Faith travels to the town of Enugu with her sister Adanna and brother Emeka and attends a wedding. She also talks about the last-minute move of the Miss World Pageant from Nigeria, a major embarrassment to the nation.

Okay, it's Saturday, the 23rd I think, of November, and I'm in the Victoria Suites Hotel in Enugu, which is where I used to live, or Enugu is where I lived the year that I came here 12 years ago. I stayed with a family here. So this is part of Emeka's plan, his weekend trip. So he came to pick us up this morning and we were kind of rushing around and confused and not on time as usual.

So then we loaded up the new car, which has an armed guard this time, which was interesting, and then Adanna and I and the cameraman went in Emeka's car, which is great because he loves to speed and play all sorts of hop-hop music. And so we were just singing and dancing along to the tunes in the car and just looking at the scenery on the road. It's interesting how we were traveling north and we passed the turn-off to the village and then we passed through cashew groves and we bought some cashews from little boys running along side the car. It's funny, the vendors are like running and you just stick the money out the window, well first they give you the product, and they're running along side and you just stick the money out the window. And they're running alongside and you look for [inaudible] and the whole time the boy is running along and puffing. I felt so bad for them.

And then we saw the vegetation change, got much hillier, and you could see greenery and palm trees and everything and then there were the cashew trees which are deciduous and suddenly looking much less tropical then we passed through areas where they have clay, they make clay pots on the side of the road, so it was an interesting drive, long but interesting.

And, yeah it was nice, and then we arrived in Enugu it was almost 2:00 and we have two people to visit, my father's oldest family friends, who have sons who live abroad actually, one in Philly and I think one in London or something like that so we had to, they knew we were coming, and also the Madu's, which are Auntie Grace's youngest sister and her husband. And I had spent a fair amount of time with them in Enugu. Probably more time, well yeah, a lot of time with them, since they were really welcoming and lived in the same town that I did. So we were going to stop by and see them but first we had to find a hotel and Emeka had to go to this wedding that was really important that was happening in his, someone was, one of his colleagues was doing it. So we went to the Nike Lake Hotel which is the nicest hotel in town. And everybody was there, dressed in all of their finest. It turns out there was a society wedding going on as well, so you wouldn't believe the clothes these people had, I felt like a little filthy fool. And Emeka's working the crowd.

So everybody scattered, and I finally got to do email for the first time, I was finally able to send my mom an email telling her that I got here safely and that I'm having a great time.

So then we were just dragging through the town on the way back. It's in much better shape then when I was here before, you know. I mean, it had been the capitol and this is where daddy lived, lived when he was Commissioner of Health and Education. But by the time I came here under the military regime it was pretty barren and worn out and there was nothing much, but now it seems like there's life again. There are lots of hotels, there are clubs, there are monuments. People are out at night in these stalls barbequing meat and everything. But unfortunately we were all so exhausted. And there was an after-party after the wedding where people, you know, go to the house of the bride and groom and have traditional food and beer and everything but, we considered going and then we decided not to. So we came back to the hotel and went to one of the crew members rooms and we're just hanging out on her bed, the three of us, kind of just rolling around and carrying on and Emeka was doing his usual trash talking, he's so funny, and she was just working on her computer and Adanna was sleeping with her head in my lap. So funny, she's like "you have so many Hello Kitty things," and I said "well you know, I'm going through my second childhood, I never had any as a child," and then she fell asleep.

But I guess the most interesting thing that happened today is that the big Miss World Pageant which was happening her in Nigeria, finally got moved today to Britain, which is a terrible embarrassment for the country, you know, because people have been avoiding Nigeria for so long and they were finally able to cajole somebody into coming here. And it was a huge thing, and Nigerians are really into beauty pageants anyway, and last year's winner was a Nigerian, I think the first black person ever, so apparently there have been 400 journalists in the country and that's all we were hearing about when we first got here and people were so excited and they were supposed to go to Port Harcourt today for a fashion show, an ethnic fashion show which was going to be the first time they had such an event in the pageant, and you know, it was just putting Nigeria on the map. They had this special air carrier that was going to fly in this 16-ton stage. And, I mean, it was boosting the local economy, every town that they were in had bids to host this and that, the catering, and the hotel and the transport and there was this whole big thing.

But this is the month of Ramadan, and so there have been all these tensions in the north, and then finally all these riots broke out when a female journalist, columnist actually, wrote in her column that if the prophet Mohammad were alive perhaps he would have even looked to one of the Miss World contestants for a wife or something. Well that was blasphemy and it was an incredibly foolish that her paper let her print that, so riots just started happening, they couldn't do enough, and an apology wasn't printed until the next day, and they burned down the newspaper office and the woman went into hiding, and the secret service is looking for her, and after prayers on Friday the riots continued, and I guess they even went into Abuja, which is, you know, very heavily policed and federally militarized and everything, but they were even able to cause a ruckus and burn automobiles ands stuff like that. So within 48 hours the commission decided to move it to Britain, which I mean must have been the backup plan all along because you can't move an operation of that size in 48 minute, 48 hours.

So anyway, anybody in Nigeria who was involved loses out. People who bought their tickets won't get them refunded, so they say. People who had gotten downpayments on services they were going to provide, like hotels and catering and stuff, the balance isn't forthcoming, and we're shamed incredibly. So, the journalist here who was telling us all this, 'cause she works for one of the major news agencies that was covering it, said that, she said she thought it was a plot by Obasanjo's enemies to make him look bad, yet again. The other person disagreed, the other person on her team disagreed and thought it was just typical tensions that are always there and just needed a small spark to set them off. But whatever, the result is incredibly embarrassing and by moving it to Britain, the colonial master, I think it's doubly embarrassing to say you guys still don't have your act together. So lets call today "The Failure of Miss World Day."