Young Women at Church

At church I work with the Young Women. This post might be too long for you to read, but it's mostly for me so I can remember all of them when we leave. Here they are from left to right:
*Faith (17) was baptized last September. She is quiet and somewhat shy but seems to be growing out of that. She always covers her face with her hands when she gives the prayer. I think one of the missionaries has a crush on her.
*Eka Ete (15) she was visiting today.
*Rose (14) The last 2 weeks she's come to church dressed quite fancy but always before was kind of a tom boy. She lives with her mother's sister, but knows her as Mom. She doesn't really know her Mom who lives somewhere else in Nigeria.
*Chinoye (15) - she was baptized last Sunday. She has been attending church for a while now though. It was like getting baptized gave her the courage she needed because she participated a lot in class today.
*Eka Ete (18) - she is standing behind Chinoye. I am a little sad at her placement in the picture because she is dressed the most "traditional." She lives with her "auntie" which is really her older sister. Her mother died when she was young and her sister has raised her. I think as payment her "auntie" is making Eka Eta raise her children. Eka Ete always packs her 3 neices and nephews with her to church because her sister rarely attends. From comments Eka Ete makes in class her sister is pretty mean and pretty strict with her. For example, she will talk about saying little prayers inside her head while her auntie is yelling at her. She's not allowed to come to activities. She tried to re-activate another girl by telling her to come to church because there is a white lady (me) teaching there.
*Otobong Patrick (15) - She is the flashy and flirty one of the twins (twin sister on end right). Her father is a cook for a family at Exxon Mobile and they live in the steward quarters there. Today we were talking about being a good influence on others and she told of a bad example of her friend. They were sitting in the quarters and watched the American School kids come home. They saw a black kid (American) with "long hair all standing straight up." Her friend said "look how ugly that kid is." Oto told her, "look in the mirror yourself - you shouldn't be calling him ugly." I didn't know how to respond. Oto's mother has been back in the village for many years and I don't think is coming back.
*Blessing Eze (15) - She is the only Young Woman to have a mother who comes to church, though she doesn't live with her mother during the school year. She is my stalwart. If no one else will answer the question she will. It is usually a made up and flowery answer of what she thinks I want to hear, but I love that she is trying. Her Mom is a member of our ward. Her father is back in their village with his 2nd wife. Polygamy is legal here.
*Uduak Patrick (15) - She is the quiet and thoughtful twin. She leads the music in sacrament meeting too. Last week she asked Chinoye why she was getting baptized and said, "well I hope it is because you believe in the doctrines so you will stay coming to church and not like the others that get baptized and we never see them again." Nice. She asks good questions like how can you know a man won't beat you before you marry him. She takes notes of everything I say during the lesson.
*Not Pictured - Joycelyn Ketu - Young Women President. She really loves the girls, but sometimes she can really ream them out for not coming to activities or answering questions. I am a lot softer on the girls but they love her just as much as me I think.
I am so impressed with these girls. Blessing's mother comes to church, Eka Ete's "auntie" comes once in a blue moon, and Rose's auntie comes sometimes. So all in all these girls get themselves up and to church every Sunday without help and ride crowded stinky buses to get there. I think they are more innocent and less snotty than most American young women too. But maybe that is because their home life is more of a mystery to me since I have never been in most of their homes.

Pizza Tales

Levin has been sick and no food has sounded good to him. He finally wanted food and it was pizza. So I called the GQ (American Guest Quarters - maybe one day I will do a full post on it). I ran to pick it up and this was our sausage & pepperoni pizza. I am not sure the picture shows clearly that those are sliced hot dogs on our pizza. Are they supposed to be the pepperoni or the sausage? I think both.

The problem is I used to work there. For some people that may make it easier to complain, but for me it makes it harder because I know these people. Levin's boss's wife works there and was right there which made me more awkward so I took the pizza and left.

Levin lost his appetite and somehow I picked it up and I was starving all day so I was optimistic and ate it anyway after picking off a few of the hot dog pieces. Poor Levin only ate a few bites in disgust. Curses to the GQ for the hot dog pizza. HOWEVER, we could be eating Nigerian cuisine which looks more like this.

This is a picture of Levin's meal he ate in Northern Nigeria on a work trip where there are not really any expats so there is nothing else but Nigerian food to choose. I choose hot dog pizza over this.

If we had ordered in the restaurant instead of over the phone I'm sure they would have informed us that the sausage and pepperoni "were finished." Ordering in Lagos is difficult as you always request something only to be told "it is finished." Finally you have to say okay tell me what you do have since 80% of the menu I've requested thus far "is finished."

Harry Potter the Prisoner of Lagos

This is my little Harry Potter face playing with her two teeny little teeth coming in.

All Leah All The Time

Leah and her new toy
Mostly she is interested in the tags though. I'd cut them off but then I'd go to prison like the guy in PeeWee's Big Adventure.

Out on the balcony. This is the sweet spot if she won't take a nap. Unfortunately, we had a wasp problem. I am 99.999% sure they are gone, but she gets to have the mosquito net just in case.

Our first Mother's Day. A kind Nigerian gave Leah this pretty dress. Unfortunately I'm covering up the best part - the big flower on the front. All the Nigerian ladies at church loved the dress.

Lastly, Leah in the bath. She loves the bath and kicks and smiles like crazy . . . that is until I pull the camera out. I failed to capture it.

Washed Clean

Today after church we had two people be baptized and one will be in my young women class. Leah got too hungry during the talk by the missionary so I left to go feed her on the balcony. She finished and I walked around the corner and over the ledge just in time to catch them taking the cover off the baptismal font. Levin and Roy (another American) were counting tithing money just inside the door. I ran in and said "do you guys know what the water looks like???" This is what we saw!

Thank goodness I'm already baptized and the church doesn't believe in baptizing until age 8 so we will be long gone from here before Leah reaches that age. I have seen the font with plenty of pine needles in it before, but this was a new level of welcome to Nigeria. On a positive note, our church which has not had running water since we arrived finally does, unfortunately this it. I continue to keep my distance from "the facilities" but maybe this is a step in the right direction.

I believe the orange waters of baptism still serve their spiritual purpose for Chineua and the boy whose name I didn't catch. And just in case you were wondering the white clothing still came out white.

Pineapple: A Not Very Brief History

Most of my life when I thought of pineapple I thought of school lunch and a pile of "tidbits" in my vomit colored lunch tray. Not a big fan.

Then I moved to DC and realized fresh pineapple is darn good and it seemed all the classy "I live in a big city in the east" activities seemed to have this pineapple. I even learned how to buy it and cut it myself and for the first time I enjoyed Hawaiian pizza.

Then I moved to Nigeria. Now there are few things about Nigeria that one could say "this is better than America" I really mean it because right now I am struggling to think of any others. BUT the pineapples here are so good. And they are CHEAPER than in America. They have 2 varieties of pineapple, one is kind of white and very skinny but also very tasty.

We buy pineapple at the veggie ladies on the streets. The ones pictured here are kind of small but sometimes you'll see huge ones. Then Levin and I went to Ghana. We pulled over at a pineapple farm and Levin pulled the whole I work for the US Dept. of Agric. and the farmers cut us off a few free ones. Please notice the fur hat.

Cutting pineapple is its big drawback. We were doing a poor job so our driver Ebineezer did it for us. We were too busy eating to get a picture of the sweet juices running down our arms. It was the best pineapple I've ever had before and since. Soo delicious.

As mentioned above cutting the pineapple is what makes them annoying and messy and why sometimes Levin and I would buy one and then have it sit on our cupboard for a few days and then be too ripe when we finally overcame our laziness and cut into it.

A few months ago Levin solved this problem by buying this awesome and affordable contraption. A pineapple corer and slicer. It is so easy and makes such little mess! Anyone that has been a guest in our house since the purchase has had a demonstration. That is how proud of it we are. We could even do a Home Shopping Network plug for it if they'd hire us.

Flashback Friday - Thanksgiving '07

Last night we had a family from church over for dinner. I forgot to take pictures. They are the family Levin home teaches. It reminded me of this pictures from Thanksgiving 07 when Levin had different families he was assigned to home teach. We had them over for a nice turkey dinner. Christian (red shirt white collar) confessed later that he'd told all of them to eat plenty of bread because when you eat American food you have to plug your stomach. They loved the "soup" (gravy) but not the pumpkin pie. We hadn't received our sea shipment yet so we didn't have all our kitchen stuff but somehow we made it.

Leah Tries Solids

Update on Lucy

I told Lucy about her raise yesterday and gave her the extra money retroactive for April. She was so happy she got down on her knees and said thanks and then kind of bowed over as if she was going to kiss the floor but then kind of stopped herself. Awkward is the best word to describe how I felt. But at least she was grateful so that was nice. She went out to buy me vegetables and then it started pouring rain and getting back to our house you practically needed a boat. It took her a long time because of this so by the time she got back and cleaned the upstairs she had definitely earned her raise.

Deranged Peacock

I have experimented with Nigerian fashion. This was after we'd been here only a couple of months. Men at church asked Levin if he could leave me behind when he had to move on from Lagos. Well I shrunk my first two dresses in the dryer. Turns out you should pre-shrink your fabric BEFORE giving it to the tailor. The next two my tailor got a job as a house keeper (which is more reliable income) so she got to busy and outsourced the work and they came back too small (much too small I hadn't just gained a lot of weight) and then I was pregnant so . . . I finally decided to get another dress made after a special trip to this HUGE fabric market. It had to be special because we had to go in Consulate vehicles and as a group. I got fabric I loved, found a tailor, described to her kind of what I wanted based on pictures of a Nigerian fashion magazine - maybe I'll post about that in the future. Anyway . . . this is what she brought back.

I tried it on to make sure it fit while she waited downstairs. Levin said I looked like . . and I quote . . "a deranged peacock." Of course my feelings were hurt, what girl's wouldn't be? That's not to say it wasn't true, but tact was needed because I'd been so excited and was now so let down. She even used my fabric to cover buttons on the front of the dress. Anyway, I paid her the money I owed her and didn't have her sew the second dress I'd been planning. I don't blame her . . she's in fashion design school and made it just a little too frilly for me and I guess I would get an F in fashion design school for not describing it well enough and not picking out the right style for my body, right fabric, right coloring for my skin . . . .

SO . . I have thrown in the towel on fashion. I guess it's back to jeans, a t-shirt, and OldNavy.com and a prayer that when I go home in July I can buy new clothes and won't only find the trashy tank tops on clearance.

How to Wein From a Pacifier

Forget that you are sterilizing the pacifiers and burn them up in the pan. Oops. Lucky for Leah she was napping with one so she has one left. Lucky for me I didn't burn the house down. Yesterday at church we dropped two on the dirty floor. How will we make it through a Sunday with just one pacifier? She doesn't need it except sometimes to fall asleep, but it is sure nice when she is crying and it is supposed to be quiet.