Black Friday

Wow, it has been awhile since I blogged. I will not blame it on my usual excuse of laziness, but instead I will blame the fact that after awhile, things lose their novelty. A guy zooms past on a motorcycle with an office desk on his head...I just think ho hum, not again. Today I want to turn the tide and print an article that I read about a Nigerian who travels to the US and experiences Black Friday in a WalMart.


http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Opinion/Columns/VictorEhikhamenor/5487164-176/EXCUSE_ME:_Black_Friday_bargain_hunting.csp

Where are the Oprahs?

Nigeria is full of colorful people with equally colorful names. I'm sure our names sound just as funny to them, (Apple anyone??) but here is a list that I have been keeping of names that I love.

Names from the Bible/Mythology

Job, Solomon, Amos, Savior, Saul, Salome, Achilles,

Names from virtues and character traits
Patience, Blessing, Happiness (hide and seek..."I found Happiness"), Charity, Iffy (my security gaurd), Pious, Goodluck (we have Goodluck in the house), Success, Precious, Laughter, Special, Difference (parents could say....they made a Difference), Perpetual, Increase (parents could say there is an Increase in the family), Scholastica

Names inspired by faith

Wethankgod, Livingtestimony, Jubilee, Pray, Alleluyah, Godspeed

Names inspired by other cultures

Papoose

Names inspired by careers

Market, Lawyer, Carpenter, Gardener, Major

Names inspired by geography

America, Galaxy, Worldwide

Names inspired by Days of the week and seasons

Yuletide

Friday and Sunday are very common but I have met one Monday

Names inspired by beer

Heineken

Names inspired by celebrities and politicians
Festus (deputy on tv show Gunsmoke), Fabian, Clinton...and you know there will be millions of little Obamas soon, although I've yet to come across an Oprah???

And my personal favorite.....Evidence.

I have never met a Wayne

Victoria's Secret Nigerian Style

It's the Umbralla

It was a good day for shopping at Balagun Market. The rainy season has cooled things off, the crowds were down, the prices were good and the bodyguard only had to pull his gun out once.

They sell everything here from fabric to fruit

Balagun's version of a shopping cart. For a little more than a dollar she carried our bags about a mile to the car

Everywhere we go we hear "Oyibo" (white person, means peeled one)
Also known as "those who eat food from cans"
Here we are following the bodyguard (in yellow) and our porter (pink bag on head)

Gold Medals and Garden Eggs

We were in Abuja for the Nigerian National Track Meet where David was to give a speech and hand out gold medals to the winners. They must have loved the speech because afterwards, he also received a gold medal. I must add, he was the only gold medalist in loafers and a blazer.





There were three oyibos (white person, means "peeled one") at the event and me and David made up 2/3 of that minority. There were "cheerleaders" who painted their bodies white, but they don't count as "peeled". I don't even count them as cheerleaders because all they did was chase me around saying "Oyibo...give us money".

Aside from the cheerleaders, we were treated like royalty. At one point, a silver tray was passed around and on that tray were vegetables that looked like eggs. Baby eggplants maybe??? They are called "garden eggs" and are eaten raw at sporting events like we eat peanuts at baseball games.


Garden Eggs...get your garden eggs


Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that weird vegetable after all

Abuja - Capitol of Nigeria

National Cathedral....and for balance....across the street.....National Mosque



Clean and modern with parks, and a new stadium




Lots of wealth ....and very little traffic





Is this Nigeria???? I'm so confused. Where is the chaos, the craziness, the wahala?





If this were Sesame Street, Big Bird would be singing "One of these cities is not like the others".


A few years ago, the government decided Lagos was a lost cause,abandoned it and moved the capitol to Abuja in the North. Clean, modern and with all the poverty well hidden away. I stayed about 12 hours and couldn't wait to leave. Give me Lagos any day!!!

Filthy Lucre

Proper ways to handle your money.

FYI...it is illegal to throw money at people

(click on picture to enlarge)

Clean money (So that is what it is supposed to look like)

Here is about 6 inches of money

As mentioned in the previous post, there is a second thing I struggle with here in Nigeria and that item is money. Yes, I struggle with spending too much, but here the struggle is actually a physical one. You see, the country is so full of corruption and fraud that credit card use is non-existent making it a cash society. So what is the big deal about that, you may wonder??? Well, the problem is that the money is so devalued, you need vast amounts to make a quick run to the grocery store. We don't operate on denominations as much as we do dimensions. When asked "How much money do you need?" ...my answer is usually 5 inches. Most people here live on about

.01 mm of money a day, so I am very aware that this is a problem I am lucky to have.

Money is so dirty that you have to keep it in a separate purse so it won't stink up your wallet. I've been tempted to have Josephine run it through the wash cycle (delicate, cold rise) and iron it (light starch) nice and neat....giving new meaning to money laundering. Speaking of which...the government is trying to keep the money clean (they do plenty of laundering), but it changes hands so frequently, that it turns brown in a short time. I find that if a vendor gives me a good deal, (rare, but it happens) I search out the cleanest bills to pay with. Let's just say I'm just glad that they have moved on from the cattle based currency of the past....now that would be a blog!!!

Interesting update - a few days after this blog was posted, we went to the travel agent to buy some airline tickets. We didn't want to bring wheelbarrows full of naira, so we decided to pay in US Dollars. After laying the money out, 18 of the bills were rejected by the company for being too old (made before 2000) and therefore unacceptable. So I have made a note of the fact that it is okay for naira to be old, dirty and falling apart, but US Dollars must always be crisp, clean and new.

Back to the blog - keeping my cool

What you look like in Africa w/0 air conditioning



Stephen King getting ideas for a new book with an A/C unit that is possessed

Our A/C maintenance man....Mr. Freeze

I was asked the other day what I found to be the most difficult part of living in Lagos. I think they expected me to say the power shortages, the unreliable Internet, or even the golden brown tap water. I have two things that are challenges to me and they will probably surprise my readers. This blog will be about the first item...air conditioning. Don't get me wrong, I am no Meryl Streep and if there were no A/C then I would be Out of Africa for sure, Robert Redford or not. However, in each room of the house are individual a/c units and they each have a thermostat. What is the problem you may ask? Well, this thermostat doesn't keep the room at a constant temperature, it alternates between Arctic and steamy blasts so that the daily average is pretty much what the thermostat is set on. For example, you want the room at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, that would mean alternating blasts of 95 degrees and 55 degrees. You can actually experience all four seasons just by walking from room to room. You may be saying, "why don't you just turn them off." Well, I do... but they manage to turn themselves back on in a creepy Stephen King kind of way. We have nicknames for these beasts...Breezy, Sneezy and Freezy are 3 that come to mind and the other names we call them cannot be printed!!!

Masquerade

A few weeks ago, these guys started popping up in the city. Statues covered in sheets with big sticks and mariachi hats. The Klan meets the Taliban for Cinco de Mayo??? What is this???

Dotun the driver told me that it was advertisement for the Eyo Festival, also known as the Masquerade. He seemed very surprised that I had not heard of such a famous event.

I decided to investigate further and attended a lecture by a Nigerian expert at the National museum. It has something to do with the death of a chief or maybe the harvest of yams...a lot got lost in translation. I did hear that the stick was for beating people who wore shoes, hats, carried umbrellas or wore their hair in a bun. Now they want to make this a tourist attraction like Mardi Gras. However, there is much controversy over whether to show the animal sacrifices on TV or fade to black when the Eyo pull out their knives. I know you all will want to book your flights early so you can see this spectacle. Just don't bring your umbrella.

Stirring up a little Wahala with the Bubas

Today I visited the American Consulate to get more pages in my passport. Lagos is no longer the capital of Nigeria because the government got fed up with all the city's problems. Instead of trying to fix Lagos, they just moved to Abuja....you know the "out of sight out of mind" approach.

I took a book thinking that this could take at least 45 minutes. Four hours later, I'm still sitting in the waiting room. I'm the only oyibo (white person, means "no skin") and well let's face it....after a month of being "the madame", I am not amused.

The first hour was actually entertaining watching the crowds line up for US visas. The parade of colorful attire and head wraps put me in a happy mood...Nigerians can make anything a party. Grannies and and Grampas in matching bubas clutching giant photo albums made me laugh and wish that the marines hadn't confiscated my camera. If I was in charge, I would have let all these bright people in.

I'm still hopeful at this point. This is the American Consulate...surely this process will be organized and American-like. After 3 hours, I finally am handed the form to fill out and told that it will be another hour. After the hour is up I am told the printer is broken and I have to come back. Now I'm really ready to create a little "wahala" (trouble). I tell them to try again. Eventually the pages were printed and no one got hurt.

TIAA (this is American Africa)

Update: I was telling my fellow Madames of my unpleasant experiences at the US Consulate and they all just shook their head. I was then told that no one goes to the Consulate themselves. That is what your driver is for!!!!! He does all the waiting and deals with that for you while you sit on the veranda and eat bon bons. Now they tell me!!!! This is why there needs to be a Madame Manual.

Communicable Disease Sing Along

Lassa fever is a communicable disease found in West Africa and caused by contact with rats. A few years ago, the Center for Disease Control had the bright idea to educate the populations of these countries through catchy songs recorded on cassette tapes and distributed throughout the villages. Here are some examples of the lyrics...

Lassa no go come again-o

if ya cover your water

Lassa no go come again-o

If you cover your food

Lasso no go come again-0

Oh do ya never go eat a rat-a

If you eat a rat-a you go get Lassa fever

If your throat de hot, if your eye de red, your back de hard and your body de warm,

No way na Lassa you don't get so

Now I know that my readers are smarter than the CDC and can see the problem with this scheme. If you are poor enough to be eating rats, then you probably won't have the latest stereo system or even the electricity to run it. So thousands of cassette tapes sit in warehouses and Lassa fever is still with us.

TIA (this is Africa)

After Dinner Corn

I asked Fabian to buy some sweet corn at the market today and was wondering why he didn't serve it with dinner. I discovered why when he cleared off our dinner plates and brought in dessert. There in our dessert bowls was a little something "sweet" in the form of two ears of sweet corn.

Lagos transportation

If you do not have a driver, you can still get around Lagos in a variety of ways....



The Lagos Bus System

The newest form of transport...the keke or tuk tuk

(good for the rainy season)




Bicycle ...I think

Motorcycle taxis called Okadas





....not so good for the rainy season

...this guy brought his own airbag

And finally, if you enjoy close personal constact with others in an unairconditioned enviroment, then Mr. Pee's shuttle bus (danfo) is for you

The Bodyguard

In addition to Dotun, I also must have a bodyguard on team "Driving Miss Juli". David's bodyguards are all the big burly guys that eat nails for lunch, while I pretty much have the B-team. They like long walks on the beach and poetry. At the slightest sign of trouble my bodyguards could easily run the 100 yard dash in record time...in the opposite direction. The only deterrent I can count on is their body odor which could repel most kidnappers in a 5 mile radius. If I go out with a friend and we take her car and driver, then I have to BYOB (Bring your own Bodyguard). I seem to have a new one every day and I've given up learning all their names so to make things easy, I call them all Kevin.

Driving Miss Juli

Here is Dotun, my driver.

Here is Dotun on "casual" Friday

Dotun's job is simple. Drive Miss Juli....then wait for Miss Juli....then drive Miss Juli somewhere else. The ratio of driving to waiting is probably 10% driving, 90% waiting. So you would think Dotun would be a patient man...ooohhh nooo. He is in such a hurry to get me places that he gets consumed with road rage at the slightest delay. He is only calmed by the sound of his ring tone which is the first ring tone I've ever heard that is a preacher preaching a sermon. It goes...."You are blessed in your body, you are blessed in your spirit, you are blessed in your finances"....I don't know how many blessings are bestowed before it goes to voice mail, but you get the idea. I feel blessed just being in the car, because without Dotun....I go nowhere.

Surviving with the staff part 3 - meet Simeon the Gardener

Here is a picture of our garden...what is missing? Why it is the gardener!!

What is the question I ask the most? It is "Where is Simeon?" You see Simeon may be hired to be a gardener, but he has much bigger plans. Some day he wants to run his own PR firm, and then onto politics I'm sure. After Obama's victory, everyone here in Africa is running for political office....I guess Barack made it look easy. Anyway, gardening is only a short step on Simeon's ladder of success and he is not looking to make a career out of pruning my bougainvillea. Some day when he is famous I'll be able to say that he is the same Simeon that forgot to water my plants and weed my flowerbeds!!!

Look, could it be? Are my eyes playing tricks? It seems I have captured one of the rarest sights in all of Africa. It is Simeon ....and wait a minute...he appears to be...working!!!!

Surviving with the staff part 2 - meet Josephine the Stewardess

If you were wondering what ever happened to all the food that I bought and blogged about in "My Pantry is an Andy Warhol Painting" on 11-19-08, here is the end result. The person responsible for this organized pantry is pictured here. Her name is Josephine and she is our stewardess (house keeper). She did throw 3 of David's suits in the washing machine and dryer, but I assured him that Bermuda shorts on men were acceptable work attire here in the tropics. We forgave her simply because you really don't want to mess with Josephine..... she can be scary. She is also responsible for keeping all our water bottles full of clean water from the distilling beast, so you really want to stay on her good side. The minute I get up, she is making up my bed and cleaning my bathroom. I never have dirty towels or wrinkled clothes because I use the Josephine system.