages/index.html?fb_action_ids=1045565972139627&fb_action_types=og.shares

It’s not all doom and gloom.  Here are a  few photos from our last couple of weeks:

Getting ready for a party by the pool:

 

Laryssa and Phoebe

 

 

End of the year concert (Laryssa is in the last row, second from the right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Soccer Awards

Phoebe has a playdate with Wiggles (and Laryssa and Nora have a play too)

 

Girl Scout Mother-Daughter Tea and Bridging Ceremony