Coming to Abuja? Here are our Recommendations

Originally Published September 22, 2022

Remember: All views and opinions expressed here are my own personal views and do not express the official views or opinions of the U.S. government. This is not an official resource. This is just a personal perspective and not everyone may agree.

A few friends told me they read this blog before joining our mission in Abuja. If you are preparing to move here, these are some tips we picked up over the last two years to help you prepare!

• Bring a full size pillow WITH you on the plane over! The pillows here are like a sheet of paper and you will spend weeks waiting for the mail to come in - and you can't try online-bought pillows before you buy them! Waiting for the UAB just won't do it. Bring one on the plane and wash it when you get here.

• Water kettle and large water dispenser. USA plug works. Not everyone does this, but we boil all of our water. I don't trust the potable water in this compound. You may feel different. It wasn't worth it to me. We boil it all and, once it goes room temperature, add it to a pretty glass dispenser we bought at Sams Club. Bonus: you can use the dispenser for lemonade, tea, or mixed drinks at a bbq or when having people over.

• UPS. Power goes out ~5 times a day. It's nice when you can connect your internet box to it so you don't lose internet over and over and have to wait 10 minutes for it to restart.

• If you are assigned a house in ~the largest family compound~ consider bringing an outdoor table and chairs. Although we're in an apartment with a small balcony (the gov. furniture does the trick), we've seen friends in houses get a lot of use from their outdoor tables. Think Friday 5 PM happy hour with your girlfriends and a bottle of wine or weekend bbqs with the neighborhood kids and their parents.

• Use a Roku or smart tv to use netflix, amazon, youtube, etc. all on one tv. We may have been way behind the times with this one, but it makes life a lot easier. Sometimes on a calm day we'll play youtube videos of docks and sailboats, other days drone videos over Ireland. Think about connecting it to a VPN.

• Dyson vacuum. The welcome kit came with a massive corded one; we find the cordless one much easier to use. She goes in our UAB or checked baggage. The houses here get sooo dusty from the desert - a good vacuum is necessary.

Consumables/Ship Ahead Suggestions:

• Anything with bubbles that you like. Lacroix or white claw. All soda water here has sodium.

• Any other drinks that you like - gatorade, etc.

• Coffee

• White flour/brown sugar. Soo many unique types of Nigerian flour that are likely not what you are looking for :)

• All purpose cleaners, large bottles of soap refill, and clorox wipes

• Fun salad dressings

• Nuts or dried fruit. Dried fruit is expensive here. You can make your own with pineapple, banana, apples, etc. if you bring a dehydrator.

• Pressure cooker. Shipped the Ninja Foodi here and we've cooked so many easy meals with this

• Damprid for moisture.

• Fun daily pill containers to remember if you took your malaria meds.

Furniture/Decorating Advice:

• Buy and ship ahead your bedding so it's waiting for you when you arrive.

• Immediately change out curtains. The standard on my compound is bright gold, thick curtains. We immediately buried them in a back bedroom and used white linen curtains around the house. You can ask your sponsor to take pics and measure the width from the floor to the curtain rods.

• Drexel bookshelves and glass china cabinet - we purchased stick on wallpaper in a fun print and used scotch tape to adhere it to the furniture so it can be removed at the end of our tour. Update: it came off just fine, but I was sparing with the tape!!

• Add plants, plants, plants (a mix of faux and real works for us). You can bring planters before you arrive and be one step ahead.

• Resist going crazy at Mama Africa purchasing decorative items that might not be used at a later post. We focused on pottery and rattan items (vases, coffee table trays, baskets, dish chargers, etc.) because they will fit in anywhere.

• Paint your walls immediately. Pick a main wall in your living room and go for it. This was a huge regret of ours. By the time we found out we wouldn't have to re-paint when we leave unless it's an obnoxious color (because they repaint all the walls during the make-ready process anyway), it was too late in our tour to think about re-moving furniture, etc. Friends said it cost them about $200 to do a few walls in the living room and they brought a list of color options.