Kogi

The Middle Belt eats from both halves of the country. Pounded yam and amala sit on the same menu as tuwo, and the soups follow whichever you chose.

• Pounded yam with egusi (melon seed) or ogbono.
• Tuwo shinkafa with miyan kuka or miyan taushe.
• Nsala and pepper soups, especially with river fish.
• Kilishi and suya in the evenings.
• Kunu — a light millet drink, sold cold.

Yam here is very good and very cheap by southern standards. Benue in particular is where a lot of the country's yam comes from.

The North-Central is the country's meeting point: Christian and Muslim communities in roughly equal measure, and living traditional practice alongside both. The balance changes from one local government to the next within the same state.

Camp runs both a mosque and a church with service times on the timetable. Off camp, take your cue from the community you are in rather than from the state as a whole.

Religion and ethnicity are sensitive subjects in parts of this zone, and corps members are guests. Do not take sides in a local dispute, and do not repeat one online.

No single indigenous language covers this zone. Tiv, Idoma, Igala, Nupe, Gbagyi, Berom, Ebira, Jukun and many more are first languages depending on where you are, and Hausa is widely used as a common language in the north of the zone.

English and Nigerian Pidgin will carry you everywhere. Learning the greeting of the community you are actually posted to is worth more here than any zone-wide phrase list — ask your platoon mates from the state, who will be pleased to be asked.

Keke napep and shared taxis run town routes at a fixed drop; motorcycle taxis are common outside the larger cities and restricted inside some of them.

Distances between towns are longer than they look and roads vary. Travel with a registered operator, start early, and arrive in daylight.