Monday, November 26, 2007

 

My Mansion.



















The house in the center is the one I share with 2 others guys. A pilot has the master bedroom upstairs with a private bath and us two on the main floor have to share one. Thats no big deal, the housekeeper takes care of all of it (even laundry). The house also has a huge kitchen and living room, dining room. The compound is built around the main building, which is apartments and the pool, at the center of the donut with small streets coming out like spokes on a wheel.


They were made for entire families to live in, when they were allowed to be here. Now its only for the workers.


I'm sure this compound, which is owned by Shell Oil, is better than 99% of how the people live in this country.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

 

Fender bender

On the way home from work last night the small security truck leading us got himself too close to a car and they scrapped sides.

The security police are every sense of the word police and they drive small 4 door pick-ups, nice ones. The driver and at least 2 others inside. They are unmistakeable police. Machine guns. They drive pretty agressively getting us through traffic and take various routes, mixing them up but also trying to bypass congestion. They have a siren and other electronic horns that they try to get other traffic out of the way.

Sometimes other drivers don't want to give way and thats what happened yesterday as the truck sideswipped a car, breaking his mirror and scratching up the whole front fender. This all happened at a snails pace, so either could have avoided it. The other guy had a nice car so he should have gave way. Anyway the driver got out through his passenger door because the two vehicles were kind of wedged in place. Traffic was not going anywhere, but the other driver got out to see the damage and let the police know he wasn't too happy, a driver from behind him also got out and now we started to get some shouting. A guy in our van said someone was going to get hit, but the driver from the following car was just pushing the accident driver back to his car and I'm sure saying something like thats life and you can't fight city hall and stuff like that, so the police wouldn't be tempted to get out of the truck and settle it the old fashion way. Traffic was moving now. The drivers all got in their cars, we moved along next to the dented car for awhile and then off we went.

Most streets look to be a normal 2 lane road being used for 4, plus break downs and parking everywhere, and the ever present motorcycle taxis, all combine to make our commute wild.

Monday, November 19, 2007

 

Some Scenery on the way to work




The trip between the hanger and our housing compound takes anywhere from 15 minutes to and hour+. Thats with a police escort cutting through traffic. We go opposite traffic all the time if its got a clear lane and our side doesn't.
Motorcycles appear to out number cars easily because they are cheap on gas and the owner also uses it as a taxi. They weave in and out of traffic like crazy. I've seen up to 4 people on the same bike. They all use very skinny handle bars to squeeze in between lines of cars.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

 

First experience with Nigerian cooking.




My first couple nights I stayed in the Transiet employee hotel and ordered food from the hotel menu. I ordered "Fish and Chips" thinking so many employees here are from the UK that I would get Fish and Chips like that. Not quite. I got fried fish with the head for a bonus.
The next picture is looking out from the walkway in front of the room. That small concrete building to the left of the mini van was some type of small private school.

Friday, November 16, 2007

 

In Nigeria

No pictures yet. I flew in to Lagos Nigeria by way of Amsterdam Netherlands, Minnapolis Minnesota from Salt Lake city. Total travel time was 24 hours, 8 time zones and a bunch of cat naps.

This country is tropical which means hot and humid all the time. Today I flew from Lagos to my new home in Port Harcourt, right in off shore oil country. I have an apartment in the Shell Oil compound, a wild 30 minute drive from the airport where I'll be working. The compound is night/to/day different than the neighborhood around it. Hope to get some pictures soon.

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