First Impressions

Sunday 29^th August - Day 3. It’s 12pm and we’ve just returned home following our first African church service. I’m slightly deaf from the passionate preaching blowing out of the speakers a couple of rows behind me – a punishment, I can only assume, for arriving late, and slinking into the back rows. This is probably the most effective technique I have ever soon for ensuring your congregation is filling the front of the church.

Lagos is everything I expected in a developing city, and nothing is a huge shock. Actually, there is one thing. This is a wealthy city, the people are very wealthy. This is probably the first misconception that has been blown out of the water for me. I came to this place knowing there is the rich and poor, with a huge discrepancy between the two, and that is still very true, except the poor are a smaller percentage of the population than I thought it would be.

On first glance, as we drove down the choked up main highway, there are vendors all over the main road selling you everything from drinks and phone cards, to puppies, shoe racks and basketball hoops (it’s a wonder they aren’t killed, as there are certainly no lane markings and there are no rules), the majority of the roads are dirt (you think our potholes are bad, check out my photos), there is no reliable electricity, you can’t drink the water, Lagos certainly gives the impression of poverty. However, the huge houses and apartment complexes ($400,000 for a simple 3 bedroom apartment in a complex of 1,004! – that would buy you a beautiful apartment in the Mount!), the shops with astronomical pricing (and people spending up a storm), tell a different story. Because this is the norm, not the exception. However, this story in itself may not be accurate, seeing as how I’ve only been here for two nights now and I have been presented with only a smallish side of Lagos, from experience and from dialogue with a local. So I’m sure this current opinion will soon too, be reshaped on a daily basis.

We are in a 3 bedroom apartment on the 5^th floor of a large complex, complete with tennis court, swimming pool, bar, barbed wire fence and 24 hour security (at least four of them were on this morning).  We are surrounded by new development, and it’s going to be interesting to watch these apartments go up. In two years time it will be a whole difference suburb. Actually, new developments are going up EVERYWHERE to cater for the huge population growth as people stream to Lagos, as our HR lady said, ‘there is money to be made here, and if you can make it in Lagos, you can make it anywhere’.

The building itself is awesome, Caleb summed it up nicely as ‘a combination of all the right things put together in all the wrong ways’. Examples: we tend to use the stairs for a bit of extra exercise, however, this can be lethal, as none of the stairs are the same size, and are of differing heights and slopes; none of the walls are straight, or square and the door frames are definitely not nicely parallel, which makes for an interesting display of door frames and joinery which… do not join… and doors which, do not close. However, these blemishes are what makes this place what it is, and I like it.

Each of the bedrooms is large with its own ensuite, so please make sure you book prior to your visit to Nigeria as I’m sure we will fill up fast.

We have been really looked after by our school since our arrival, they have provided us with loads of little things that we certainly weren’t expecting, and have taken us out to show us around, and have taken us shopping, and we are off again shortly on another escapade out on a boat to a beach somewhere. Its been great to have these options, as we hadn’t really ventured outside by ourselves yet, our HR lady said she would prefer it if we would do our daily run inside the compound instead of outside at this stage as we are so new. I tell you, running around a swimming pool and tennis court is going to become pretty boring fast.

We went out for our first escapade outside the compound by ourselves today, after we heard a church congregation (which is a miracle in itself, as we have two very large generators right outside our window making an extraordinary noise) and decided to investigate. It was very loud and very fun, but I was distracted by the most gorgeous albino African toddler sitting in front of me who looked like he’d never seen a white person before and proceeded to play peek-a-boo for the duration of the service.

We got taken to a supermarket yesterday where ‘all the white people’ shop. Yes, lovely, however, these white people are all there on very high salaries with oil companies. If it wasn’t for the fact that we wouldn’t have any food for the week if we didn’t get our groceries then and there, then there is no way we could afford to shop there. Double the price of NZ food, and even our country is expensive! We just about threw up along with another lady who has been living in a different part of Lagos for the last two years, and resolved to make the journey back to where she used to shop, despite the fact it could take us 2 or 3 hours each way to make the trip (15mins if no traffic).  With petrol so cheap at 65c a litre, making a big journey would still be cheaper than where we shopped yesterday! I’d still prefer to shop at the local markets, so I’ve got to find  someone to  skill me up in local language...