Consulting with the Nigerian National Assembly

by Karl

I spent the last 10 days of October in Abuja, Nigeria, with a colleague from NCSL and a staff person from the Wisconsin Legislature conducting a training program for committee clerks of the Nigerian National Assembly. The workshops that we conducted were successful and well-received. But we were also dismayed by the challenges that our Nigerian colleagues face in trying to assert the independence of a nascent legislature in the face of a long tradition of strong executive (often tribal) rule and a pervasive culture of corruption among elected officials. See an official summary of the Nigerian program and my comments on comparisons between Africa and the U.S. and my experiences in Nigeria and Brazil.

Is it possible for me to feel sillier than I look in these photos? Definitely. The problem wasn't the traditional Nigerian garb itself but that I felt incredibly self-conscious as a white man wearing this outfit. In Nigeria, outside of my American businessman's Hilton hotel, I didn't see anybody who looked like me, and certainly not any whites wearing traditional costumes. But the outfits were a gift that our hosts gave us and asked us to wear for our farewell dinner, so, apparently, they didn't think that it was silly as we did.

Here's another photo of our three-person team with the director of the Policy Analysis and Research Project (PARP) of the Nigerian National Assembly, Dr. Ladi Hamalai, who contracted with us to do this project. Ladi is the only one who looks like she belongs. The rest of us--Corina from NCSL and Bob from Wisconsin--look a little bit like characters out of Harry Potter. Give me a wand, and I'm Dumbledore.

My camera wasn't working in Nigeria, but my partner on the NCSL team, Corina Eckl provided me with the following photos in a slideshow (double click to enlarge):

Emmy as Golde in Fiddler

We're proud to report that Emily has been cast in the role of Golde in Boulder High School's February production of Fiddler on the Roof. Here's what her brother, Eric, wrote when he learned of this:

I started to try composing a response with Yiddish phrases, but every Yiddish phrase I could come up with was either comlaining or derogatory. Oy vey!

I'm sure you won't be a klutz or a kvetch, a shlemiel or shlimazl, a meshuggina or a nebbish, a noodge or nudnik, a pisher, a plotz, a putz, a schmuck, or a shnoz.

The play won't be dreck. It will be more than bupkes. It certainly won't be ongepotchket, megillah, schlock, or schmaltz (well, maybe schmaltz, but in a good way).

Oy, here's a spiel I can shlep . . . I'm looking forward to kibbitzing over your shtik, shmoozing with a true mench, and kvelling over a maven of the stage, perhaps over some nosh.

That's the best I could come with, Bubbala. Break a leg!