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!