The NFL on AFN

This weekend was quite eventful. I'm going to do my best to recap what happened in the short time that I have on lunch!

Friday:
During the school day, we were informed that a parent of one of our students had passed away. He was misdiagnosed with having typhoid fever when infact he had Malaria. By the time the hospital had realized this, it was too late and his kidneys had gone into failure mode. With little time left, they tried dialysis (sp?) but were too late. So Friday was a pretty somber day, but the kids were supportive of both students who lost their dad.

At the end of the day, we had our first school dance and that was hillarious! It's been about 11 years since my last jr. high dance, of course that being my 9th Grade dance. So I forgot how divided the dances are, mostly guys on the left side, girls on the right. They don't dance together!! It's so funny, so we went from Mt. T. where it was, "If you bend your dance will end", to AISLagos, where it's, "Are we gonna dance?"

That night, after the dance, a bunch of us went out on the town in Victoria Island. There are police checkpoints every mile or so. You have to remember that the power is out here more than it is working, so there aren't any streetlights. There aren't any stoplights either, I think we've seen one since we arrived. The police just hang out at these checkpoints and wave a flashlight at your driver. The driver then pulls over and they flash the light into the vehicle looking for any suspicious activity. That being said, when they see Americans, they think $$! So we have to pretend that we're sleeping when we pull up to the checkpoints so that they won't harrass us or tell us to get out of the car. They reach into the vehicles when the driver rolls down his window, so you have to be cautious about that as well. Always keep the door locked and pretend your sleeping! Our pretend sleep faces are pretty funny as we demonstrated for each other after each checkpoint.

All was well at the dance clubs, minus the prostitutes and old guys with them. We were treated like royalty at most of the spots we went to, not having to pay cover at any of the places. We went upstairs at this one club and hung out with the owners! Saturday morning came soon, and they had soccer tryouts here on the fields. Every student at AIS pretty much plays soccer. I call it, "Your Football" when I'm talking to them about soccer. They'll say things in class like, "My favorite football team is..."and they say something like Arsenal, or ManU (Manchester United). I then have to remind them that that's "their football", not "My football".

Speaking of Football, How bout those Hawks? A win is a win...any way you look at it. I miss being able to watch them. We were stuck watching the Panthers v. Falcons game here at the General Quarters. Vick looks pretty good! Anyways, The 10 AM games we're used to start at 6 PM over here. Before we went to the GQ, we went out to Lekki Market where I made my biggest bartering purchase yet! I got the guy down from 15,000 Naira to 4,000. That's like dropping the price from almost 150 dollars, to 25. Pretty good stuff! I'm a little nervous for coming home, I'm so used to bartering for everything!! My parents better look out, they thought I was a little feisty before coming over here, just wait!

Anyways, the memorial service was Sunday morning for the gentleman who passed away. That was sobering, and definitely a reality check for those of us who thought Malaria wasn't a big deal. So we're being safe and still taking Mefloquine. In our next installment on the blog, I should tell you about some of the dreams this stuff is making me have. Maybe I'll have Kara explain as she's typically the one who's waking me up from them! That was our weekend ,if I left anything out, you might find the filler in Mr. Rainbolts diary as listed below! Talk to you soon!