Yesterday was Environmental Saturday.  The last Saturday of the month is designated as the day you’re supposed to be working in your yard and no one is allowed on the streets between 7am-10am.  They are pretty strict about this… no cars, no pedestrians.  Apparently a couple of years ago, a couple of teachers were out jogging on Environmental Saturday and got hauled off to the police station!  

After Laryssa’s soccer game, played in the heat of the day (40C) at noon, I took a walk over to Dream Plaza, one of two grocery stores within walking distance.  Thought I’d document the little walk with some photos, so you can see what our neighborhood looks like.

We have two entrances/exits to the school compound.  This is the back gate.

 

 

Our street is under construction.  They’ve been redoing the road for the longest time… it seems as though it might be done soon.  

 

 

 

The sky is quite blue in this photo.  We haven’t seen a lot of blue, as it is Harmattan season.  The winds bring the sands from the desert, which puts a lot of brown, sandy grit in the air.  On the upside, it also blocks the sun, so it isn’t quite as hot.  We had a big storm Friday night, so I think it cleaned the air!

 

 

 

 

 

Out on the main road.  The buildings on the left are Mobile Gas buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking in the opposite direction.

 

 

 

 

There are a few businesses along the way.  This one is a bank.

 

 

 

A fruit vendor.

 

 

Evidence of the rain last night.

 

 

I stopped for a pedicure on the way.  🙂

 

 

Notice the fancy cars in the parking lot!  They are so clean, given all the dust and mud around.  Their drivers clean the cars every day!

 

 

And here is Dream Plaza.  It’s only about a 10-15 minute walk from our place.  The bottom floor is a grocery store, second floor is electronics, and I believe there is a coffee shop and a children’s clothing shop in there somewhere!

 

 

January 19, 2014

Our life seems to have slowed down a bit.  There’s no rushing off to do this or that, which I guess can be a good thing.  We get to actually enjoy what we’re doing and we have some free time at last.  In Singapore there always seemed to be somewhere to go and something to do… here… not so much!

The campus at AISL is a beehive of activity on Saturdays.  Yesterday, for example, there were high school students outside playing volleyball and the elementary students were out playing Saturday Soccer.  The students are divided into groups (Pre-K & K, Gr. 1&2, 3&4, 5&6) and they each play for an hour, beginning at 8am.  Once the children are done, there are a group of adults who take over the field for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  Elementary boys meet for Boy Scouts after soccer, and that goes until about 4:00 in the afternoon.  Yesterday one of the children who lives on campus had a pool party for her birthday, so there were an extra 20 or so children running around with that.  Many of the residents tend to leave on Saturdays to get away from it all.  We actually enjoy seeing all of the activity, and of course, Laryssa loves it!

A few photos of the Saturday activities:

 

Volleyball on the top left, Saturday soccer on the right.

 

 

Laryssa’s Soccer Game 

 

 

 

Other things we do to amuse ourselves on the weekend:

Baking

 

 

Gardening

(Chris has basil and cilantro growing here, and he’s started a variety of other vegetables off in these little beer can containers.  They’ll be repotted soon into the larger pots.)

These photos were taken last week.

 

 

These were taken today.  They have really grown this week!

 

 

Yesterday Chris rearranged the pots and attached them to the railing, so now we have a little more room.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The broccoli wasn’t doing too well outside; it flowered too soon.  After a bit of research, Chris learned that broccoli prefers cooler temperatures.  The broccoli’s new home is in front of the AC.

 

And now, off to make the weekend pancakes.  Perhaps a swim afterward!

Happy New Year!  Can’t believe it’s almost the middle of January, and I’m just now getting around to posting the photos from our trip to the airport.  I do apologize!

For most people, the actual vacation is what you look forward to at holiday time.  For us, it’s the adventure of getting to the airport!  The adventure began at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, when 24 of us boarded three buses to get to the airport to catch the Freedom Flights out of Lagos.  We were on the bus with the kids, for obvious reasons, and a fun time was had by all (all of the kids anyway!)  Sorry for the teacher who got a migraine. ;(

It took nearly two hours to reach the airport on this lovely, sunny day.  I’m not really sure what the distance is, but I do know that when we come home late at night when there isn’t any traffic, it only takes about 35 minutes!  So, two hours on the road with children singing Christmas carols and generally being silly.  We did manage to play a few games as well (“tell me when you find a purple car”  kept them going for a while!).  

Looking out the windows was very, very interesting, as you’ll see below.

 

 

I like that you can shop from your vehicle!

 

Crossing the big bridge took a while…

 

 

The ladies in this van were all dressed up, so we snapped a photo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting views from the bridge:

 

Random photos along the way: