In South Africa you'll often hear the phrase "we'll make a plan" in response to the general question: "what will we do?" That's how you approach a problem - you first make a plan. My last year of college, I took a class in outdoor survival skills. It was a fun class that covered very basic wilderness skills, mostly how not to be stupid and unprepared. What has stuck with me most is the professor's advice on what to do after an emergency or if you suddenly realize you're lost. Once you're sure that everyone is ok, stop and make a cup of tea. Simple. It forces everyone to calm down (or if alone, just yourself), brings everyone together around a fire or cook stove, and allows time to think and then act in a rational way.

The running joke in Nigeria is that there is one thing that always works with our planning: What ever plan you lay out, any preparations you make, you can be damn sure that's the one thing that will not happen.

Yet every day we make a new schedule, act and respond and rethink our plan. This trip has been easy in many ways and the stress of the first and second phases of remediation seems distant. But Tuesday we were back in the game. The conference that we came for - that more than 100 delegates were expected to attend from Nigeria, Germany, the UK, Amsterdam, Canada, the US, Australia - was canceled Monday due to the unrest in Nigeria. (Side note, if you're following the unrest in the international media, the phrases "edge of civil war", "next Arab Spring",  and "genocide" are absurd exaggerations for the current situation.) For the next 24 hours, we went back and forth on scheduling smaller stakeholder meetings, where and when we might travel, and the overall security situation. This changed every 30 minutes or so, until we finally gave up on Tuesday night and said we'd decide in the morning if a trip to Abuja was going to happen (it didn't).

The removal of fuel subsidies has created massive outcry against Goodluck and the politicians who support the action. A nation-wide labor strike has in many ways united a nation divided by escalating tensions between the two dominant religious groups, Muslim and Christian. While the extremist group, which has been increasingly active in the northeast as well as in the capitol city, releases statements against the Christian president and lays blame for the current economic and social strife at the feet of non-muslims, Christian groups have begun to threaten retaliation. But reading an article about the subsidy strike on BBC, I have to breath a sigh of relief at a story of protesters from the north and south uniting, even forming human chains to protect groups of Muslims and Christians praying in the streets.

No one really knows how or when the strikes will end, though a temporary suspension will grant a few days reprieve starting tomorrow. For this reason, we "plan" that our delayed departure will not be pushed back further. The tensions between regions and religions is certain to continue well beyond the labor strike which has brought Nigeria to an absolute halt. But we can all pray - to whichever diety(s) we so choose - that the strike that has unified all people as simply "Nigerian" will be remembered for at least that.