My “Irresponsible Action”

Tuesday September 30^th, 2014

There is still a lot I want to share with you all about my beautifully different life but a lot of people have been dying to hear about my “irresponsible action” so I am going to put them out of their misery and just say it already.   As long as I live we will have more time to get to know who I am and how I became who I am.  Or I should probably say as long as I blog. Ok.  Here goes.  Wait, before I start let me apologize for the delay on getting the pictures from last week to you.  Still trying to up my technology game but you will get it, I promise.

Ok. Drumroll please J. Today September 30^th, 2014 is my last day on my first full time job, the only job I have had since college.  This in itself is not irresponsible but the fact that I am walking out of a six figure job without a job lined up can start to paint the picture for you.  So to put it simply, my irresponsible action is that I have decided to embrace joblessness as a gift from God and take an unplanned sabbatical for the next three months but that is not all, please read to the end to find out the worst.  I have always felt cheated that I didn’t get to take my three months backpacking Euro trip after college.  I was broke, 7 months pregnant and definitely in need of health insurance so walking out of college and into a good paying job was not only the responsible thing to do, it was the only thing to do, or so I thought.

Unfortunately I don’t have a backpacking Euro trip planned for the next three months so I guess I will still keep feeling cheated of that but what I look forward to this next 3 months is not having any deadlines, tasks and targets, meetings and engagements except the ones I set for myself and yes I have set some of those up already.  Oh!! The pains of being hopelessly responsible!!!  I am registered now for four classes at Rice University and I was actually going to register for one more class until I started my commute from the Energy corridor here in Houston to Rice University two weeks ago.  Now I am already feeling over committed.  The good thing though is that two of the classes I am registered for are going to be so much fun that most of the work will be making it through Houston traffic to class on time.  My Artist’s Way class already started and its pure joy, I tell you!  My short story writing class begins in two days and I am sooooooooo excited just thinking about it.  For better for worse I would be taking a tiny baby step towards the burning desire I have had for years to write fiction.   At this point my fellow engineering buddies and responsible adults are probably thinking I have completely lost it.  I am sure they will be relieved to hear that I am also registered for a GMAT prep class and I have given myself a target to take the GMAT by late November.  I am not even sure I want to go to Business school right now but unfortunately you can’t just completely turn off being responsible.

More than anything what I look forward to the next three months is being able to listen to God, without the noise of routine or the fear of having to quit my job because I believe he is calling me to do something else with my life.  I am hoping that since I am now jobless, the fear of quitting won’t keep me too scared to move towards God’s Purpose for my life.  Yea, I can hear some of my Naija people already blaming America for sowing all this lofty ideas into my head and yes some of us Americans take this “pursuit of happiness” thing too seriously J.  It is one of the things I love most about being American.  Knowing that not everyone would think you are crazy for wanting to leave a great job and a perceived great life in pursuit of happiness.  Having lots of people who has stepped out in faith to pursue happiness and self fulfillment and succeeded in this great nation helps make the daunting task ahead of me easier but the fact that their story is not mine and their life is not mine still makes the road ahead me seem very rough, very untraveled. 

 I have enjoyed a rewarding engineering career these last few years and the lessons I have learned, the great friends and wonderful mentors and humbling mentees I have been blessed with, all combine to make me know that my career so far was not a misstep as I tell myself some of those times I call me a failure.  I believe that the last few years have prepared me for something other than a traditional engineering career, I believe that God is calling me to be something other than a Petrophysicist.  So what is my “Irresponsible Action” again?   Leaving a cushy engineering job to pursue my passion, to pursue a career I am passionate about.  What is this career you might ask?  I don’t know; ask me in three months J! That is one of the questions I will be looking to God for an answer to these next three months.  Some of the other answers I will be listening to God for are to questions like; should I start venturing into this new career with job hunting or graduate education?  What graduate education should I pursue?  I can already hear some answers but they are not quite clear just yet.

So to my 9 siblings and my 93 cousins, all my mentees and my adopted younger brothers and sisters I say this, I don’t really have it all figured out myself even though I feel like I should.  For how else can I expect to be a good example to you all, how else can I expect to give you advice on your careers and your lives?  I hope and pray that soon I will again be a wise counsel to you all, but you would have to excuse me for now, especially for the next three months because I will be busy being irresponsible J.  Then again this means that I will have more time on my hands so you should definitely call me if you need to talk, because that is truly a part of my responsibility that I enjoy immensely.

Wishing everyone a fruitful 4th quarter of 2014!

God Bless

Nigeria; Is All Hope Really Lost?

Last week one of my colleagues in the US (an American not of Nigerian descent) sent me an e-mail asking about my experience working in Nigera, and asked if I would advice her to pursue that experience.  I get this type of questions and requests from friends, family, colleagues and acquintances frequently and I respond to them by sharing some of what I have learned in my few years working in Nigeria. 

While I have a lot of stories and experiences of my time here that I still plan to share on this blog, I have decided to hold onto some of them until I am safely back in the United States my home country.  Funny how it took coming back to Nigeria to realize that this place which I thought was home no longer feels like home. 

While I wait to share more stories with you all, I could not help sharing this video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2BOwg8m7HM

Do pray for Nigeria.

Much Love

The Real Homecoming

Dear friends,


I sincerely apologize for my long hiatus from writing you stories of my “Return to Naija Experience” but I had been caught up in the politics of not wanting to paint a gloomy picture to you, which may in turn scare you away from making the decision I made two years ago. I have decided that what I promised you was my experiences and that I will go back to delivering on that promise with honest description of various stories that highlight my experience both good and bad and leave you to make your decisions. I am also available by phone, e-mail, facebook message or twitter to answer any questions you may have or gist about my experience so far. So please enjoy my first story in a very long time.....





The palm trees are symbolic of the tropical rain forests which lined the entire Niger Delta region and most of South Eastern Nigeria. Sometimes they stood very tall, towering above all the other trees and vegetation in the forest, sometimes the vegetation were so densely populated by palm trees, it looked like they were the only type of trees in the area. Occasionally you would see other trees like Bananas, Plantains, and only a handful of palm trees scattered around the forest. For a while, I took my mind of the bumpy road and went into a day dream of how nice it would be to take the kids on a road trip in Nigeria and point out the differences in the vegetation by the road side here as compared to what we see on our frequent road trips across the United States. The driver missed an attempt to dodge a major pot hole and that jolted me quickly out of my day dreams and reminded me why a road trip around Nigeria with the boys may not be happening any time soon.



I started to ask myself why I was going on this trip. I am saving up to pay for an apartment which is no easy feat in Lagos, and I can’t really afford to spend money on a trip to the village. For a while now, I have been thinking of visiting my step grandma, who is the only old person left in my village that I had any personal affiliation to. Then, I found myself in Warri on course with one weekend in between and started toying with the idea of making the trip even though I had been told by a lot of people that the roads where really bad since it was now rainy season. When a friend offered to give me a car and a driver and threw in a mobile police man in the mix, I decided to embark on the journey home. That is one of the good things about being in Nigeria, mighty generous friends.



I haven’t been to my village in almost 6 years, and for an Igbo person, that is a long time. I use to love going to my village when my paternal grandparents where alive because I was always happy to see them and they were even more happy to see me. The last time I went to the village, was the first time I went there while they were both gone and it just was not the same. I don’t know if it’s just me but I have found going to the village quite depressing lately. Everyone seems to be doing poorly and no one actually meets you to welcome you happily. They just get right into all their problems and seem to believe that you should have been solving them like yesterday. Funny enough, I did not get to see my step grandmother as it turned out she went to an “August Meeting”! Apparently that was way more important than my visit, but the good thing is that it showed she was still full of life so that is great.

I did see a few aging family members and got a chance to visit and talk a little. I also got a chance to see my grandparent’s graves and told them I missed coming home to see them. I also met another favourite aunty who I had given my widow’s mite to when she started her trading business and she was genuinely happy to see me and showed me her shop with a very big smile. That warmed my heart. The best part of my trip to the village though was meeting my favourite aunty’s baby. She had adopted a baby girl earlier this year after being unable to have kids biologically and that made me very proud of her because we all know the way the average Nigerian view adoption. She was so super cute and her smiling face was worth every bump I had to endure!



Aunty Chidiebere and her pretty daughter



Overall, I am glad I went to the village even though the roads were as bad as people said they were, so bad that the coconuts my aunty gave me broke in the car! No wonder I felt all beat up when I got back to Warri the next day. I wondered out loud how our President could possibly go through these bumpy roads every time he wanted to come to his home state of Bayelsa. You see we had to pass Bayelsa to go from Delta State to Imo State and I knew that there was no airport in Bayelsa. The driver and the mobile police promptly let me know that the president lands in Portharcourt and gets home by helicopter. So just incase you were naively wondering like me, now you know!



Holding Aunty's pretty blessing

Cheers 









Ist Annual Birthday Charity Dinner

Happy New Year guys!!! January went by so quickly for me. I was stuck in the US for Christmas due to multiple cancellations caused by bad weather. I was happy to spend Christmas with my parents and siblings but since my sons were in Nigeria because I had planned to be back in Nigeria to spend Christmas with them, I couldn’t be completely happy. Thanks to the internet and Skype we were able to have the boys celebrate with us during the traditional Christmas morning gift opening. They at least got to see their Christmas gifts and be a little excited…

The real excitement came when I got home and they were able to actually get their gifts. Uche kept raving at how he was the luckiest kid on earth to get a Wii at 7 when he wasn’t expecting to get it until he was 10! I was especially glad that there were no mishaps with my luggage this time. I got back to Nigeria just before New Year and spent the first few days of the year making it up to the boys. By the time I realized my birthday was around the corner it was too late to plan a party that would take place on my Birthday so I started planning my birthday party to happen on January 22nd, which is one week after my birthday. Everyone knows I take the opportunity accorded by my birthday to have a party every year, I told myself that being in Nigeria will not stop that tradition. In fact since Nigerians love to party, I planned a bigger party than I had thrown in years.

This year I wanted to take to merge two things that I love to do, partying and giving back the society so I tagged my birthday party Judith’s 1st Annual Birthday Charity Dinner. This was an idea I had for a while but haven’t had the guts to actualize. I was quite worried since I always believed that giving back and charity was more of an American thing than a Nigerian thing, but I told myself that the worst that can happen is that I raise no money, which is exactly what I would raise if I did not try. I started inviting the few friends I had made since I got here. I talked to some friends before hand about the charity aspect of my Birthday party and I was amazed at the support I got even for the party itself. One awesome friend, paid for the DJ and donated $500 towards drinks, another provided a dozen bottles of Moet to make the event even classier! Someone donated cartons of Chicken and turkey and a total stranger agreed to cut it up in his meat shop for free! To say that I was shocked was an understatement! With all these and my fantastic cooking {wink}, needless to say we had an awesome party!!!

I cannot do the fun we had at this party justice without giving a BIG shout out to everyone who made it to party and especially those who traveled to Warri; a not so exotic destination to show their love and support and have a good old time! Thanks guys and gals!

On the fundraising proper, I introduced my charity project with a speech, which was well received. In a nutshell I have a dream of helping HIGH ABILITY students from under privileged families afford high quality education so that they can break the cycle of poverty. In my speech I asked for donations in form of time, skills, and money to register and run a non profit organization which will initially give scholarship to such students to enable them afford better quality schools and ultimately build non profit schools which will offer free education to such students. At the party I also introduced a silent auction where a few items were auctioned and the profit was donated to the charity fund. I was also surprised at the response got on this idea since it was something new to my entire crowd. All in all the fundraising effort raised N146, 800 to kick start the charity with another N100, 000 pledged.

This is enough money to register and kick start the charity organization but I am still struggling to get the donation of time and skills which is critical to the success of any non profit organization so please take time to read some of the attachments on this post and if you think education-empowers is a project you are interested in, contact me @ Judith.udeke@education-empowers.org .
Thanks for reading my blog and Have a very awesome day!

Thank You all!!!

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Let's Talk

Hey guys,

Sorry I have not posted anything for about 6 weeks now. I have literarilly been mourning Nigeria, and have been too overcome with emotions to even write about any one thing. I keep wandering how things got so bad... I ask myself how can it be fixed? Can it even be fixed? For those of you who think that it is not that bad, please take time to look at the website below. Wander how a country who havent fought a war in 3 decades is ranked as being so unstable?

Lets talk about it. Is Nigeria doomed as a failed state? How can anyone bring about positive changes in Nigeria?


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/2010_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings

Lets talk!

My "OLD" passport

A lot of people have been asking me what it is like, to live in Nigeria after being away for so long. My usual response is usually that living in Nigeria has its negatives and its positives and I am learning to appreciate both the good and the bad. I also remind them that living in America also has the good and the bad sides, and that overall where you would prefer to live will depend on what is most important to you at a particular time. Personally, I love living in Nigeria as much as I love living in America because I love living :) but thats not to say that I can't nag about the bad things.

So some of us know that some stressors that are associated with living abroad are traffic tickets, really high rents, high taxes, how difficult it is to save, etc. In Nigeria the biggest stressor is lack of good lawmaking and law enforcement and believe me when I say it could be as frustrating as it is scary, depending on where and how you encounter either one. I had my first encounter with poor law making almost as soon as I reported for work in Nigeria. I was scheduled to take a course in Europe even before I reported to work in Nigeria. Looking back, I wish I had been proactive enough to get my Schengen visa before leaving the US. By the time I got around to it, I didn't have 3 weeks to wait for a visa.

So I arrived in Nigeria about 6 weeks before the start of my course in Europe, thinking I have a lot of time to get my visa. My first shocker came when I found out that I couldn't apply for a visa through the company until I got a series of approval to go for a course which has already been paid for by the US end of the company. Oh well, that is not a big deal I thought, I already informed my boss about the course during my assignment preview trip so I should be able to get it approved really fast. It wasn't as easy as I thought to get my trip approved because of people chasing and IT issues, but that is not the heart of my story so I will save you the details and say it ended up taking me about 3 weeks!!!!

When I finally got my approvals and started the visa application process, I was informed that I had the "OLD" Nigerian passport and that I need to obtain a new passport before I could apply for a visa. I politely told the guy in the travel team that my passport is valid until September 2014 and I had no intention of getting a new passport before then. Never in my American thinking mind did I think that a Government who issued an international passport and said it was valid until 2014 could turn around and say the passport was no longer valid. I even educated him that my two children have two versions of the US passport and that the fact that the US decided to change the passport before my older son's passport expired doesn't make his passport invalid. After failing to convince me, the guy took my passport and submitted the application because I insisted.

When I discussed this with other colleagues, they told me to go ahead and apply for a new International passport as they were sure that my passport will be returned as embassies are no longer issuing visa on the "OLD" passport. I really just felt they were somewhat ignorant because, I had submitted my passport to the Dutch embassy in Houston just a few weeks earlier and they didn't have a problem with issuing a visa on my so called "OLD" passport. The only reason I didn't get the visa then, was because they needed three weeks to process the visa and I had less than one week in the US before I had to resume for my assignment in Nigeria. Some colleagues even offered tips and advice on how to get a new passport fast, one person introduced me to a woman who worked for immigration and who asked me to pay more than three times the official passport cost for a quick new passport!

I didn't really do anything about applying for a new passport and a few days later I wish I had. With only a little over 2 weeks left to my trip, I was informed by our travel person in Abuja that my passport was rejected and that I would have to send a new passport to Abuja to get my visa. A colleague who missed a training course because of the same thing told me how we went about getting his new passport, and believe me when I say there was a Million and one steps to it. First you applied online, then you get a print out, next you go to some specific banks to pay, and then to your local Government to get a letter of something, next you go to the court to get something else, after which you get someone to sign a guarantor's form for you, and then you go to either Benin or Asaba where my nearest immigration offices were, to take a picture and fingerprint, and most likely return there the next day or some days later, to pick up the new passport. The process took me over a week!

Now I had a week left! Thankfully I got the visa just in time to attend the course. Like I said living in Nigeria comes with the good and the bad, and for this trip the good part of living in Nigeria was that since there was no company credit cards in Nigeria, I was given cash for my hotel and meals and I was able to save enough to go shopping :)

Anyways for those of you who live outside Nigeria and do not have the luxury of passing the Muritala airport in Lagos where you will see an A4 paper posted in an inconspicuous place saying that the Federal Govt. have said that the old passport will be invalid for travel after December 31st 2010, please get a new international passport before attempting to travel in or out of Nigeria after that time...

Cheers.