Murals & Memories

Our school in Lagos does not look as impressive as the one in Islamabad, because it has run out of space and does not have the lovely trees, seasonal flowers, and  well-maintained landscaping of the latter. But tucked in some nooks and crannies are a few gems, like this tile mosaic behind my classroom building. My students were surprised to see this photo, because the wall faces the residences of the teachers and therefore unknown to most students and staff.

There’s a lovely mural on my classroom/lab wall, and unfortunately it is now partially blocked by the Smartboard. Because my room is just an extension of the Math classroom nextdoor, the rest of the mural is also blocked by the Smartboard in that room. A similar mural was painted in one of the 6th grade classrooms in the Main Building.

But the most impressive one, and our favorite, is right on the stage of our gym/multi purpose hall. Sadly it met the same fate as the classroom murals — tucked in the back, veiled by heavy curtains because the backstage is full of furniture, props, and gym equipment. Nonetheless, we like to hang out here after school, and while James runs around imitating the gymnasts practicing here, my husband and I simply gaze at the painting. The musicians and dancers depicted in it look so alive I can hear and feel the rhythm of their music, dancing, and shouts – don’t you?

I don’t know who did these. The few people I asked all said they were already here when they joined the school. A sad reality of international schools like ours is the turnover. It makes me wish there was a “keeper of memories” among the staff. Yearbooks are not enough — our librarian said she does not have copies of all issues, and this school is about 40 years old.

I should probably talk to my fellow Filipina teacher, Linda, who has lived here for 20 years. While we discussed the time capsule that was buried 10 years ago I asked her if we could interview a student or teacher who participated. She said she did, but could not name another teacher who has been with her that long. At least in Islamabad our librarian and manager of operations had been with the school for 30 years! Our superintendent had been there for at least 20. And some of the teachers actually graduated from the school.

Memories are important. I think we follow traditions, even blindly, simply because it is the best way to give life to memories long after our brains can keep them, and after the pictures fade, or the yearbooks and videos disappear … or these murals are torn down

Living a Sheltered Expat Life

This week marks our 3rd month in Lagos, Nigeria. I’m not proud to say we haven’t done much more than spend our time in Victoria Island, where our school/flat and most grocery shops are located. We ventured a few times to the beach, Lekki market, and Balogun market … but only once or twice. You can say we’re living a sheltered expats’ life, because we have not been idle either.

I’ve been to the high tea/membership meeting of the American Women’s Club held at the Lagos motor club. Can’t say I’d be attending most of their events, as they usually schedule these during school hours, but I get regular announcements of their activities by e-mail to know what I’m missing or not. We’ve also been to a few restaurants, but find it too expensive to dine out too often — at least $30-$50 per person. This is one reason why we prefer to eat at the restaurant of US Consulate Guest Quarters (GQ for short), where our son can also enjoy the toddler size pool and playground. And we did go to the Marine Ball, although some colleagues said we should have gone instead to the “Sail Around the World” fundraiser dinner at the Lagos Yacht Club, which was less formal and more fun, featuring food from different countries and also a live band. Oh well, there’s always next year; and we’re still glad we attended the Marine Ball and met the marines from the Philippines and Washington state.

But don’t get me wrong, we’re not bored and we’re not complaining. Having a toddler and living in school simply means 90 percent of our time is well, spent in school. And there’s always something happening here, like the Saturday soccer and other after-school activities (gymnastics, swimming, karate, etc.), which meant lots of people — including kids for James to play and interact with. Our social committee organized a cricket game for the staff, and a wine tasting social on another occasion. Some colleagues invite us to their flats to admire and purchase handicrafts like batik and wood carvings by their favorite artisan-vendors.

We’ve had Family Day with bouncy castles and train rides, Nigerian Culture Day with cultural presentations, and the Fall Bazaar featuring more vendors of Western African handicraft. Next weekend I’m looking forward to the PTO carnival which will have rides, games, costumed characters, disco, and food booths. Sometimes it feels like the entire expat community just shows up at our doorstep.

After living in Islamabad, it’s weird but refreshing to see so many expats with babies and toddlers in tow. Many of them have been here for years, like the Bolivian family we met today. They’ve been here for seven years after planning only to live in Lagos for a year, and now have three children.And last month I met a fellow Cebuana who has a son just three months younger than James. She is married to a European who has been in Nigeria for 24 years. I love it that our circle of friends continues to grow and include parents of kids!

The Price of Groceries in Lagos

We flew to Nigeria with 13 pieces of baggage, acting on the recommendations of colleagues and blogs about the high cost of items here. Three months since we arrived we have a fair idea of our monthly expenses, and while it is almost double compared to Islamabad, it is not as bad.

Here is what I learned from studying our grocery receipts, at $1=N150 exchange rate.

Local produce are still reasonably cheap. A kilo of red onions, potatoes, avocados, and pineapples only cost $2. Locally manufactured products are also not bad: 70 cents per 12-ounce bottle of Pepsi Light and 80 cents per 330ml can of Heineken. Even a liter of UHT milk is only $2, while a dozen eggs is $3.

But the “exotic” items that are clearly sought after by expats are a different story. I was shocked to learn that a kilo of rice is $12. This is usually basmati rice, although Thai rice and jasmine rice are also sold in most groceries. Coking oil, whether it’s corn, sunflower, vegetable or olive oil is about $25. We were told ice cream is $10, but we soon learned that a local brand or locally manufactured Nestle ice cream is $10 for 2 liter tub, while a pint of Snickers cost as much. Cheese is also expensive, but at least they’re available in great variety from cheddar to mozzarella, ementhal, edam, and so on. We paid nearly $7 for a 225g slice of cheddar cheese. On the other hand wine is surprisingly affordable, from $8 and up, especially for labels from South Africa. Instant noodles and pasta are also cheap, less than a dollar for a pack. Another affordable item is tea, like $1 for a box of 25 Lipton bags.

So clearly what drives the price of these items is influenced by the cost of shipping and distribution, not to mention what expats — usually employed by oil companies and multinational corporations — are willing to pay for. And speaking of expats, there are many Indian and Lebanese nationals here. They own the grocery shops we frequent, and it is nice to have access to spices, parathas, and biryani rice mixes. Not everything imported is pricey, those with Arabic or Russian print on the label cost less than the same brand from the US or UK, like toilettries. A generic or unknown brand of wipes is 50 percent cheaper than Pampers or Huggies, which cost about $6.

If we want to save on grocery expenses we obviously need to review what we consume, and that is what we’ve started doing: less cheese or fried food, more local fruits and vegetables. But our cook loves to bake and prepare cheesecake, pizzas, lasagna, omelette muffins, and quiche! She used to work for an American family with 2-3 children, and got used to preparing Western dishes. My husband and I were speechless when she gave us a shopping list for exotic items like cheese (ricotta, cheddar, mozarrela, cottage cheese and feta), pine nuts ($7 for a pack), stuffed olives, sesame seeds (very common in islamabad but haven’t seen any in Lagos yet), and red wine vinegar (easier to find balsamic and white wine vinegar for some reason). She is such a good cook anyway I told my husband let’s see and find out first what she’s going to make out of these.

To my joy, we just bought 2 kilos of fresh prawns for $30 when a frozen pack costs $20 for half a kilo. The caretaker of the school’s beach house actually brought 8 kilos worth, and it came down to 2 kilos after the cook cleaned it and removed the heads and shells.

I guess the trick here is to browse and try different places, until one has a fair idea on the price of goods and services. The one thing that is different here in Lagos is different stores carry different brands for the same products. Which means we usually need to go to two-three different places for basic staples like bread and butter (Shoprite), cooking oil and rice (Dream Plaza), and beer and wine (Game). It’s not fun when traffic is so unpredictable. At least in Bangkok, Cebu, and Islamabad the stores carry the same brands and we can get everything in one place.

Nike Davies Okundaye

It’s been a while since I quit my PR job that I met someone famous and important, and when I finally did I got a warm hug as well!

Nike Davies Okundaye, one of Western Africa’s foremost batik artist and Nigeria’s pride, was the guest of honor during the American Women’s Club membership tea last Tuesday. She is well known for reviving the dying art of traditional cloth weaving and dying, and has established several training centers as well as traveled to the US and Europe to promote batik and adire, the traditional Yoruban hand-painted cloth that she’s wearing in the above photo. While her products are not cheap, the money she makes often always go into her art centers, training workshop, and philanthropic projects. Someday I will be able to add a genuine indigo-colored adire from her gallery to my fabric collection. And someday we might be able to visit her hometown as guests of her tour program.

Nike Center for Art & Culture

View her paintings & art for sale

Masquerade Dancers

The whirling acrobatic masquerade dancers from Edo state were hands down the students’ favorite performers during the recent school celebration of Nigerian Cultre Day. With masks over their faces and colorful jumpsuits, they looked like masked harlequins, and they proved to be playful at times. The masquerade dance has also been referred to as a male dance and a warrior dance, because this is how they demonstrate their physical agility and strength. Other parts of Nigeria also have variants of the masquerade dance, usually as a part of religious or spiritual ritual.

Celebrating Nigerian Independence & Culture

I guess today is the day I can stop complaining to my husband that we have so little contact with the local culture. The school annually marks Nigeria’s independence day with a culture day. For the entire day classes are suspended, so the school community can enjoy the exhibits and performances not only by students but also by local artists, performers, and vendors.

We joined other teachers in scrambling to buy fabrics and getting tailors to suit us up. As it turns out, this is the one day when the school is transformed from the red, white, blue, and khaki colors of the uniform to a dazzling variety of prints and patterns. Families wore matching outfits, but the women with the most elaborate headdresses were the real head turners.

I particularly enjoyed the bazaar, naturally. The organizers had the foresight to set a price limit on vendors, so the students will be able to afford the items sold. Vendors who sold beads, earrings, bangles; music instruments; carved canes; kalabash art and baskets probably made a killing in spite of the price ceiling. They quickly ran out of drums and basket bags from Ghana.

The food was also great. I know I wanted to go back for more joloff rice and suya (barbecued beef). And there was enough to feed the students, parents, staff as well as the participating artists who shared with students their skills on henna painting, hair tying, storytelling, and beading.

This year’s celebration focused on the state of Edo, and we had representatives from the capital of Benin joining in the festivities. The students performed a royal dance and a fashion show. This video clip features a dance troupe doing the “real thing.”

Cricket Anyone?

Cricket is like religion in Pakistan. In Nigeria, it comes next to soccer. But for some strange reason, it felt weird to watch the game played by the school’s expat staff today with Alan Jackson warbling Chattahochee in the background. Doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun. Many of the players have never played cricket before, and some claimed they have never even seen it played. And when you’re dealing with a lot of folks who are only familar with baseball or softball, explaining cricket is even harder, because the same terms mean something else. But who cares when everyone is having fun, even if  half the audience don’t know what’s going on!

Masks at Lekki Market

I tried to enjoy the last day of our four-day weekend by going to Lekki Market today. We were told it is the best place in Lagos when it comes to African handicraft. Although most stalls were also closed due to the Id holiday, I was not disappointed with the ones that were open.

There were shops that sold nothing but bead necklaces, and artist’s galleries featuring batik art, painting, and wood carvings — tons of wood carvings. Then I stumbled on a shop that sold masks, and thought of my girlfriends Bernadine and Bingo and Hazel, who all collect masks and would probably kill me if I didn’t buy them one.

The owner of the shop was really nice and helpful. He was patient in explaining to me the different kinds of masks, most of which came from West Africa. He showed reproductions that cost $25-30 and the genuine antiques that were actually used in ceremonies, about $1,000. The reproductions, only 4-5 years old, actually look like antiques, too. If I bought a pair, usually a male and female of same design, the price is lower.

I think if I’m going to be an ‘expert” on African handicraft I need to visit the market at least once a month, even if I don’t buy much. It’s so fun to talk to the shop owners who are proud of their wares. The guy in the next stall got jealous and invited me to take photograph his display, too. he must have heard me explain that I was only interested in taking pictures to show to friends, who might pick something they want me to buy.

Balogun Market in Lagos Island

Living in the same compound where you work can be limiting at times. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, that except for a day at the beach I never really had a chance to experience the local culture. That is until an opportunity came to shop for fabrics in Balogun market came up this weekend.

It’s Nigerian Culture Day at the end of the month, and everyone in school is expected to wear native outfits. Our driver brought his tailor to measure us, but the only fabrics he brought were too expensive. So we hopped in the car and drove to Lagos Island, where Balogun market is.

What an interesting place it was. Besides clothes and fabrics there were vendors selling ginormous snails the size of grapefruit, kitchen wares, meat, movies on DVD, car accessories, handbags, beads, and vegetables. The air reeked of smoked fish and dried shrimps. One woman selling catfish was scraping mudwater from a pothole to fill up her basin.

But it wasn’t as fun as Southeast Asian markets. The vendors, like their counterparts in shopping malls and groceries, were a humorless bunch. I couldn’t even haggle. Taking pictures was also a problem. Even when I got one person’s permission to photograph their wares another one would block my view and demanded money. But others were okay with it, and even asked people to step aside. Our tailor told us that not too long ago he wouldn’t have let us go there because it wasn’t safe for foreigners, but the new administration did a good job of cleaning up the streets. We even saw some policemen hanging around.

I won’t mind going back there, that’s for sure.

Leapin’ Lizards

The lizards here in the school compound are so different from anything I’ve ever seen before my fascination with them is making me and my son follow them around. They are huge, colorful, and fast. They sometimes remind me of the velociraptors from “Jurassic Park” and make me shudder.

I’ve always been afraid of lizards, and I’m referring to the brown geckos that are common in the Philippines and Thailand. Part of the reason is my brother used to show me  their wiggling dismembered tail. The other reason is they love to go after the flying insects that are attracted to ceiling lights, then have the bad habit of falling off the ceiling and landing on me while I’m asleep. Luckily for us the Nigerian lizards usually run away (and they are fast) from humans whenever we get too close.