On the Way Home!!!

It is now September, 2009. I finished my time in Nigeria at the College of Education Akwanga on 28 August, and left for Abuja to begin my journey home on 21 August. The trip to Abuja was not easy. We were assigned an old van that looked like it would have difficulty making it from the campus to Akwanga town. And we weren't far off in our guess of the health of the vehicle. We actually made it to Garaku, about 25 km, before it broke down. The driver had been given enough money for fuel and something for his feeding, so I had to dip into my own funds for some repairs. These small repairs lasted about 5 km before failing as well. And so we were stranded again. I called the Acting Provost and described our situation. She immediately sent her own car and driver to bring us to Abuja, where we spent a day saying goodbye to our friends there.

The last several weeks at the college were very busy. One of the lecturers found out that I was soon to leave so took the initiative to arrange for training to take place. So I spent about 6 weeks teaching/training 6 hours a day along with personal assistance before and after the scheduled classes. It was what I had wanted to do since I first came, so was happy to be busy as I ended my time at the college.


This is a picture of most of those participating in the training. The class consisted of a wide range of ages and a wide range of computer knowledge. I feel confident that all gained something from the trainings, which concentrated on Using the Internet, Using Email, Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Presentation software. Open Office was installed for everyone to use, as many had trial versions of MS Office and I wanted to be sure that they had something they could use going forward. That added some difficulties to the training, as I had to discuss MS Office 2003, MS Office 2007 and Open Office at the same time.

I am now in London on a 21 hour layover. I am taking advantage of high speed internet access to do a little catching up and posting of updates. I will be back in Canada Thursday afternoon, and will be quite busy sorting out things when I get home so that I can take a trip to North Carolina to visit my daughter there.

Thanks to all that have been keeping up with me on this blog, though I have not updated it as often as I would have liked. Until the next time.