Ikorodu backwaters

We took a trip with the Nigerian Field Society which is a kind of like an anthropological / environmental society that does cultural trips around the place (and lots of bird watching). Anyway, they get people from all over the place (heaps of Germans).

After getting up early on a Sunday (and I mean early - we had to over on the mainland to meet everyone by 8:00) we drove to the back of Ikorodu, which is about an hour out of Lagos proper on the other side of the lagoons, and went down to the local witch doctor's, checking out her wares and learn a little about what a Babalawo (priestess) does. All I can say is that she was selling some interesting sh*t!! It was basically a whole bunch of dead stuff put in old gin bottles with a bit of 100 proof alcohol/petrol added - oh yeah, and she had dead rats on sticks too! I'm not sure if they were special lollies for the kiddies or little warnings to other rats that you place around the house (or both - they did look kinda tasty...) Anyway, at the end of the day I didn't buy anything as I figured that a bottle with a dead snake in it and a bunch of strange looking "herbs" weren't what I needed.

If anyone needs anything, I'm not sure if she has a mail order service but we could probably get a curse put on someone if you need it. We did get a blessing from her, which basically involved banging on an old cow bell, a bit of yelling and then her spitting a mouthful of gin at everyone (I'm sure it was sacred gin). I'm not sure if we were supposed to duck, but everyone probably ended up catching something from her rather than curing anything - anyway, it made the locals laugh. I'm always happy to oblige.

Rats on sticks? No really, Rats on sticks!

lots of interesting stuff to make you feel better

party hats anyone?

After we'd had our weekly dose of dead stuff liqueur, we headed a little further down the road (read: dirt tract through small villages and jungle) to the swamps where we were going to have look at a Palm Wine distillery. And before you get too ahead of yourself, no this wasn't like a large factory filled with stainless steel making fine Scottish whisky, oh no.

Apparently, palm wine stills are generally illegal. Well, not so much illegal as there so much red tape and bribes to get a permit that you're better off having an illegal setup - hence the exotic swamp location, accessible only by canoe.

I must say, the mangrove swamps around here (apart from the obvious stuff like malaria and whatnot) are really beautiful. And this place was far enough from the city that the water was actually clean - not drinkable, but cleaner that normal.

swampy the swamp

canoeing through the mangroves

it was a pretty serious mangrove swamp

(I hear it's a great spot to hide a moonshine operation...)

So after a good quarter of an hour on a very peaceful and scenic Nigerian gondola ride, we arrived at a small village on the shore of the large lagoon between Lagos and Epe where they make wine from raffia palms. Now this isn't the normal way it's done where the sap is tapped into buckets of palms as they grow naturally, this was a little less environmentally friendly.

Basically, these guys don't like climbing (or something) and so they just cur the trees down, make a hole and wait for the sap to run out over a month or so.

mmm tasty looking sap...

sap then gets put in plastic bins for a bit to mature from "bloody awful"

to something similar to brake fluid

Then just to make sure it's strong enough they distill the brake fluid into pretty much pure ethanol. Interestingly, the actual still was a good couple of hundred metres from the village. I'm not sure whether it was to hide it from anyone snooping around, or because the whole thing really looked like an explosive death trap! Seriously, the place basically smelt like high grade rocket fuel - just a sniff was more than enough to finish you off for the weekend...

But we all survived and had a great time and I'm pretty sure we'll all be happy if we don't drink any palm wine for another fifty years.

Ishahayi Beach School

I've been working with the Ishahayi Beach School Foundation out at the small seaside fishing village of Ishahayi (about an hour by boat from Lagos) for over a year now. In that time a new six classroom school building has been completed along with a toilet block (first actual sanitary facilities ever in the village).

More recently I've been spending quite a lot of time out there as IBSF is building a new well and a verandah along the from of the school to protect the kids during the wet season.

I taught the locals how to treat the water in the existing well with chlorine last year, but with the toilet block coming on line (we also pulled out two of the six toilets to make a place for the teachers to have bucket showers) we need a better supply of water - so for just over $1,000 aud you can get your own well around here!

I never like the way they carry out their building here, but there's not much I can do and all the workers are still around... the well, as it was hand dug in sand, was constructed in concrete above ground in stages, while the hole was dug underneath. The rest was up to gravity to sink the concrete lining. By the time we were at the water table (about 5m I was really feeling for the poor bloke at the bottom who'd bee lowered down by a rope. You have to remember that, apart from a couple of small generators owned by the more wealthy families, the village has no power, so there's no other way to get stuff done other than man power. Even the most simple of materials like cement and aggregate for the concrete has t be loaded into boats over on the mainland (closest decent jetty is 1/2 hr) then carried by hand (well, basket on head) to the work site.

Last year we'd had great success when an artist by the name of Eugene from Lagos had come out to tech the kids how to paint. He'd expected them to draw scenes of buses, traffic and markets like all the kids he's taught in Lagos. But most of the kids out here have never been to the city and don't know what a bus is, so they drew what they knew - coconut trees, fish and footballs (it always football!).

Anyway, Eugene couldn't believe it and fell in love with ishahayi village and was keen to come back. We managed to organise it the other day and Naz, Teresa and I headed out...

While she was back home in the States, Teresa had mentioned the school at ishahayi to her dentist who in turn hit up the local toothbrush rep for some freebies. Now that we've successfully got almost all the kids in walking distance of ishahayi (and that can be quite a way) to go to school, we're trying to get health and sanitation as a priority in the village.

Beth Torrey Institute

I'd been asked by the American Women's club (one of the largest fund gathering no-for-profit groups in Lagos who fund a whole bunch of different charities - including ishahayi - as well as college scholarships etc) to have a look at one of their projects last year.

The project was a new building for the Beth Torrey home in the Amuwo Odofin estate. The existing home in Apapa is over crowded and getting very old, so the AWC had teamed up with a local Senator's wife to get some funding together and build a new complex. This was five or so years ago.

Since then, three large buildings had been built and basically left half finished as the AWC and all the stakeholders involved tried to sort out what to do to finish the job. I'd take a look at the place a few times and met with the sister's running the current home to try and work out what needed to be done. Unfortunately the place had become a mess, some of the roof caving in , the bore-water treatment plat laying idle for years and rusting away and lakes of water surround the place in the wet season as no drainage had ever been built.

The question I was asked to answer what "what can we do to finish this place?" Unfortunately, it broke my heart to have to suggest to the AWC that the only way to move forward was walk away from the project and put their money in other projects that were currently running and would use the money to better effect. I wasn't alone in that opinion, however there was little else to be done as the buildings no require more work just to bring them back to a standard where works could progress.

After an AWC member took my report to the other stakeholders, they were told in no uncertain terms that we didn't know anything and didn't understand how things were done around here. Our only thought was to try and get something finished so that the sisters and everyone could move out of the old home - which is in darkness most of the time as they can't afford to run the generator.

Anyway, there was some money left in the joint account that could be used to good effect, so we went out to see what could be done. On arrival, we were told by the security guard that we hadn't made an appointment and weren't allowed in. After a few phone calls we were told by the Senator's wife's people that we were no longer part of the project and could take our money and go. So that was it - all over.... I just hope the money goes somewhere where it can be used for good. i really hope the kids in Apapa don't have to spend one more day than necessary in the old old home, but I fear that any move is still a long way off...

The buildings in August last year - the roof on the closest one had failed and there's a lake under that grass

I managed to get a photo over the fence even though we weren't allowed in. At least the kick in the arse we'd given them prompted a spurt of building works to fix the roof and clear up the surrounding land (which the locals have turned into a quite good market garden)

Small World

Small World is an annual charity event in Lagos that raises a ton of cash for about 30 different charities. Each country sets up a stall and hands out food and booze for free and then gets to give their cut of the proceeds from the gate to their nominated charity - simple.

It is also the one occaision in which about 2,000 foreigners from all over the planet leave their houses and are seen in public. The rest of the year you wonder where the hell everyone's gone.

(l-r) Deani, Elizabeth and Rachel

Susan and Mas

Roberto the great

Anyway, John works with a couple of the charities involved and was graciously co-opted into working on the australian tent. They were serving cold food after last year saw them nearly burning the tent down when the candle thing heating the pie warmer was knocked over and burnt someone.

Somehow John also managed to become the flag bearer for oz and spent a few minutes wandering around on stage waving a flag - very inspiring stuff.

In the end $280,000 was raised for about 35 charities - good work by all. I think our karma should be all good for a while

a hard day at the office

1 year old!!!

No we haven't had any mystery babies while we've been away. We've made it through one year in sunny Lagos - I think we deserve a beer!

I thought we had some photos - we had a whole bunch of folk around for a BBQ down by the pool to help us celebrate. Much fun had by all - just can't remember where the photos are..

oh well here's a couple of another BBQ we had