do you know joe cordaro?

Our friend here recently got in a fender-bender (he's okay).  Car accidents here are usually accompanied by a rushing of people to the car, and our friend's accident was no exception.  He said at least twenty people materialized and surrounded his vehicle, banging on the windows and pulling on the handles.  Then, all of a sudden, some random Nigerian knocked on the window and yelled, "Do you know Joe Cordaro?"

Our friend answered that he did know Joe Cordaro, to which the Nigerian indignantly replied, "He would not be acting like this!"

Joey can't think of whom would be involved in the post-crash riot, but our friend has already been enjoying himself quite a bit poking fun at Joey's newfound celebrity, sending texts like, "WWJD."

You can't make this shit up...

just a note

M. is getting married in a few months.  She took the afternoon off today so she could go file for some of the wedding paperwork.  Among the forms she has to file?  "Separation of Spinsterhood."

Oh, Naija.

zanzibar

Saturday morning we all piled in the Landcruiser with Ibrahim one last time.  In the middle of nowhere, he abrubtly stopped the car and said, “I have to go see a friend.”  He got out of the car and we all looked at each other and around the car – there wasn’t a soul in sight.  Who in the world could he need to see?  Then as Ibrahim walked behind a bush it became apparent that he just needed to relieve himself.  We laughed even harder when he came back to the car and told us, “He wasn’t there.”

Ibrahim dropped us off at the small Arusha airport, where Steve, Angela and I munched on French fries and Joey devoured a cheeseburger.   We all had a few beers and some Dramamine in anticipation of our flight.  Soon the gate agent collected us from the bar and took us through the small security area and out to the tarmac.  We walked to our itty-bitty, 12-passenger, propeller plane and I said a Hail Mary.

Walking to our plane. Oh God.

The pilot turned around and asked all the passengers to please not take pictures during take-off and landing because he had been hit in the head with a camera too many times.  Then he turned on his Garmin.  I said another.

The air in the cabin was stuffy and hot and once the wheels were up it felt as flimsy as a paper airplane.  Luckily the beer and the Dramamine knocked me out before a full-blown anxiety attack kicked in, and I woke up over the electric blue of the Indian Ocean.  It got even hotter in the plane before we landed in Zanzibar, but we landed so I didn't care that I'd almost soaked my shirt and my thighs were chaffing like crazy. 

Bargaining.  It's his new favorite sport.

A different representative from the safari company picked us up from the Zanzibar airport and drove us to Stone Town.  At first glance Stone Town is dirty, dilapidated, and oppressively hot and humid, but the warmth of the people and the eclectic Arab, Persian and Indian architecture quickly charms its visitors.  We spent the next two days wandering the little alleyways, visiting the markets and the famous Forodhani Gardens for fresh-caught seafood, admiring the impressively carved doors, eating some truly delectable meals and delighting in marvelous sunsets (both for the colors and the reprieve from the staggering heat).   Angela and I bonded over pedicures, we shopped and Joey entertained himself by bargaining for everything we bought.  One shopkeeper got so frustrated with my husband he threw his calculator across the alley.  Another asked him, “How long have you been in Stone Town?”  When Joey replied that he lived in Nigeria, the shopkeeper replied with an understanding, “Ooooooh.”  

Here's the link for all of my Stone Town pictures.

Monday morning we met our tour guide again for our transfer to the beach and stopped for a tour of a spice plantation along the way.  The young boy who climbed a fifty-foot coconut tree with his feet tied together and a knife in his mouth yet somehow managed to sing all the way was definitely the highlight.  Our guide told us all Zanzibarians learn how to climb the coconut trees, but once they turn 26 they may not climb anymore.  He also told us that Zanzibarian men may not eat nutmeg because they believe it makes them more prone to father daughters than sons.  And then he told us that he had always really wanted to marry a white woman, so he found his wife on the internet.  But not until he'd "dated" 180 white women from the internet first.  Many women flew to Zanzibar to meet him, but he sent them all away, especially the one with the club foot.  He saw her from afar and told his driver to tell her he was out of the country.  #youcan'tmakethisshitup.  

Here are all my Spice Tour photos.

We parted with Angela and Steve since we had separate beach accommodations and settled into a lazy and relaxing routine of not doing a whole lot of anything for the next five days.  The drastically changing tides, brazen red monkeys and many a book kept us entertained.  The seaweed and coral that surrounded our beach made it a little difficult to wander, but at low tide we were able to find our own tiny island paradise at a sand bank in the dazzling aquamarine waters.  Our last morning we commissioned a local fisherman named Captain Roger to take us out on his tiny little sailboat.  What a wonderful week.  

Only a few hours after our morning sail in the Indian Ocean we had dinner in Addis Ababa.  We tried a different traditional restaurant and chowed on the vegetarian sampler platter with lamb tibs.  The next morning it was back to real life when we boarded our flight to Abuja.

And of course, for the last of our pictures from Zanzibar and Addis, just click on their names.   

mt. kilimanjaro coffee tour

Upon landing at Mt. Kilimanjaro airport (whose peak was sadly concealed by thick cloud cover), we found the hotel hostle hovel shuttle and settled in for the 45 minute ride to Moshi and our room for the night.

I think I will write a separate post about how much I loved where we stayed.

Anyway, months earlier we'd signed up for a tour of a local coffee plantation.  Since our flight landed after noon, we only had a few hours of daylight and needed to hustle.  We got out of the shuttle at the um, place, dropped off our bags in our room and got in a different car headed toward the mountain.

Our young taxi driver took us through Moshi, the town from where most Kilimanjaro climbers begin their ascent, and wound his way up the base of the mountain and deeper into the bush. About five minutes past my comfort zone (which has arguably expanded significantly over the last 14 months), we finally pulled into what appeared to be an empty farm and were greeted by who was apparently our tour guide.

"Enjoy coffee tour"

He took us to a cabana, where he gave us an overview of what we'd see on the tour and asked if we'd like to have our traditional lunch now or after the tour.  We were both starving (weird), and asked if we could eat first.  So, naturally, that's when the cook began to prepare our lunch (I mean, it's not like we reserved the tour months ago and arranged what time we'd be there or anything.  Oh wait...).  As we sat and conversed awkwardly with our guide for the next hour, I couldn't help but wonder why we'd rushed to get here (I really should know better at this point).

Eventually, though, we were served our lunch of Pilau rice, bananas and a little bit of meat.  And banana soup.  None of it was particularly bad, just bland.  We finished our meal and sat, awkwardly, a little longer, as it began to sprinkle and the time ticked closer and closer to sunset.  Our guide finally decided he was ready to start the tour, and he led us into the bush.

We walked for at least ten minutes until the guide said anything.  At this point, I was fairly convinced the Tanzanian interpretation of tour meant, "we'll hike your ass all over this plantation," but eventually he began his spiel and we (Joey) made our own cup of coffee starting with the plant to the brew.

Step 1: Pick ripe, red beans from coffee tree.

Step 2: Peel red skin from coffee bean, leaving slimy residue.

Step 3: Use above contraption to rinse slime from coffee bean.

Step 4: Leave cleaned coffee beans out to dry

Step 5: Remove second skin from dried coffee bean using large mortar and pestle.

Step 6: Roast beans

Step 7: Grind roasted beans

Step 8: Add ground coffee beans to boiling water

Step 9: Strain grounds from coffee

Step 10: Enjoy your very fresh cup of coffee in a mud hut.

We also learned about all the different kinds of bananas grown in Tanzania, most notably, the kind they make into beer.  Naturally, the highlight of Joey's coffee tour was this liter of home-brewed banana beer.  He said it tasted something like flour and nothing like beer.

As delicious as that looked (and as convinced I was by the tour guide's reassurances that everything had been prepared hygienically), I decided to pass on the opportunity to drink bush beer.  I watched Joey get dysentery in Mexico and I was fairly certain I was watching him get it again.

But despite all my paranoia, Joey survived the beer and we survived the drive back to Moshi, and even arriving as the sun set.  Now all we had to do was survive the night at our hotel.

Click here for all of my pictures from our coffee tour.

a follow-up

The tailor of the confiscated fabric came over this weekend.  Let's call her B.  B. outsources embroidery to a different tailor whose workspace is located somewhere outside of Abuja.  Apparently the embroiderer set up in an illegal structure, so when the government came to tear down the shanty, they confiscated all of his fabric. 

What does it say about my life that after B. explained the story, I said, "Ooooh, that makes sense,"  because it totally did? 

Anyway, the two pieces B.'s working on for me needed some minor adjustments, so she's working on those.  I'll be sure to post my sweet new threads when they're finished.

two's company

Well, I made it through about one minute of my first Christmas song this season before the tears set in.  The plan was to set up the tree this weekend; maybe I'll feel less weepy after all the endorphins set in from my ten-mile run tomorrow morning.  In the meantime, Joey poured me a glass of red wine.

On a lighter note, I thought I'd share a funny story from a few weeks ago.  We celebrated Thanksgiving early, the Sunday before, since we'd be in Cape Town on the actual holiday.  Between the three couples, we had most of the necessary components of a Thanksgiving dinner, but we still had to do a little shopping. 

Grocery shopping in Abuja is kind of like a scavenger hunt; you never know what you're going to find or where you might find it.  All five grocery stores might have bean sprouts one week, but the following week when you want to make Pad Thai, bean sprouts are nowhere to be found.  So the day before our dinner, Joey, Lena and I made our way through four of the grocery stores in town in search of the various ingredients.  We were almost successful; we couldn't find cranberries, but we did manage to find a version of everything else.

Our last stop was the fruit and vegetable market we frequent, where we stopped to pay way too much for apples and buy some fresh herbs for the turkey.  We always visit the same stand; the little guy there calls us his customers and usually doesn't screw us too much on the prices.  Actually, the little guy, let's call him Abdul, is probably at least 30, but if it weren't for his teeth, you'd think he was about 12.

We parked the car by our regular stand, and Joey got out first.  Lena and I followed.  Abdul looked at Joey, then he looked at me, and then he looked at Lena.  He looked back at Joey, back at me, and then to Lena one more time.  Then Abdul's eyes grew as big as saucers and in his high-pitched voice he exclaimed:

"You have TWO wives?!"

Oh God.

We laughed hysterically, joked that yes, Joey has two wives, and then tried to explain that actually, no, Lena was not Joey's second wife.

Abdul was not to be persuaded.  He looked at me and said, "You are the Abuja wife."  Then he looked at Lena and said, "And you are from London!"  (London seems to be the only place that most people know outside of Nigeria - sufficiently far away I guess for his mind to reconcile why he'd never seen her before.)

Abdul was so excited we could hardly convince him to sell us produce.  He kept high-fiving and fist-bumping Joey and saying, "I want two wives!"

So Lena and I decided we are now sister wives.  I am the bush wife and she is the city wife.  Sounds like Joey's got a pretty good arrangement.   

things that make you go hmm

Our internet plan ran out today.  This happens about once a month, unless we download more than 5 GB of data.  But considering I'm trying download Picasa on our new laptop and the estimated time to download 76 MB is over one day (read: extremely.  painfully.  slow.), it's pretty hard to go through that much data.  Anyway, renewing the internet plan consists of counting out a little over $50 in little over $1 bills (the largest bill available the last time we got cash was 200 naira, which is about $1.25), walking down the dirt road to the shack built into the concrete wall, requesting "five - one five" cards and "one - five hundred" recharge card (because if you ask for 8000 they will tell you they don't have it), walking back down the dirt road and then scratching off each card (they look just like scratch-off lotto tickets) and entering each card's sixteen-digit code into the computer.  All for super-fast speed.  Or not...So that was my fun activity today.

Joey and I were invited to a wedding back in late August.  True to tradition here, we bought the fabric from the bride and contacted a tailor to make our outfits.  I ended up going home and missing the wedding, so the tailor only finished Joey's outfit.  We told her we'd pay her once my outfit was finished.  In October, when we still hadn't heard from the tailor, I called her and said I'd like to pay her for her work.  She told me she'd have everything finished within a week.  Today, the tailor called Joey.  She apologized for taking so long and told him that the government had seized my fabric.  She was too embarrassed to tell me before, but she'd gone to court and gotten it back, and assured him would have my outfit done by next week.  Um, ok?

On a different note, part of the reason I haven't been blogging is because I've been totally consumed by two major investment purchases.  First problem: a camera. Ever since Canon G11 v. African rain forest, I've needed a replacement.  (Lucky for me, my friend N. was generous and trusting enough to allow me to borrow her G11 for our trip to Cape Town.  I took good care of it.)  I figure now is as good an opportunity as any to upgrade to a D-SLR, but I cannot decide for the life of me what to buy.  Canon?  Nikon?  One of those new, slim, interchangeable lens cameras like a Pentax or Panasonic?  Do I buy the entry-level or shell out an extra $100 for the better entry-level model?  Or do I invest a little more so that in two years I don't need to replace this model?  Ugh.

Then there's the extra battery, the camera case, the memory card and the requisite waterproof camera for use when the humidity is above 10% because I'm a clumsy mess.  That's a good chunk of money.  My warranty should cover the rain-dominated G11, which I'm hoping is damaged beyond repair and will thus result in a new G12 that I can try to sell on Amazon or eBay and recoup some of the cost, but it's still a lot of money and so I want to make sure I'm making the right decision!  I have spent hours researching online and I'm pretty sure I'm even more confused than when I started.

Then lies the question of when I buy the camera(s).  Do I buy now during the post-Thanksgiving sales?  Or do I wait until after Christmas and risk the prices going up or the cameras going out of stock?  Dilemmas!

Problem number two: shoes.  We're planning a trip to Italy late January, and I don't have any good winter walking shoes and I can't decide what to buy.  Do I invest in a pair of leather riding boots?  I found a pair that  I love (Frye Melissa Button Boot - of course it doesn't hurt that the shoes have a great name - it's like a sign), but the soles are leather too and I'm worried about slipping and ending up on my butt (like Joey did yesterday when he fell in a manhole).  I'm also worried about wet weather ruining the leather, but the average precipitation is fairly low for January, and I'm sure I could buy a weather-proofing conditioner. Still, I don't want to invest in gorgeous leather boots only to have them ruined the first week.  

Then there's the issue of comfort - they're flat and have some measure of support, but they're not soft by any means.  And I'll be traipsing around cobblestone streets all day.

The worst part is that if I buy the boots, I have to break down and finally buy skinny jeans.  Ever since my charming husband helpfully told me in the dressing room of Banana Republic that, "those skinny jeans really emphasize your pear shape," I've had a hard time plunking down $100 bucks to emphasize my hips. Plus then I'd have to buy at least two pairs to justify the cost of the boots, and I've already tried ordering two different versions of the Levi's curvy skinny jeans.  This resulted in paying return shipping and being in an exceptionally bad mood all day.

So now I'm trying to decide if I should just buy the cute gray Converse wool sneakers and hope they'll be warm and supportive enough.  I mean, isn't it time for skinny jeans to go out of style already?   It's really quite the conundrum.

ordinary update

We just got back from an incredible four days in Cape Town.  I can't even begin to explain how much we loved it there, so I won't.  Yet.  My sister pointed out what I've been thinking for awhile - my blog has become more of a travel blog than about my every day life.  I'm not complaining about the travels; I'm certainly not going to stop blogging about them either, but I am going to try to give more frequent updates.  There's always a little funny story or quote I think, "I should blog about that," and then get side-tracked.  So that's the goal anyway...

Speaking of funny little quotes, once a week, M. makes us tuna salad for lunch (there are some perks to living in Nigeria).  Actually it's every Tuesday; I have a little spreadsheet with what she makes each day (yes, I love Excel and I know I am a nerd and I don't know why I felt the need to share that but then that gets into why I feel the need to share any of this shit and I don't feel like getting into that today.  I digress...).  Recently we ran out of the Costco tuna from our shipment, and that Monday as M. prepared to make our lunch, she asked Joey what she should use.  He pointed to the other brand of tuna on the shelf.

"But I thought that was chicken?"  M. asked.

Yes, M. is apparently channeling Jessica Simpson.  Either that or Chicken of the Sea needs to consider re-branding.

provence day 5: avignon

Papal Palace in the background

Thursday was our last day with Sujata, and we spent it in Avignon.  Every year, thousands of thespians descend on Avignon for its annual theater festival, with which our visit just happened to coincide.  Oh. Yay.  It was packed and the street performers weren't shy.  But I'd still return to Avignon, with its thick medieval ramparts, imposing papal palace, and shady plane trees, just not in the middle of July.

Really?

We spent the day the same as we'd spent the others.  Eating.  Drinking.  Shopping.  Wandering.  Joey and Sujata bemoaning my excessive photography habit.  By the end of the day when we deposited Sujata at the train station, we were sad to see her go, but I'm pretty sure she'd had enough of Joey's driving and my camera.  She'd made a great traveling companion over the last ten days, and hopefully she'll be willing to brave us again for another fun vacation.

Although it was Bastille Day, Joey and I were both tired and crabby, so we crashed back at the cottage.  The next morning we were up early to check-out; a simple process made infinitely more difficult by the language barrier and Vauvenargues' lack of ATM.  But everything worked itself out, we dropped off the rental car and boarded the first of many trains for the long trip to Santa Margherita Ligure. 
 

For all of my pictures from Provence, click here: https://picasaweb.google.com/100586084762366858227/Provence?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOODs5Kqwdzb6AE&feat=directlink

(Don't worry, I narrowed them down after we returned to Abuja).  

Here's the link for my Paris pictures too: https://picasaweb.google.com/100586084762366858227/Paris?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKC0h_HKh6CLFg&feat=directlink

when life gives you hot dogs... make pizza?

Our internet has been off and on, and it seems like whenever I want to blog its off.  Then it comes on and I have other things to do.  So this post is slightly disjointed and probably completely unnecessary.  Oh well.

It seems to have gotten a lot hotter in the last few weeks.  I mean its been hot since we got here, but Sunday was really the first day of super duper fry your ass on the concrete hot.  The Philippines held a Valentine's Day bazaar Sunday afternoon; we live within a reasonable walking distance and by the time we arrived Joey had soaked through his shirt and I had some really nice boob sweat going on.  But our unsightliness wasn't about to stop us from the smorgasbord of delicious Philippine cuisine.  That stuff is hard to come by around here so we ate a few months worth in about half an hour.  We also bought some raffle tickets - grand prize was a round trip ticket from Abuja to Manila, and since my friend Lauren just moved to Manila for the next several months for her job I figured it was meant to be that I'd win that ticket. Apparently not.

Anyway, I realize that I could have spent the last two months in the freezing cold of Des Moines or DC and that I'm probably not going to get much sympathy that its starting to get hot here, but its definitely gone from bearable to uncomfortable.  Nothing like sitting in the shade and dripping sweat.  Sexy.

This past Saturday we went to a Valentine's Day celebration at one of the local hotels.  They have a lovely rooftop patio and a Nepalese chef.  They served a huge buffet of Nigerian, Chinese, Indian and Thai dishes - no Pad Thai - but still pretty good. Its funny - its probably the ignorant American in me - but I thought Valentine's Day was just a commercialized American made-up holiday.  Not so.  Its a commercialized, international made-up holiday.  There were almost as many opportunities to waste money on Valentine's Day paraphernalia here as there are in the US. 

And speaking of Valentine's Day, it was a Happy Valentine's Day indeed.  We got the very best present you could ever ask for:

(Imagine it in your best "The Price is Right" announcer voice, because that is how excited we both were):

A new car!  Yeah baby, that's right, our car finally arrived!  The mere act of driving ourselves to dinner for Valentine's Day was romantic enough alone.  Which was a good thing, because when we got to the restaurant they were full (we didn't realize you actually had to make reservations in Abuja) and the host turned us away.  Luckily for us, some of our coworkers had originally planned to dine with another couple who cancelled, and so invited us to join their table.  Romantic, no.  Enjoyable, yes.  And I tried sweetbreads for the first time.  Not really by choice.  The restaurant serves a prix fixed menu and you eat what they put in front of you, which thankfully looked innocuous enough that I didn't need to ask what it was until the end the meal.   

Friday night we attended a play at the French Cultural Center.  The Jos Repertory Theatre performed "Madmen and Specialists," a play written by Wole Soyinka about the evils of war.  Cannibalism to be exact.  The play was a little heady and therefore hard to understand since much of the dialog was in Pidgen, but overall it was a very nice production and the outdoor venue was lovely.  Especially with the bottle of wine I stashed in my purse.  My only complaint is to the effectiveness of my bug spray. 


Two Saturdays ago we attended an Arts & Crafts fair.  We bought two paintings, one of which is apparently by a famous local artist, Ada Goodson.  We took both paintings to the framer and they're due next week; we're really looking forward to getting some color on our walls.

Anyway, that pretty much covers lately.  It actually rained once - which is a big deal here because its not supposed to rain at all between November and May.  We couldn't believe the downpour.   The best part was how clean and fresh everything seemed the next day.  Other than that, we've discovered some pretty decent restaurants and bars to keep us busy and learned that you have to check before you order pepperoni pizza.  Otherwise you may end up with cut-up hot dogs. 

who's the boss?

Greetings seem to be a very important part of Nigerian culture.  A series of questions and answers must be exchanged with each person whom you interact.  For example:  Joey: "Good morning."

Nigerian: "Good morning.  How was your night?" (He is asking Joey how he slept.)

Joey: "Good, and yours?"

Nigerian: "Good.  How was your wife?" (He is not asking about my performance.  He is inquiring about my health).

Joey: "Good.  How was your sister?"  Seriously.  In which context, sister usually means wife and Auntie is usually mother because you call your female boss your "ma."  And so it goes. 

Anyway, this morning I went to the snack cart for my coffee.  Me: "Good morning."

Gambo: "Good morning.  How is de boss?"

Me (one eyebrow raised): "Jordan?"

Gambo: "No!  Your husband!"

I'm sure no one needs to psychoanalyze how I felt about that.  Gambo also likes to tell Joey when I get order coffee cake from the snack cart.  "The madam got the peach cake," he tells Joey.  Thanks, tattletale.

According to my coworker in the office, "In Nigerian culture the 'usband is the alpha and the omega.  His wife must do anything he asks."  Hmm.  I think I'll just let that one go...

church - african style

Joey and I went to a Catholic Mass today - we think. 

One of the women who works for Joey invited us to her baby's baptism.  I have to admit, that baptism was unlike any other baptism I've seen.  First we had to get there.  The driver took us a short way out of town to a road just packed with people.  Joey asked him what was going on and he replied, "Church."  Oh.  That answers that.

So in the middle of the exceptionally colorful throng of people (they bring new meaning to the term, "Sunday Best;" they really go all out), the driver asked a passerby how to get to the Catholic Church.  He pointed to his right and we were conveniently directly in front of the gate.  So in we went to the Church's yard. 

We arrived slightly late (Dad - I swear that I was ready.  Seriously.  The driver picked us up late.  Ask Joey, he'll vouch for me.) and as the usher (as denoted by his green embroidered sash) started walking us up the pews I was horrified we'd be marched to the front (A coworker of Joey's told us a story of a wedding she attended where she was seated in front of the bridal party).  Luckily, we avoided the same fate and took a seat in the back of the church.  The very crowded and very un-air-conditioned church.  With more broken ceiling fans than not.  Anyway, the church was quite simple - one long rectangular room with plywood beams underneath a tin roof.  Small windows punctuated the walls, allowing a much-needed breeze not nearly often as I would have liked.  The Stations of the Cross along the walls ironically chronicled a very white Jesus and his apostles. 

We settled into the pew (actually I settled into the pew with Joey's boss - he settled into a white plastic chair over by the window - lucky) after the opening prayers for the readings.  First reading - nothing out of the ordinary.  Begin the responsorial psalm.  As typical for a Catholic Mass, the reader read the refrain and the congregation repeated it.  Then she sang the refrain.  Okay. 

You know that scene from The Little Mermaid where the lobster says "Cue the drums" and all of a sudden the tropical music starts to play?

All of a sudden there's some great African music and the responsorial psalm is taken to a whole new level.  Everybody's singing, the music is playing - sure its hot in here but I can dig it.  So then we have the second reading and get a repeat performance for the Alleluia.  Then they let the priest have the microphone.


"You.      are de light.       of de world.

A ceedy.     set.  on a hill.
CANNOT.
be hid.....

...Let yoooooouuur light so
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE
before men. 
Dat dey may see your good works.

And give

GLORY.
to your FATHAH.
who is. in. HEAVEN."

Very inspirational, I thought.  And clearly, he likes to hear himself talk.  An hour later he finished his homily.  Not like its hot in here or anything.  Guess God just made up for all those times I've missed Mass in the last few months.

I'll give him this - the homily was anything but dry.  He covered it all.  He talked for a while.  Then he sang.  Then he read.  Then he did one of those things where he'd say "Jesus" and the congregation would say "Is the Light of the World."  Repeatedly.  Then he talked some more.  Then he sang with the drums.  Then he talked some more.  He walked up and down the aisle.  He danced.  He asked questions that even the congregation assumed were rhetorical and then said "I would like a volunteer."  He talked about childbirth and labor pains.  And interviewed a woman in the parish about it.  Finally, I have to admit, I stopped listening.  I'm pretty sure he switched to one of the local languages to say something and I zoned out because I was more focused on not passing out from heatstroke.

So finally we move on to the offeretory hymn.  Where they pass the basket.  Well actually that's what they do at every other Catholic Mass I've been to.  Here everybody gets up out of their seat and brings their offering to the altar.  To the music.  And then everybody claps.

Then it was time to kneel.  The man next to me, upon noticing that I was Catholic, was kind enough to share his bulletin with me.  He placed his on the wooden plank of a kneeler and knelt on it, and so I followed suit.  Ow.  I mean, I get that that's kind of the point - Jesus died for us and we kneel down during the part where the bread becomes the body.  But we wimpy American Catholics kneel on padding.  Not so in this little church.  I made it about three minutes before I had to sit.  I thought my knee pads were going to bore through my skin into the wood.

So eventually we sing the "Our Father" to the African beat (honestly probably one of my favorite renditions), and we're on to Communion.  The churchgoers just kind of filed up randomly - there wasn't really any order to the line and so I figured I'd go when the guy next to me went.  Well he didn't go.  So neither did I.  Hmm.

Then we figure its time for the baptism.  The woman who invited us came over and escorted us from our pew outside, where a  large group of people has congregated.  She thanked us for coming, introduced us to her mother, her husband, her friends, and then instructed us to walk with her.  So she starts down the aisle with her baby, her mother, her husband, her friends, and us - the three white people.  The music is playing, the beat is going - and this procession is dancing down the aisle.  So eventually the whole group gets to the altar where the priest is dancing - with a squirt bottle.  He is spritzing everyone with high-powered Holy Water.  As Joey walks past the priest and gets squirted with his third spray of Holy Water I lose it and break into a fit of giggles.  Luckily, we're still processing (most are still dancing) and we made our way back to the pews. 

After the first person gave his ten minutes of announcements and the second started in, we snuck out.  Not that we were very conspicuous to begin with or anything.

Our driver told us we were the first to ever attend anything like that for the local staff.  I'm honored that we were invited and glad that we had the chance to go - but next time I think we'll have to get there early.  And under a fan.  That works.

random

How does this happen?  This is my first experience with ice trays.

This is called a "garden egg."  Much like an eggplant, not as bitter.  Nigerians eat it raw - our driver told us it works as a digestive.  I would recommend cooking it.  Quite good sauteed with peppe (spicy ground chili pepper here).

Giant leaf bug outside our house.  Shudder.

Giant lizard outside our house.  Shudder.

Here's the link for more lovely photos from Abuja:http://picasaweb.google.com/100586084762366858227/NigeriaSoFar?authkey=Gv1sRgCPq50_Td78nuUg&feat=directlink