We spent most of our time on the Chevron compound, so I'm starting off this post with pictures of the compound.
In the picture below you can see in the background the wire fence and stone wall around the outside of the camp. The house where the Lees live is near the end of the compound, so it's a good place to ride bikes and take walks.
It didn't rain much while we were there, but I thought this was a sweet picture of Grace with her umbrella on a day it did sprinkle.
It was hot and humid the whole week we were there, so playing in the hose on the back porch was a fun activity.
This is a view of the Lees' backyard.
There is a gardener who works on the yard almost every day, and Sophia likes to get out and help her.
Of course Grace wanted to get in on the act, too. Too bad kids don't want to help with chores when they're older!
Kent and I spent part of almost every day out looking for lizards with the girls in the backyard.
One day we had a picnic lunch out on the back patio.
Here's Grace doing her exercises with Granddad.
There's a nice pool on the compound, and Grace and Sophia were invited to a birthday party at the pool while we were there.
Not a close up picture of the Lees, but a good overview of the pool area.
Both Grace and Sophia had soccer lessons while we were there, so we went to watch them.
Grace was mostly just adorable and cute,
but Sophia was learning some soccer skills.
We did some shopping out on the economy. We went to a grocery store that looked like one you'd find in the US.
Kent and I were both impressed with the abundance and variety of the flowering trees and bushes.
We loved all the bright tropical flowers.
Some were very unique and unusual, like the one in the picture below,
I wanted to show the beautiful side of Nigeria before I showed the pictures of what we also saw as we drove around the area outside of the Chevron compound.
We saw mostly run down buildings and roads in terrible condition.
We were reminded of the conditions we saw driving around India, There we saw cows in the road, and in Nigeria we saw goats.
An example of what the roads were like if you got off the main freeways.
These little taxis were just like the ones in India.
One evening Adri took us to the Hard Rock Cafe. Russ didn't come because he was home with a sore back.
I had no idea Grace was making this face when this picture was taken, but it's pretty funny!
We went early and pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves, so we had good service.
The Hard Rock Cafe was on the beach, and this was the view from the outdoor patio.
One afternoon Adri, Sophia and I went to the movie theater at the mall to see "Zootopia". It was a nice, modern theater.
We went to an outdoor market to shop for souvenirs.
I looked through many stalls and bought a wooden nativity set.
Adri was also shopping for some souvenirs.
Kent and I had a bit of an adventure on our way back to the states. We were taken to the airport on Saturday afternoon by the Chevron shuttle bus and dropped off at the airport. We were there several hours early, but had brought books to read to kill the time. Well, there were all sorts of delays for our extremely full flight which was supposed to leave at 10pm, and by 2am the flight was cancelled altogether. We then stood in line to wait for a bus to take us to a local hotel, and we arrived at around 5am. We crashed into bed and slept until about 10am.
The hotel was very nice and we had most of the day to wander around.
A nice buffet was offered for both breakfast and lunch. As a side note, there was another buffet offered with Nigerian food. I tried to eat it, but it was sooooo spicy that I couldn't eat any of it. The manager of the restaurant kindly showed us to the buffet set up for foreigners.
Though even for foreigners there were some foods I thought were unique to Nigeria.
There was a pool out back but we didn't use it. I'm just including it in the photos to show what a nice hotel it was by Nigerian standards. (Recall the photos above)
We were back to the airport at around 3pm to wait for our 10pm flight. I took the picture below because it was a good representation of the clothes the Nigerians wore.
There weren't very many places to sit in the airport. I chose this spot because it was in front on an air conditioner. This was in the area before we went through security. We knew from experience that there wouldn't be anywhere comfortable to sit near the gates, so we waited until the last minute to go back there.
I'm including this photo to give an idea of how old fashioned, uncomfortable and un-airconditioned the airport was. This is the area where people waited to get onto the airplanes, and why we weren't in a hurry to get there.
Here's where we spent most of our time, standing in front of the one air conditioner that was working. We ended up with a bonus day in Nigeria, but we survived it just fine!
