Lagos designates the last Saturday of the month as Environmental Saturday, which is in effect from 7am-10am. During this time, residents of Lagos are expected to be cleaning their yards and beautifying their area.

Last Saturday afternoon, I was out and about, and I saw these big trucks everywhere, with the logo KAI stamped on the side. I asked our driver, Samuel, what this was all about.

Kick Against Indiscipline, more commonly known as KAI, is an environmental task force unit which monitors and enforces the environmental law in the state. According to Samuel, anyone who is caught out in the streets between 7-10am on Environmental Saturday will be arrested by KAI. I had heard this before, but I’ve never seen these trucks out in force, nor have I ever seen them in action.

The trucks go around in groups and they “clean up the streets”.  All street vendors, roadside eating establishments (people frying plantains on the roadside, or selling suya, for example), etc.  are being targeted by KAI. Their stalls are destroyed in front of them and loaded onto the trucks. Roadside nurseries, which sell the most beautiful plants and add to the greenery of the city, are destroyed by this task force. Pots broken and confiscated, plants torn out, it’s really quite horrific!

This is one of the Kick against Indiscipline trucks that goes around the city and collects the broken up stalls.

I’m wondering what happens to the vendors and their families. They left their villages for a reason, I’m sure. They’ve eked out a living and are obviously providing a necessary service, if we can judge by the number of people frequenting these establishments. According to Samuel, most of the support staff on Victoria Island (maids, drivers, custodians, people working in the local businesses) cannot afford to buy food in the local restaurants and therefore patronize the local food vendors. Now that they are gone, the local staff is also at a loss.

Yes, the streets are much cleaner, and I’m sure it helps with the flow of traffic, as you don’t have people just stopping to buy fruit or whatever, but what happens to these vendors? Most of them have come to the city from the villages, seeking a better life for their families, as happens in most major cities around the world. The idea here is that by destroying their livelihood, they will return to those villages.

I noticed this past Saturday that a few of the local fruit vendors are braving the streets again, though there are definitely fewer, and they are no longer on the road, but well back, almost in hiding. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

The men are all lined up, arresting people and breaking up stalls.

A roadside nursery being destroyed.

This corner used to be hard to navigate by car, but now it is free and clear.

A plethora of shops lies behind the blue wall.  The blue wall is a recent addition.  You used to be able to drive by and see the shops, and traffic was really bad, as people were always double-parked.  The traffic definitely moves better through here, though it isn’t nearly as interesting!

It seems hard to find the time to sit down and write about Lagos these days. Sometimes I think it’s because nothing interesting is going on. We work all week, and do things on the weekend, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. As we head into the Christmas period, we are a little busier than usual. In fact, we’ve had something going every weekend since November 12, but again, as many of you know, that isn’t unusual. That would also be another reason why I find it hard to sit down and write… there is too much going on.

This Sunday morning I find myself with a bit of time on my hands. Not because I don’t have anything to do, oh no! I just spent an hour and a half in the kitchen, cleaning up after the Christmas party we hosted last night. I’ve got laundry in the machine and the floors are all washed. What I really need to do is pack, as we leave for Canada this weekend. However, my husband is in the bedroom sleeping of the glee of the Christmas party, so I can’t get in there to do what I need to do. I’ll give him a couple of hours, and then send in Phoebe and Laryssa!

So, a brief look at our holiday season. November 12, we went to a barbecue for our friend Baerbel’s birthday; lots of fun, good food, but sorry, no photos! The next night we were treated to a Diwali festival in the gym, put on for teachers by our Indian community.

Diwali 

 

Next up was the American Thanksgiving celebration. We had a potluck dinner on the gym stage for all of the Flat Rats who didn’t travel. It was a great turnout with wonderful food and good company.

Thanksgiving on the gym stage . It was also Movember for the guys, hence the fancy mustaches!

December began with the Breakfast with Santa event that Tracy and I hosted at the GQ this year. 50 children and their parents came out for a special morning of activities and breakfast with the big guy!

Laryssa and I also managed to fit in a trip to the clinic to get her ears pierced that day!

The next day we had our annual Christmas Go-Slow party. (Okay, this is probably a little different than what you’re used to.) It is a white elephant gift exchange, where you draw a number and pick a gift, and then you can steal each others’ gifts. However, the gifts are to be purchased at a go-slow. What’s a go-slow? Good question. A go-slow is when you get stuck in traffic here in Lagos. Vendors go up and down the street between the cars, selling their wares. You can buy pretty much anything if you’re there long enough. I’ve seen books, steering wheel covers, socks, hats, cauliflower, plungers, toilet seats, mirrors, and of course drinks, snacks… it can be quite entertaining. So you’re supposed to buy an item from the go-slow and bring it to the party. Lots of fun!

We had the usual Christmas concerts and tree-lighting ceremony, mixed in with the everyday activities, like after school activities (Laryssa is doing hip hop dance, fencing, karate and gymnastics!), birthday parties, kids over after school and on weekends, and oh yeah, the ever-favorite report card writing! We culminated our festivities last night with a Christmas party at our house. We haven’t had one since Korea, so we were due. It seemed a success, and everyone appeared to have a good time.

This is where I found my husband this morning, fast asleep!

So now to go and wake him up, so I can get on with the packing. Christmas vacation, here we come!

November 8, 2015

My baby turned 9 two weeks ago! Hard to believe, the time is going so quickly! She celebrated with 5 friends on Friday night. The girls came over after school and had a snack. Then they did a craft, danced with xbox, swam in the pool, and then came back for dinner and a movie. They all slept over, so I think by about midnight, they finally fell asleep. They were all up again at 5am! After a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, there was more dancing, playing, and having fun. They all left at 9:30 Saturday morning.

This photo was from her actual birthday, October 24.

Sleepover Photos

Alas, now that she is nine, she is definitely growing up. We still enjoy morning cuddles in our bed, and snuggling on the couch for a movie. But there are some subtle differences, little things that show she is maturing. She is starting to be a little more adventurous with her food, and she will now eat salmon! If we don’t put too much pressure on her, she will try bits of new things. Yeah! She made crepes in French class a couple of weeks ago, and this morning she insisted on making crepes for breakfast! She was a little frustrated that the first couple didn’t turn out, but we kept encouraging and she proceeded to cook the rest just fine. She was rewarded with empty plates! Great job, Laryssa!

She also wants to help me with the blog, so the following is her contribution for this week.

When I was walking home on Wednesday from dance I heard a big crash. When I got home I saw my dad looking out the window so I looked too. The big crash was the
communication tower. It was near the pool and even more closer was the flats above 8.
Lots of teachers started to crowd around the scene . My friend Finn called and said that flats 9-20 lost power. It’s weird that new things change . I feel bad for the plants that got destroyed in the scene. I also feel sorry for the flower pot that fell. I’m glad no one got hurt when it fell. What I want to know is how did the communication tower fall?

by Laryssa

 

It has been quite the school year! We began by postponing our start date in August, due to Ebola, and wound up doing online school for 6 weeks. After the October break, our students slowly began to trickle back to Nigeria, though some didn’t arrive until after Christmas.

We then went through the stockpiling of water and food due to the uncertainties of the federal election in February. Days before the event, the election was postponed for six weeks due to Boko Harem activity in the north. The elections took place peacefully at the end of March, and it looked like smooth sailing to the end of our school year.

However, since then we have been experiencing fuel shortages in Nigeria. Although Nigeria produces about 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, they don’t have the capacity to refine enough of its own oil to meet the needs of the population. We’ve been noticing the fallout for the last few weeks (fewer cars on the road, slightly higher prices in the stores), but it’s this last week or so that it has really hit home for us. Our staff who live across the road in the 1004 complex have been without power for days. Here in Nigeria, fuel is used to power the generators for homes and businesses, and without them, most Nigerians only get a few hours of electricity each day. Some of our friends and colleagues have been spending the night in their classrooms where they are able to have aircon. (The temperature only drops to about 27C at night, with daytime temps in the mid to high 30s.) Our driver took the jerry cans with him yesterday, and is going to look for fuel for our car further out of the city. We were informed yesterday that there is enough diesel fuel to run the school generators until Tuesday. The flats will be without electricity from 9-3, which isn’t a big deal for those of us at work all day, but we have 4 children under the age of 3 in our building… I’m not sure how they’re going to cope. We’re busy getting laundry all done, freezing bottles of water that we can put in the fridge during the day, and filling up large containers of water to flush toilets. There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not the school year will end early, and of course people are worried about being able to get to the airport when it’s time to go. Many domestic flights are cancelled, but for now the international flights are a go, as they’re coming with enough fuel for a round trip or stopping in neighboring countries to refuel. The next few days should be interesting, and it will definitely be a school year for the history books! We’ll have some good stories to tell this summer!

Further information via CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/21/africa/nigeria-fuel-shortages/index.html?fb_action_ids=1045565972139627&fb_action_types=og.shares

It’s not all doom and gloom.  Here are a  few photos from our last couple of weeks:

Getting ready for a party by the pool:

 

Laryssa and Phoebe

 

 

End of the year concert (Laryssa is in the last row, second from the right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Soccer Awards

Phoebe has a playdate with Wiggles (and Laryssa and Nora have a play too)

 

Girl Scout Mother-Daughter Tea and Bridging Ceremony

We didn’t plan on it, but it just sort of happened. Last Thursday, we welcomed Pheebee into our home as our newest addition. She is about 4 1/2 months old, and we’re not sure of her breed. She seems to have some terrier in her, and she points like a hunting dog. She’s all puppy; she chews and gnaws on everything in sight, she falls down easily and is learning all sorts of new things, like climbing stairs and playing with balls. It hasn’t been quite a week yet, but she’s definitely become part of the family. She loves children and women, but is unsure of men. However, Chris seems to have worked his magic and has won her over.

Laryssa loves coming home after school, as Pheebee gets all excited and makes a big fuss over her. She’s been really good about taking the dog out for walks, and even cleaned up a mess last weekend before I got up! She isn’t so crazy about the biting and gets a little frightened when Pheebee does the crazy puppy thing and runs around the room like a lunatic! (We call it the witching hour.)

We got her from a family here at school who found her in their yard about 6 weeks ago. They cleaned her up, got her vaccines started, and even had her chipped. However, they already have a dog, so they wanted to find her a good home. They’ve even volunteered to keep her with their dog over the summer, so that made things easy!

It won’t be a simple task, owning a dog while living overseas. We’re gone for two months every summer, and usually three weeks at Christmas as well. I’m sure the rewards of having a pet will help us to overcome the difficulties. She sure is a cutie and has wormed her way into our hearts already!

Our school hosted its annual conference for teachers in Nigerian schools today. We had about 250 participants attend workshops presented by AISL teachers and assistants.

It’s a rather big event, with a lot of organization involved, from workshop presenters, security, food, invitations, scheduling, planning, etc. Teachers from around Lagos and the surrounding area began arriving at 7:00 am and attended workshops until 3:00 pm.

I presented two workshops this morning. My topic was Math Games in Lower Elementary. I had about 8 different math games that I taught the participants. Once I had explained the games, we rotated around so that everyone could play each of the games. It was a lot of fun, and I consider it to be a success when you have a group of people who don’t necessarily know each other laughing and playing games together. Many photos were taken, emails exchanged, ideas enhanced… it was a great morning. For we expats, it’s a way of giving back to the local community. The Nigerian teachers don’t have access to resources the way we do, so it was a lot of fun to be able to teach them something new, using accessible materials (a deck of cards, for example) and know that they will be able to go and use it in their own classes on Monday.

A few photos of the morning:

Last week I wrote about the Harmattan. The sands seem to be clearing off and the locals are saying that Harmattan is over. The sky is a little clearer, and this morning we actually had a bit of rain! I was out for an early walk when the rain began, and it was funny to see everyone coming to their windows or balconies to see the rain. Big smiles on all the faces… we haven’t seen rain here since early December!

We cleaned out our AC filters again today. It’s only been a week since we last did it. Kind of scary to see what our lungs have to put up with!

     

It was a busy weekend for the AISL Scouts, both girls and boys. The boys held their annual Regatta by the pool on Saturday afternoon. They took turns racing their boats (made by the boys) and had fun splashing about in the pool. Our little friend, Finn, won his race!

     

The Girl Scouts held their annual Campfire meeting late Saturday afternoon on our AISL field. The girls had a great time playing games, singing, and of course, eating s’mores! Laryssa watched the Campfire from our balcony last year, as she wasn’t yet in Girl Scouts, so this year, she was so excited! She can’t stop talking about it and is already planning for next year!  According to Laryssa (and I heard a few other girls say the same thing), “It was the best day EVER!”

 

 

One last photo for you. We celebrated Chris’s birthday this week. He is now 40 11 (forty-eleven)!

The Harmattan season is in full swing in Lagos.  Harmattan is when the sands of the Sahara blow across West Africa, leaving particles in the air which create a desert-like atmosphere.  The sun is blocked so temperatures drop, along with the humidity.  It supposedly prevents cloud formation, so no rain either.

We’ve had some really cool temperatures this past week.  Monday it was about 21 C, with a very cool breeze blowing most of the day.  While we expats are enjoying the cooler temperatures, the locals aren’t quite so happy.  The guards are bundled up in coats and hats at night, and our driver has been wearing a coat to work the past few days!

There are a few drawbacks for the expats as well.  The air quality is very poor and causes allergy-like symptoms for many people.  Sniffly nose, coughing, difficulty breathing…  We are now cleaning out our air conditioning filters weekly, and boy are they a mess!  I’d love to be able to turn off the air and open the windows, but then the dust would be that much worse inside!  As it is, surfaces need to be dusted daily (often a few times throughout the day), and floors need to be washed at least once per day.  Apparently it is much worse in the northern part of the country.

The Harmattan season begins in December and lasts until sometime in late February, early March.  We will continue to enjoy the cooler temperatures, though we may not be swimming as often, as the pool is quite chilly!

You can barely see the sun in the sky, above the flats.

These two photos were taken a few minutes ago.  The buildings are disappearing!

The cooler temperatures make it more enjoyable to sit outside in the afternoon.  Here we are enjoying Friday afternoon with Mark and Lisa.

The kiddos were inside having their own Fun Friday!

The tomato plants are enjoying the cooler temperatures too!

By the time I’d finished writing my blog and posting, the buildings beyond the flats had disappeared, and the buildings across the field were barely visible!

The Festive Season…

…is definitely upon us!  We’ve been pretty much non-stop since Thanksgiving in November, just like everyone else in the world!  Even though we’re away from our close family and friends, we are surrounded by our local family and friends and we create our own special traditions as we go.  Every time we move to a new place, there are new customs to adopt and new friends to celebrate with.  We are thankful for that!

I enjoyed three (American) Thanksgiving dinners this year, while some of my colleagues actually had four!  The school’s PTO organized their annual Thanksgiving lunch for the staff on November 25, and as usual, they outdid themselves!  Full turkey dinner with all the trimmings… and then we had to go back and teach for the rest of the day!  The next day, grade one celebrated Thanksgiving in the class.  It was a half day of school, so we enjoyed our turkey dinner at 10:00 am!  I brought the turkey and the children brought in all of the side dishes.  Such fun!  On Thursday the 26th, AISL residents got together for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner in the gym.  Delicious food, good company… a great Thanksgiving.  Some of us also managed to have our own Back Friday as well!  Eight of us went to Lekki Market to do some Christmas shopping.  Fun, fun!

PTO Thanksgiving Meal for Teachers and Staff

 

Thanksgiving Brunch with my class

 

 

Flat Rat Thanksgiving Dinner

Black Friday… On our way to Lekki Market!

In December, we’ve enjoyed a variety of Christmas-related activities.  We had a tree-lighting ceremony one evening at school, two Christmas concerts, a cookie exchange, a Christmas party hosted by some board members, an Arts and Crafts expo, Christmas brunch with the flat residents, and a kids’ Christmas party (while their parents enjoyed brunch at a different flat!).  The fun continued the last week of school with a staff Christmas party after school one day  and our class parties with the children on the last day of school.  Everywhere we go in Lagos, people are wishing us “Compliments of the season!”

Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

Ready for the cookie exchange!

 

The Children’s Christmas Party

 

We opted to stay in Lagos for the Winter Break this year.  (Now that we have a house in Canada, we can’t afford to travel as much.  So sad!)  We are dog-sitting two little dogs for the holidays, so they are keeping us busy.  We’re making multiple trips up and down our four flights of stairs to get them out for walks! We celebrated Christmas Eve with one of the AISL teachers (Linda), her husband and some of their friends.  It was a lovely Italian evening, complete with a seven course meal and lots of laughs.  Linda and her husband joined us for Christmas dinner at our place, along with our good friend Donny and another couple who decided to stay here for the holidays.  Lots of good food shared with good friends… Santa was good to Laryssa and brought her the bike she asked for.  She’s been having a great time out riding around during the day, and a few times at night!  We’re also making good use of the pool!

 

The dogs…

 

Christmas Day in Lagos

The new bike!

 

Christmas night…

We celebrated New Year’s Eve here last night with Linda and her husband, Renzo, their friends Janet, Alberto, Gianluca and Zaheer, as well as Donny and Keeley (a teacher who came back early).  We had a lot of good laughs and rang in the new year with champagne toasts and we watched the fireworks from our balcony.  The fireworks were part of a big celebration at Bar Beach, not too far from us.  Laryssa and Gianluca had a great evening playing games and then enjoyed sparklers to celebrate the beginning of 2015.

New Year’s Eve

 

Watching fireworks from our balcony

So although I would have preferred to travel for the holiday (as always!), we’ve had a lovely time here with our local family and new friends.

We wish you all a very happy, healthy new year!

Aso Ebi

This year AISL is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary, and we are also celebrating 100 years of a unified Nigeria.  As part of the celebration, students were invited to design a fabric to highlight these two important occasions.  In April, a middle schooler’s design was chosen and the fabric was printed.  When school opened this fall, the entire school was encouraged to purchase the fabric and have an outfit made for Nigerian Culture Day.  The Yoruba tradition of everyone wearing the same fabric is called Aso Ebi, and it signifies unity.  Aso Ebi (pronounced ASHOW EYBEE) is defined by Urban Dictionary as:

Nigerian outfits made from matching fabric to be worn by a group of people to a party, wedding, or funeral as a uniform. Wearing a certain aso ebi identifies the group of wearers. For instance, at a wedding, all the bride’s friends might wear blue and gold, the bride’s family might wear white and gold, and the groom’s friends might wear black and pink, and so on.

Our Nigerian Culture Day is traditionally held on September 30, the day before Nigerian Independence Day.  This year, because of our Ebola setbacks, it was postponed until November.  So, we celebrated our Nigerian Culture Day on Friday November 14.

We assembled on the field for a school photo to commemorate our 50th anniversary.

It was a glorious day for the event.  As per usual, the PTO moms outdid themselves with the decorations around the campus.  Nigerian music greeted us each morning as we arrived on campus… you couldn’t help but get excited about the big day!  On Friday morning, the entire AISL community (students, teachers, admin., custodial staff and many parents) arrived at school in their Aso Ebi.  We were awash in a sea of blue!  It was quite something to see.  Though we all wore the same fabric, the range of costume design was quite incredible!

We held our Opening Ceremony in the gym (thank heavens for A/C).  We had some special guests of honor to help us celebrate: music legend King Sunny Adae and the Honorable Justice Kudirat M.O. Kekere-Ekun.   We were entertained with musical pieces  by the high school and middle school bands, who worked so hard and sounded fantastic!  Our elementary music teacher, Tracy, and her assistant Kinglsey, worked with the elementary students and they learned three songs for the special day.  One of the songs was sung in 4 languages (English, Hausa, Yoruba and Ibo). They sang King Sunny Ade’s song Ja Funmi (meaning- fight for me) in Yoruba, and we were all delighted when he got up and sang with the children.  We then went into break-out sessions which included drama for elementary students (way to go, Mr. Patton’s class!), food tasting, beading, hair braiding, yam pounding, headscarf tying, tie-dye, etc.  We then returned to the gym for the closing ceremony, were we were treated to dances by our high school dance group, and the elementary Nigerian Dance Troupe.  Laryssa was a part of that one… we were so proud of our little oyibo!  We were also joined by another music legend, Dr. Victor Olaiya. The middle school band played and sang one of his songs and he got up and sang with them a little bit.  The elementary students sang his song, Ishe Oluwa, in the Yoruba language.

All in all, it was a great day at AISL.  We love Nigerian Culture Day!

 King Sunny Ada is on the left, in black.  The Honorable Justice Kudirat M.O. Kekere-Ekun is in pink, and our Superintendent, Mr. Rayl, is the tribal chief on the end!

Laryssa and her dance troupe!

 Dr. Victor Olaiya and his wife.

Random shots from the day: