A Nigerian Island

Today is January 31st. Today I should be getting on a plane for Nigeria. Sadly, the Nigeria Embassy is running on Nigeria time.

To explain more thoroughly, in order to apply for a Nigerian visa, an applicant must send in an official letter from a Nigerian business (or, in the case of tourists, a hotel reservation) inviting them to come to Nigeria. In addition to this "official" letter, an applicant must fill out a 4 page on-line form, pay $150, print out the on-line form, print out the on-line proof of payment, and Fed-Ex it all in addition to your passport, two new passport photos, and a return Fed-Ex envelope into the Nigerian consulate in Washington DC. What the Nigerian Visa website neglects to mention is that this must all be accompanied by an addition money order for $20 which is another "processing fee." In any case, the website claims that visa applications take 6 business days to process. Considering they are not open on Fridays, this essentially means processing a visa takes a little over a week.

So, having received my "official invitation letter" on January 14th, I was able to send of all the printed forms Jan 18th. To be safe, I overnighted them. Of course, I sent them UPS which, despite the claims of the Nigerian Embassy website, is not the preferred carrier of visa applications as far as the Nigerian Embassy is concerned. I also didn't include a money order for $20 as this particular requirement is hidden on the website. Finally, and this I admit was my own fault, I forgot to include my American passport.

A week later, having not heard anything from the Embassy (and having been informed by one of my classmates that I should have sent my passport in), I phoned them to check on my application. The lady who answered the phone was very jovial and seemed highly amused that I had neglected to include my passport. I think its worth mentioning that, in most African countries, you don't have to apply for a visa ahead of your trip. In Tanzania for example, you simply walk through a "visa line" right after you have your passport stamped, you pay $70 right then and there, and then you're done. In any case, I asked her if the rest of my application had been received and processed.

She asked me if I had paid the "$85 expediting fee."
I said no because I had submitted it with plenty of time to spare.
She put me on hold for no more than 30 seconds only to come back on the line and say they could not find it. I would have to re-submit everything. Including a $20 processing fee and the $85 expediting fee. ... And don't forget your passport this time. And use FedEx, not UPS.

And that's when I realized that the Nigerian Embassy is a little Nigerian Island in Washington DC clearly not bound by American Standards of transparency or business ethics.

Still, I rushed to gather all the materials, and sent everything, including the $85 expediting fee, by rush FedEx mail. I got a tracking number so I could see when it was delivered. Kudos to FedEx, my new visa application arrived, as promised, by 10:00am the next day... Which, in our bigger timeline, was Tuesday, Jan 25th. I called to see if they had received it, as my tracking record indicated. This time, the operator informed me the Visa Department was too "busy" to take my phone call. I left my name and number and asked her politely to have someone call me to let me know if they had started processing my visa request as I was intending to leave the country on Monday, January 31st. I waited 2 hours, no one returned my phone call. I called back. This time the operator put me on hold for 30 seconds only to come back on the line to say that the visa department was still "busy" and that they didn't know where my application was.

Trying not to panic, I explained again that I was due to depart on Monday the 31st, that I had paid an expediting fee, and that my passport was in my newest application so if they could please, at the very least, locate it, I would be very grateful. The operator said they would call me. Just to be safe, I called my Nigerian "boss" and asked him if he would mind calling the Embassy as well, on my behalf. Maybe they're more willing to help a native Nigerian. Sadly, no luck.

The next day, Wednesday, I called again, right at 10:00am EST (7 am "my time") which is when the Nigerian Embassy website claims is the best time to call. No answer. I called every half an hour until 2:00pm EST (11:00am "my time") which is when the Nigerian Embassy website claims they stop taking calls from the general public. At this point, panic sets in.

The next day, Thursday, I do some investigating on the Nigerian Embassy website and find several different numbers to call within the Nigerian Embassy. I start calling at 9:30am EST (6:30 am "my time") because now I am really worried. No answer. I try all the numbers I have found on the Nigerian website. No answer... but, this time there's an answering machine so I leave messages. On every answering machine. This time, I call back every 5 minutes. By 10:30am EST (7:30 am "my time") I haven't gotten a hold of a single human being and I begin to check the news and, simultaneously, my facebook feed. As it turns out, there was a snow storm in Washington DC and several businesses and government offices are having a "late start" day.

Seriously. In an American city, in the middle of the winter months, snow is apparently a reason to show up to work late. Apparently though, for the Nigerian Embassy staff, snow is a reason not to show up to work at all. Which of course I then realize means that the Embassy will be closed Thursday and Friday and, as a result, I will not be getting my visa in time to leave on Monday.

So I call Orbitz to see how much it will cost to change my flight. $353... if I re-book to leave by Thursday, Feb 9th because, apparently after that, the cost of airfare to Nigeria skyrockets and I have to pay $1,000. I call British Airways to see if maybe they can help since my ticket is actually with them. However, as I didn't book my ticket directly through them, they are "unable" to help me.

I try the Embassy again. Over and over again. No luck. I email my Nigerian boss to fill him in and to simultaneously ask, in his experienced opinion, how long I should delay my departure.

No less than 10 days, he says. In fact, better make it 3 weeks, just to be safe.

I decide to wait until Friday afternoon to see if, maybe, just maybe, miracles do happen.

Friday afternoon rolls around. No visa. No passport. And, just to be sure, I call the Nigerian Embassy again... No answer.

I put off re-booking my flight until Saturday because, you know, maybe my visa is just lost in the mail somewhere. On Saturday morning, I bite the bullet, call Orbitz, and spend a half an hour on the phone re-booking my flight for Wednesday, February 9th. This gives me 7 whole business days to call the Embassy... which I'm hoping is enough to annoy them into sending me my visa. Its well short of the recommended 3 weeks but I simply cant afford to wait longer.

I email my Nigerian boss and the rest of "Team Nigeria" to let them know what's going on. I get an email back from two of my teammates saying that neither of them has received their visa yet either. Its worth noting that one of my teammates sent her visa application in, with all the necessary materials, Jan 18th. The other one paid an expediting service to literally walk her passport into the Embassy and stand there until someone stamped the passport with a visa (which is, apparently, all it takes to get a Nigerian Visa).

Today, Monday, January 31st, one of my teammates visits the Nigerian Embassy in DC to see where her visa might be. They inform her they're working on it. Then she asks about my visa. Apparently a look of acknowledgement crosses their face.

"Oh yes. This one. My colleague is working on it."

I'm sure this is a response to my endless attempts to track down my visa application and now my passport but I'm hoping this is a good sign (no word though on how long it will actually take them to stamp my passport and send it back to me).

 I'm hoping its a sign that I'll have my visa by the end of the week so I can spend my last few days in America actually enjoying myself and not romancing the operator at the Nigerian Embassy. I also have a feeling its a sign of the "adventures" awaiting me in Nigeria - in both a positive and negative sense.

More than all that though, this whole process has been a sign that one does not necessarily have to be on African soil to experience something truly "African." Indeed, there is a little Nigerian Island even in Washington DC.

Fingers crossed for good news.....

UPDATE:
Finally spoke to a Visa Processing Agent at the Nigerian Embassy! .....He was, coincidentally, an American and knew who I was immediately after I spelled "L-O-C-K.." and said my file was right in front of him. He said he would process my visa and send it back to me in the "next few days." Hooray for progress! Here's to hoping "next few days" means "by the end of the week."

The Art of Failure (Part Deux)

I know I've already written on this but today was the second (and final) day of the "Art of Failure" class and we had a few really interesting people come in and give us some words of wisdom on business (with a nod to personal) failure.  Although I thought all of it was fascinating stuff, I especially liked what Kamran Elahlain, the 1991 inventor of the IPad's predecessor (Memoranda)... which failed miserably... only to explode with popularity in late 2010, almost 10 years later.

Below is a snap shot of what he had to say although, I must confess, it isn't word-for-word as I simply can't write that fast:

"If you want to do something meaningful, you must understand from day 1 that its going to be extremely difficult. And you will fail on a daily basis. There will also be successes.... but understand that doing something meaningful means taking risks and failure is a part of risk.

Success is simply management of failure.

Whenever you fail, go ahead and cry. Get it out of your system. But remember: you are not a failure even if you failed. Why? Because you had the guts to go out and pursue your dream. There is no failure in that.

And when you succeed, celebrate quickly.... because, in a moment, something bad will happen. But don't worry, each failed attempt makes you stronger."

With that, just thought I'd say, tomorrow marks one week until my departure for Nigeria... Here's hoping that, in the last 2 weeks, if nothing else, I've gained at least some idea of how to manage failure.




Sabon Guida, Konni, Niger



The Art of Failure

Today, so close to the end of the 2 week FM Scouts training program, we learned about failure. In fact, we have two whole days of class dedicated to failing, failure, and lessons we can learn from being unsuccessful.

I think they're trying to tell us something.

As part of this class, we took a Hogan Development Survey to assess which personality traits might "limit our [individual] careers" or, in so many words, potentially cause us to fail as individuals. Like most personality tests, I found the questions to be repetitive and slightly weird but my results were interesting. Of the 11 pre-determined personality "types" (excitable, skeptical, cautious, reserved, leisurely, bold, mischievous, colorful, imaginative, diligent, and dutiful) I landed in the "danger zone" of the 90th percentile of only 2 (which I'm guessing is not that bad): imaginative and skeptical.

I can't say that I've every really thought of imagination as a barrier to success but, according to the survey: "People with high risk [imaginative] scores tend to be colorful, entertaining and quite often visible. However, others may find them hard to work with because they can be unconventional, eccentric, and unaware of how their actions affect others"

.... I feel like this maybe just another way to say that not everyone gets along all the time... but, considering I scored in the 99th percentile, definitely something to keep in mind. The survey also mentioned something about easily becoming bored but who knows what that's all about . (haha.)

The other "dangerously strong" trait, "skeptical," kind of seems to speak for itself in how that could be personally limiting. On the positive side of things, the survey seems to suggest that although people can perceive me as being cynical, suspicious, and mistrustful, I am also, apparently, shrewd and difficult to fool.

Maybe I can use this to my advantage in the "wild west" of overseas emergent markets.

In any case, learning about failure as an art is certainly helping me come to terms with the idea that my complete absence of business background doesn't necessarily make me a prime candidate for negotiating incredible business deals to propel obscure start-ups to international stardom and financial freedom. I can only hope that some of my other (people) skills can be used to do something (anything) useful for the hopeful entrepreneurs in Nigeria (and Togo...and elsewhere).

Maybe I can do an interpretive dance to improve office morale... (haha). As such an "imaginative" type, failure art is somehow more comforting than failure numbers.

"Its not a failure if you enjoyed the process" - (the great) Oprah Winfrey

New (Peace Corps-related) News

This is a post-dated post to say that (HOORAY!) I finally (FINALLY) got my Peace Corps Re-Assignment. Yes, after months of waiting (and fighting) for a new assignment following my December 2009 evacuation from my Peace Corps post in the Konni region of Niger, after (what seems like) 500 hundred new references submitted affirming I'm not a "looney," after (literally) $800 in new medical testing to affirm that I'm still in health despite having lived in the deep bush of Niger for 5 months (even though I've been back in the states for a year!) and, most especially, that I don't have schistosomaisis, and after countless interviews with countless members of Peace Corps HQ Staff to try and find a "suitable" new placement for someone of my (annoying) qualifications... I finally received my special blue Peace Corps packet on January 11th (01.11.11). Phew. Finally.

So... drum roll... Starting June 2nd, 2011 I will be a Small Business Advisor Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, West Africa! (Yes, this is GOOD news! Feel free to celebrate with me :) ). Please see the map below if you, like most people, have no idea where the "h" that is.

For those of you who are trying to put two-and-two together, Nigeria is 2 countries to the east (right). Here's a close up of Togo itself:

I don't know where I'll be in Togo specifically until I get through some in-country training. I'll keep you posted.

What this means in the grand-er scheme of things is that I'll still be in Lagos, Nigeria for the Frontier Market Scouts Internship Jan 31st - May 19th and will return to the US for approximately 10 days (May 20th-June 1st) before leaving for my Peace Corps Assignment in Togo. Within those 10 days, its my intention to catch the Monterey Institute graduation weekend celebrations (May 20th-22nd) before returning to Reno for my dad's birthday (May 24th) and subsequent birthday/ departure celebrations and preparations. I'll be flying to an East-Coast US City (TBA at a later date) on June 2nd for the required "Pre-Departure Staging" and then flying to Togo on June 3rd.

Of course, given that its still January, these plans are subject to change... Its still fun to plan though.

In other Peace Corps-related news, the Peace Corps Program in Niger has been suspended indefinitely (as of a few days ago) and all Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) therein have been evacuated as a result of increased security concerns directly linked to the increased presence of Al-Qaeda in the area. For more information, you can check out the BBC who have the full and updated story in the "Africa" section of their website. For those of you who don't know, I was evacuated from my village of Sabon Guida in Niger in mid-November of 2009. In late November, our region of Konni was shut down and our regional team was evacuated to the capital city of Niamey. In early December, I was evacuated from the country completely having accepted the offer of "Interrupted Service" and returned to Reno and then to Monterey to finish my Master's Degree. However, some PCVs in Niger chose to stay and so for the last year or so I've been watching them finish out their service through facebook. Depressing, if you can believe it. In any case, although I am so very sad that all of Peace Corps Niger has been suspended now, in 2011, part of me is finally at peace with the decision I made over a year ago.

And so.... a year later... here I am. Needless to say, at this point, I am cautiously optimistic. (Cat Stevens "Wild World" comes to mind).

Another Beginning... (Beginning Soon)

Its officially official: I'm going back to Africa! Tonight I finally booked my flight.... Departing SFO to Lagos, Nigeria (via London Heathrow) on January 31st with plans to return from Lagos on May 19th.

For those of you who don't know, I've been given an amazing opportunity to participate in a 3 (ish) month internship with a pilot program called "Frontier Market Scouts" ("FM Scouts"). The idea behind the whole thing is to "engage in enterprise development and investment for social and economic impact"... essentially to help small business owners and entrepreneurs improve (or create) their business so that they can make more money and improve their lives. Of course, this isn't "make more money" in the Goldman Sachs/ Wall Street sense.... Its probably closer to the idea of "make more than $1 a day" (although that's a slight exaggeration).

FM Scouts as a program actually includes 4 groups of students traveling to and working in 4 different countries (Nigeria, Tanzania, India, and Vietnam). Each group is  partnered with various in-country organizations (in the case of the Nigeria group: the School of Business at the University of Lagos) and will receive the help of "virtual support staff" (a.k.a grad students) who have chosen to stay in the US but assist with research via wonderful inventions such as skype, email, and google docs.

Training for FM Scouts will be held in Monterey, CA on the grad school campus of the Monterey Institute of International Studies (my old stomping grounds) and will last about 3 weeks. ... Needless to say, I'm more than a little excited to be moving back to the (other) Bay Area even if it is only temporary. Of course, even MORE exciting than moving back to Monterey is the opportunity to move back to Africa (if only for a short time) so clearly my life is full of excitement these days.

While I'm in Nigeria, I'll be in the city of Lagos (bottom south-west corner of the country... right on the Atlantic Ocean and very close to the Benin border) and, more specifically, I'll be living on (or near) the University of Lagos campus. For those of you following the news, the recent ethnic/ religious violence in Nigeria is in Jos, a city/ region north of Abuja (the capital city) and, as you can see from this map, far far away from where I'm going to be.

Some fun facts about Nigeria:

$1.00 USD = 150 Naira (Nigeria's official currency)

Nigeria is slightly more than twice the size of California.

Nigeria is the 8th most populous country on earth (US is #3)

It is the #1 most populous country in Africa....

And has over 250 different ethnic groups.

Lucky for me, Hausa is the "most common" one (at a mighty 29%).

Anyway, I'll keep posting as my travel and work plans develop further. This is only the beginning... and it hasn't even really begun yet!