Building Construction

In a country where labor is inexpensive many things are done by hand that in Europe or America would be done mainly by machines.  Home construction here is a very human intensive event.  Just about everything is made from concrete.  Walls are made from made from concrete blocks.  The blocks are made onsite using sand, cement, gravel, and water.  The mixture is poured into forms and either manually pounded to prevent air gaps or made using a small machine.  The blocks are set out to dry on the construction site and when they have enough blocks they will start a wall.  The load bearing walls are made much like everywhere else, steel rebar is used to provide strength and wood forms are created to give the general shape of the building. As the walls go up, elaborate supports made from bamboo and some metal scaffolding are built to hold forms for the floors in place.  

In what can only be described as an amazing feat of humanity, the way concrete floors are poured is something to behold.  Almost everything is done by hand, the only piece of machinery is one mixing drum.  Everyone has a 5 gallon bucket.  The sand, concrete, water, and gravel are scooped by hand into the bucket and thrown into the mixing drum.  From there a line of people wait with their bucket to be filled with wet concrete.  They put the bucket on their head which I would guess weighs about 50 pounds (23 kg).  We saw people working on the 4th floor of a building this weekend, so that meant that they had to carry these buckets of concrete up wooden ramps to the top, drop their load and then walk back down again.  There were between 50 - 75 people, men and women both, carrying concrete to pour this 1,500 sq foot (140 sq meter) floor.  The floor must be finished in one "pour" for strength so they work from sun up until till the floor is finished, sometimes well into the night.  We passed by at 8:30 pm and they were still hard at work.  I really can't fathom how tired you must be after doing that for 14 hours straight! 

In general the daily wage here is 1,000 Nair (about $6).  A week's worth of groceries for a family of 4 is about 5,000 Naira.  The pay for a day's labor doing this is around 2,500 Naira.  This is well above the average daily wage but this is work that will age you quicker than most any other job.  I truly admire the hard work these people do in order to feed their families and send their children to school.  A few weeks ago we saw a truck with a concrete crew of about 15 women, 4 men, and a cement mixer at 10 o'clock at night.  They had just finished work and were headed home, with any luck they would make it there by midnight.

The Flower Man

Last week, as a special treat, Joe took me to buy plants for our patio.  I love plants and actually recognized some of what is commonly grown here as it is similar to south Texas.  We went to The Flower Man.  His business is along a major road and the land was given to him by the government.  The land can only be used as a plant nursery, no buildings can go on it.  He was very knowledgeable and helpful.  He told me that most plants have a medicinal purpose.  And as he ate the leaf of a hibiscus plant explained that it could be used to help with male infertility.  He said the leaves could be used to make a tea but then he started talking about Palm Wine to go with it.  Now I have not tried Palm Wine but it is apparently the Nigerian version of moonshine.  So perhaps little of the liquid courage to go with the hibiscus tea?  

Joe asked if we could take his photograph.  He was very nice and let us, posing by the plant of his choosing.  He asked us to bring back and copy of the photo for him.  So when we go back to purchase more plants, as I'm sure we will, we will take the photo to him.

After wandering around looking at the plants we purchased a hibiscus, bougainvillea, and a couple of others I am trying to identify...if only I had my plant books.  He told me how to plant the bougainvillea, as the roots are very sensitive to a change in environment.  Now I just need to find the pots and some extra soil in which to plant them.

This bougainvillea "tree" was amazing...

Market Photos

Last Friday I went with Godwin to pick Joe up from work.  Before we got to the office we drove through the main market in downtown Lagos.  Please forgive the quality as the photos were taken from inside a moving vehicle.  The fact that some of them came out at all is a miracle!  (Also, I am just learning how to incorporate photos into the blog.)

The yellow vehicle is called a K K Matowa here.  It is a little three wheeled car used as a taxi for short distances.

Motorcycle taxis are called Okadas.  They are a inexpensive form of transportation, but dangerous with so much traffic.  Some states have outlawed them completely.

This photo is my favorite because it shows the most commonly eaten food here, yams.  They are the large tubers in the center and far right of the photo.

Back to the beginning...Jen travels to Lagos

The next stop in our adventure takes us to Lagos Nigeria.  I arrived the evening of 20 April 2012.  For a number of reasons Joe come a month earlier, which had its advantages; the apartment was moved into, the driver had been worked out, there was wine in the fridge.  But before I got on the plane I had to close out our home of 4 years in Aberdeen.  I had packed all that I could fit into 3 bags which became 4, which became 5 bags plus a pile of stuff left in Aberdeen and set out for Lagos.  A very nice but way way out of shape taxi driver helped me load, unload, stack, and roll down the ramp all five large bags plus my carryon.  I have never traveled with so much luggage and I was doing it alone.  Chivalry may be dead but lucky for Joe he wasn't there because he may have been too. 

I was there early (Joe would not be surprised), first in line.  Everything was checked in without any trouble.  It was unsurprisingly overcast as I looked out the airplane window to fly to Amsterdam to make my connecting flight to Lagos.  I think it was at the gate in Amsterdam that it really hit me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  The KLM announcement for priority boarding began a free for all that was less line and more triangle for everyone could to push their way on to the plane. 

The flight over the Sahara was amazing!  It looked like a big sand box that someone had drawn in with a stick to make hills.  And you would occasionally see a group of trees, especially along a river.  All was going well until they announced that we were on our approach for Lagos.  That's when my panic attack started in full force.  Joe had told me to follow another European person who looked like they had done this before...but I was supposed to be one of the first off of the plane.  Um that won't work for me, everyone else can go first, the flight attendant couldn't understand why I wasn't departing.  Much to the relief of Joe and the flight crew I did get off of the plane, but don't think the thought didn't cross my mind to stay on the plane.  Following closely behind my designated experienced traveler I entered the "everyone else" line at immigration.  There are 3 immigration desks and I'm not sure but I think the sole purpose of the 2nd one is to make you stand in an additional line because all she did was hand it to the 3rd person.  From there I was off to find my mountain of luggage.  Luckily I was given a very nice porter who with the two trolleys helped me find all of the bags.  With that much luggage and a look of please don't stop me I was a prime target for the lady from Customs who wanted to know what was in all of the luggage and how long I had been in Nigeria.  Maybe it was the look on my face or the fact that I said it was my first time entering the country she gave me the free pass to go on... she did this by looking away in a "are you still here" sort of way.   Then a nice man asked to see my yellow fever vaccination card. 

Meanwhile the very nice porter was talking me through all of this, I'm sure my nervousness and fear were obvious in almost humorous (to everyone but me) proportions.  Finally we were through the exit and the porter finds the company representative that was there to meet me.  I gave the porter a $2 tip (which to be clear is the daily wage in Nigeria is $5.80) and he hurried back to see if he could help another person.  Joe was there about 2 minutes later and the luggage train made its way to the car.  Here is where I met our driver Godwin for the first time.  Since they like to freak out the new girl we also had a police vehicle escort with four armed cops.  Traffic in Lagos is a world unto itself.  We found ourselves in several traffic jams along the way.  Out of what can only be described as boredom it seemed that if the car hadn't moved for 5 minutes the police behind us would just lay on the siren.  Which in a traffic jam oddly does nothing but amuse the police.  I found that if I didn't look outside or try to watch the road the driving seemed just fine.  As we neared the house we drive down a 4 lane divided road.  Normally in the US or Europe that would mean traffic going 1 direction would use 2 of the lanes and traffic going the other would also use 2 lanes.  But this is Lagos and there was a greater demand going the other direction than us, so 3 lanes were going 1 direction and our lane was going the other direction except for the constant stream of motorcycles that made the 4 lane road more like 5 lanes.  (Actually Joe wrote the part about the traffic, it was dark and I was too freaked out to notice exactly what was going on with traffic flow.)  : )

In almost record time we made the 30 mile journey in like 75 minutes and arrived at our new apartment.  Joe thanked the police escort in the Nigerian way (wink wink) and then we unloaded the bags.  Yogi was happy to see me and I was very happy to see him.  Now to see if I can sleep for the next 4 years, or at least till tomorrow afternoon.

Glasses

I have been in Lagos now for almost two weeks and just got the blog started.  I was going to start at the beginning but something really great happened today so I'll start with that.

We have hired a driver, his name is Godwin.  He is a very nice man, very religious, has a wife and three children.  He uses glasses to read (the only book he reads is the Bible) but has never been for a proper eye exam.  After a little research I found an eye doctor and today we set out to have an eye exam for him.  There are no appointments; they just see people first come first serve.  He didn't have to wait long before seeing the doctor.  They determined that he needed glasses, bifocals.  So he chose some frames and the glasses will be ready next week.  I think I was just as excited as he was about it!  I can't wait until next week to see how much of a difference the glasses make for him.