Nigerian Culture Day and The Beach!

This weekend was definitely a busy one. Sunday was Nigeria's 46th birthday, but since that wasn't a working day, the government decided to make Monday the official day off for the week. The problem is, the government didn't decide to make Monday the official holiday until last Wednesday...so that meant we got a mid-week Nigerian Birthday present...no school on Monday!! Friday was the school's official celebration of the Nigerian Holiday and wow was it a big celebration indeed. We had to have tailors custom-fit us for traditional Nigerian clothing earlier in September so that we could be a part of this special occasion. We have about 12 pictures to go through, so without further ado, let's get to the fun stuff. Before I forget, go check out Carrie P's AISL blog (The link is on the right), for more pictures as well of both the beach and of Culture day. I'm sure the Rainbolts will have pics up too really soon.



The picture above is Kara and I in the school's courtyard on Friday, Nigerian Culture Day. You will find Kara in the stunning crimson top with matching skirt, and Bryan in the black on black traditional suit worn by the Igbo people in Nigeria. Bryan is sporting a hat made from the finest Nigerian leaves and his suit was hand stitched with white embroidery. Kara is wearing a traditional head wrap that she learned how to tie herself...pretty good stuff!



After a long and exhaustive Nigerian Culture Day, we went out to eat at a restaraunt called Cafe Bombay, Indian Food. It was bomb.com/indian food. We had butter chicken, with rice, and about a million other appetizers. We enjoyed the food and the company of Jason and Tina, another couple from Tacoma. We had a blast and are really enjoying getting to know another couple here on a more personal level outside of work. After dinner, I went to the neighbor's flat to play poker with the guys...it was a 3000 naira buy-in and I broke even...not too shabby for being a really bad poker player. Saturday we decided to take it easy, plus, Mr. Shearer thought it would be fun to up and move three teachers in a triangle formation. I move to Mr. Vincent's room, Mr. Vincent moved to Mr. Rainbolt's Room, and Mr. Rainbolt moved down to my room, the Rainbow room. I always had a weird feeling that Mr. Rainbolt belonged in the Rainbow room, not quite sure what gave me that feeling, but when I figure it out, I'll make sure and share with you why I feel it was fate. So I moved classrooms on Saturday, which makes it my 4th move in as many years for classrooms. Brutal. Sunday we were invited out with a huge group of AISL'ers to Alekko beach...not sure if I spelled it correctly, but whose keeping track? Here are some pictures of the beach. We figured if you took this property, and put it in California, or Florida, it becomes worth millions of dollars.


The photo above is of the hut we were staying in at the beach...it was pretty cool. The people you see lined up outside of it are all Nigerian's, trying to sell us stuff for, "cheap cheap." Typically they start at about 3 times the going price, so ya gotta bring your A-Game bartering skills with you if you don't want to get hustled. We got some cool stuff, minus the hustle of course!



So above is a photo of the little mini-shelter that's out in front of the hut. Out there, you're pretty close to the water, and of course right on the beach. It was, like I said, a little bit like paradise. Warm weather, warm water, and of course, very warm and friendly people.



Here's a picture of Kara, Carrie P., Melody Vincent, Jake, Gina, and Emily Rainbolt. They were up on the second level of the hut looking out towards the Atlantic Ocean.



Nigerian's "got mad skills" when it comes to balancing things on their heads. The workers at AIS carry tables and various other heavy things on their heads. I tried it the other day moving tables around in my new classroom and must say that it is very effective, but painful if you have no hair on top of your head. Often times, they use towels, or some other cushy device to soften the load on their head.



Above is just a cool picture I took from the second floor of the hut looking up the coastline.



Where's Waldo? No really, there is a crab in this picture that I named Waldo, can you find him? I took this picture for the kids to try and find the crab. There are literally millions of these little crabs that blend into the sand so well that you can't see them until they move. It was a pretty cool effect walking up the beach and seeing all of the crabs scurrying along the sand.



Here's a picture of Kara sitting next to our latest bartering acquisition. Yeah, that's right, there are 50 hand carved nigerian guys in that canoe that is litterally longer than Kara's legs. It took the artist a month to carve each of the pieces on the canoe. He wanted 10,000 naira for it...after about an hour of haggling, laughing, talking in Pidgin English, claiming I was Igbo, then changing to Yoruba, and finally admitting I was a white man, the transaction was made for 3,000 Naira. Not too bad eh?



Last week i promised Driving in Lagos, well here you have it. Some random pictures from the trip home from Alekko. It was about a 35 minute drive from the beach, and about halfway home, it started to poor down rain. We drove past some random fires on the side of the road, a market, and of course, a few million billboard advertisements. (Note the okada's in the picture above.)



Here's a typical market in Lagos. Note the flooded street and hundreds of people. That's normal.



Finally, here is a picture of a stretch of highway with what seems like an advertisement for everything! Just take a look at how the people up ahead are driving. That's what I'm talking about when I say no lanes and even if there were, nobody would use them. We've seen a few stoplights now, but they are mere suggestions, you don't really have to stop when the light is red. Also, look at the air freshener hanging from the mirror, I intentionally included it in the picture for my mom, and Kara's dad, reminding them to smile...we are well taken care of over here so don't worry, be happy (I've been whistling that tune the whole time I've been typing this blog!) We enjoyed our weekend. Another thing we experienced was our first multi-cockroach killing spree (2 in 2 days!). We sprayed one with RAID and it took it a good hour to die...yeah, they're like little mini-Terminator's. The internet has been majorly slow, so we haven't been able to make too many calls like in previous weekends. We definitely miss everybody and are getting really excited to come home for Christmas. We've decided not to go to Ghana for Thanksgiving and plan on setting up our webcam and eating Thanksgiving Dinner with the families, so get your webcams and microphones ready! Alrighty, time to go! Byebye.