So Thanksgiving has passed and December is flying by, and this will be the last blog of the year from scenic Lagos, Nigeria. The passage of time is bizarre here along the equator. It is just as hot here as it was in August. It still gets dark at the same time. The sun rises at about the same time. In that way, time seems to stand still.

Harmattan Horizon

Time has passed though. The longest rainy season anyone can remember came to an end. It is now just the sweaty season. We are experiencing the harmattan season. It is a little cooler and the sky has a permanent haze. It makes for some incredible sunrises and sunsets.




Emily on the Soccer Field
Part of the reason time is flying by is that we are busy. Both the kids have soccer. Emily is in choir, and she is learning the recorder. She has made friends with a couple of the girls in the fourth grade. The all eat lunch together and then they race to the gym or the field to annoy some of the 7th grade boys. After school, Emily has a tennis lesson twice a week, lots of homework, and she has become a baby sitter in training for Bella and Nia downstairs. She plays games on the Internet, annoys her brother, and makes frequent trips to the pool with Rhiannon.

Emily's First Concert


Jacob is keeping up with karate, but he is totally into soccer. If there are kids on the field Jacob is there. He must eat his lunch in less than 30 seconds so he can play at lunch. The minute he is done with after school activities, he drags Mercy down to the field and he will join in any game. Ninth grade boys? Jacob will play them. Girls? No problem. Want him to play goalie? It is ok with Jacob as long as he gets to play. The boy will run non-stop until we drag he sweaty little body up for dinner. He is asleep after a few pages of a story.

Jacob in a rare moment of non movement


Once Emily and Jacob are in bed, time seems to crawl. Gina and I have watched every movie we have brought with us and more. We all trade seasons of DVD’s back and forth. We are currently through the second season of “House.’ We get together with the Teague’s and the Slater’s on a regular basis to catch up on episodes of “The Office.” I just finished another book today. We both check our email, surf the Internet, and I get to write these long rambling blogs. I have the sports page of several newspapers bookmarked. Gina knows the iTunes Store like the back of her hand.

Because we have zero commute time to take the kids to all their activities, Gina and I have picked up a few of our own. Gina joins a couple other of the “compound ladies” for a workout three times a week. Then on Saturday morning, she hits the tennis court. I spend hour on Tuesday and Wednesday playing fetch on the tennis court. Douglas hits the ball and I run after it and hit it back to him. He hits it back where I started from and I chase it over to that side. Get the ball! Get the ball! Wednesday nights, when it is a little cooler and if the power stays on, the guys in the new flats let me come over and play doubles.


My other favorite activity to pass the time started at our last Junior High Dance. After hearing Shakira sing about her hips for the third time in 22 minutes, I needed a little diversion. The kids were snapping pictures all over the place and I decided that I would try to sneak into as many pictures as I could. It was so much fun I told Slater and he joined me. We were sliding through the crowd and pooping into pictures left and right including the serious group picture of all the really cool 8th and 9th graders. A few weeks later, we continued the activity at a big party at the Yacht club. We got Joseph to join us and we named the activity “phishing.” Last night at the staff Christmas party, we even got the Director of Admissions in on the fun. The three of us are going to be on a lot of Christmas cards this year.

Who is that Guy ? Courtesy of Maria

The Phishers get Phished

Thanksgiving in Ghana.... More specifically, Thanksgiving in Accra, the capital of Ghana. We packed Wednesday night checking to make sure that we had our passports, which are now filled with entry visas, tourist visas, re-entry visas, work permits, and green cards. Thursday was a half-day; it felt weird to be working on Thanksgiving morning, instead of peeling potatoes or baking rolls. We loaded onto the coaster along with half of the compound, and headed off to the airport.

When we landed here in August, it was dark by the time we left the airport and I think that might have been a very good thing. Lagos doesn’t offer much that might grow on you. Once again, we passed fancy restaurants and car dealerships, and apartment buildings only to cross a bridge and see an entire village built on stilts over the lagoon. The key word is village, no electricity, no running water, and no barbwire fences.

The key to successful travel in West Africa seems to be paper work. We filled out a card to let the Nigerian authorities know we were leaving. One for each one of us with addresses of employer, passport numbers, birthplace, shoe size, favorite ice cream flavor and the date of our last dental checkup. We left that card with a guy who wrote more notes on it, looked at every page of our passport and then attacked it with a rubber stamp. We got on the plane and received another card asking for the same information for the Ghana Immigration officials. Earlier in October, we had given all the information on a different form along with cold hard cash and photographs to the Ghanaian Embassy to get an entry visa. So at last count, there were three sets of documents that had our travel itinerary in the hands of government officials. I have to say that it was quite a secure feeling sitting on that plane knowing that if anybody need to get a hold of us or find us for any reason all they would have to do is contact the proper authorities. The wait in the immigration line in Ghana was longer than the actual plane flight and the stamping was done with more rhythm and authority than at the departure terminal.

Once we passed the through the careful scrutiny of the Immigration and Customs officials we were quite surprised to find the hotel shuttle waiting for us. We began to wonder if we had somehow crossed into a different continent. Having a shuttle there and not waiting for it? How would we learn patience if stuff like that keeps happening. We didn’t have to worry long about that because the shuttle took us to a different hotel than the one we booked. It seems that there were technical difficulties with our room and they had transferred us to a different hotel. Most times that would be ok, but this place had no pool, no restaurant in sight and was right across the street from a large parking lot. Not a very inviting environment with two antsy kids and several hours to bedtime.


We convinced the driver to take us to the original hotel, and while the kids and I had a mineral, mine was in the form of a large green bottle but more on that later, Gina and Maria exercised their skills in patience and got us two rooms in the hotel. A hotel with several restaurants, an ice cream parlor, and cable TV. We were officially on vacation.

That night we ate at an African restaurant next to the beach. Doesn’t that just sound good? Eating Thanksgiving dinner outside with the ocean in the background? I tackled the local specialty, peanut chicken soup with foofoo. If you could only eat one meal a day, and you wanted to feel full all day, you need to eat foofoo. It is like a dumpling on steroids. It is mashed potatoes with out the fillers. It is thick, dense, and an acquired taste. It also goes quite nicely with the Ghanaian form of Star beer. The national beer of Ghana comes in a large green bottle, just like Star, It is drinkable if served ice cold and it is called “Club”. The similarities go right down to the label. The kids ate, but it was primarily the desire to visit the ice cream parlor and not a deep appreciation of the local cuisine.


The next morning we hired a driver to take us to the National museum. There are stoplights and road signs and people actually follow the rules of the road but it is still not the type of driving left to amateurs. We had great time at the museum, but it was purely accidental. After coughing up 130,000 Cedes to get into the museum, all in small bills, Gina asked for a guide. She was asking for a map, but we got an actual person guide, who with a great deal of pride walked us through the entire museum with stories and explanations. After an exercise in patience while we waited for our driver to return, we retired to the pool for fries and a cocktail. Then it was dinner at the Monsoon, no wait we didn’t have reservations, so it was dinner at Frankie’s, no wait they only serve burgers and falafels, so it was dinner at a Chinese restaurant that served really big shrimp.

The next day we tackled the local craft market. Great woodcarvings, kinte cloth, drums, and jewelry, but over aggressive, touchy, and persistent salesmen. One young man in his effort to get Gina to buy a dress actually put it on and modeled it for us. Jacob and I got an education in African football as we bargained for a Ghana National Team soccer jersey. Gina made some great purchases, which she will pass on to Santa.
Hard bargain sounds something like this…
“Oh poppa look at these beautiful necklaces..very beautiful.. I give you a very good price.”
“Yes these are nice. What is your first price?”
“I give you my best because you are my first customer. 60, 000” (Which is about 5 dollars)
“That is too much for me. Thank you.” Then you walk away.
“ What will you pay?”
“20,000.” At which point we both laugh and I tell him, “Isn’t this the game you say way high and I say something incredibly low and we continue chat until we agree.”
More laughs and our necklace seller says, “That is right let us talk.”
Then Emily steps in and wants to leave because there are way to many people talking to her and touching her and trying to get her to buy. So I tell the man, “I have to go, thank you.”
“Ok, Poppa you win 20, 000.” So, I got two necklaces for a dollar a piece. I felt pretty good but you have to get Jacob to demonstrate, because he is getting very good at it.

While Gina, Jacob, and Maria continued to perfect their bargaining skills. Emily and I sat in the shade outside the market and watched the coconut vendor work. This is not a job for the timid. It involves a strong wrist, great hand-eye- coordination, and a very sharp machete. The coconuts are still green and they are piled off to the side. The guy picks one up and whacks off the bottom so it will sit flat on the table. Then he chops pieces off the top so the coconut looks like a sharpened pencil. When the coconut is sold, he chops off the sharpened point and the customer drinks the liquid inside. The coconut is then handed back to machete guy who at great risk to his own fingers and hand chops it into quarters so the inside can be scooped out. I think this guy would be a big hit at dinnertime around the Harborview Manor. Coconut goes great with White Chicken Chili!


We then headed to the coffin shop. In Ghana when you leave you, leave in style. No pine boxes. You can be buried in a cell phone, a rooster, or a Coca-Cola bottle. All hand built to your specifications. We snapped a some pictures and decided that was enough culture for one day so we headed back to the pool to start resting up for the next battle with immigration lines.

It felt good to get off the compound for a few days. We felt like we could walk around, and as we drove through Accra we noticed a lot fewer walls and less barbwire. The city is different but it is still the same; buildings needed some upkeep, cars that are long past their useful lives still sputtering down the road, shanty towns next to large homes, and crippled beggars in the market. It is very strange to rent a car and get a driver along with it. You see things a bit differently when your tip of a little more than 2 dollars can actually buy a person a full meal. You certainly know that your life is changing when you walk into your two bedroom flat and all of you say, “It is good to be home.”

So we are now “expatriates”. What a weird word. I still haven’t decided whether it is a positive or negative word, but it seems to be the word that defines us right now. We teach expat children, we shop in stores that cater to expats, we live on the expat island, and we eat in restaurants filled with expats.
The plus side of this expat lifestyle is the expat community. If you need anything from information about great hotels in Ghana, to where to get chocolate frosting, you just have to ask. It doesn’t matter if the person you are asking is from South Africa, Holland, or Houston. You will get an answer. You will get more than an answer; you will get a guidebook with all the kid friendly restaurants highlighted and margin notes about the service. You ask about chocolate frosting and someone will hand you a bag with a couple of cans that were lying around the house. Earlier this fall, Jacob had managed to put holes in all of his socks. We launched an exhaustive search for new ones because Jacob is very particular about his feet. We hit all the stores and Tony searched the local markets. We were only partially successful. Gina asked a parent of one of her students where she got socks for her son, and a week later we got a package of 12 pairs because they knew someone who was headed back to the states. So, even in Africa you can shop at Target.




Nigerian’s don’t celebrate Halloween, but Emily and Jacob sure did. We were invited to dinner and Trick or Treating at the Mobil Oil employees compound. We ate a great dinner and drank some very good home-made beer, while Emily and Jacob joined the Trick or Treat brigade. The came back hot and sweaty and dragging a pillowcase filled with enough candy to (in their words) “last until Easter”. Once again we were invited into a group for no other reason than we were outsiders.
There is truly a sense of community here among the expatriates. There is a willingness to help each other out and include everyone. This sense of community has certainly made it easier to adjust to living in a place where we have no idea of how to do most things.



That is the negative of being an expat. You are the new kid in town and everybody knows it, especially here. You have to ask questions about everything, and that takes swallowing a lot of pride. It is difficult to go from being a competent, independent, fully functional adult with a driver’s license to a permanent occupant of the passenger seat.

We have now reached the point in our big adventure where it becomes time for the whine blog. Those of you who wish to maintain the illusion that we are living in a tropical paradise are encourage to re-read previous entries or check back later in the week.

Whine number 1. Living on the compound is constant noise. Last night our Islamic neighbors were using the powers of a 15 million gigiwatt PA system to pray at 7 pm, 10 pm, 12:30 am, 3:30 am and 5:30 am. It is like living next door to the world’s largest alarm clock with a defective snooze button. What I really want to know is who wakes up at 3:30 in the morning and then prays for 40 minutes? I also want to know how come their generator is better than ours, because they always have power! For no apparent reason, the fire alarm in the flats has started going off, and then it will stop, then it will start and this went on for 15 minutes on Wednesday night. The air conditioner in our bedroom senses the break between prayers and emits a high pitch whine. The back of our flat overlooks the soccer field, which means that on Saturday morning the joyous shouts of kindergarten soccer players will wake us up. That fits in well with the joyous shouts of marines stationed at the consulate that wake us up occasionally during the week. We also have the beeping that accompanies the regular power outages and roar of the generators that follows the power outages. We have a large beautiful tree right outside or window that hosts a very loud squawking bird on most mornings. It is a nice accompaniment to the barking dog. An early morning serenade that usually is played well before the alarm clock.

I am sure that eventually all of these things will become background noise, but now they are loud and annoying. We have been here seven weeks and I can count the full nights of sleep on one hand.

Whine number 2. “Oh this is really unusual, the rainy season always ends the first week in September.” It is now well past the middle of October and we are still having the rainy season. This is not gray misting rain. It is cow peeing on a flat rock rain. It is seep through the walls and windows and make puddles on the flat floor rain. This is a walk 15 yards to my classroom and be dripping wet rain. Sure it is warm, bordering on hot, but it is still gray, overcast, no sun kind of rainy weather. If I stand in front of the AC and just look out the window I can see February in Tacoma. Part of the appeal, at least for me, was the chance of regular exposure to sunshine and I’m not getting it. We didn’t pack raincoats or umbrellas. Why would you need things like that when you are living south of the Sahara Desert? So enough of the rain, bring on the tropics, and the sweltering heat and the blistering sun. I want movie Africa!

Whine number 3. How hard is it to create a mail system in a country? Give people an address, take some of your oil money and buy some trucks, put your own picture on the stamp and make it possible to mail something! With NO mail system we have to drive around and find a guy to buy minutes for the cell phone; we buy minutes for the TV cable. Smart cards all over the place but you can’t mail a letter or package home? The Slater’s steward showed up at their flat on weekend because he needed help. His son is in boarding school in Ghana and had run out of food money. The dorm mother drove from Ghana to Lagos to help him out. No phone because if you don’t have a mail system you can’t bill for service, no mail system so you can’t send a letter. The only choice was to drive. Things would be so much easier if you could have a bill arrive at your home. Did you ever imagine someone would say that?

Strange but True

Despite living in Africa the kids have had 2 out of 4 soccer games rained out.

The checkout counters at grocery stores in Lagos have cash drawers large enough to serve as sock drawers and a bill counter. When items have price tags in the ten thousands, but the most common denomination is a 500 note, the bill counter comes in handy.

In Go-slows you can by glass bottles filled with peanuts, and plastic bags filled with water.

A family of four, with four keys to their apartment, can lock themselves out of said apartment on a Friday afternoon.

Even though a family of four lives less that 100 yards from their work and school, they will frequently have to sprint out of their home to avoid being late to work.

A one hour tennis lesson can leave a person gasping for air, with legs so wobbly he or she can barely walk up three flights of stairs.

Provided with the motivation of a dinner out, 6 full sized adults can fit inside a Toyota Corolla.


You can always find players for wiffelball on the beach.

It is possible to give a homework assginment every day and have every student turn in the homework assignment.

In even a highly motivated group of high school students, there is at least one person who can not put his or her name on an assignment.

In Africa your glasses or camera lens will fog up when you walk OUTSIDE.

You can experience total darkness when the power goes of at 5 in the morning and you are in the shower.

The best place to store Lucky Charms, sugar, flour, and other ant friendly foods is in the freezer.

The roar of a generator starting up can be a very reassuring thing.

If a cockroach does not want to be flushed down the toliet, it can not be flushed down the toliet. Even if it has died.


Bryan Slater may be an awebo, but he barters like an Igbo.

Gin and tonics and Snickerdoodles. An interesting combination, but they work together. The gin is easy to find here; it’s in most grocery stores, shopping malls, and at the local market. Tonic is available at the “mineral fill up” where the first case of 24 you buy will cost you 9 dollars. After that, you just take back the case of empties; they will “fill up” for about 6 dollars. Snickerdoodles take a little more work, but not really. Juliette makes them twice a week. They go in the kid’s lunch, they are after school snacks, and Jesse next door manages to eat more than his fair share of them. So here I am thinking about all that is going on around me with a gin and tonic and a napkin full of Snickerdoodles.

It fits. Things that shouldn’t go together do go together here. You shouldn’t have people living on street corners gathered around an old can made into an oil lamp, when just on the other side of a 10 foot stone wall with concertina wire, people are getting private tennis lessons and massages, but you do. You shouldn’t have people driving around in brand new Land Rovers while 20 people are crammed into a dilapidated Volkswagen van, but you do. The extremes here jump out everywhere. The rich are rich. They have generators, and air conditioning, and restaurants, and boats, and huts on the beach. The poor have nothing. They cook over an open fire in the bottom of a burned out barrel. They sleep under a sheets of tin leaned against the walls of a compound. In the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma there is an exhibit of a shack from the Hooverville outside of Seattle. For many of the people I see here that would be luxury accommodations. Gin and Tonic and Snickerdoodles.
We have a phone, but we are still not sure which combination of numbers we should use to get a hold of somebody who lives off the compound. We have cable, but it took three people, 6 calls to the company, four resets and two days to get it to work. We watched football Sunday, but we had to drive 10 minutes and make 4 trips to get us all there. There is a bank every 25 yards, but we call a guy and he shows up with a plastic bag filled with Naira to change money. We see a man in a uniform and we all lock our car doors and hope he doesn’t stop us. Gin and Tonic and Snickerdoodles.

We spent a day at the beach for Nigerian Independence Day. We rented a beach hut with a palm frond roof and a bamboo fence. We ate BBQ, drank beer, swam in the ocean and built sand castles. The kids played soccer, wiffleball, and football. Any place else in the world this would have set us back hundreds of dollars. Our share of the rental fee was just under 4 dollars. The drawback was that we spent the day under the watchful eye of at least 15 kids under 10 waiting to see what kind of leftovers we would hand them. Even before we set down our coolers down vendors selling fake designer watches, sunglasses, batik tablecloths, woodcarvings, beads, and woodcarvings surrounded us. Gin and Tonic and Snickerdoodles.
This is a country of extremes, but it works. Right next door to AIS is a Muslim school, we get along. Right across the street is a mosque and next-door is a church, they get along. Although I do think they have a small battle going on to see who has the loudest PA system. When people knock on the car window for a handout they smile and wave goodbye when you leave without giving them anything. Eight cars will approach a round about at 8 different speeds with 8 different horns blaring going towards 8 different destinations and they all get to where they are going. It all seems to work in a crazy twisted sort of way. Gin and Tonic and Snickerdoodles.

This past Sunday one of the parents in Gina’s class invited us to join them on a trip to the beach. Now, who can say “no” to something like that? We left the compound that morning and headed to a marina not far from the AIS compound to take a boat ride up the Niger River. What a trip! What a day! What a great topic for a blog!
The Creeger’s have a daughter in the 4th grade and a daughter in the 2nd grade. The Westeburs, who teach here, and their daughter Bella, age 4 and the Rainbolt clan stuffed ourselves into the Creeger’s boat along with a driver and a guard. We headed off into the lagoon that separates Victoria Island from Ikoyo Island. Despite the signs posted all over to keep Lagos clean, we spent the early part of the trip dodging the trash that has been tossed into the lagoon. You get a very good idea of the discrepancy in wealth here in Nigeria from the water. Some gorgeous homes worthy of a water front view with large yachts anchored in front, then next-door a cinderblock shelter with cows and goats grazing near the water.
Soon we entered the main port of Lagos. Along one side was the Maersk Shipping Terminal stacked with containers just like in Tacoma. Then things change rapidly. Just off the terminal is the rusting hulk of another cargo ship half submerged in the river. On the other side of the river sat five small cargo ships that despite all the rust were still floating. It was like going back in time to the day of the tramp steamers. I kept waiting for the steamboat from the movie African Queen to come around the bend.
After leaving the main port the river turned due west. We passed several dugout canoes paddling upstream, villages on the banks of the river with nets drying out side the ramshackle huts. No sign of electricity, no satellite dish, no generators, just palm trees loaded with coconuts and thick green mangroves. The river runs like this all the way into Benin. Gina and I both finally got a sense of being in Africa; well almost because soon we arrived at the beach hut.
The hut, complete with a palm frond roof, sits on a narrow peninsula. On the east side of the hut is the Atlantic Ocean complete with crabs running up and down the beach. On the west side is the river. I’d like to say that we lugged the coolers of food and baskets of towels and sand toys up to the beach hut, but as soon as we tied up to the dock a group of Nigerians from the village nearby showed up and in traditional style piled things on their heads and they did the work.
It was a bit cloudy and misty still so the kids dug in the sand and we snacked and had a few drinks. Then it was a round of Bocci Ball, which the Westeburs proved to be quite the dominating team. The sun broke through and Todd announced that it was time to water ski. Yes, that is right, we went water skiing up the Niger River on the west coast of Africa. I couldn’t help but think of another movie, for me it was a total Apocalypse Now moment. Check out the picture with the blog and tell me you don’t agree. I skied and so did Gina. Both the kids did the kneeboard and then we headed out to the ocean to play in the surf.

What a day. Nigeria is so incredibly beautiful, but so different. Here we were on a tropical vacation while kids from the village lined the riverbank to watch us. We were playing with toys and of all things water skiing right next a fallen palm tree that their parents had built a fish trap next to for food. We were drinking cold beer and chilled wine probably 20 kilometers from the nearest refrigerator. We would head back to the city where we would shower and wash our clothes. They would do the same thing, but in the river. I saw a family doing just that as we headed back home.

This was a week for me to just remember how good I have got it. I get to have this amazing wild, completely different adventure with my family. We are seeing and learning something new every time we go out. Last weekend Jacob learned that if someone says they are hungry and asks for your popcorn, and you say yes; they are going to take your whole bag. We learned last night that goats, dogs, and horses can be smarter than some people about staying out of the middle of the street. We are learning that as crazy as political elections can get with hanging chads, uncounted absentee ballots, and Supreme Court decisions; they aren’t nearly as crazy as they can get here. Right now President Obasanjo, whose term expires this year, is fighting with his Vice President, Atiku Abubaker. President Obasanjo says that a bunch of public money somehow ended up in VP Abubaker’s freezer. He has also said that VP Abubaker’s campaign committee is illegal and had them brought into court. Also this week a plane with 12 of the Nigerian military’s top generals on board crashed as they were headed to a meeting about how the military would keep the peace during elections. I have the feeling that a simple recount would be a blessing here.
On the personal side of things I learned how lucky I am to have friends. I have friends that contacted me from half way around the world to say Happy Birthday. I appreciate email more and more with each passing day. I was also lucky enough to have people here give up some of there evening to come share cake and birthday wishes.
When you are having adventures it is so good to have friends who are willing to share them with you.

Some pictures from around AIS.

“So Tony we need to go to Elias Electronics. Do you know where it is?”
“No Sir,” was the answer.
“It’s past Lafayette.”
Finally a street address I thought. Tony said ok and we headed off to go get a cell phone. From the front seat I watched closely as we left the back gate of the AIS Compound and headed out. As usual I kept a sharp look out for street signs. I am bound and determined to get a sense of place each time we are out.
We zipped past the mineral fill up where empty soda and beer bottles are returned for full ones. Past Dream Plaza the closet mall, well actually department store with groceries, to the compound and then out on what is the main street running north and south, or maybe it is east west. No street signs.
Tony turned left and I saw Lafayette, not a street, but another shopping small. Two banks and a church later we were at the cell phone store, which was really a closet behind a Nike store. No bargaining this time and soon we were on our way. Another successful outing, without the aid of street signs.
Mr. Slater, our resident geography and GPS guru, explained to me that in Lagos it is relative location that counts. Most addresses here are based on your relation to another place. AIS is behind the 1004 Federal Apartment buildings so our address is Behind 1004. The 1004 is not a street reference, it is the number of units in the buildings before the military kicked everyone out. The buildings are being razed and will eventually become property of one of the oil companies.
So when we head to the Thistle for happy hour we are behind the Mobile Roundabout, which is the roundabout near the Mobile gas station. The tailor that is making our clothes for Nigerian culture day works “across from the containers”. The pizza place we went to this weekend is across from the Silverbird cinemas.
The main street we turned on runs east west, but I only know that because of Mr. Slater’s GPS, and I still wonder what is exactly is on the maps that are sold at the go-slows.

Lagos Traffic….Let’s see if I can you give you an accurate description starting from the ground up. As far as I can tell there are two paved roads on Victoria Island. Everything else is a pothole bordered with road. Did I say pothole? That may be understating them because many are the size of a bathtub, with the occasional hot tub sized hole just to keep you alert. The roads seem to vary in width depending on …random impulses. There are no lanes, there are no markings, and there are no traffic lights.

Now lets add cars. We have a range of vehicles in the big city. There are the big new four-wheel drive Land Rovers and then there are two door sedans, and garbage trucks that drag their shocks down the street. Then there are buses. Green and white Volkswagen vans from the mid 1980’s. They are crammed full of people, easily 12 to 15. The conductor hangs out the open sliding door. Remember the Volkswagen Rabbit? They are alive and well here, painted yellow; they have become the taxi of choice. It doesn’t matter what kind of car, the top speed on any given stretch of road is 35 miles an hour. There might be other cars here but I can’t be sure because it is hard to see through the clouds of black exhaust that follows most cars.

Now you have at least half the picture. On both sides of the car is the “okoda” lane. “Okoda’s” are motorcycles that carry at least two people at a minimum. They zoom up, down, around and through traffic. No one wears a helmet, but it seems that if you are a passenger, male or female, you should be wearing a business suit. For every car on the road there are three okodas.

We are getting close now. We have to throw in the street vendors. You need a toilet seat? Go for a drive. Pens, cell phones, peanuts carried on platters on the vendor’s heads, candy, and calling cards are all sold window to window. The vendors will run along side a car to make a sale. There are equal numbers of vendors and okodas. Almost there we just need to through in the beggars. Two types of beggars can be found in Lagos traffic. Mothers and their children are the more pleasant of the two. The mom holds the child up to the car window and the child smiles. Who can say “no” to a smiling baby? The other variety is hoping you can’t say “no” to a physical deformity. We drove past a man with what appeared to three legs the other day. At least we hope it was a third leg.

It is not 38th street for sure, but we still have more. Bring on the animals! Goats, sure why not? Dogs? Ok. Still pretty ordinary…I think we need horses. Yes, let’s have some horses wander down the street.

There are lots of bodies on the roads in Lagos, but they all move. We needed something to stop traffic. Lets put in some police checkpoints to stop cars to look at license tabs and driver’s licenses. Now we need something unofficial to stop the flow of cars. Area Boys run the unofficial checkpoints. Stop the car and hand over some Naira and you can pass. No Naira and you have to turn around.

Traffic would not be complete with out noise. One hand on the wheel the other on the horn. One long beep means (I think) that I officially claim this side of the road for me and I will not yield so move out of my way. Two short taps is a request. May I please squeeze in front of you? I only need an inch? A horn sounds every 10th of a second.

Does this explain why we took three hours to get an ice cream Monday night?

The plane flight from Amsterdam to Lagos featured one of the electronic maps that traced the plane's flight. I sat in my seat and did not pay much attention to it as we flew over France; nothing about the path over Spain interested me. Crossing the Mediterranean I started to watch more closely. Soon I was leaning over Emily looking out the window. The Sahara Desert, how amazing would that be to see stretching below the plane? I saw only clouds. Finally, as the plane descended into Lagos we broke the cloud cover and I was glued to the window. Green, not forest green, but jungle green, steamy and dense below filled the window. The green was broken be slender ribbons of water and on the horizon I could see the red dirt of the city. Small fires and columns of black smoke spotted the city.

Jacob thought the bare ground around the runway looked like Oklahoma. I did too until I saw the rusting 747 Cargo plane next to the runway. We anxiously waited for the door to open at the gate. I think we were all nervous about what was on the other side of that door.

The terminal was very clean and modern, and it was fun to read the advertisements as we walked towards the baggage claim area. We joined the big line at immigration and then I got really nervous, and just before I melted into a complete puddle of nerves a woman signaled us to follow her. She was the “expeditator” from the embassy. Gina asked later how the expeditiator knew it was us. I think that as the only nervous white people in the airport we probably stood out quite easily.

Gathering 10 huge bags took a bit of time but soon our caravan of luggage carts was headed out of the terminal. We stepped outside into the heat and a mass throng of people. There might have been a road in front of the terminal, I’m not really sure. I just kept my eyes glued on the lady from the embassy and Gina and the kids in front of me. We walked to a barricaded section to the left of the terminal where Tom and Terry Burns were waiting for us. A big sigh of relief and soon were headed off to Behind 1004 Federal Estates.

Well we have finally arrived in Lagos, Nigeria after months of talking about it. We left Seattle under gray skies and misty eyes and arrived in Amsterdam with even darker clouds and rain. We tried to be savvy travelers and pack just one suitcase for all of us for the four days we were in the city. Bad plan. Very bad plan. After 6 days in the same clothes because we only packed shorts we looked like weary travelers. Amsterdam with children is a different experience than it was a long time ago when it was only Gina and I. We still had an amazing time. Jacob slept through the Van Gogh Museum on our first day. Jet lag is bad on adults and absolutely murder on kids. We spent the next morning looking for warm jackets and dry places to stand. We certainly enjoyed the complimentary umbrellas and the trams. On Saturday we got out of the city and visited the windmills in Zaanse Schans. Jacob had a great time climbing around the windmills, but he wasn't real happy about trying on the wooden shoes. While we were out we recharged the kids gameboys so Gina and I could enjoy a "ristafle" dinner. We peddled a paddle boat around the canals, stared in awe at Rembrandt's "The Night Watch", enjoyed bami from the vending machines, and ate fries covered in garlic sauce. Emily was ok with the fries, impressed with the chocolate, and not having the Dutch pancakes at all.

The Journy is about to begin. We are packing, running errands, checking lists, and paniacingall at the same time.