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.

Last night a note was pushed under the door saying fumigation of apartment will be done from 8 till 12 on Monday 10 July.  Not long after another one was pushed under the door saying fumigation will be done from 8 till 12 on Tuesday 10 July.  I couldn't possibly stay in the apartment while it was being fumigated so I decided to pluck up my courage and spend the day out and about.  Our driver dropped John at work and then took me to The Hilton.  I took my time to browse all the floors and made note of all the shops there and what the restaurants had to offer.  Wednesday night is steak night at Fulani Pool Restaurant and we're sure to check out that one.  After about half an hour of browsing inside and outside, I went to The Pastry Shop and had a cappuccino and a very large slice of Black Forest cake, yummy.  The driver fetched me at The Hilton at 12h00 and dropped me at the Silverbird Mall.  I need to find sundried tomatoes and I was hoping to get some there but unfortunately it is a newish mall and still very unoccupied with no supermarket as yet.  Not sure if one is planned for that mall. It has four levels and I had a lot of time to kill so I walked around on each floor.  There wasn't much to see but it had movie theatres on the fourth level and I bought a ticket for a movie called "Brave" at 14h30.  It's an animated movie about a royal family in Scotland that nearly gets destroyed because of the daughter's selfishness.  As it was only 12h45, I decided to have some lunch first.  I'd joined Internations and my first question had been where to find good coffee and a number of people came back recommending Bunna Cafe, so I decided to have lunch there.  The coffee at The Hilton had been good but the coffee at Bunna Cafe, definitely better.  I had a smoked chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato, another cappuccino and a tropical fruit smoothie.  I chose a seat at the window so I could sit and watch what was going on outside.  Just across the road I saw a number of mudhuts and asked my waiter what they were and he said that it was an arts and culture village.  I absolutely love the dresses the women wear here and I want one.  My next visit will be to the village, hopefully with my new friend Doreen who I'm meeting on Friday for the first time and hopefully I'll get my dress there too.  I also want to visit the public library and spend some time there.  I am itching to take photos but I'm so scared.  I asked our driver this morning if I could take a picture of the biggest mosque I've ever seen.  We were told that the massive dome is made of solid gold.  It is awesome ,but he said that I couldn't take the picture for security reasons.  John's colleague spent some two hours in police custody for taking photos, so I'll pass on that.  I think I did well on my first day out and about in Abuja.  It felt good.

Still no car in sight.  Guy from Avis came and gave us a quote.  Now we wait for approval from the powers that be.  I think I'm going slowly nuts sitting in this apartment all day when there are places to go and people to meet but after hearing the horror stories of abductions, I suppose I'll opt for insanity.

Visited the brand new Shoprite yesterday and shopped till we dropped.  I never thought I'd shop at a Shoprite again but that's why never say never right? They had most of the things I needed but I couldn't find sundried tomatoes anywhere.  I asked for some lamb and they chopped up that lamb just any which way.  I'm not sure it is indeed lamb, it might be goat.  Anyway we're having Lamb Rogan Josh for supper. I wonder what I'll get if I should ask for lamb chops. 

After carrying it all up two flights of stairs and unpacking, it was nearly time for mass.  This time we went to Holy Trinity, which is a stone throw away from our apartments.  The trip still cost us NGN4000, there and back.  At least our driver also got a chance to go to mass.  We'd just had communion when there was a power failure, which is a common thing here, and had to wait about 5 or 10 minutes for the generators to kick in.

They hadn't done an inventory of our apartment yet and I mentioned that most of the crockery was chipped.  I got a brand new set right away. That's the only good thing I can think of for today.  It doesn't help that hubby heard that they might want to keep him here longer. 

So now the time has come for us to get our own car from either Avis or Hertz.  Hubby started phoning these companies last night with no joy.  He called Hertz and left a voice message, so far nobody has replied.  He then called Avis and a guy answered and said that he was driving and would call back.  He never did.  This morning hubby calls him again and he says he's not available right now but would give him his colleague's contact details.  He sms's the details through and hubby phones the number and all he hears is The Our Father being said.  We don't know if this is a voicemail or what.  I feel another challenge coming up. It costs us NGN2000 per hour everytime we use a taxi to go anywhere. So as hubby gets ready to leave for work this morning I wish him a great day and tell him that I hope that one of the car companies will get back to him.  He responds by saying, "ja, else I'll have to call them again and maybe I get a Hail Mary this time."  Thank God we still have our sense of humor.

This morning on our way to breakfast we met up with this guy doing pushups. They move their bodies up and down in order to gauge the level of danger.  If you come too close, they stop doing pushups and scurry into the nearest bush. 

Haven't had much excitement today.  I've been a real Lotus eater , just lazing about but realizing I can't do this every day for the next two months, I've decided to join a Meetup group again. 

Just heard a loud boom.  There's a lot of speculation on Internations about whether is was a bomb blast or thunder.  Didn't sound like thunder to us.  Seems to be a blast opposite Park N Shop, one of the biggest supermarkets in Abuja. 

When we first negotiated moving into the apartment, we had to pay everything up front but we couldn't as they didn't accept credit cards only cheques which we didn't have as we didn't have Nigerian bank accounts.  I did a telegraphic transfer from our bank in Singapore to the bank in Nigeria and it was rejected because Standard Chartered does not have an agent to convert Sing Dollar to Niara.  We found this out this morning at 2am Nigerian time, 9am Singapore time when we phoned our bank in Singapore to ask why the transfer had rejected.  On the day I did the transfer, I emailed Standard Chartered and the customer care centre sent me a reply to confirm that I could transfer Sing Dollar to their bank.  So now we're stuck.  We might be out on the street by tonight.  It's gonna be a looooong Monday.  Why must everything be so difficult?

To top it all I found the mother of all cockroaches on the floor just inside the main door.  Good thing he was already on his back but his legs were still moving so I gave him another shot of the old Mortein odourless and kicked him out the door.  He's still lying where I kicked him so very rudimentary cleaning gets done on the weekend.

I now have to use bottled water for everything.  Yesterday I cooked some Irish Stew and rice.  For the first time ever, I cooked rice in the microwave.  If I had cooked it in a pot, like I usually do, I would need bottled water to cook it in and then bottled water to rinse it with.  Then I had another challenge.  My microwave sits on top of the fridge and I have to reach up over my head to get things in or out.  I decided to climb onto a chair but I need both hands to climb off a chair so how to take the rice out of the microwave without getting burnt or breaking something?  Ask hubby to do it. Always knew I needed one for something, now I know why. Note to self - get a little table for microwave. I can just imagine getting something boiling hot out there and tipping it over my face, not a happy thought.

During the week I googled catholic churches close to us and found The Holy Rosary Catholic Church.  I made note of the address and times of mass.  We decided we'd do the evening mass.  In the meantime hubby had heard from a taxi driver that the one closest to us was the Holy Trinity so earlier this evening we leave for mass both thinking we're heading for The Holy Rosary where mass was at 17h30 when we were instead on our way to Holy Trinity where mass was at 6.  So it's 17h30 and hubby says "there's nobody here and it's 17h30 already.  Then we realize we're at the wrong parish, hop into the taxi again and arrive at the church half way through the gospel reading, eish. It felt kind of weird as we got a lot of stares.  Only later I realized all the women had a covering of some sorts on their heads and I had none.  Maybe that was the reason for the stares.  It was also really difficult to understand the priest.  Suppose I'll get used to the accent eventually.  Security was very strict.  My bag was searched and hubby had to take everything he had out of his pockets which made us even more late.

I am thankful that we could join this community and celebrate mass. 

The new apartment was great except the bathroom door creaked really badly and so I asked if they could do something about that which they promptly did but at the same time they noticed something wrong with the main door and decided to fix that as well. We had this long list of shopping items to get, so we called the driver to fetch us and take us to the new Shoprite but we did this before the maintenance guys noticed anything wrong with the front door.  So the driver arrives and Bataleur goes off with him to get an MTN modem as the Airtel one was too slow while I baby sat the fixing of the front door.  The guy hammered and screwed and eventually took the whole door off it's hinges and planed and went crazy.  In the meantime I'm biting my nails wondering when he'd be done as the driver was coming back to get me so we could go to Shoprite.  I seriously needed to cook something.  I had my Wanna be Chef apron out already.

After about an hour and a half, Bateleur calls to tell me that they're waiting for me downstairs.  The guy quickly finished putting in some screws and then he had to sweep up the wood filings, taking so long.  It's like time works differently here.  There is no rush.  It takes some getting used to.  Our lives are such a rush always. Anyway, so we head out to Shoprite on a Saturday morning when all of Abuja is out on the road.  I took a photo of the traffic but it could be bad traffic anywhere so useless to post but believe me it was bad.  I didn't think it could get worse.  In the meantime the plan had changed as we found out there is also a Spar here.  It was great walking into Spar, almost like being home till you get to the fresh food section.  Even so, we ended up shopping so much, we didn't have enough cash, so Bateleur goes off to get some NGN3000.  About 10 minutes later he's back and I'm just so relieved that his back cause it's quite embarrassing to stand at the till with too little money.  The packer who had gone with him to show where the ATM was had borrowed him the money and we had to give it back to him.  So we pack up everything in the car and off he goes again to the nearest ATM only to find it had no cash.  We learnt another lesson on Saturday.  Most ATM's won't have cash on the weekend which was proved by the second ATM also not having cash.  In the meantime the driver had borrowed us the money to pay the packer so now we had to pay the driver.

We eventually got some cash at an ATM at one of the hotels and could pay our debt.  I'd asked the girl at the till at Spar where I could find fresh veggies and she told me to go to some market, I forgot the name.  I remembered it yesterday though, as I asked the driver to take me there. OH MY WORD, the traffic there was even worse as everybody was on their way to this market.  I managed to get some fresh green beans, carrots and green peppers, little tiny ones.  I wanted pumpkin, but I don't think they have pumpkins here.  I did see some butternut in Spar but they were all wrinkled up.  The drive back to our apartment didn't take long, thank goodness as by that time I just wanted to be in the apartment with no sound of hooters around me.

I remembered one very funny thing that happened on Fri when we went to Airtel to get modems.  Hubby and I had had a tiff and weren't on speaking terms.  So Richard, one of the workers at the apartments, so kindly gave us a lift to Airtel with his car.  Richard has long legs so there's only the tiniest little space between his seat and the back seat and I, silly me, gets in on the other side and hubby with his long legs has to get in behind Richard.  I wish I'd taken a photo of that, it was the funniest thing.  I knew he would be even more mad at me but I burst out laughing at the sight of his knees all squashed up.  I did ask if he wanted us to change seats, but he was too mad at me to wanna do that and preferred sitting all squashed up.

Thursday we moved out of the hotel without having booked another place to stay.  We planned on moving to an apartment and were busy negotiating but they wanted us to pay for our stay up front and they only accepted cheques, no credit cards.  I asked if I could do an internet transfer and they said ok.  If I could do the transfer and email proof of payment we could move in.  We moved in that same day after a hectic search for a SWIFT code to do the electronic transfer.  We were told that we were in a temporary apartment as the one they wanted us to have wasn't ready yet.  We moved to our new apartment on Thurs morning.  Other than a smell of gas, which they immediately came to check out by using dishwashing liquid mixed with some water, all went ok until night fell, then all hell broke lose.  Unbeknown to us there is a nightclub just across the road and they started blasting music out there until about 8h30 Fri morning.  Needless to say, we got very little sleep.  We requested another apartment and so I had to pack everything in the suitcases again and we moved to hopefully our last apartment.  It's really nice but has no oven, which might call for one more move, if an apartment with an oven becomes available.

We both had our bouts of diarrhea, as we were told to expect.  Bataleur had some serious cramps but I gave him some immodium and he seems to be ok now.

Today we ventured out to the Airtel office to get connected.  It reminded me a bit of Singapore as you get a number as you enter.  Richard, one of the employees at the apartment, gave us a lift but because we had to wait a while to be served, he left us there.  It was within walking distance back.  While we were sitting there we realized we didn't have enough Niara, so I suggested we call the driver to take us to a money changer and then bring us back to Airtel. We did that and got all the modems and airtimes we needed but when we got outside, our driver had vanished.  So we walked back to the apartment, plugged in our modems and neither of us could connect.  We called customer service and they told me to change my profile name and it still wouldn't work.  They told Bataleur he needed an updated version of something on his modem. Then they said we must take both our laptops and modems into their offices again tomorrow.  We asked if there was a waiting period after the registration of the modems and they said no, we should be able to connect right away.  So we decided to watch a movie, got peckish and ordered in some samosas. OMW, I hope I don't die of food poisoning after eating them.  They were obviously cooked in fifty-times re-used oil as they were very dark but I had such a craving for something not out of a tin.  Then we tried connecting again and voila, both worked.

It's 2am and I cannot sleep.  A mosquito bite woke me and I had to hunt it down first before I could sleep again and now my sleep is all gone.  I found and killed the mosquito and noticed another visitor crawling on the headboard, a cockroach, now I don't think I'll sleep comfortably in this bed ever again. So now I'm wondering how the mosquito got in.  We never open the sliding door and we never leave our door open and then I noticed a sliver of light from the passage at the bottom of the door so I fetched a towel in the bathroom and stuck it in there.  Hopefully no more mozzies can come into the room now.  Note to self - get mosquito repellant for hotel room.

Now that I'm up I might as well tell the cupboard story.  When we first arrived at the hotel, the cupboard doors, which runs on rails, wasn't working properly.  The doors were continuously getting stuck.  We complained and they sent a maintenance guy who hammered in some nails for the door to run through.  Bataleur had mentioned to the maintenance guy that his wife could not move the cupboard door so this guy fixes one door and then Bataleur asks him about the other door and he says, "this one is fixed now, you're wife can use this one".  This morning I tried to open the cupboard and it's stuck, so we removed both doors.  They come rather late to make-up the rooms.  So at about 14h30 or so, the cleaning guy waltzes in and sees the doors and says, "this is dangerous" and he asks me if he should remove them.  I told him that somebody had come to try and fix them but they are still not working properly.  He gets on the phone and soon another maintenance man arrives and he actually gets the doors to work properly.

Then we needed a Nigeria to South Africa adapter to charge the computer and once again we phone and very soon a guy knocks on the door presenting us with an adapter.  We were astonished as things normally takes a while to appear.  He gives us the adapter and says we can have it so Bateleur, ever so impressed with this service, goes to get the guy a tip but just before he gives it to him decides to check if the computer plug fits into the adapter and it doesn't. So off the guy goes without his tip and fetches us an extension lead and it's perfect so Bateleur asks if we may have that one and the guy says "no, I know that one works, you may only borrow it".  He got his tip but we locked the lead in the safe, as they fetch things out of the room when we're not here, like the ironing board.  I ordered an ironing board and an iron.  After about 30 minutes Bateleur phones to say I'd phoned half an hour earlier and we still have no iron and board.  So they tell him that he must understand that they have to get it out of another room and then get it to us.  4 Star indeed.  I got my ironing board and iron but then only had enough time to do one shirt with another 4 to go so I left them on the ironing board.  When we came back the un-ironed shirts were on the unmade bed and the ironing board and iron was missing. I called for another and just resigned myself to another long wait.  The equipment that eventually came should have been on a scrapheap somewhere.  The iron was leaking and the ironing board had a dirty, stinky, very thin cover. 

Last night we went to the Italian Restaurant for a cup of coffee, before leaving for the Oriental Chinese Restaurant at the Hilton.  We sat outside and listened to the birdsong.  The lights were on and it definitely makes the hotel look better.  I felt like I could live here.  Amazing what a few lights can do.

Monday morning in Abuja and we need to get connected.  My mother is most probably having a mini heart attack wondering if we are ok.  So we go down to the concierge who tells us we might get some at the little shop at the hotel.  Nothing is easy here, so of course they don't have.  Then she tells us to walk down the road a bit until we see two guys sitting under an umbrella and we'd be able to buy some sim cards there.  We started walking and I said to Bataleur that we hadn't announced ourselves to the embassy, what if we got kidnapped or something, so we turn back.  Back at the hotel, the concierge tells us that it's not far to walk and it's quite safe, so off we go again but with one of the hotel staff to guide us.  After about 15 mins walk we get to the two red umbrellas.  They tell us to sit down but as we arrived I noticed two guys with big guns sitting there.  So now we're trying to look at anything other than these two with the guns so I decide to watch the traffic while Bataleur negotiates.  They didn't have micro sims so the guy decides to cut them to fit our Iphones and he cuts them all wrong.  By that time they'd already registered them to our name, so we had to cough up the dough and leave with sim cards that didn't work.  I managed to cut mine some more and got it to work. Bataleur's one was to far gone and he just cut right through it, NGN500 down the drain. 

Traffic here is nightmarish.  While Bataleur was buying the sim cards, I sat and watched the traffic as I said earlier.  There are no rules.  It seems if you want to make any kind of turn or overtake you just blow your hooter.  So you have the sound of hooters going all the time.  Then there were two lanes, one for incoming traffic and the other for outgoing which was fine but the incoming came from left and right and a car breaks down right at the junction.  So now everybody has to manouvre around the broken down car and then to top it all a tiny guy starts pushing a wheelbarrow laden with wood up the road and stops right opposite the broken down car to unload some wood as it was too heavy to push up the hill.  A lot of honking happened there and some cars decided to divert over the pavement.  It was classic, I just had to laugh. 

One good thing - At least nobody tried to rob the sim card guy else we would've been in the middle of a gunfight.  Oh and the hotel looks really good at night with the lights on, very pretty. Almost forgot to mention that it is the loneliest time for me when I can't chat to my family and friends.  I have no idea how I managed before without the internet and WhatsApp.  Well I know, I didn't travel then so most probably didn't need it but that first few days in a foreign place with no connection, is the pits.  I'm so happy to be able to chat to everybody again. That's one major good thing, at least we could get connected even in Abuja.

We had to get up early on Sunday morning for our flight to Abuja.  6am is very early for us as friends and family will know.  We'd packed up everything again the night before and so, only needed to check-out of the hotel and have a quick breakfast.  The driver was to collect us at 6h45.  He arrived on time and we left for the airport.  The night before it was dark when we traveled to the hotel, now we were traveling in daylight and I'm not sure if this was a good or a bad thing. We got to see more of Nigeria but it was not a good sight.  At one point we were driving behind this van with flashing red and green lights.  It looked quite festive but as we passed him we noticed corpses lying in the back one of whose arm was hanging out and swaying as the vehicle moved.  Our driver explained that this van picked up these corpses on the highways and took them to the mortuary for identification.  They don't have id's here so not sure how they identify them.

When we arrived at the airport, our driver told us not to answer anyone who asks us where we're going but to move straight to the counter for Arik Air.  When the car stopped about half a dozen guys rushed to it.  Our driver was very good and assigned one of them to take our luggage and we followed him into the "terminal" which was a makeshift building more like a massive gazebo.  By the time we arrived in the terminal this one guy had morphed into three.  While two of them guarded our luggage, the other took our passports and got our luggage booked in.  His fee for all of this was NGN7000.  We only had NGN5000 and he seemed to be satisfied with this, promising he would make right with the guys who guarded our luggage.  They looked very sad, so I'm sure they saw none of it.

Then the long wait again before boarding at 9h15.  Bateleur looked through the window and saw a McDonnell Douglas standing outside and he said "hope that's not our one".  About a week or two before we had to fly out, one of them crashed into apartments soon after take-off and about 159 people were killed.  Oh happy day.  I started saying my prayers and telling God to please take my soul and Bateleur's in case he forgot, if we should die today.  When we finally boarded we were happy to see that it was a Boeing.  Then they separated us as we had to be body searched before boarding.  Flight was good and we eventually arrived at our destination.  What a short-lived relief as we were stopped just before entering the gates as the armed guard needed to check our luggage.  Bateleur got out to open the bags but the guard told him to get back in.  He needed to scan our bags while another guard walked around the vehicle with a mirror to check underneath the car.

I decided to blog about our trip to Nigeria to find some good things.  So far I've mentioned quite a few bad things but on the good side, the guards are very security aware which makes me feel a lot safer in the hotel.  The people are friendly and helpful and the women's dresses are beautiful.  I wish I could have one.  I wish I could take photos but Bataleur's colleague was actually taken into police custody for taking photos of a church and mosque, so I'm very careful.  He had to erase them all and he even had to write an apology letter. They do have beautiful buildings.

What a day we had yesterday, well everyday since we heard our visas had finally been approved which was last Wednesday.  Then we had to rush to get last minute things done, flight tickets had to be booked, travel insurance arranged, collection at airports to hotels in Nigeria arranged, things put into storage and we were still 7kg over the limit at Lagos. By the time we got onto the plane at Cape Town International, we were finished.  The flight was two hours to OR Tambo International airport and then about six and a half to Lagos.  So by the time we got to Lagos, we were even more tired and dreading what we would still have to endure before reaching our hotel.  After waiting in the longest queue that took forever to move, we finally managed to get through immigration.  Then we had another wait for our luggage.  In the meanwhile we tried to get a trolley for our luggage and was told to pay NGN200.  We waited a while and got an older version trolley free of charge and then had to pay the NGN200 to the customs officer anyway.  Just another day in paradise.  We were very happy to find the designated driver outside, not so happy when he started driving.  Nothing wrong with his driving but there are no lights on the road sand no lines demarcating lanes at first and then there were some lines but still no lights.  They are allowed to drive 100 miles per hour but there are traffic cops checking out for reckless driving.  What can be more reckless than driving at those speeds on roads like these.  Anyway we were happy again when we got to the hotel, The Southern Sun, so quickly.  Apparently it can take up to 3 hours in peak traffic. After a quick supper, we jumped into bed as we had to get up early next morning for the last leg of our trip, Lagos to Abuja.

Another step closer.  We've found tenants for our apartment in Singapore.  We'd only finished 9 months of our two year contract and would be breaking our lease, standing to lose a substantial amount if we didn't find a tenant on time. Now to sort out taxes and contracts on phones and tv, with one week to go. Relocating is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Our journey from Singapore to Abuja, Nigeria started today.  All our wordly goods were packed up to be shipped to Johannesburg South Africa where we will live if we survive Abuja.  I couldn't help but think that this may be the last time I see these things.  I've read and heard so many bad things about this place that I decided to do a blog.  Surely there must be something good to say about Abuja.  We will be living there till the end of August and I will constantly be on the lookout for something good to say about Abuja.