Escaping the compound

Lagos, as seen from the confines of our "compound", the Excellence hotel.

Ross, Anna and I were like puppies desperate to leave the house today. So we escaped our cage with Bode and his wife Yemi. We have been in the hotel mostly since we got here. I escaped to exchange money with Ruth and Teresa, two Nigerian women. Ruth seemed to dominate everything telling the men to do this and that. People (especially women) seem quite commandeering so far. My money changing seemed trivial to the dollars that Teresa was exchanging for African families in Port Harcourt.

I'm beginning to think the guide book had it wrong or that they ate in huts while in Nigeria. As a vegetarian the food really isn't that bad. It is quite spicy. I had some spicy beans with cassava and eggs for dinner tonight. I was quite pleased. A lot of the regular dishes are vegetarian enough. All quite spicy. A lot of it I would enjoy having again, although maybe compared to other places in West Africa it is not as good, which would explain the horrible review by the guidebook.

People here eat with their right hand, left is for cleaning the bum in case you were interested. Someone mentioned that in Senegal they don't use toilet paper even, just water in a bottle by the side of the toilet. The peace corps actually teaches them how to clean. :) A friend was saying that in Uzbekistan they use paper from books.

Anyway so it would be very upsetting for people in Nigeria if left handed to use the left hand while eating I would imagine. While eating you take a bit of cassava or yam flour (like cream of wheat of sorts but shaped in sphere) and scoop up some food with it. You clean your hands in a bowl of salt water afterwards. The only thing that was very strange for me food wise was this mixture of spinach and melon. The "melon" is yellow and looks like meat or cheese but is pureed melon seed. Interesting though strange taste.

I had cola nut for the first time and it tastes toxic. It is a substitute for coffee, hence the name relation to coca cola. It is quite bitter although there is apparently a bitter cola nut as well.

Count to date:

Seen 2 strange bugs

Several mosquitoes

Explained 4 times that goat and chicken is meat and I don not eat it.

Received 2 SMS from strange man from airplane who gave me his SIM card, one of the messages being slightly religious

And

5 missed calls from this guy

Electricity going out?

HMM. Including now, 6 short times. Once for an hour (Note to self. The flashlight you were thinking of bringing would have been quite useful). Funny how our trip began that way. The short ones aren't that noticeable. At least it hasn't happened yet during the presentations.

Apparently there are no McDonald's in Nigeria and they fought to keep them out. Go Nigeria! They have Nigerian fast food though, Tantalizers and some others. They seemed to be out of most food by 8pm. So we went elsewhere. Food always takes an hour to be served as it is freshly made.