What We've Been Up To

The first American food chain has arrived!! We've been twice recently. Though they don't have the Colonel's biscuits, they do have his 11 herbs and spices recipe. And I do have to say it's pretty good and I don't even like fried chicken. Maybe I've just been in Nigeria too long. My favorite was the soft serve. I wanted to take pictures, but inside there was a sign saying photography prohibited. Finger Lickin' Good! Oh and it felt really clean and nice inside.

I discovered Lagos has seedless grapes! I went shopping "under the bridge" where I normally don't go. I found these and was so excited. A little bargaining (actually mostly 'cause the lady didn't have change) and I got these for about $6 (that's about one pound I think). And you thought your groceries were expensive.

I normally send Lucy out to buy the vegetables because then she'll be the one to wash them, but this day I had to do it. It wasn't so bad soaking them and I also found red peppers and zucchini. I'm going to have to go back under the bridge more often.

I've been working on finishing up some sewing projects that have been sitting unfinished. Leah kept trying to grab at my stuff so I got her a piece of scrap fabric. I tied it on her head and she said, "pretty" and quickly takes it off. Here she is as my little babushka.

Here she is my little Homey G. Unfortunately she takes the do-rag (sp?) off so fast we couldn't get a picture. I tricked her yesterday by letting her climb the stairs right after I put it on so she was so excited she forgot about it. I was laughing my head off as she walked around in it.

The blue blanket on the floor was my other sewing project I finished. My mother-in-law taught me how to hand quilt and that was my learning project. I think I will never do it again! It took forever especially with Leah trying to crawl on the fabric every time I laid it down to adjust the little hoop I had. And from the front no one even knows I put all that time and didn't just sew two pieces of fabric together. But it was good to learn.

Leah has become our little water baby. She loves to go swimming and LOVES to jump off the edge into Levin's arms. Leah is always a mommy's girl, but not in the pool. Then she is a daddy's girl. Since before she was born Leah has owned a cute swimming suit. She hated the water so much I stopped buying them . . . . just in time for her to like the water. Luckily her Little Swimmer diapers still fit - barely.

Leah is the proud new owner of a mosquito net. After 2 experiences in 2 weeks of getting munched on all night we broke down and got it. I hate the thing! I get all tangled up getting her in bed. It took her a while to get used to too, but I think we're mostly okay now. This is what she looked like this morning when I went to get her out of bed.

US Navy Visit

A US Navy ship is visiting Lagos on a humanitarian mission. As part of their visit we got to take a tour of the ship yesterday. Because we get Armed Forced Network I don't watch commercials for Fruit Loops, I watch commercials telling me that many pieces of unclassified information can be pieced together to give an enemy/terrorist too much information. I'm practicing Op Sec and not telling you the name of the ship or the dates it's here. Actually, I really just wanted to use the words practice good Op Sec.

And since I am in one of the pictures you can see my haircut mentioned in the previous post. Unfortunately this isn't and awesome representation of the haircut, but it's the best you're gonna get. Though I look pale, these pictures were before I started to feel like I was going to faint. In the family picture we were actually trying to be sneaky and get a picture of the machine gun up front, but a kind lady volunteered to let me get in the picture too so our trick didn't work.

You may notice the boy scouts. I don't know what they teach these boys anymore, but more of them tried to push me out of the way then help me across the street. AND one of the kids climbed aboard and said, "Is this the British Navy?" He was a Nigerian so I excuse him somewhat. He attends the American School is why he is part of BSA.

African Hair

I haven't had a hair cut for quite a while and I really needed one. Leah and I were going with Levin to Abuja on a work trip and staying in a nice Hilton hotel that had a salon. Levin assured me they were high end and would know how to cut a white woman's hair.
When we got there I found out it was only going to cost about $13 whereas in Lagos it'd cost my nearly $50. I figured the cheap price was worth the risk. I went to the salon and since I was not getting braids or extensions they sent me to the back to the "barbing salon." I was with the men!
I said, "I need a hair cut, do you know how to cut a white woman's hair?" The man in charge said, "yes, and we also know how to cut a white man's hair." Thank you. I was still a little hesitant when my barber started combing my hair and couldn't get through some tangles. Half way through the process when I have a tangled mess of hair piled up on top of my head, falling down into my eyes so I can't see well the barber says, "I see you are watching me very carefully. You don't need to worry you are in the hands of a professional." Hah.
As he's cutting my hair and 2 other barbers cut 2 black men's hair I look in the mirror to the "women's" section behind me. There are women getting extensions, hair curled, looking at wigs, etc. A realization hit me. A black woman's world of hair is a world completely all their own and I will never share in it.
As for my haircut, it actually didn't turn out that bad. I had to take a few snips at it with my own scissors once I got home and it turned out okay.
In fact, today I used my new hair dryer (mine blew up) and I used it on the highest heat setting. I don't think that hot is allowed in America, but I was in a hurry today so I used it. Steam was billowing, but my hair looked better than it has in a long time when I was finished. Maybe it is possible for a white woman to have an okay hair do in Africa after all.

Scenes Around the House

It is a common scene around our house to see Leah walking or crawling about with a pair of my or Levin's shoes (her favorite are flip flops.) I don't know what her fascination is with them, but since we take our shoe off when we come in the door she has a plethora to play with and it keeps her entertained for quite a while. When she wants to go outside she brings me my shoes, but they're not for me to wear, they're for her. Sometimes I have to pry them out of her hands before we go out. Yesterday she was pacing with a pair of my high heels on her hands. I recognize it's not the most sanitary thing and I confess I often forget to wash her hands afterwards. Oops!Somehow I didn't get this picture rotated right. Leah loves our kitchen door because it swings back and forth. We try to keep a door jam in it, but she pulls it out. Then she walks through only to get trapped in a position of if I let go of the door it pushes me backwards. I rescued her a million times one day. She has finally discovered how to make it through, but sometimes her arm gets stuck.

Monday night we were having FHE and were stopped in the middle of my lesson because Leah was just looking too cute walking around with Levin's hat on. Of course I can never recapture things in video, but we stopped while I tried.

Flash back

It's that time! The time to start pulling out maternity clothes. As I was pulling out the tub I stored some in I had a flash back. When I was a little further along in my pregnancy with Leah, August 2008, Levin and I took a trip to Cameroon with our friend Diana.
We did A LOT of walking and A LOT of hiking. I don't know what I was thinking agreeing to this. And we thought I'd just take it easy, but the tour agency guy said that if I stopped half way then they couldn't leave me alone so then no one would be able to go the rest of the way.

So here I am climbing up to this old light house. My legs were soooo sore! This tourism agency was a non-profit that "gives back to the villagers." So every place we went our guide Fernando would hire a local villager to be our tour guide. Then when they took us to the waterfall or whatever Fernando would pay them out of the money we'd paid Fernando. One particular time he gave a guy a bottle of whiskey to take to the chief which isn't our way of doing things, but whatever. The village lifted up his shirt to wipe his face and low and behold . . he was wearing maternity pants!! Levin and I looked at each other and said, is that dude wearing maternity pants?? Diana who will soon experience the joys of maternity pants, had not yet at that time and was like how can you tell?? Well, we had experience.

He wasn't wearing the extended panel, just maybe the full panel ones. Frankly I don't know how he kept them up. I am currently struggling because maternity pants are still a little too loose, but my regular pants are too tight. But this guy managed just fine to keep his pants up.

We also saw a six-fingered man on that trip. Of course we didn't get his picture. So I was googling an image to make this post more interesting and what do you know they had a picture of a baby with six fingers. I got scared that my fascination of the six-fingered man will cause my baby to come out with six fingers so I'm not posting a picture.

As I am closing this post, I am thinking it is maybe one of those had to be there kind of things. Oh well.