Over the Hill Post (Post #40!)

Gosh, you guys are spoiled! 40 posts and still going. We're pretty proud of ourselves for making it this far. I think the support and interest from all of our friends and family is what makes us want to write more! So how about celebrate our 40th with a story; an adventure of sorts involving three amigos from Tacoma on a quest to witness history in the making.

It all started in the flat. I figured, "It's a beautiful day out there today, why not go out and see what this election hub-bub is all about." So I made a phone call to David to see what his thoughts were on the proposed endeavor. "Yeah, sounds like fun, when do you want to go?" He responded. I said, "Let me get a hold of Joseph and I'll call you back." I made the phone call and Joseph was over at the gym working out. So I ran over there and asked him, and he dropped what he was doing and ran up to his flat to grab his camera. It wasn't there, so we had to run to his classroom before leaving. The front gate was padlocked, so as David and I were chatting, waiting for Joseph to come down from his classroom we were strategizing where to make our exit of the compound. "Hey ladies?" Mr. Shearer called from the main office. "Hey boss." I responded. He called us in to chit chat. We talked for awhile...about various things. We told him our plans to take pictures, and he said that he wasn't bailing us out if we got in trouble. Thinking he was all talk, we decided to go out anyway. He told us to grab one of the MoPol guys on our way out. So we made our way out the front gate, MoPol dudes said they couldn't come with us because they weren't allowed to "leave their post." We took this as a typical work-ethic, or lack thereof statement, common to where we live. So off we went, northbound towards 1004.

As we walked north, we commented on how peaceful this place can be when the government declares a no-movement day. It was rather nice. We asked a couple of the neighbors where the nearest polling station was and made our way that direction. As we arrived, we asked if we could take some pictures, they said no. Joseph then asked if he could look at the ballots, and they allowed him to. They were nice, and we had a decent conversation with them regarding voter turnout.

After that, we headed back out to 1004. From there, we continued north to the Lekki Expressway (which is usually jammed packed with cars. We got out to the road, and there was nothing...no cars...no people...no "go slow" vendors trying to sell us anything from meat-filled twinkies to cell phone numbers. It was amazing. I took a couple shots. First shot is looking West. You'll see the North Face of 1004. The second shot is looking east down the expressway. Keep in mind, this road is usually jammed packed with cars, three lanes wide (even though it's only a 2 lane road.)

We turned back after I posed like a traffic cop in the median (Mr. Rainbolt will have to put that on his blog if you want to see the picture). I took a shot of the "security wall" outside of the North-side of 1004. Nice huh? Just a bunch of broken glass bottles tossed into the concrete while it was still drying (I wonder who gets to break all the bottles before they put them in the concrete. That'd be a fun job for about a day.)

As we walked back, I took a shot of one of the "posted" laws. Clearly...no urinating. Laws like this are clearly posted so that everybody knows not to violate them. This concept of posted laws will come in handy later in the story.

So we continued south...back towards the compound. Joseph says, hey, let's go down and check out the polling station at 1004 (literally right across the street from our compound). As we're walking towards the station, Joseph says, "Hey, if you take a shot right now, you might be able to see the ballot boxes." So Rainbolt and I both pull up the cameras and pop off a couple rounds (figuratively speaking of course).

As we approached, I couldn't help but notice how many ballots were stuffed into the box. Not to be obvious, I thought, why not just snap a shot from the chest(click). . . Nobody noticed...cool. Let me take one more, just for insurance(click).... Immediately...one of the police officers jumps up..."Give me your camera" he says as he pulls it over my head rather forcefully. I then react. He says, "You took snap. I saw you take snap." I immediately go into defensive mode, "What!?!? What are you talking about?? No I didn't." Oh man...big mistake Slater. Nice work I'm thinking...why did you tell him you didn't take a picture. Now if they check it, they'll see I did take a picture and then I'll end up in Bar Beach Jail (Again...another story for Rainbolt to tell. If David's parents are reading this, do not panic, David has never been to jail...that I know of at least). So the guy is mad...and he's not giving my camera back. I'm thinking...okay, don't panic...no wahala. The cop thinks my camera is a video camera and he wants the film. He says he's going to hold on to the camera until they can check the film. (I tried to explain to him that it wasn't a film camera. He ignored me which ended up being a good thing in the end. (When he gave me my camera back, he told me to take the film out, I showed him the SD Card and the other cops said, "see...there's no film." But I'm jumping ahead.) So I try telling him..."hey, no wahala"...he's having nothing of it. I said, "I didn't know it was against the rules to take pictures." They say, "How do you know it isn't posted." I'm like..."give me a break, I didn't urinate on a wall" (I told you it was coming up again.) The guy repeats himself, "How do you know it isn't posted?" I'm like, "Because I just walked up to this polling station and would have noticed a "posted law" had there been one stating taking pictures outside is illegal. He ignored me. I then said that it's not against the law to take pictures outside or of polling places in the United States and he proceeded to continue to argue with me. Apparently, he thinks the laws in Nigeria are the same as in the United States as he defensively stated, "It is against the law in the United States to take pictures of polling places." Last time I checked, taking a picture of a voting booth is not against the law as I've seen plenty of pictures of people walking out of voting booths with their "I Voted stickers" proudly stuck on their shirt. As many of you readers (Mom) know, I'm usually not one to back down from an argument...however a lady at the polling booth was sticking up for us, claiming the officer was mistreating us. It was one of those, "thanks for the support but seriously, you're making things worse" moments. This got him even more riled up. She told him we were reporters and at that point, we realized arguing with either of these people wasn't worth it. I looked at David, who looked like he wanted to run, and shrugged my shoulders. Other police officers were minding their own business, clearly they figured this cop was digging himself into a hole. Teague ran off to get our MoPol, which of course, was quite the task. David and I sit there, wondering what the heck to do (David, is of course, still contemplating running at this point. If my camera wasn't in this cops hands, I woulda been gone long ago.) I asked where Joseph was about 20 times. David told me where he was...20 times. I finally figure...well...we're not going to get ourselves outta this...guess it's time to call Tom (this was a last resort. For the record, I said, "let's call the embassy first." It's kind of the same as getting in trouble at school. Some students would rather have us call the police than their parents...same concept.)

So Mr. Shearer shows up, first words out of his mouth, "I'm not even going to say 'I told you so'." Yup, I get it, can we get outta here. 3 minutes later, we're walking, camera in hand. The guy is a master, my idol. I will be like Mr. Shearer one day, just not today. I'm taking notes while he's taking names...that kinda thing. He's the man. Enough said, got my camera back, and I'm not even going to post the close up pics I got of the ballot boxes...that's tempting the Nigerian government. On a side note, Mr. Shearer dared me to snap a picture of the cops and run as we were walking away. Rainbolt would have been game, but he said he wasn't down cuz he'd be the slowest one of the three...we laughed and walked into the compound. I did have thoughts of breaking out my 500mm lens and taking a picture from behind the wall just to spite these guys...but I thought...why tempt the Nigerian government!

(The photo above is the one Mr. Rainbolt and I took right after Joseph recommended we take a couple pictures before getting close. You can see the polling station just ahead on the right.)