Had my last yoga session this morning.  I wanted to stay for the shaking exercise after, but I needed to get to Shoprite to buy some Kingklip as I'm having guests for dinner tomorrow night.  So now I still don't know what "shake" is all about.  Maybe they'll do it on Fri but I'm not sure if I can go to gym on Fri cause that is the day we fly out of Abuja to my favourite place in the whole world....not....Lagos. I'm already praying that there will be no delays and that we manage to make our connecting flight to Jhb.  We've moved our flight up from 19h00 to 17h00 as we were told by our good friend that we'd never make the connecting flight if we left Abuja at 19h00.  It's a one hour flight to Lagos and then our flight to Jhb leaves at 22h00, but there can be so many delays that we could actually miss that connecting flight.  For one, we could get stuck in traffic on our way from the domestic airport to the international one.  Or we could be stuck at immigration for some or other silly reason.  We've already been given advice that if they say there is something wrong with our yellow fever card, that we should take our passport and yellow fever card back and put some NGN3000 into the passport and give it back saying "please could you check it again".  It is ridiculous that this is the only way you can get out of here but needs must.  I have such a longing to be on my own soil, that I will pay up. I hope never to come back here. My daughter always says, "never say never" so I'd better not say I'll never come back here. 

Having said that, I will miss all my friends, my driver and all the cleaners here at the apartment.  They were always so friendly with a "welcome ma" and "how was your night or your day" depending on what time you met up with them.

The final stretch in Abuja. Funny enough I will miss the place and the people.  Hopefully on Fri we'll get seats on a plane to take us out of here.  I dread going through Lagos again but that's the way home. No more having to phone front desk to order airtime to convert to data after scratching about 50 vouchers @ NGN100 or NGN500.   No more ordering a taxi to anywhere.  In South Africa you don't take taxis unless you are very rich or very poor. The very rich will take the good taxis that cost an arm and a leg and the poor will take the very bad taxis.  The ones where the driver uses a wrench for a steering wheel and the wheels come off when you least expect it.  Even so, a basic trip in Abuja would cost us R100 (NGN2000) and then sometimes the taxi looks ok on the outside but is actually on it's last legs with seat belts not working and window wipers not working and you just pray that the brakes work cause they drive like maniacs.

Now the next phase starts.  We have one day to organize our goods in storage to be moved to Johannesburg and 4 days to find an apartment in Johannesburg so those goods have some place to go.  Then a well earned break at Cathedral Peak Hotel in the Drakensberg.  I hope I survive it all to enjoy that break.

Expat life is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Although it's been plain sailing after the initial hassles of finding accommodation,  getting connected and finding drivers, you never quite settle.  Maybe it is because we're only going to be here for a short while. There are always some people who think we are only here to take their jobs and their money not thinking that we bring skills to the table.  We are in a foreign country away from our family and friends. This is the expat life, I suppose but I'm fast losing interest in it. I think I would much rather just be back in my own home in my own country, thank you very much.

On the plus side, I've made some good friends again.  One of them a French lady from Martinique with a beautiful daughter.  We walked together for exercise every Mon, Wed and Fri.  She's gone back home for her daughter's baptism so hubby and I walk together now.  Then there's the German lady, also our gym instructress and a very strict one too.  I get a good work out on Thursdays.  Both the ladies are trying to get me to speak their language.  Interesting times.  I never thought I would come to Nigeria and get fit.  Now it seems I might even have a smattering of German and French to add to my repertoire.  I also have a few Nigerian friends, two of whom I went to lunch with twice already.  The one introduced my to her dressmaker who made me a beautiful traditional dress.  Then another goes to gym with us on Thursdays.  The manager at the place where we stay has also become a good friend and she's very sad that we're leaving.  I nearly forgot my good friend who lives in the same apartment block.  She's from the United States but they lived in Nicaragua for some twenty years or so.  I will miss her.  She's gone away for a few days to some little town in the South of Nigeria.  I will have to get all the details when she gets back.  I heard from a Belgian lady yesterday that conditions are really bad in the outlying villages, with no running water and electricity.

The funny thing I've noticed here is that most times the restaurants that look good on the outside is never any good on the inside.  You see this pokey little place and you're sure to know the food is good inside. So last Sunday we visited this new swanky place called Serendib.  Oh my word, the food was disgusting.  I'd ordered chicken and while we were waiting for our food, it takes quite long, John said he'd just heard a shot, must be them shooting my chicken for the meal.  When our food finally arrived, mine was smothered in some sauce and I knew right away it wouldn't be good.  The chicken looked very old, the meat dark.  I had some of it but it didn't sit very well in my tummy.  Early on we'd discovered Dunes and we liked the food there. Although if somebody didn't tell you, you wouldn't even know there was a restaurant in there.  Here people also travel to their favourite eating places, like in Singapore.  You have to go here for good schwarma and there for good chicken and so on.  These places won't have addresses either.  It would be close to some landmark.  The Lebanese restaurant where I had lunch with my two Nigerian friends, is close to Zenith Bank in Maitama.  Apparently if you give the taxi driver this information he will know exactly where to take you.  One really nice place we went to, was Salamander.  That was the second lunch.  It was so good, I took my husband and some of his colleagues there.  It was quite a mission to find the place, cause you had to pass Mr Bigs, turn left, then first right (after Chicken Fast Food place).  When I went for lunch with my friends it had been during the day.  This time round it was night and it was storming.  Everybody was looking to me to show them the way since I'd been there before.  We eventually found the place.  When we got there it was still storming and I hopped under another lady's umbrella as I didn't have one with me.  Still got well and truly soaked before we got inside.  The hot chocolate made up for it, though. Somehow the food wasn't as good as it had been when we'd had lunch there.  Different cook maybe?  Wakkis is an Indian Restaurant we visited only once.  I don't think we will ever go back.  I have a lunch date on Monday to Spice World, another Indian restaurant so I'll be able to compare with Wakkis who didn't have lassi.  They had no idea what lassi was.  They also did not have pista kulfi (pistachio ice cream).  To hubby and I a good Indian restaurant should have both.  Maybe we were spoilt by the Indian restaurants in Singapore.

So now we have exactly two more weeks in Abuja before we fly back to South Africa, the land of the lamb chop.  I'm drooling for some proper meat.  We have no idea where we'll go after that.  It might be Saudi Arabia, I hear.  From botter to wors as they say, which means from better to worse.  We might come back to Nigeria for a few more months which I'd actually prefer. I'd rather have the occasional bomb blast here than to be so close to very sophisticated weaponry just across the border.

Enjoy the weekend and the olympics.  Isn't it great that South Africa has three gold medals already?

Little things have kept me busy since I last wrote something.  On Wednesday I visited with my friend who lives in the same apartments.  She was recovering from a bad bout of malaria.  I seriously hope I don't get it, ever.  She did lose quite a bit of weight, so maybe a few bouts of malaria might just sort out my overweight problem. On Thursday I joined my German friend for a work-out and she drilled us like a true Sergeant Major.  I was in agony on Fri but still managed to walk with my French friend.  On Saturday we were invited to a wine tasting at Silverbird Mall.  When we got there really loud music was playing and even though the invite said the event was to start at 14h00, nobody could really say when it would start.  We had a taxi waiting for us as we thought we would just be 40 minutes to an hour.  I mean how long do you need to taste some wine?  At NGN2000 per hour, we decided to leave as it could start at 17h00 for all we knew, being Nigeria. 

I could feel an allergy attack coming on, so on Sunday we visited a pharmacy for some meds and I self-medicated but on Monday I didn't feel to good and even though I swore I would not visit the clinic, I was forced to do so.  I went along with by baggie full of needles and swabs, fully prepared for the blood tests I was sure they would order.  Lo and behold, the doc, a lady this time, took my blood pressure and checked my chest with a stethoscope nogal.  I was impressed.  I got some cough mixture and some treatment with a nebulizer.  No blood tests, thank God.

So today I heard we might leave here in a week from now although hubby thinks it's highly unlikely.  I hate this "up in the air" stuff.  I'm never sure about anything until the very last minute.  Surprisingly, I'm not happy at the thought of leaving.  I've made new friends and I was just getting into a nice routine of walking and exercising.  I want to join the Abuja Literary Society's book club and I still want to see Zuma Rock.  Anyway, maybe it's time to hang up the old travelling boots and settle down so I can get to know my granddaughter and learn how to be a grandma.

Hubby wasn't feeling well so we went to Abuja Clinic.  Two people had referred us, so we reckoned it would be ok.  Got there and we had to stand in a queue at reception.  They do have online appointments but that means nothing, cause I had one but still had to stand in the queue.  So we get to the lady at reception but while we're speaking to her people ask her all kinds of things and she attends to them first while we wait patiently.  She gives us a number and we proceed to the waiting room but as we go hubby sees ENT on the number slip and he goes back to reception.  Initially we needed to go to an ENT but that changed when hubby started feeling unwell and sweating and coughing so now we needed to see a GP.  We don't know how to do that barge in thing so once again we stand patiently to ask for another number for the GP this time.  Then we had to pay at the cashier without having seen a doc.  It cost us close to NGN50 000 for this episode.  Of course we didn't have that much cash on us, so first had to go out and find an ATM to draw some. Back to the hospital and the waiting room.  After about half an hour we get to see the doctor who asks hubby all kinds of questions.  He doesn't take his temperature and he does not check his chest which I can hear is wheezy.  The doc tells us he wants to have blood tests done to exclude malaria and that we should come back the next day.  In the meantime hubby's coughing his lungs out.  We go back and do the blood tests and are told to come back on Monday for the results.  Still nothing for his chest.  Sunday we just took it easy and slept away the day as he wasn't feeling good at all.  On Monday we go back to see the doc.  No malaria, thank God but he has urinary tract infection.  Doc prescribes antibiotics and we're out of there.  I pray I never get ill here.  At least hubby feels better now so meds must be doing the trick or else it's just that he took a break from work allowed himself to relax. 

We went to the movies last night and watched Ice Age 4.  Had a meal at Bunna Cafe first and I managed to take a photo of the mosque and the Arts and Crafts village. I think I'll wait till I'm back home before I post them though.

Today I met Kate, a French lady, all the way from Montenique and we did a two hour walk around Maitama.  I now know where the Spanish housing and the British housing is.  Also where Farmer's market is for all my fresh fruit and veg.  I took some photos with my Iphone so they're not so clear.  One was of a beautiful blue and black butterfly and the other a mommy chicken with her little chicks, too cute.  We were walking along and chatting to each other and we heard a horn behind us.  The cars were driving on the pavement like it was another road and we had to make way for them. 

Kate reckons we are being overcharged for everything because we're expats.  She nearly fell on her back when she heard that we pay NGN2000 per hour for our taxi.  She's been here for two years already and she says we have to negotiate the price.  So there, I will become a professional negotiator. The problem with negotiating is, the person you are negotiating with must understand what you're saying.  I bought some material and had the dressmaker come over to take my measurements for a traditional Nigerian dress.  I got his name from a Nigeria friend and she also told me more or less how much he should charge me.  He says ok fine that's what I charge for a dress but I'm making you a jacket as well and that will be NGN4000 and you have to pay me my taxi fair for getting to your place, another NGN1000.  I tell him that I still want more work done, so he should give me a good price else I will go to another dressmaker for my other stuff and he doesn't bring down his price by 1 Niara.  I have lots of learning to do before I become a professional negotiator, maybe in my next life.

What a lovely day I had today.  I was a bit apprehensive at first to drive with my new friend as I know there are no road rules here.  Every driver just does his or her own thing.  She'd also warned me the day before that the cops seem to single her out as she's a white lady in a white car.  They would pull her over for any excuse and once threatened to take her to the police station if she didn't give them some money.  Well, we had none of that today, thank goodness.

We started off by going to Cedi Plaza and first stop was a coffee shop for some caffeine.  We needed energy for the day.  Then we explored each level to see what kind of shops they had.  We were actually looking for material for our traditional dresses but found some other interesting places, like a bookstore where we both bought books for our grandchildren.  It was lovely to just browse through the shops.  When I go with hubby, we just go for a specific thing and I don't get time to browse.  The material shop had so much fabric, it was really difficult to choose one.  My one piece of fabric cost me about R200.  Luckily my friend has a tailor so I don't need to go looking for one.  After browsing all the levels it was lunch time and we headed to Dunes. 

I'm still looking for sun-dried tomatoes, so I pop into any and all supermarkets.  This one was a really nice one, the best I've been in so far. It had Delifrance bread, oh happy day. I'd been looking for wholewheat bread as well. I found fresh veggies, all the green stuff that hubby so hates but I love, spinach and basil and celery.  I nearly clapped my hands at the sight and did a jig. No sun-dried tomatoes though.  We've been eating tinned fish since we arrived here so I ordered fish and chips for lunch.  It was so good.  Far too much food but so good.  My friend ordered a chicken fajita and she got a whole heap of food too.  I tasted some of it and it was also good but the portions are huge.  Two people could easily share one.  Guess where we'll be going next time we eat out. 

So I just googled "where can I find sun-dried tomatoes in Abuja" and my blog was one of the hits.  How cool is that.  I also learnt that consumption of sun-dried tomatoes could cause Hepatitis A, so I shall stop looking for them here.

I'm very happy to have found me a friend to do things with. Tomorrow I meet up with another friend for the first time for an early morning walk.  I'm also meeting a colleague of hubby's for lunch tomorrow.  I'll have my Bunco team before long.

Today, 29 years ago I gave birth to my son David and I remember his birth like it was yesterday.  It was in the apartheid era and non-whites were not allowed in the white section of the hospital but my late husband wanted the best care for his wife and child and so he lied and said I was white on the admission form.  I was about to give birth when the staff realized I was non-white and they put me in a wheelchair to push me through to the non-white section but an Irish nurse piped up and said to the head nurse, 'why can't she just have her baby here and we'll push her through right after, else she's bound to give birth in the wheelchair."  They quickly put me back up onto the bed and David was born not long after that.  Meanwhile my late husband was arranging with the gynea, that I stay in a single room and only for a few days and it was allowed. And so it came about that we could stay in the white's only section of the hospital.  I know this has absolutely nothing to do with Abuja but at times like these I miss my family.  Birthdays were always special days even if I only baked a cake.  We could have a party with half a smarty.  I remember when he was about 5 or 6 and I asked him what goes 99 plonk, 99 plonk and he said "I don't know, tell me" and I said "a centipede with a wooden leg" and it cracked him up big time.  He's a daddy now, all grown up.  God bless him.