Binky's African Adventures

Happy to be breathing

2009-03-14T20:30:00.002+01:00

Okay, I know it has been forever since I posted on my blog, but today I am feeling particularly happy to be alive and so I thought I would post a bit about what happened.

Yesterday was quite interesting, I am not yet sure what triggered the anaphylaxis (Severe Allergic Reaction), but it was definitely something I ate. Very soon after lunch I started having trouble breathing and I was coughing because my wind pipe was obstructed. When it continued to get worse I injected myself with epinephrine, which is a form of synthetic adrenaline and then went to the clinic. Luckily the injection made it possible for me to breathe so I didn’t pass out and possibly suffocate. I don’t know if my life was in danger yesterday, but I am glad I didn’t wait to find out!

I am fine today and am feeling specifically grateful to the company that makes the EpiPen as well as my doctor back home for insisting that I keep one on hand after a previous incident.

After realizing that it took over 30 minutes to get to the clinic here (there is no 911, and half the time people don't even move out of the way for an ambulance! I rode to the clinic in one of our company cars) I have replaced the one EpiPen I used with two new ones just in case I need a second dose before arriving at the hospital.

Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine I am alive and well and I plan to stay that way!

The Jambalaya Kit

2008-07-29T22:26:00.004+01:00

I decided to post one more thing before I head off to bed.

I wanted to make Jambalaya again before Josie gets home. Since she doesn't really like it, I figured I would make it early in the week and then I could have most of it eaten by the time she gets back. The only problem is that it takes quite a while to get everything together and get it made, and since I did not make it on Sunday, having enough time on a week-night is always an issue. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I play squash, so that would make it difficult, and Tuesday I have a meeting at church after work. So I came up with a plan, we will call it the Jambalaya Kit! After playing squash on Monday I did almost all of the prep work. This is the kit:

I cut up everything necessary and bagged it so that when I got home from my meeting tonight I could just dump it in the pot and get started. The preparation took at least an hour and a half, but the results are well worth the time invested! When I got home tonight I was able to get the whole thing put together in just about an hour. Also, because of a lucky find at one of the grocery stores, I found a sausage that actually works better than any I have found here. This is the best Jambalaya I have made in Nigeria. (far better than my attempt last week!...due to a poor choice of sausage, the whole batch was ruined in my opinion)

Doesn't that look DELICIOUS!!!!!

P.S. IT IS! I am going to enjoy this pot!

The Weeping Wall

2008-07-29T13:28:00.003+01:00

In the old portion of the city of Jerusalem there is a structure commonly referred to as the Wailing Wall. Inside my flat, in our master bedroom in fact, we now have the weeping wall. There is nothing religious about it (other than me praying that it does not get worse), but it has become a feature in the bedroom that definitely draws the eye.

Wednesday last week I walked into our bedroom and was greeted by this:

So I marked the boundaries and decided I would wait to see if it was getting worse. This is what I awoke to the next morning:

And by that afternoon:

I have not taken a picture in several days, (if I remember I will take one tonight and add it) but it has certainly gotten worse. Thus far I have not seen them doing anything to fix it. If it continues I fear we may have to treat it like a boil and lance it. Drill into the bottom of the wall and try and drain the wall, I am just worried about how much water is actually in there.

Plumbing has been our worst problem since we moved to this flat, as any of you who have read Josie's post about the flood will no doubt recognize.

OK, I actually did remember to take another picture when I got home....take a look at this beauty:

I think it is starting to look like a Japanese character....maybe it tells a proverb about how water overcomes stone. That would be appropriate in this instance! I also got an email today that said this same leak is affecting at least 3 flats...now I REALLY wonder how much water is inside the wall!

Staff Buses

2008-07-20T17:10:00.002+01:00

Today I thought I would tell you a little bit about staff buses. You might first wonder what a staff bus is. Well in a city where only a small percentage of people have their own mode of transport companies have to get their workers to the office, job site, etc. For this they use staff buses, but not all staff buses are created equal!

Here you have your very basic staff bus, although this one is pretty empty at the moment. I am not sure if these are construction workers, but that is what I would guess from the mode of transport. Here is a similar staff bus filled up.

But there are certainly nicer modes of transportation, and ones that are better to ride in when it rains.

This one would certainly be nicer when it rains! It seems like almost anything can be a staff bus, and some of them are actual buses, some of them are very nice. This one, while not a bus, I have to describe as one of the nicest staff buses I have seen. I saw it near our flat, but did not have a camera. So I ran in (hoping it would still be there when I came out) and grabbed my camera. I had to walk just a little bit to get back to where it was, but I thought this one was worth it.

Just the fact that this one has nice comfortable (looking) seats puts it above at least most of the Semi-trailer versions. Most just have wood benches lining the walls. A lot of employees depend on this kind of transport, and it benefits companies to provide it. Especially when the area many people work in is only really accessible via two bridges. This kind of company transport can save a lot of headaches in the long run.

Exotic Places - Exotic Allergies

2008-07-15T11:48:00.004+01:00

One of the joys of going to different places is experiencing new things. Well, when you are me, one of those things is discovering other things in the world that you are allergic to! Back in Oklahoma, I know generally what I am allergic to and when to expect problems. That is in Oklahoma, and I am not. One thing that I have discovered that causes me problems is fresh mango. Now this is where it gets interesting, usually when I eat something I am allergic to I get hives and my lips swell. When I eat fresh mango there is a completely different effect. Something in the mango apparently reacts in my stomach and it makes me burp, something in the burps actually cases my sinus cavities to swell. when it is in full effect my eyes swell nearly shut and I cannot breathe through my nose. I can still breathe, so it is not life threatening, but it was rather amusing to see Josie fussing over me when it happened!

However, mango is not the only thing that I react to here, but unfortunately it is the only thing we have identified. There is something that happens between the dry season (harmattan) and the start of the rainy season. I think it is something that blooms, or pollinates. The effect looks like this:

Ignore the hair, I woke up looking like this. I knew there was a problem when my eyes would not open. As it turned out basically my entire face was swollen. When you wake up looking like this there is only one course of action. I sent an email to the office informing them I would not be in, took Benadryl and went back to bed!

The next day I showed this picture to the guys I work with, they told me they were certainly willing to go track down the guys that beat me up and pay them back. Co-workers are such good helpers!

Even with all the allergic reactions I have had in my life so far, only one has had the possibility of being life threatening: I hope it stays that way, since we still don't know what caused that one!

Just for Fun

2008-07-14T11:38:00.002+01:00

Today I want to just make a quick post to answer a very simple question:

How do you transport four tires without a car or a truck?

For those that think this must be a rare sight, I can refute that. Unfortunately I did not have my camera on the way to church on Sunday, but let me try to describe what I saw. Between the driver of the okada and the passenger was a rolled up mattress. Not an air mattress or something like that. A full size bed mattress, it stuck out a couple feet on each side of the bike. I was disappointed that I did not have my camera, but it will not be the last time I have a chance to snap a picture of something like this, I assure you.

Logistics Problem

2008-07-10T11:12:00.003+01:00

When I explain the situation in which we live here in Nigeria, the responses I get tend to border on patronizing. For example when you tell people you have a driver, you usually get responses such as "Must be tough!" or "that would be nice". Now don't get me wrong, there are many aspects of being driven everywhere I go that I quite like. For me it is especially advantageous since I do not enjoy driving cars, I have never really liked cars! I can ride for hours on a motorcycle and be completely content, but driving an hour in the car needs to have a good justification to entice me to do it. This dislike of cars in general also partially carries over to riding in them, so you can imagine my profound joy of dealing with the Lagos traffic. Tuesday night was a prime example. I was at a meeting out at our church building, which is about 11 kilometers from my flat. To go from the church to the flat took two hours and five minutes, and most of that time was spent on about a two kilometer stretch.

There are other problems as well, which brings me to the events of last night. After I left work I decided I was going to go watch a movie before going home. The traffic was terrible, as it has been almost every night lately, and so to get to the theatre on time was already going to be a challenge. I also wanted to go by the flat first to drop off my laptop. It took 40 minutes to travel most of the three kilometers to the flat, when we were within a reasonable distance I hopped out and walked the rest of the way (which, based on recent events, did make me a bit nervous). I was able to get up to my flat and back to the car before my driver had been able to move more than five car lengths. At least this allowed us to head straight for the theatre instead of getting out of traffic and having to fight to get back in. We hit more traffic every direction we tried! Finally I had to jump out again and walk the last little bit to the movie theatre. At this point it seemed all was going well, but I need to add some background before I continue.

Aside: Last week my driver had a problem with his personal car while he was on his way home, it stalled and had to be pushed out of the roadway, a couple of guys helped him push it over to the side of the road, after receiving this "help" he realized that his phone was missing. The phone is provided by my company, and they have not yet managed to replace it.

When I entered the theatre I found that the movie I wanted to see had already sold out, I immediately went back outside to locate my driver, and of course he was nowhere in sight. Expecting me to be in a movie for the next two hours he had gone to get some food, well obviously I could not call him since he has no phone. I tried calling our central radio room to get them to contact the radio installed in the car, he was not in the car. I stood just outside the mall while I waited for them to track him down. After about twenty minutes I received a call from the radio room, they were not able to get in touch with him, but another driver was in the area and would come by and pick me up. After another twenty minutes, because of the traffic, the driver arrived and took me to the flat. Once I was back home, I called the radio room back and asked that they continue to try and contact my driver until they managed to reach him. I expected that this would be the end of the story, but alas, no. Just after 10 o'clock I received a call from the drivers supervisor asking if I still needed my driver to hold at the mall. I explained the situation and told him he could tell my driver he was done for the day. Ten minutes later my driver called to verify that I was actually at home and not still in the mall. Apparently he was waiting around in one of the other residences with several other drivers, none of whom had been involved in the earlier attempts to find him or transport me, and all the drivers were quite concerned that something had happened to me.

Sometimes it is easier just to drive yourself!

Road Rage.....or Something Else?

2008-07-06T21:29:00.002+01:00

I thought I would take a few minutes and write about something that happened yesterday. I'm really glad my wife was not here for this event! Two co-workers and I were doing some shopping, one of them is new to Lagos and we were taking him around to all the different stores where we get groceries. While we were driving down one of the main streets on the island where we live an okada (motorcycle taxi) started chasing us and banging on the car. Apparently he felt that our driver had done something to him and he was angry. I should take a moment to mention that no one in the car saw anything that sparked this and the driver said he did not do anything. The okada pulled alongside and was yelling at the driver, then he pulled across in front of us to slow us down. At this point our driver nearly did hit him. The driver stopped in front of a gas station, just past an intersection where police were directing traffic, and the okada pulled across in front of our car. The driver of the okada got off his bike and came over to the driver's window and continued the rant that he had begun while driving. He was telling the driver to "wind down" (roll down the window) and he tried to open the door (thankfully it was locked). When this did not work (the driver was just staring at him) he began beating on the window (even using his belt that he had apparently taken off during the tirade) and kicking the door. Finally some other okada riders, and other people that were around, grabbed him and tried to usher him off and calm him down. Needless to say, those of us in the car were a little worked up after this!

Now there is the possibility that this was much more than road rage! I may just be paranoid after my wife and I were robbed on the street while walking a few block from our flat, but this seemed a bit suspect. It is not unknown for thieves on okada to try something like this to get a driver to stop and then he and his buddies proceed to rob the occupants of the vehicle. Considering there were three white men in the car I can not rule this out as a possibility. Thieves very often use okada here because they are quick and so numerous that looking for a particular one would be nearly impossible. I'm just glad that my wife was not there, it took me about 30 minutes just to calm down completely. Unfortunately this is one of the consequences of living in Lagos, and tomorrow is another day!

On the Subject of Food

2008-07-02T11:49:00.004+01:00

If you have read through the rest of my blog you know that I have a tendency to take pictures of food that I cook while my wife is out of the country. Well once again I am going to prove that I actually do cook for myself while my wife is gone. Both of these are meals I cooked earlier this year during one of my wife's trips outside Nigeria.

This one is chicken with a country mustard sauce (from a bottle, so I can't take too much credit) over rice, with some pan-fried zucchini strips. It was easy and tasted pretty good too. And it made for a nice picture...

This one I am proud of, this was a spur of the moment creation that was quite excellent, but the funny thing about it is that most of my family either would not or could not eat it.

I will give you an idea of what is in this one (I can't give an exact recipe since I made it up and as usual I did not write anything down).

First I cooked up some chicken with cilantro (which my Mom hates), carrots (which my brother is allergic too), and red and yellow peppers. Then I cooked up some spinach tagliatelle pasta (which my wife does not like), and mixed that all together. Then I covered it all with a Lime vinaigrette dressing (also made up on the fly). I thought it was wonderful, but as you can see from the description, I guess it was good that I was home alone. The left-overs were just as good straight out of the fridge the next day!

This last one is specifically for my Dad! We had a social at church and we decided we would make some food to take. Josie made Jello with fruit in it (which was a huge hit, after we explained what it was: most of the people had never seen Jello) and I made a pot of Jambalaya. It was a bit interesting since I had to make it with the ingredients available here.

The Sausage was a garlic sausage I happened to find in one of the stores here. It was alright by itself (although I doubt I would eat it that way normally), but after it cooked in the jambalaya it tasted great. Apparently it wasn't too bad, after the social this is what was left!

The funniest thing about this making the Jambalaya, is that our steward was around the flat while I was cooking it. She has never made or tasted jambalaya, but because mine did not look like the picture in the recipe book she told me she thought I did it wrong. I thought it was absolutely hilarious!

Hopefully this has made you all hungry!

Interesting Food

2008-07-01T15:13:00.002+01:00

One thing about living in a different country on a different continent is experiencing foods you would not expect to see in the US. I will elaborate by giving you two examples.

Goat Roundabout Pepper Soup

First of all let me explain the concept of pepper soup. The first thing to understand is that it is HOT! It is a broth base with some sort of meat (chicken, fish, or in this case goat) and some very spicy peppers. The soup itself is fairly thin other than the pieces of meat. Now to elaborate on goat roundabout, obviously we are talking about goat meat, roundabout refers mostly to the digestive tract. Goat Roundabout pepper soup contains pieces of goat meat, stomach, intestine, liver, etc. And yes, I have eaten it! Actually the goat meat and liver are not bad, the stomach and intestine are a bit too chewy for my liking.

Goat Sausages

OK I guess I would have to describe these as an acquired taste. I bought them at the store and was curious what they would taste like.

I grilled a couple of them up and gave them a try.....not what I would call fantastic, but maybe I can think of something to put them in.

Josie did not try them, but our friend Julia and I did. With a little bit of sauce or something to dip them in the are OK.

No Excuses (OK maybe one)

2008-06-27T11:12:00.003+01:00

OK, I have to first begin by saying I have absolutely no excuse for not updating my blog for two months. My wife puts me to shame in this regard (although in a lame attempt to defend myself, she does have a little more time on her hands than I do) and now even my brother has started blogging. So just to get things going again I will share some fun pictures with you. These are a couple of pictures taken while driving through Victoria Island (Lagos).

I'm not sure exactly what happened in the time before I snapped this picture, but what I do know is that it must have been a heck of a ride.

Considering the missing driver's side front tire, I would almost have to guess that it fell off while the vehicle was moving, but this is just a guess. It also looks like they narrowly avoided crashing into the wall, again I will say, it must have been a heck of a ride.

Shave and a haircut, two bits

I have been needing a haircut lately.....I wonder how much this guy charges.

In this picture you can see the hand clippers that he is using to cut the man's hair.

For an American this event looks strange, but this is a very commonplace thing here.

As I said in my last post, I do have other pictures I need to post....maybe this time I will actually get them on here before another 60 days pass.

What's in a Phrase

2008-03-31T16:16:00.002+01:00

OK, so first thing is first: I know I have not added anything for a while, a lot has happened I just have been really busy. I have several things to post and will try to do so in the next few days.

This one is not for the faint of heart
(I have no pictures for this which is good, as you will understand later)

I had to go to Houston at the beginning of the month to shutdown an office my company had there (very hectic process) and when I came back Josie came back to Lagos on the same day, we were on different planes due to some booking issues so we arrived 10 hours apart. I came in on Saturday morning and Josie came in on Saturday night. Since Josie came in late she did not go to church the next morning, I was feeling pretty good so I got up and went. On the way to church that morning I saw a man who was stoned on the side of the road. Now if you read that the way I think you did you assumed that this man was high, that is not what I said. The man was laying in one lane of the road surrounded by reasonably large rocks. I'm not sure what the crime was, but the punishment was quite clear and very effective. The body was still there 5 hours later when I came home. I asked my driver and he said the body could be there for days (luckily he was gone by Monday). Crime is up quite a bit here right now so we are being very careful about when and where we go, I imagine this guy got caught stealing or something and punishment was administered immediately. I do however think that this punishment is at least a little less cruel than another common method. The mob grabs a tire places it around the offender, pinning his arms, they then douse him in petrol and you can guess the rest. Justice can be swift in this part of the world, especially when no court or police are involved.

Vacation is Over!

2008-02-11T22:33:00.000+01:00

Well, after getting to spend a total of six weeks in the US, I'm back in Lagos. Josie and I flew out of Nigeria on Nov 27th and got back Jan 13th so it was a long stint in the States. Josie really enjoyed it since she got to spend the whole time on vacation! I got to take three weeks off which was really nice, but before and after vacation I was in Houston working.

Vacation was really excellent though, we got to see quite a bit of family and we even got to have a traditional Allen family gunfight on Christmas morning. It was so funny to see Dad crawling around on the floor ducking behind his chair and shooting little plastic bullets at Josie and Me.

We also got to spend some time with Josie's Grandfather, which turned out to be a really good thing. The day we arrived back in Lagos he had his fourth heart attack. After hanging in there for over a week he passed away, and Josie flew back to attend the funeral. She has been back in the States since then, so I have been living the exciting life while she is gone....HA!

When she is gone all that it means is that I work from 7am to 6pm most days, not necessarily the best thing but oh well. I will be flying out next Friday and meeting Josie in Houston. One thing to note is that even if Josie wanted to come back to Lagos right now she would not be able to. Both of our visas have expired and they have to renew mine before we can do Josie's. Mine should be done this week and then I can get the information to Josie so she can get hers updated. With all the traveling we did last year I'm going to have to get pages added to my passport after they get this new visa done, I'm running out of room really quickly.

Well I just wanted to drop an update in here since I had not done so in quite some time. This is me signing off!

More Excellent Woodwork

2007-11-17T18:02:00.000+01:00

Well I have not posted anything in a while, but it is really because I have been extremely busy. Things have been very hectic at work, a few weeks ago I asked one of my colleagues if they knew what the beginning of a nervous breakdown felt like! I wanted to make sure I could identify it when it happened.

Putting all that aside, today we managed to take a break and go out to the market. Our intent was just to go out an pick up a few final things for Christmas presents before we come back to the states for vacation, but we happened to find something for us as well. It just so happens our favorite wood carver had a treat for us. He very often manages to have things that are different than everyone else and today was no exception.

Segun said that his father carved this. It is made of one solid piece of king ebony (very solid, this thing is heavy!) and it is a really nice piece. I think the detail is really nice and it was something that really stood out.

I love the wonderful things that we find here. Josie is not sure how some of our African things are going to be used when we move from Nigeria, but I really like them. One day I hope to have a study where I can have neat things like this that I have collected from all over the world.

CREEPY

2007-10-16T15:46:00.000+01:00

OK this is just weird! Julia usually hangs around our flat on the weekends, and since I have to stay late at the church they ride with another person to and from church. When I got back to the flat on Sunday they had both changed into lounging clothes.

Now this would not be out of the ordinary at all, but when I looked closer I realized that the shirts they were wearing went together a bit too well.

Now this was completely unplanned, they both came out after changing and realized what they had done. It is bad enough that Josie and Julia act like sisters, but this is really just creepy!

The Tough Hike

2007-10-09T10:35:00.000+01:00

I want to share some pictures from the toughest day of hiking in the Pyrenees. Out of the five days of hiking this one was by far the hardest for me. It was also the most fun. I don’t remember the name of the place, but the ridge you see in the back of all the pictures is part of the border between France and Spain.

This is the view from where we got out of the mini-bus to start our walk. You can see the beautiful waterfall in the distance. What you don’t realize right away is that those tiny little dots you can just barely see on the trail are people! I kept taking pictures as we got closer and the waterfall just kept getting bigger and bigger, the distance was very deceiving.

This picture gives you a little bit of an idea as far as scale, if you compare the people in the foreground with the tiny dots on the trail near the waterfall. This is also a good view of the seasonal waterfall locations: see the black streaks on the rock off to the right of the main falls, during spring thaw each one of those marks is the location of a waterfall.

There’s Josie, with a hiking pole in each hand working her way up the trail. I took this picture from the top of a boulder that was probably about 9 feet high, 20 feet long, and 15 feet wide. I love this kind of terrain; boulder strewn fields are some of my favorite places to play around. I love scaling the boulders and jumping from rock to rock. When I was growing up Mom always told me I acted like I was part mountain goat, I guess with that and her assertions that I was part monkey I’m wondering what that says about my Mother….LOL I know I will pay for that one.

As you get closer to the waterfall the trail gets harder. The path seems to get steeper with every step. Again in this picture you have a couple people in the foreground and if you look hard you can see tiny people on the trail. At least at this point they actually looked like people and not just little dots.

The closer I got to the waterfall, the more I started feeling like I was in one of those endless hallways, where you can walk and walk but you don’t seem to get anywhere. The sheer size of the waterfall was really amazing.

This picture really does not do the waterfall justice since there is no sense of scale, but it was just such a beautiful sight.

Here is a picture of me in front of the waterfall. See that look on my face, if that looks like pain it’s because IT IS!!! The last part of the climb was incredibly steep, only our guide, Rob and I went all the way to the waterfall. It hurt to do it, but I could not hike all that way and then not go to the waterfall.

This is not the best picture, but it does give an idea of how steep the final part of the trail is. You can also see that the trail disappears on this final climb. Instead you just have one huge scree pile, so your footing is always fairly tenuous. If you look really hard in this picture you will see a small white dot down where the trail turns, that is Josie.

I zoomed in as much as my little camera would and if you look in the middle of the picture on the right hand side you can see Josie standing there in a white t-shirt. Also if you look at the way people are going back down toward the trail it shows you how hard this terrain was. Instead of gingerly walking down picking each step and still sliding I decided to go down differently. I RAN! I just zigzagged down the hill angling toward large rocks that I knew I could used to stop myself if I had to. I think the other people thought I was nuts, and I know Josie did not appreciate it, but I knew what I was doing. Nobody ever believes me when I tell them that, I have no idea why!

This was not the prettiest hike we went on, but it was definitely the most fun for me, I really enjoyed it!

Soaring with the birds

2007-10-08T15:28:00.000+01:00

While we were in Bareges, France we took one day off from hiking and went paragliding. It was something I had been looking forward to for several months. Since Josie and I had never done it before we decided to try a tandem jump with the instructor. The “instructors” picked us up in Bareges and drove us up to the top of the Bareges Tourmalet at the end of the valley. The drive up the side of the valley was much more dangerous than the flight could possibly be, it was easy to tell why these guys were paragliders and not professional drivers! Josie was white-knuckled!

Just a note: the first two pictures are not either one of us, just someone else that was out that day. Unfortunately I did not get my camera out before we took off and could not get to it while in the air.

Once we got to the top we checked the wind, it was no good on the Bareges side of the peak so we got back in the van and drove across the ridge to the other side. Once we got over there we loaded up with gear and hiked a little further up. The instructors prepped the parachutes and then we got strapped in. I will let Josie tell you what happened to her if she wants, although I’ll give you a big hint later on! Once we were strapped in and the wind was right Patrick (the instructor I flew with) kited the chute and we started walking down the hill. Once the chute caught the air it pulled us back hard, at this point it was time to run off the side of the mountain.

Once we were airborne it was absolutely phenomenal. Josie and the other instructor had taken off at the same time, and I could see them as they circled off to try and gain some height. The day was beautiful and the air was clear, I think there were 2 clouds in the sky. The only unfortunate part of the whole thing was that we were not able to find any major thermals, so the flights did not last as long as I had hoped they would, but it was still very much worth it. During the flight we descended about 800 meters. When we got to the landing area the only thing left to do was to quite literally “hit the ground running”. As you can see from the picture below Josie evidently runs different than other people….LOL

Good Friends

2007-10-06T15:30:00.000+01:00

I have been promising pictures for quite some time, so now I have decided to deliver on that promise. I want to show you some of my good friends from Nigeria. Many of the people in the pictures are people I met at work, I don't have a lot of pictures of people from church; I will try for those in the future. About two months ago several of us met up at a restaurant here called Barcellos. We had a great time and just sat around and talked.

OK so Josie kind of stands out in the picture! Across the table from Josie is Ayo. Next to him is Duala, and the tall guy on the end is Gbenga (and trust me the guy is tall, if we stand around and talk for too long my neck hurts from looking up!). The dapper looking fellow in the suit is Fawaz. We were really having a great time, I'm sure the other people in the restaurant thought we were crazy, we were loud and laughing and just generally enjoying ourselves. We need to do it again, soon!

Unfortunately not everyone that was invited that night was able to make it.

This is Titi, and I love this picture because I think it really captures her personality. Titi is just over 4 feet (in heels!) worth of attitude! I love her to death, and we tease each other incessantly. Her favorite phrase when she talks to me is "You know, I really don't like you". Titi and most of the others in the pictures, work for contract companies that have come in to do work on our project. Titi had the misfortune of getting stuck in a desk by me for several months (and she may never fully recover!).

This is Eyiuche, she works for the same company as Titi. For the most part she worked upstairs, but she would come down and chat regularly. They have finished their projects, and so they are not around the office anymore; it has gotten a lot less fun since they left though. Eyiuche ,another Titi (their boss), and I had a long discussion one day as they were telling me about how much it would cost me to pay the "dowry" for my second wife. Not that I'm planning on having one, I can barely handle the one I have, but the discussion was quite hilarious. I will have to tell that whole story some other time.

Two other people that were not at our little gathering were Okechi and Femi, they definitely qualify as good friends and I would not want to leave them out of this post, I just don't have pictures of them.

This is our friend Victoria, we met her at church. Victoria was a student in Lagos at the Nigerian Law School. She was never very fond of Lagos though, she is originally from Abuja and she always tells us how much better Abuja is. She finished her schooling and I think has now gone off to BYU for a while. We love Victoria and we miss her.

OK I just wanted to share some of my friends here with everyone back home. As always I will keep trying to get more pictures to post.

Irony

2007-10-04T15:21:00.000+01:00

OK so here is an ironic situation. I started this blog because I thought that I would keep it up-to-date better than Josie was doing on hers, well I think we have now proven that I am just as bad (or worse) at not updating my blog. I could give all sorts of excuses, but then someone would just make fun of those, so I will solemnly shoulder the responsibility.

Now on to the update:

Things have been pretty busy around here. Josie and I left Nigeria for an interim leave in France during the first part of September. We spent a week in the small village of Bareges. It was absolutely beautiful. We spent several of the days hiking in the mountains, we averaged about 10km per day. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I will have to get pictures from Josie so I can post them, we loaded all of them on her laptop while we were in France.

After Bareges we went to Paris for three days. Originally we were supposed to fly directly back to Lagos after we were done in Bareges, but when we were making the plans we could not get a flight back to Nigeria for three days. (Begin sarcasm) So we bit the bullet and struggled through three full days in Paris....it was awful (end sarcasm). The weather was really nice and we got to see a lot of the sights in Paris, we did the standard touristy things just so we could say we had. We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, which is quite a small painting to have such a big deal made out of it! We toured the Egyptian artifacts and also an exhibit from Mesopotamia, it was really cool.

Every since we got back I have been trying to catch up. A week and a half ago I was called as the First Councilor in the Bishopric at church, for those that are LDS that are reading this try to control your shock and laughter! It came as a bit of a surprise, but we have a really neat Bishop and I am really enjoying working with him.

I think I am going to leave it at that for right now, I do have some photos to get posted, and if I don't forget I will put them on tomorrow.

Signing off
Binky the Slacker

Sorry, I'm a slacker

2007-08-20T07:42:00.000+01:00

OK I will just start by saying sorry I haven't posted in a while. Josie got back to Lagos on August 2nd (she was supposed to be in on the 1st, but I'll tell you about that in a minute) and since she got back things have been a little busier. Josie was scheduled to fly in to Lagos on Aug 1st, but she hit a bit of a snag at the start of her trip back. She was flying from Tulsa to Memphis and the flight was delayed, causing her to miss her connection to Amsterdam. After she missed her connection she found out that the flights for the next several days were booked up, but they were nice enough to put her up in a hotel for the night and then switch her to a different airline routing her through Paris instead. I was just happy she finally made it back. I decided that five weeks without her here was about 4 1/2 weeks too long!

She had a great time while she was gone, which is evidenced by her blog. I will try and get some pictures posted in the next few days of several of the things that have happened since she got back. That is all for now, but I will try to get something else on here in the next couple days.

The Simplicity of Water

2007-07-27T10:06:00.000+01:00

I don't have any new pictures to show today, but I just want to write about a few experiences I have had recently.

The first actually happened a few weeks back, but since I have not yet written it, I thought it would be good to do so. Here in Nigeria potable water is one of the major focuses of everyday life. That statement may seem pretty obvious; of course drinkable water is something we all need to have. The interesting thing in Nigeria is what people have to go through to get it. Due to the generally poor infrastructure available in Lagos, water is not something that people here can take for granted. Drinking water is purchased at every level of Nigerian society. One of the most common delivery methods you is 1 liter plastic pouches of water. These are just a sealed plastic bag filled with drinkable water, and the standard cost for a bag is 5 Naira about 4 cents, but when you consider that people on the street tend to live on less than a dollar a day this is a fairly significant cost. I will try to get me driver to buy a couple of these so I can take a picture later. There is no spout on the bag, you just chew of a corner and drink.

Since clean water is such a problem, people will do some interesting things to provide water for their needs. Many companies have their own water treatment facilities, in this environment it is a necessity. If a facility does not have the room for the treatment equipment, they can have water delivered. One of the companies here that has several locations has a main water treatment facility and they truck water to their other offices. They use tanker trucks for this purpose, and since they are just hauling water, most of them don't worry too much about leaks. One day several weeks ago I saw a young boy who could not have been more than 6 years old, crawling under one of these tankers to fill up a bucket of water from the leaking tank. I found this to be a very hard thing to digest. Just to watch what people here have to do to get the basics is pretty staggering.

I had another incident this week that fit into this same category and I honestly found myself choking back tears. There is a bridge that I pass under everyday on my way to work and on my way home; there are always people who live under or near the bridge begging from the cars that pass. Normally you just look away (I know this sounds heartless, but it is necessary) but sometimes you see things that are very difficult to ignore. While we were stuck in traffic near the bridge a young girl, no older than 10, with a baby strapped to her back was begging at my window. It was raining and I was doing my best to focus my attention elsewhere. As she walked away she swiped her hand down the hood of my car and then drank the water from her hand. This was one of the hardest moments that I have had related to beggars since I came to Lagos. The hardest moment is a story I will save for another time. When I see what people here, especially children, have to go through just to get through a day it is very eye opening. This is life in a developing country.

Bachelor Chow

2007-07-22T21:20:00.000+01:00

Okay, this post is specifically for my wife and my mother. I want you both to know that even when I am left alone, I’m still eating well and I’ve only gone to restaurants a few times. Tonight I made meatballs! Yes Josie, that means I had to stick my hands in the ground beef to do it! (I have a minor issue when it comes to ground beef, don't know what it is, I can deal with other meat with no problem but ground beef just gets to me)

I looked at the recipe in the cookbook, but then I made it up myself! I didn’t measure anything and put whatever I thought would taste good in them that should make my dad proud! The only thing that I did by the recipe was the actual cooking time and temperature. Then I cooked up some rice and a sauce that I also made up on the fly. Here is the final result!

It turned out pretty well too! I think it will taste even better tomorrow as left-overs!

New Purchase

2007-07-21T12:58:00.000+01:00

I went to Lekki market this morning with my boss and his wife. They wanted to go today because they are leaving Lagos this coming Friday, so they were shopping for various items to take with them. They invited me and since my social schedule just happened to have an opening I decided I would go along.

First let me just describe the experience: Lekki market is an open air market, basically what we would call a flea market back in the US. Driving to Lekki market you go over some pretty awful roads, today the road was a huge muddy mess! As you get close to the market boys of all ages will start running next to your car. They do this because they want you to choose them as your "porter" while you are at the market. It is common practice to choose one of these boys right after getting out of your car, if you don't choose one a whole group will follow you around until you do. So when you get out of your car there are usually anywhere from 15 to 30 boys all yelling out their names "You remember me, I'm your fist boy, choose (Insert name here)" and various other phrases to get your attention. When Josie and I go we usually use Simon and most of the boys know this, but Simon is not always around early when Josie and I go. So we will always have someone offer to go get him for us, just so they can come back and tell us he is not around in the hope we will use them instead. This is a normal game. Today Simon was not around so I chose one of the boys that was keeping his distance and was not swarming around me, his name was David.

After you get through the "porter selection process" it is time to move on into the market. The market has everything from foodstuffs to Ivory, paintings, carvings, bronze, and jewelry. You can find many things, but for me the hard part is finding the things that are unique. Many of the stalls sell very similar things and you can see the same "different" or "one of a kind" item several times along the way.

Today I happened across a couple of the more unique items, I passed up one of them because I was not sure if Josie would like it, but the other was a very nicely made box, and I was very impressed by it.

Segun is the name of the person who made this, and I looked at pictures of some of his other work, it was very nice. We have several items made by a different artist and we like them, but I have also promised Segun that I would check back with him as well.

I just really felt that the box had a very good level of detail, and it was a style I have not seen a lot of here. Most of the carvings here are people and animals, and I thought the very simple flower motif was very nice.

It has very clean lines and seems to be constructed very well. Segun also had some pictures of things that were a lot less ornamental that the items we have typically bought from our other artist. I think Josie would really like some of his things, and I promised I would bring Josie back when she returned so she could see his pictures.

It was not very expensive, so I did not even worry too much about bargaining much on the price. I am willing to pay a little more when I feel that the work is good quality.

This was the only item I purchased today, much to the disappointment of many shopkeepers who are all evidently "My friend". I have one rule when I go to various markets like this in Lagos, anyone who grabs me automatically loses my business. People will walk over and grab your arm and lead you to their shop. Since this was my only purchase my "porter" had it pretty easy, but he was willing to go get me a cold drink or a beer anytime I wanted. The rest of the time I just walked around, I found some things that I like, but I'm going to wait until Josie gets back. If I buy something she doesn't like it will just end up in a closet! She has already explained to me that I arranged some of the furniture incorrectly in the pictures I posted a few days ago. Anyway, just wanted to share some of my day today and now I think I'll head to the squash court for some more punishment.

The New Flat

2007-07-18T19:13:00.000+01:00

Although I don't have a permanent internet link installed yet in the new flat (I'm using a wireless broadband router that one of the guys at the office had) I wanted to give everyone a chance to see the new flat. This includes Josie; she went on vacation a few days before I moved over here.

This is the living room with all the furniture that Josie picked out. The facilities folks here made Josie's list the standard, so I think most of the flats got the same (or close to the same) items.

Here is the sitting room, and I just realized from looking at the picture that the painting is crooked.

Next is the dining room

Here is a shot across the sitting room. You can see the chests that we had made here.

And to go with the chests here is a picture of the entertainment cabinet made by the same person we had build the chests. The company contracted him to make 5 of these.

Lastly, just a couple pictures from the balcony. This is the view out to the east.

And the pool

Sorry for the delay

2007-07-18T07:48:00.000+01:00

Alright, first I have to apologize, I moved into the new flat two weeks ago and as of yet still don't have Internet access at home so I haven't posted much this month. With Josie gone on vacation things have been relatively slow here. I am learning to play squash and have tried out our pool at the new complex (which is very nice). I walk down to the office every evening and call Josie to check on her, other than that there is not a lot going on. I am waiting to get my new little camera that Josie will be bringing back with her in two weeks so that I can take more pictures. I want to start showing everyone how the "go slow store" works.

In the meantime our Steward is taking good care of me, making sure my laundry is done and ironed so I don't walk out of the house looking like a slob. She had a bit of a crisis one day and called me, she wanted to change the sheets on the bed but I had not bought an iron! Now this may make sense to some, but it took me a minute, I laughed when I realized that Grace would not put sheets on the bed unless she had ironed them first.

Anyway I just wanted to give you all an update. Hopefully the Internet will be working at the flat this week, then I will take some pictures around the flat so everyone, including Josie, can see the new place.

Church Adventure

2007-07-10T12:19:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I sent an email out to my family documenting a very exciting Sunday at church. I now have pictures to go with the story, and so I will repeat the story this time with visual aids!

The building we go to church in here is actually just an old house and so we make the best of the spaces available. Three weeks ago when I ended my class I came out of the room to find two men trying to open the door to the Primary (children 11 and under) classroom. One of the men was holding the door handle in his hand; it had broken off when they tried to open the door. This particular door is a security door and as you can see from the picture, it is about three inches thick.

It is also important to note that there is not another exit from this particular room. It is on the second floor so you can’t just crawl out a window either. After seeing the situation I realized that there were about 20-25 young children and several adult women trapped in this room. I quickly joined in the efforts to open the door. The door was not locked, but the handle would not turn, and since this is a security door the mechanism is all enclosed. After working on the outside of the door for a while I decided to see if there was any way to get into the room from the outside. I went downstairs and walked around the building looking for a way to get up to the second floor.

This was my only option:

The ladder you see in the picture was not there at the time, and even if it was it would only get me about halfway to the balcony. Instead I climbed up the fence! From there I was just able to grab the bottom ledge of the balcony; from there I swung a leg up and was able to climb onto the balcony.

I went into the Primary Room to find Chinedu (one of the councilors in the Bishopric) working on the door while the Primary teachers were keeping the children occupied. I have to give the Nigerian children a great deal of credit, they were not crying or panicking, in fact they all seemed to be having a pretty good time. We worked on the door for a while from the inside, we unscrewed the handle and tried to get into the mechanism, but as I said before this is all enclosed. We found out that the latch would not retract into the door, and you could not get to it to force it to move; it was completely seized. I started to look for other options; I thought about taking out the hinge pins.

Nope that won’t work!

You may not be able to tell this from the picture, but the hinges are like the ones on my gun-safe, they are not coming off! After a while of working on the door more men started coming in from the balcony; I went outside to discover that they had found a ladder (also not the one in the earlier picture) that would reach high enough for an adult to get to the balcony. After seeing that we were having no success with the door; we decided to start sending the children down the ladder. We formed a sort of “bucket brigade” and passed the children from one adult to another off the balcony and down the ladder. The kids loved this part! Once all the kids were down that left us with a new problem, we had several adult women stuck up there, and one of them was 8 months pregnant!

At this point one of the men working on the inside of the door suggested that we should just break the door down. Knowing how big this door was this seemed to be a formidable task, but the kid in me decided it sounded like fun!!! (Sound about right Mom?) I climbed down the ladder and went back into the building and up the stairs (Josie had been standing outside the door the whole time, she missed all the fun while we evacuated the children down the ladder) I think Josie was pretty worried when she realized I was going to try to kick the door in. After about 4 or 5 kicks I started to be a little concerned as well, the door had not moved a millimeter! I backed up and gave it one more good kick and it flew open, it was hilarious (and I must admit I was a bit relieved) everyone around started cheering and laughing. I think I made quite an impression on the people that Sunday!

Anyway, that is my funny Sunday story, hope you enjoyed it!

I feel I have been bested

2007-07-05T14:14:00.000+01:00

After a comparison of Josie’s pictures of Oklahoma I feel I have been outdone. Well rainy season isn’t over in Nigeria, and it won’t be for several months, so I thought I would share some more pictures.

The building we go to church in is on a road that is very susceptible to flooding. Even when it is dry the potholes are so deep that you can easily scrape the bottom of your car as you drive into them. When it rains these convert from potholes to pond-holes!

To get to church on Sunday I had to request one of the Land Rovers that we have for trips to and from the airport, not one of the armored ones, but the ones the police ride in while they provide our escort. I had gone to the church for an activity on Saturday and we barely made it down the road, so Sunday I took no chances. I’m not sure exactly what had happened to this car, but it was clear it was not going anywhere!

Here is a good view down one of the side roads into a housing area. People here are pretty used to this, they just fold up their pants or hitch up their skirt and wade right through.

It was actually very beneficial to have the Land Rover, especially since it rained quite a bit while we were in the church. Even if we had taken the car and actually made it to the church, getting out would have been another story.

This bus had bottomed out on the edge of one of the pond-holes. I felt cruel for snapping this picture and not helping the guy, but I would be scared to wade in this water, I’m sure the locals have some natural immunities and tolerances that I don’t posses. I would only go into this water if I had a pair of hip waders on, which wouldn’t be a bad thing to have here this time of year!

A lot of the areas around the church are prone to flooding. Here is a picture I snapped on the way back to the flat, as you can see the rain causes some serious issues here.

Now before I close this out I want to show you some pictures of the grassy field that is across from the church……

You can see the field can’t you?!?

It looks like our property value should have gone up, we now have church on Lakefront property!

The Nature of Okada

2007-07-01T20:59:00.000+01:00

Okay in the last two days I have learned something about okada. As I have mentioned before okada are motorcycle taxis. They move around Lagos like swarms of bees. If you run afoul of an okada driver you had best beware, where you see one, there are five others right around the corner just out of sight. They weave through traffic ignoring both law and common sense. They are also the quickest way to get around if there is traffic.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to ride not one, but three different okada, and I learned some interesting things in the process. Until yesterday I viewed okada just like we would view a taxi in the USA or in the UK. You flag one down you tell them where you are going and you hop on and go. Well yesterday I learned a bit more about how the okada system works. First off, and yes this one is obvious, okada do not have a meter. When you flag down an okada you tell them where you want to go to (there are some guidelines here which I will cover shortly) and they tell you their price. Rule number 1: Never agree to their first price, rule number 2: be prepared to walk away and head toward another okada when they will not budge from their price. Now the guidelines on location: certain okada operate in certain areas, again referencing the bee analogy from above, okada are territorial. There are actual companies that employ okada, and some companies only operate in certain areas. If you don’t know the boundaries of the particular okada it can be difficult to know where to catch one for the next leg of your journey. This is the main reason that I rode three different okada yesterday. My driver had dropped me at the church for an activity and we were going to be traveling to a “motherless baby’s home” for our activity. I had expected more youth to show up, but it ended up being just one of the young women leaders and I left at the church. The road to the church was in really bad shape so we did not want to walk down to the bus through shin deep water. We flagged down two okada and each rode one down to the end of the road, though the shin deep water of course, I actually heard water sizzle on the exhaust pipe a couple times. It cost us 50 Naira each (39 cents) for the ride down to the main road. Here we began the negotiations for the long distance portion of our journey. We would share one okada for this leg of the trip (yes that means three adults on one 125cc motorcycle, which happens all the time here. The most I have seen is 5 people total including children on one okada, if I am lucky I will catch this on film at some point. ) This portion of the trip cost us 400 Naira (about $3.13) and I have to say it was an interesting trip riding as the third person, definitely a new experience for me. Once we got to the first Lekki roundabout we found two more okada to finish off our journey, it cost 70 Naira (55 cents) each for these.

Overall it was a very interesting trip, but most of all it made me realize something……I MISS MY MOTORCYCLE!!!!!!

Rainy Season in Full Swing

2007-06-28T17:55:00.000+01:00

Today it has been raining almost all day. When it rains here you see some very interesting things. Here you can see a wonderful little pond that developed in one lane of the road, causing everyone to drive around it and slowing down traffic.

Here you see the same concept. This is a picture taken from the balcony of our new flat. Unfortunately the street in front of it is pretty busy.

Okay this next picture is something I love, an Okada (Motorcycle Taxi) with the passenger holding an umbrella. Some part of this just makes me chuckle, it is just not something I have seen anywhere else.

When the rains start the traffic stops; that is a constant here. If it starts to rain you might as well plan to spend around 2 hours trying to get somewhere that should take 15 minutes. Here is a picture from our current flat of the intersection down below. You can see several umbrella covered Okada in the picture, if you look close.

The next step in the traffic mess is that one side of the road fills up, but that doesn't stop people here. They solve the problem by driving down the other side!

But eventually this is what you end up with.

As you can tell from the orderly way that cars are making their way through the intersection this particular "go slow" will clear very soon.......soon is such a wonderfully relative term!

Favorite Cruise Pictures

2007-06-25T21:24:00.000+01:00

For those members of my family that are reading this, I know I have told you all a good bit about the cruise we took in May. I thought I would post some of my favorite pictures that we took while on the cruise.

Athens:

This first picture was taken at this beautiful little monetary up on the mountainside. Our guide and taxi driver Cosmas took us up here, I don't remember the name of the monetary, but it was really worth the drive. This picture was taken in front of the little church on the monetary grounds. The weather was absolutely wonderful this day, it was just a little bit hot in some of the places we were, but not here, all the shade kept it at a wonderful temperature.

This next picture was taken from the Acropolis, looking out over Athens and highlighting the temple of Zeus. I really thought it was amazing how Athens surrounds the temple ruins.

Kusadasi:

In Turkey we went to the ruins of Ephesus. I was amazed by the sheer size of the city and the level of technology they achieved. They even had public toilets and hot and cold running water! This is a picture of the Amphitheater, it was really impressive.

Santorini:

Santorini was my favorite stop on the cruise. It was so incredible. I tried to imagine living in a place with that kind of beauty surrounding you all the time. When the ship neared the islands it almost looked like the island was capped with snow as the white buildings shone in the sunlight. This is my favorite picture. You can see the donkey trail that leads from the dock up to capitol city zigzagging up the cliff-side.

Mykonos:

Even though it rained on us the whole time we were in Mykonos it was still a very beautiful place. Again you can just see the white buildings spread across the island. We found the best shopping of any of our stops here as well. I could definitely go back to Mykonos.

Finally one last picture: for those of you that have seen the 'Ironic' picture posted on my wife's blog I wanted to show the other aspect. This picture was taken on the way down (hence the smile) the volcanic island in the middle of the islands that make up Santorini. The caption on the shirt is a bit closer in this picture. You also get a pretty good shot of the cruise ship in the background.

The End is Near

2007-06-23T22:58:00.000+01:00

Just a quick entry tonight - According to news reports coming out tonight the Labor Unions in Nigeria have ended a four day long National strike. What this means to us is that after 3 full days of house arrest conditions we should soon be free to get out and around again. What we don't know at this point is how long it will take for fuel trucks to start running again and for gas to be flowing from filling stations. This likely means a few more days of limited movement, but things should start to clear within a few days.

We had already made plans to stay home from church tomorrow, and we only went places we could walk to today. We were at least able to walk over to the mall today and watch a movie, that really helped break up the monotony somewhat. I will try to post again soon with further updates, but tonight is a time of happiness and celebration. The strike is over and I will actually be able to go to work on Monday! Some of you may find that statement strange, but it is actually the work that keeps me sane.

House Arrest

2007-06-21T20:09:00.000+01:00

The nationwide strike is now in day 2, which means today was “house arrest” day 1. We don’t have a lot of fuel in the car we are using, so at this point if we don’t have to go somewhere, we don’t. Luckily we stocked up on groceries before this began.

It is amazing to look out today and see how empty the streets are. Even on a Sunday morning this amount of traffic would be light.

To be able to look out and see empty or nearly empty roads on a Thursday morning is very strange. I sat here all day and most of the very normal sounds just were not heard today. There were no horns blowing, and no sirens, just a quiet day. You would think I would find that refreshing, Instead it just seems a little creepy.

If this were a bad B-Movie the silence would be followed by swarms of zombies streaming out of an alley.

Nope, no zombies just a very quiet day.

It was very difficult to work today. The nature of my job is such that if I am not in the office I don’t accomplish very much. There is just not a lot I can do when I am disconnected; this is also one reason that I don’t travel very much. Part of my job is to process invoices and coordinate bill payments, with nothing moving that becomes a bit difficult.

I expect tomorrow to be very similar. From all the news we have seen, no real progress is being made to end the strike. There were some minor classes today between strikers and police. Strikers are manning roadblocks and barricades all around main areas of Lagos to “enforce” strike conditions. Police used tear gas today to try and disperse one such roadblock. I really don’t know if this is going to get worse, but I can guess it won’t get a lot better in the next few days.

And so it starts

2007-06-20T19:35:00.000+01:00

OK, after getting after my wife constantly to update her blog I have decided to skip any additional problems and just begin my own blog. Now if I go for days or weeks without updating it she can gripe at me.

Right now Nigeria is in the grip of a nationwide labor strike. Fuel trucks stopped delivering last Friday, and ever since then there have been fuel shortages, hording, and black market fuel for sale. The fuel plays a major part in the current strike. In the last 48 hours of the former president’s administration he initiated several very unpopular policies. One of them reduces the current government subsidy on gasoline. The price per liter went from 65 Naira to 75 Naira, this has caused widespread problems. The fuel haulers and the labor unions are demanding that this policy and others be overturned before they will return to work. This is causing trouble for everyone in the large cities in Nigeria.

I went to work this morning after finding out that the strike had commenced at midnight. The roads are eerily quite right now, because many people are already out of fuel for their cars. One of our technicians at work was not able to come in because his car was on empty. Our company doubled people up last Saturday so that we would only be using one car for every two expats. This morning was likely the last time I will ride in my car until the fuel begins flowing again, it was almost on empty. At lunchtime my driver showed up in a different car because it still had gas. Many of the staff, Nigerians and expats, did not show up for work due to the strike. I'm not sure if it would have mattered if they had; we lost our main internet link at the office at about 9am. When we were finally able to get in touch with the provider we found out that their diesel tanks were empty and they could no longer run the generators. After a few hours I decided to leave work and see if there was something useful I could be doing.

Josie and I went over to the new flat and continued the job of unpacking boxes and putting the kitchen together. Josie started the process yesterday, so much of it was already done, but we spent about 3 hours working on it before returning to our current flat. Finally at about 3:45pm I got a call letting me know that our service provider had managed to get diesel delivered and had their systems back up and working.

I'm not sure how long this strike is going to go on, but for now it looks like I will be working from home for a few days, at least until our generator at the flat run out of fuel! Every time the power drops we wonder if the generators are going to kick in or not. It should prove to be a fun week!