Rainbolt Travel Diary

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