Welcomed by a Singing Fridge

After what seemed like an endless rhythm of land, change planes fly for 8 hours, land, change planes, fly for 8 hours I finally arrived and set foot on Nigerian soil Sunday night. I stood in line to be processed by immigration for an hour, and then found myself greeted by a sweltering evening in Abuja, the capitol city of Nigeria.

I had the opportunity to see pieces of Abuja this night as we drove from the airport, but I’ll admit I felt rather comatose and incapable of processing much. Forty minutes after we left the airport we arrived at a mission hostel that would house us for the one night we would spend in Abuja. I was pleasantly surprised by the hostel, which afforded me a bed, toilet, and tub for a bucket bath (A bucket bath is a bath wherein you fill the bucket with water and proceed to bathe by this bucket)…yet, what really made me smile was the fridge. Yes, my room had a tiny fridge, and as I proceeded to open said fridge to cool my bottle of water I was greeted with a weak breath of cool air (cool compared to the heat of the room), and behold, my fridge sang as I opened the door. Indeed it belted out a music-box tune (Green Sleeves, I believe was the song) with a ferocity that belied its attempt to actually cool the interior of the fridge. I had to chuckle as I thought, “Welcome to Africa, Katherine.”