Hard Drugs Kill you Softly

Last night I thought it might be fun to go out and take some pictures at night. So I went managed to find a tripod and away I went. I ended up with a few cool shots; here you go.



Oooh, had to sneak off the compound to get this picture...not far though, just across the street. This is the front of 1004; you can see how desolate it appears. The lighting was really cool for this shot as there was a combination of flourescent, mercury halide lamps, and incandescent lighting (Wow, those big words make me sound really smart!).



Hard Drugs Kill you Softly. Need I say more? Not really, except that this sign points right at the exit to AISL from the flats. So everytime we drive off the compound, we are reminded that hard drugs do indeed kill you softly...just in case you forgot.



So after you look left and are reminded, as upstanding citizens who teach, not to smoke crack, shoot up heroine, huff glue, or snort cocaine, you look right and this is what you'll see! (I'm still trying to figure out why the sign points so purposefully at our entrance. I mean it literally just screams, "Hey teachers...don't do drugs.")



I thought this picture pretty much sums our experience up. The entrance to the Private Residence...gates...steel bars...protection...imagine that! I feel safe...do you?




So this is the top of the gate that you drive out of before you're reminded that Hard Drugs Kill you Softly. I'd imagine those spikes hurt, so I guess if anybody wants to get cute and climb the gates instead of the walls, they meet these spikes instead of razor wire.

So the moral of todays lesson is Hard Drugs Kill you Softly...so STOP the habit. The advertisements are classic around here, and as I get more confident with the camera, I will take more pictures of many of the others including, "Get pregnant in just THREE months!" Yes, that is a real sign, and yes we pass that often as well. Anyways, hope you enjoy, talk to you soon.

Our Flat

Here is a picture of our flat as the side I've pointed out faces South. As mentioned in the blog below, the marked spot on the picture is where I took the picture from in the blog post, "Lagos at Dusk." It gives you an idea of the size of the building we live in as well as an idea of how big the compound is.



The picture to the left is of the north side of the flat. Our flat is on the first balcony in the picture. There are two more floors above us.

For more information on our day, scroll down and read about Saturday Soccer at AIS. I've also added two new links to our blog on the right side, one to the Rainbolt's blog and the other to another teacher, and good friend of Kara's, who came here from University Place, Carrie's blog. Together, we hope that we can give you some perspective on our experience here. Enjoy!

Saturday Soccer...with a dash of Lagos.

"Ah wegoooooooo, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah wegoooooooooooooooooooooo hoooooooooo."

At about 9:30 this morning, Kara was making some eggs and suddenly, from outside of our flat, we heard what sounded like the Mosque's daily prayer (The Rainbolts will argue it's an hourly occurence, even through the middle of the night). Kara says, "What is that?" I said I thought it might be the Mosque, but she says, "No, that's too close to be the Mosque." So I check outside, and there, below our balcony, was a kid, probably in 3rd or 4th grade, yelling into a bullhorn. Ah, it must be a Saturday morning at AIS!



So I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture. The funniest part was he was completely separated from the playfield, as if he had somehow comandeered a bullhorn, found his way away from the field, and then found out how to work the thing. He was well hidden, so it took a good 10 minutes for anybody to actually find him; by then, he'd figured out how to work the siren on the bullhorn. He was very stealthy and kept checking around the corner to see if mom or dad was coming after him yet. Kara and I were very entertained!

Speaking of the Mosque, I have to give credit to the Rainbolts, they are woken up every morning by the prayer and are still maintaing a little bit of sanity. Here's a picture of it.



So during Saturday Soccer, I decided to take a stroll around our relatively small compound and listen to the sounds of kids playing soccer. I found a number of things to take pictures of. Here's Mr. Lizard, one of the resident lizards that has the run of the place. He let me get up pretty close to take a picture of him. They do this thing with their heads, kind of like bobbing up and down, looks like they're dancing.



After my encounter with Mr. Lizard, and several of his family members, I took a stroll down the track, heading West, towards the Victoria Island skyline.

"Hello...my friend."

I looked around to see who was saying that. "Hello...my friend, I be up here." I turned around to see who was saying that because I wasn't near anybody. Sure enough, standing up on the other side of our compound wall, was a security guy for one of the neighbors. He was just standing there, watching the kids play soccer. Nigerians are some of the friendliest people in the world, and they genuinely love happy things. I talked with him for a few minutes. He wanted me to get him a job at AIS...every Nigerian wants to work here, they pay well. I told him I couldn't, and that I didn't have that kind of power. I was definitely testing out my Pigeon/Broken English on him and was doing very well as he responded immediately at my, "Waitin D' Happen Na" with "Nutting D' Happen Na," and a laugh. He asked then if I could take his picture. I told him of course, but that I couldn't do anything with it unless he had an email address. Of course he didn't have an email address, but I snapped a picture of him anyway. It was a proud moment for him. Here's the picture.

Oh, apparently it won't let me uploade anymore pictures, so I guess you'll just have to wait for those later. Just Joking!! Got it working.



As I made my way around the fields, I stopped and talked to a few parents. By the time I made it back to the entrance to the field, I made one last look to see if the Security guy was still there and sure enough, standing and watching, poised...a fan of the game apparently. I snapped a few more pictures of the flats from out on the field. I will have the picture in the next blog as this thing is not wanting to upload it right now. I photoshopped some text into the picture so you can see where we live. The spot I've marked is actually where I took the picture in the blog post "Lagos at Dusk" and in that picture, I was facing the direction that I took this picture from.

I hope you enjoyed your "photo tour" of AISL's Saturday soccer. Next week, "Driving in Lagos." Have a great day!

NFL HQ: Lagos

Okay, so yeah, I have some bad dreams; that's better than Malaria. And from what I've heard, there are much worse side-effects possible with this stuff than bad dreams!

We've purchased cool Nigerian wood-carvings, both legit and illegitimate dvd's (although I won't formally admit to knowing about the latter at the time of the transaction), and some really good food. But I don't think anything compares to the purchase I made this evening; NFL Field Pass on NFL.com. I bought this for 39.99, and yes, it is only radio broadcasts, but right now, I am listening to the Seahawks playing Cardinals on one computer, listening to the Chargers play the Titans on a second computer, and Chiefs playing the Broncos on a third. Add on to that, my fantasy football !Yahoo stattracker loaded up on the center computer to keep track of how my fantasy players are doing. I'm a few tv's short of being in NFL heaven right now, and all of this for just 39.99! I've listened to 6 games today...there are 15 more weeks left in the NFL, if I keep this pace up, I will have listened to 90 games by the end of the season. You do the math, that's like...well I'm not a math teacher so who cares, it's pretty cheap football! So I'm doing well!! Kara is enjoying my fanaticism; she's watching a ton of Harry Potter DVD's and getting work done.

On Saturday morning, a couple of the guys and I went on a quest to find Madden 07 for the XBox360 and were very unsuccessful. Nothing but PAL here. I have a copy of Madden 07 in my possession, but it's the PAL version, we don't need to go into that story because I'm still recovering from the severe disappointment. However, on our quest, I noticed the number of baby Goats, I think they call them kids? Anyways, I asked Jon Cain, also known as Obi John Cainobi to us newbies, what the deal was? I said, "These goats must be pretty smart because I haven't seen a single one get hit by any cars out here." He said, it's not that they're any smarter than dogs, it's just that all the dumb ones are dead. I'm still laughing about that one, but seriously, there are sooooo many goats running the streets here!

Alright, well I need to get back to operating NFL HQ: Lagos, Nigeria.

Never a Dull Moment

This posting is just going to be a random assortment of stories.

This Friday Bryan and I went to a bar a few blocks away called, "the Thistle," with a huge group of teachers from AIS. Because there were so many people there, it was pretty fun... and quite loud. We stayed for about three hours, then thought it best to leave before things started getting crazy. Since it wasn't dark yet, we thought that we would venture out on our own by walking back to the compound. Although the walk from the Thistle back to the compound was only about 5 blocks, I think it was somewhat of a turning point for Bryan and me. What I mean is that it was extremely encouraging and freeing for us to feel comfortable enough to be able to walk around in our own back yard OUTSIDE of the compound and feel safe. We did have to dodge the puddles in the street, but that was about the most challenging part of the mini-adventure.

Alright, now about the Mefloquine. It is astonishing to me that a drug like this is legally prescribed. I understand that it prevents malaria THANKFULLY; however, when you find information on Wikipedia that "like many other drugs, mefloquine has adverse side-effects. It is known to cause severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, nightmares, insomnia, vestibular (balance) damage..." I think you get the point... reading the side effects alone are enough to make a person paranoid!! So, let me tell you briefly how they have effected Bryan. I, myself, am not taking Mefloquine (not to worry, I am taking another type, which is supposed to make me sensitive to the sun, which I've done fine with thus far), yet I think I am getting the short end of the stick when it comes to these stinkin' side effects. (As a side note, this medicine is taken once a week.) For example, a couple of weeks ago Bryan "woke up" late at night, panicking about who knows what, when he looked around asking "Where am I?" several times. He was standing up, looking around our room and seemed to not recognize me, which really freaked me out. So I asked him who I was and he just kept asking where he was. Aaaarrrgh!! Look at me and let me know that you remember that I'm your wife! All of a sudden, he looked at me and started giggling as he said, "what are you doing, silly?" Wow. We then talked for quite a while and finally went to bed. The next day, Bryan had no recollection of his dream OR our conversation. If that doesn't convince you how crazy this medicine is, here's another story for you. Last night Bryan took his medicine again. I woke up in the middle of the night to him standing on the bed, freaking out about something. It seemed like he didn't want his feet to stay in one place, which instantly made me fear for the wellbeing of my limbs. As he was running around on top of the bed, I grabbed his arm to pacify him and get him to lay back down. He told me this morning, after remembering the situation, that he thought that something (maybe snakes?) were trying to get him and when I grabbed him, he thought that the "thing" had gotten a hold of him. Oops on my part, but at least he didn't jump on my legs and break them... and he ended up laying back down and eventually falling asleep. I'm realizing that it sounds a bit silly when I retell the stories, but it is very bizzare and somewhat scary when it's occurring. Needless to say, we plan on getting a different prescription for Bryan when we get back at Christmas.

Today was a great day. Why? It was the first day without rain in about three weeks!! We actually saw some blue sky! I thought that coming over to Nigera, being only a few degrees off of the equator, we would be melting from the heat. I guess that we just managed to bring that Washington weather over with us. So, the sun is nice... for now. Another nice thing about no rain is that, beyond brightening our moods, it also helps dramatically with the traffic. When it rains, it rains hard + there is no drainage system + the roads are made out of dirt = you do the math on what this does to traffic.

Enough for now

First Birthday... in Africa

28 years old, but Year 1 in Lagos, Nigera. Today has actually been a great day! I started out by heading off to school and getting a visit from Bryan's and my surrogate neice, Emily Rainbolt, and her mom, Gina. They came in my classroom with a homemade card and a pair of really cute earrings. Since my planning period was the first part of the day, I had time to check my emails and was happily surprised to find several "happy birthdays" waiting to be opened.

I am not the type of person to tell the world that my birthday is coming, just because I like to keep it low key and not make a big production of it. HOWEVER, I am married to a wonderful man that doesn't quite work that way. He made sure that all of the students that we both have knew about my birthday in advance. So...

When my ninth graders got to the end of class... AFTER the bell had rung, they all stopped where they were and looked at me (which kind of freaked me out), then started singing "happy birthday" to me! They all wished me a great day, THEN went off to lunch. These kids CAN be SO thoughtful!

Bryan brought me my lunch, then gave me a hint that my seventh grade kids had something in store for me. And they did. A couple of students came into my room a couple of minutes before lunch was over and, as they were laughing hysterically, tried to convince me that I missed a "library" meeting. Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard of a library meeting. Anyways, as the kids were trying their hardest to get me out of the room, the other science teacher came over to meet with me in his room, where he informed me that he was trying to stall for the kids. :) When I went back to my classroom, the door was shut, I could see that the lights had been turned off, and there were no kids in sight. I opened the door and heard some whispers and someone say, "she's here!" Then, all at once, the kids jumped out from behind the lab stations and yelled "SURPRISE!!!" Several of them came up to me and gave me hugs, cards and gifts as they wished me a great day. Then the consumables came out. One student brought a cooler with enough bottles of pop for every student in the class, several kids brought Pringles (one of my girls asked me the other day what some of my favorite snacks that you can buy in Nigeria are and barbecue Pringles was on the top of the list) and there were even chocolate cupcakes. The part that I found most amusing was that when the food was opened, it became survival of the fittest and I didn't even end up with a cupcake... until I pointed that out to the students and then there seemed to be some "extra" cupcakes. One sweet girl, while I was visiting with the class, went up to my desk and put a pile of barbecue Pringles there for me, and later gave Bryan a really nice leather purse and insulated coffee mug to give me. It was nice to be able to inform these kids that theirs was the first surprise birthday party I have ever received from students. They were pretty proud about that.

After school, Bryan brought me over to his classroom and gave me parts of my presents. First, he gave me a collage of us that he had made on a comic-making program, fully loaded with comments. He also had a beatiful cake made for me by one of our students' moms. It has periwinke blue frosting on the sides and flowers on top with a message that says, "Happy Birthday Kara." Next to the cake and collage, he had his computer set out with the internet opened to the Melting Pot page. He let me know that he will be treating me to a nice evening there upon our return in December. On top of that, he is taking me to a Swiss fondue evening HERE in Lagos on the 23rd of the month, which is put on by a Swiss club in the area, of which another parent is involved!

Finally, Bryan had asked our steward to find some good tiger prawns to fix up for dinner, which he did and he did well! The prawns were HUGE and were breaded and fantastic! After we watched "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (yes, I am a huge HP fan, for those of you who don't know) and ate dinner, we had the Rainbolts and a few other friends over to celebrate and eat cake. So, it's been a good day for me.

As Bryan says, "we're in Nigeria, so things will be a little different this year," but I have enjoyed Year 1 birthday in Lagos. I have felt quite close to home (relative to being over 7000 miles away), extremely appreciated by my students, very well taken care of by my amazing husband and simply loved. Overall, it's a great birthday!

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!

Another Blog in Paradise...or Something Like That.

"You are what you eat." I've never quite figured that figure of speech out...but if that's the case, last night we were spaghetti. We enjoyed a nice evening dinner with the Rainbolts last night. David and Gina are fellow Tacoma School teachers with us over here. Kara and I teach the 9A kids with David and he comes down on Thursday and Friday to help my 7th Graders with their English skills. He truly is an English Guru. They have two kids, our surrogate niece and nephew, Emily and Jacob. If you enjoy our blog, you would really enjoy their blog as well. Here is the address:

http://rainbolttraveldiary.blogspot.com

Their most recent blog does a great justice to traffic here in Lagos.

We are doing well today! I think for the first time in my life, I missed the opening game of the NFL season as it was 2 AM when it started. So that's what I'm struggling with right now, Kara seems just fine though! I've been using my giving up my season tickets to the Seahawks as leverage with the parents over here to help explain how committed I am to teaching their children! So I need to get back to that as my students are finishing up their presentation preparation for their explanation of the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. Yes, these kids really are THAT good! Talk to you soon.

Just an idea

Here's an idea of how hard it was raining yesterday! Look at how huge the splashes were from the raindrops!

And He said, let there be...Rain?

Today, Kara and I got a taste of Nigerian rain. Wow! It poured. Bryan ran from the school to the flat, was outside of cover for a little over 10 seconds, and pretty much got drenched. It's rained all day long, and it has been pretty remarkable! This is definitely not the, "rain showers" we've grown so accustomed to in Washington; this is an all out down-pour.

Anyways, things are getting better over here; Bryan is healthy again and school is running smoothly. We have our back-to-school night this Wednesday and are getting pretty excited about that. We will have pictures uploaded as soon as we can get our camera hooked up to the Macs.

We hope everybody enjoyed their holiday break; apparently, Nigerians don't think Labor Day should be observed over here! So we worked, and will continue working through June! Anyways, we'll be back!

Just Don't Die

Today, we went out to the GQ (General Quarters) for lunch. Both Kara and I had a club sandwich, and wow were they good! It was nice to get some American food cooked at an American location! Anyways, things have been good over here. It's really starting to warm up outside as the cloudy skies are parting and the equatorial sun is shining bright. I took my Geography kids out GPS'ing the other day and that was a blast! We are just a few degrees north of the Equator, and East of the Prime Meridian, so that's cool! After looking at my GPS all that time in the US, it was funny to see the coordinates actually say, East longitude.

The subject today is, "Just Don't Die", inspired from a bumper sticker we saw on the back of a taxi carrying what looked like 20 people inside. One of the saddest moments we've had here so far happened today when we were on the bridge going from Ikoye Island to Victoria Island. A little girl about a year or two older than our niece Jessica, was running along side of the car and trying to hang on to it as we were in the "Go-Slows". It was so sad because our driver just kept speeding up as she was trying to get us to roll down our windows and give her money. It was pretty crazy how she was hanging on for dear life. Kind of freaked us out a little.

We opened up the morning with AISL's, welcome back bash! I think every parent that has a student came to the bash! It was pretty amazing and we got to meet a lot of really cool people. The Vice-President of Nigeria's kids go to this school, as does his assistants children. Kara and I have two of the assistant's children in our classes as well as a couple big-wig oil execs kids. So we got too shoot the breeze with them today and that was pretty exciting. Other than that, my stomach is feeling a little weird, still trying to adjust to the new food I ate at the function.

Kara is having "ladies night" tonight with some of the girls that work here. She's really enjoying the company of some of the girls here and they are sharing in their home-sickness together. I think everybody is getting a little homesick, but the compound as a whole is very supportive of each other. It's funny, because when we go out on the weekends, you see other expats and it's like an instant bond! It's pretty cool. I played my first game of tennis yesterday and really was not good at all!! I'll get better as time goes on, but it's nothing like pickleball in high school; I used to be so good at pickleball!!

A co-worker of ours got pulled over a few days ago and the police made them get out of the car and they did (which you're not supposed to do unless they have guns). So the cops flattened the tires because they wanted money and our co-worker wouldn't give it to them. So she called the Consulate, which sends what are called React vehicles out. The marines came with weapons and the situation was resolved shortly thereafter. But pretty scary stuff! We gotta make sure we're really careful over here because the initial reason they were pulled over for was pretty bogus!

That's pretty much it for now. We'll be on Skype this weekend looking to talk to some folks, so if you're on, give us a ring! Talk to you all soon!