Don't you love the post title? That was a direct quote from one of the brothers that picked us up at the airport and I just thought it was great. Although I didn't know how true it was until the next day when we traveled to the main branch in Igieduma. There are 2 offices here in Nigeria, a small one in Lagos and the main one in Igieduma where we will stay while we are here.
We left Lagos at 6:15 a.m. Along with our driver we had with us a brother heading to the main branch and 4 brothers that were dropped off at Benin City for some other training.
As far as the traffic goes. Perhaps the less said the better. I have never seen such creative driving in my life. Lanes are invented on a case to case basis. It seems they have their own system however, people flash their lights as they come up from behind and honk to pass. If you are behind a larger vehicle the driver or passenger will stick out his arm and signal you to wait or to pass if it is "safe." Along the way we saw the sunrise. I couldn't tell exactly where the sun was for awhile but then we saw it. I'm not sure if it is the dust here or pollution but it was so obscured we could actually look at it with no problems and still see it clearly for the first time that I remember.
As far as the traffic goes. Perhaps the less said the better. I have never seen such creative driving in my life. Lanes are invented on a case to case basis. It seems they have their own system however, people flash their lights as they come up from behind and honk to pass. If you are behind a larger vehicle the driver or passenger will stick out his arm and signal you to wait or to pass if it is "safe." Along the way we saw the sunrise. I couldn't tell exactly where the sun was for awhile but then we saw it. I'm not sure if it is the dust here or pollution but it was so obscured we could actually look at it with no problems and still see it clearly for the first time that I remember.
 |
We passed many tankers on our way. Most were still driving like this one.
 |
| Notice the highly inflammable sign. |
Others were tipped on the side of the road and burned out. Glad we didn't see one burning!
We saw many termite mounds of red earth. I would have taken a picture but it is difficult from a moving vehicle on these roads. Each state takes care of its own roads, so some roads are good, such as in Edo state. Others are not as good. We found the brother's saying of "In Nigeria we are blessed with many bad roads" to be true even though initially we laughed like it was some sort of quip. It took us about 5 hours to arrive here, which is incredibly fast compared to some times. The traffic was apparently not bad and there were no times we had to stop.
We arrived in time for lunch and sat with a couple we have met on a previous assignment. After coffee in their room we cleaned and organized our room, and rearranged our furniture. This is our room as it is now:
 |
| From our door. |
 |
| From our back door. (The back door leads to our balcony.) |
 |
| Our welcome message. It stands for "Welcome to Nigeria Bethel" |
In the evening we went to a couple's room for dinner. They have a wonderful hospitality arrangement here for new couples to be hosted by a more experienced couple to answer questions and provide a meal.
Next day was Day 1 of orientation.
Wow, what a trip! Glad you guys had a a local driver! :D Hey the welcome message on the bed is neat. Kind of reminds me of chatspeak only made out of towels. :P Love the room, too!
ReplyDelete-Stephanie