Easter Saturday .... no eggs for me !!!

The ''tooth'' and it's pustulating (that's a great descriptive word!) abscess, and I know it was because I could see it all over my gum around the tooth, not a pretty sight. Before I left home the I had a root canal (it only hurt a little bit .... hmm) given a temporary filling and antibiotics.


But to get back to the story, another lump came up on my gum, and I don't know if other people are like me, but i had to mess with it and couldn't leave it alone ... so with a (clean, yes it was !!) fingernail I kept at it until it burst .. oops.Luckily no horrible yukky pus came out, so that was ok, no more thoughts of that. And life goes on.

Not thinking anymore of this I am eating a delicious piece of locally caught fried fish, crisp but soft. Oh, but of course with my luck out comes half my tooth, I suppose that's not really a surprise if the truth be told.


This means a trip to the local pharmacy. I hadn't been before but this could be the small shack down the road for all I know ... so off we go with the driver and I am prepared with a long list of medications to buy for all and sundry when they knew where we were going. We reach the market and already head into the usual blockade of spreading market produce. Everyone wanting that extra inch to display their wares; fruit, vegetables, live chickens and goats, household goods... With no market inspector anywhere to be seen - do they even have one ? Do I need to answer that ? The sellers are at liberty to display and spread out as they please. The driver being a calm guy edges forth, berated on both sides by the encroaching stall holders. Until of course the white face in the back of the car eases the pain of us trying to aqueeze a jag down a narrow track.

The cry goes out ''onyocha, onyocha'' or ''white person, white person''. If I have heard this once I have heard it a million times, I can't evben manage a weary smile ..... but the path is widened a fraction.

We reach the pharmacy and meet my uncle in law, he has just had an eye operation and came to pick up his eye drops. We chat a while and finally enter the pharmacy.


It is a big, block built place with every kind of medication you could want packed, crammed full on the shelves, in the refridgerators and in cupboards, lastly it was clean and cool.

There were many people waiting to hand in their prescriptions or waiting to request advice from the pharmacist or just to purchase their own choice of drugs.

After bagging up the antibiotics (no doctors prescription required) and malaria tablets we had to leave them on the counter, among everyone thronging to be served, and go to the small hatch to pay our money. Not bad at £20 for my long list. That's on the wetsern scale of things though, for them that would be days pay. Then we get stamped and head back, where in my opinion, the bag of tablets are amazingly still there.

We show the tickets, pick our bag and exit. All done in less than 15 minutes. A 9/10 for efficiency.


So today we are heading for the next largest town, described as the Garden City. We wanted to meet a friend and then go to the beach then on the way back go shopping, pick up some souvenirs for the kids friends and some postcards. After meeting and discussing our plans with the school friend she advised us not to go to the beach area as there had been 16 or 18 ''activists'' killed by the police and as a foreigner with a white face I would be surely a kidnappers dream.

Getting back to the reason I am recounting all this is because of the blasted antibiotics, they had given me the runs, but foolish as I am I had ignored both times I had experienced this before we set off. Now this old schoolfriend lived in a virtual palace of marble and fine art, with expensive furniture and technology.

Imagine now I have to use their toilet for this unplanned and unwanted venture. So, i call the house girl over and she directs me. This toilet leads directly off .... and I mean there's the door and there's the toilet .... the children's sitting area, and guess what? Oh yeh, they are all sitting in there, bar one, so that means 5 kids aged from 8 to 18 are all going to hear me sandblasting the porcelain.

Be brave, I tell myself and onwards I march, ''we all have to go sometime!''

But for anyone that knows me, I cannot stand using someone elses toilet for a wee let alone anything else ! No way Jose. Not me.

I enter the cubicle, yes cubicle, that's the only word for it. I wish I were, but I am not the slimmest person in the world .. ah but this is ridiculous. I have to edge my way past the handbasin, positioning myself in an 's' shape over the toilet to even think about closing the door. Where was the building inspector when this was being planned !!
I should thank heaven for small mercies, at least it was a proper toilet, and it was clean.

Finally getting myself and my handbag in this coffin disguised as a toilet I sit down.

I try my usual trick of turning the tap on to disguise any sounds that may emanate ... but oh sh*t it's not working and it's too late for me to stop anything from going anywhere, if you get my drift ?


I can only thank God that being a mother means I have an endless handbag full of whatever you desire ... yep, I had wet wipes in my bag !
Searching the rest of my bag I found my favourite perfume and gave it my best shots, down the loo, behind the loo, all over the damn 3 foot by 3 foot room and all over me too. It doesn't hurt to freshen up ! Smiling to myself I thought 'phew got away with that unfortunate trip to the ladies'.

Only to open the door to my youngest waiting outside who exclaimed loudly

''urghh what's that smell?''

She meant the excessive perfume, honestly she did, but every head turned towards me and looking at their faces I knew what every kid in that room was thinking she meant .....

Beam me up Scotty !!!!

The Cock !!!

Easter Saturday dawns. Well, I would hardly call 5am dawn, it's pitch black outside. The only living thing that thinks dawn has broken is the massive cockerel stalking the compound ''cock-a-doodle-dooing'' to it's hearts content and at full volume under the bedroom window.
Dropping off to sleep again - I have that luxury that the rest of the household don't have, they have to rise at 5am to start the daily household tasks - the weather is cool enough for me to do so, even though the generator went off in the night and therefore so did the fan ...

And being fairly vocal myself though I am sure I wake any remaining sleepers by shouting at the damn cockerel to shut up at 6am and again at 7am!!

How can a bird tell the time, but I swear it was crowing at dead on the hour !!

That's definitely a ''chicken and egg'' discussion (pun intended).

Roaches and mossies ...

We reached the main airport of the country. The international
arrivals. Well, they try anyway, saying it's up to internatonal standards might be pushing it a bit, ( a lot). It looks good from the outside but once you reach the human element of passing through the arrivals you soon realise that things are not as you would wish them to be, in several ways.

Firstly, you pass through immigration. Leaving a lot to be desired.
Searching the suitcases in the main hall in front of everyone waiting to pass behind you isn't my idea of fun. A bribe makes the chance of leaving the airport quicker. And as you wait for them to allow you to pass through, a fervent hope runs through your mind that the cock roach you just saw that's the size of a baby mouse doesn't enter your exposed belongings ... appears to be a natural ocurrence because it's only us jumping up and down and pointing at it ... in horror.
We reach the outside safely and intact; body and bags. It's only when I see the mosquitoes in the misty grey dawn light swarming around the bulbs in the walls of the building that I remember we have to take our tablets against malaria. Dismayed I pull out the bottle of water. It only has an inch or so left in the bottom, between 5 of us. Kids and husband first, they swallow down their foul tablets. Leaving me to try and build up enough saliva to put the small round tablet in and swallow. Have you ever tried that under pressure? It's a no-go situation and it was all I could do to muster up enough courage to pop it in and try.

I advise against this technique, dry heaving on a minibus in front of strangers whilst pulling all manner of faces at the undescribably, disgustingly bitter taste is not a good way to make friends and influence people. And then the bus lurches forward and on we go to the domestic airport. In the rain. At breakneck speed to meet up the next flight.

Images: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/09/opinion/mosquito.jpg

http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/wp-content/uploads/live-cockroach.jpg

Buckets and bathing !

I have decided there's no putting off my shower / bath. It's not that I am against it, just that there's no bath and no shower ! Just a washroom with a hole in the wall at floor level for the water to empty out of ...

I start with my wash bag hanging on a nail. Removing my soap and sponge I dip them in the cold water and soap up. It's not so bad with the sponge, in fact the vigourous rubbing all over and down my legs to my feet I actually feel ok.
I balance one foot on my slipper and wash the other foot. Then with aforementioned flip flop I then repeat the process all over again with the other foot. But bearing in mind my first foot is slipping about inside the wet flip flop and the flip flop itself on the wet floor has decided it wants to go off and explore another part of the washroom from where I am standing ! All in all I decide to cut my losses and stand squarely on both feet. It's just tough if one foot gets dirty again, I can always towel it off. There was method in my madness when I purchased black towels. Whilst maintaining an air of sophistication to the checkout girl that quite obviously, I am a stylish woman about town. If only she knew!

The large, black bucket that has to be filled daily from outside,

by carrying buckets of water upstairs and emptying them into it.

We each take our share from this one.

Back to my bath, or bucket wash I should say ... I am finally ready and the remaining water (bar a few inches in the bottom of the bucket) allocated to me is tipped up and plunges me into a frenzy of shivering, to rinse away those soapy suds. I can only hope that it rinses in all those nooks and crannies. Dripping wet I wash my undies and hang them to dry with everyone elses on the nylon rope strung across the walls. I make sure they are hanging securely, I don't feel like fetching more water from the reservoir in the compound. I turn the buckets upside down to dry out after use.
This done I retrieve my towel off the nail and dry off. Putting my nightdress back on I make my way to the room to dress, kicking off the slippery flip flops the lino on the floor is nice and cool to my bare feet and clean to walk on.

But by the time I reach the room I want to go back and have another wash. A sheen of sweat covers my body already. I towel off again ignoring it and dress. Now I am like a wet lettuce leaf. I can't move, the heat (around 38-40 degrees centigrade) and humidity are stifling me and it's all I can do to lie down.

I start to type my diary on my phone, but before long sleep has claimed me - I blame the travelling and the heat of course !

The Fire

Leading up to this terrifying event the signs were there and we all chose to ignore them ...

On the day of the fire somehow we were restless, by this I mean the kids and me mainly. Not knowing how to entertain ourselves, they had had enough of me and I wanted peace and quiet. That's why it's surprising that we were all together when the fire started - I can only thank God for that !

I decided to play solitaire in the upstairs parlour, the armchairs so low I packed 3 seat cushions on one armchair and used a garden chair as my table.

Minutes before the fire ...

Happily entertaining myself the kids descended - thats my 3 girls and my niece - ok their ages start at 14, 11, 10 and 9.

All these girls are independent making drinks and cooking noodles for themselves on the gas stove in the upstairs kitchen. The term kitchen is used loosely, it is just a room, there was no sink and no running water in the house, anywhere! All water is carried up daily from the outside reservoir in the compound, to the kitchen and bathroom areas. And therein lies the clue to the fire. And the difficulty to extinguish it.

Mooching around as dinner wasn't ready (my sisters -in-law were cooking outside tonight) the kids wanted hot drinks - Milo, chocolate and I had tea - good old British cup of tea of course ...

One of the kids went to make the drinks and an almighty scream really did frighten the life out of me .... ''fire'' another blood curdling scream ''fire, fire get out''.

The wall behind my chair has cracked from the heat,

the socket in which my phone was plugged

to the right of the chair ...

Well, I had to unplug my phone and get up and go and investigate, the kids had been screaming all day as they played, so it wasn't an unusual occurence and not something to be taken seriously.

The other girls ran to investigate and then the real screams took over. I decided to move faster ... pushing the kids to the concrete stairs, I thought if it was just a paper bag or food burning I could put it out and that's the end of it. I knew I had to check their bedroom in case one of them had run inside with fear and unfortunately their bedroom was next to the kitchen.

But to be honest, what met my eyes when I saw the doorway of the kitchen made me fear for all our lives and the house ... the door was full of an orange - white roiling mass ... not one flame flickered but a live, turning, boiling roll of fire filled my vision. I have never seen fire like that before. It was beautiful yet fearsome. Attractive and attracting. The heat burning but not felt.

As I now checked their room was empty I made my way to the stairs where I met my brother -in-law coming from sleep, I screamed to him to get out, the kids were safe and he should move. He refused and started towards the kitchen. On the stairs my nephew (21 years old) was running up and I grabbed him begging him not to go further to run and safe himself.

You see the night was now upon us, when the fire started it was around 6.45pm but in the tropics night falls fast and with a thud. Like a shutter descending. It was now dark. The electric was off as the generator had not been started - the house was very dark. But if the electric had been on, things could have been worse as the fire would have travelled along the electrics and more fires could have started from electrical burn-outs. Remember, there is no permanent external electric supply.

The fear, the fear was tripled, quadrupled because foolishly there was a 20 gallon plastic barrel of 'kerosene and petrol mix' stored in the kitchen next to the gas stove that had blown over from the open window .... now you see why we were scared. The fule had caught light.

A female visitor to the compound ran to the main road a few hundred yards away and screamed for men to help. Screaming that the church house was on fire. Help was needed.

There is no fire brigade nor ambulance service. What you see is what you get. Men came. I cannot thank them enough. Without those men running into a pitch black house and carrying heavy buckets of water from the stone reservoir in the compound we would have lost the house.

Because of foolishness ....

Standing in the kitchen taking a photo of the devastated roof in the hallway leading away from the kitchen - the door being open into the stairs, this side of the door was virtually untouched ! The girls bedroom door just visible on the right hand side and my bedroom door further down on the right side. The corridor to the upstairs parlour just after the step ladder on the left, before reaching the wooden door.

The upstairs kitchen; the window with the protector

with the glass blown out, the ceiling burnt and fell to the floor,

the door of the kitchen charred and burnt.

It was only by good luck that the injuries weren't worse. I lost some of my eyelashes and singed my hair - remedied by breaking off the dry ends. The other injuries were minor burns, cuts and grazes, nothing that wouldn't heal.

We were lucky.

We also learned our lesson.

No more upstairs kitchen and no more storing fuel inside the house ...

Is it night yet .....

Wednesday 10pm. I lie here again, maybe my best thinking is done in bed (some would say that's where I spend most of my time so why wouldn't I do most of my thinking there... not true ..!!) The stars seem so much brighter, shinier here, but that may have something to do with the fact I am seeing between the louvre windows and directly at the stars, whereas at home I have to peer through net curtains and a pane of glass ... oh well.

There is definitely no point me trying to work out what is what in the night sky, can I tell a constellation from a moon beam ... no, unfortunately not. Then it dawns on me - the realisation not the daylight, I haven't been awake all night - that when a friend (Rufusndp) said I was heading south - about which I nearly complained vociferously that you NEVER tell a lady she is heading south, I can see that well enough for myself - ahem - I then understood what he meant was South of the border - well Equator anyway. My denseness on these issues appears even denser than ever (oh grammar girl !).

No matter, I still can't tell which star is which. I just know that lying here in the dark they look so beautiful and that's good enough for me.



Dusk (6pm)

'Dashing' our way through road blocks

One day on our way to a nearby town we were stopped at a road block by the police - this is a regular yet annoying practice. An oncoming car, not requested to stop decided to go through the narrow opening at the normal speed of traffic on these roads - which is invariably 'fast' or 'very fast' of course with us being stopped he smashed our wing mirror on his way through ...

This being a police road block I expected the police to signal him to stop, and the police in their fast-thinking efficiency said ''sorry'' and we better move to the side of the road because WE were blocking traffic behind us and we would be in big trouble if we didn't hurry up and move ! There was I in the back seat with mouth agape ... They were witnesses to an accident caused by a reckless driver !

Apparently when I asked the other occupants of the car I made them wet themselves with laughter, once again, it's getting to be a habit of mine. We settled the issue by 'dashing' the road block ''attendants'' and we passed on our way.

Luckily for us we have struggled through life and have afforded to have a nice car ...but the comfort of a good car can also backfire (not literally, it is a good car !) but this makes us stand out. Especially where 99.9% of the population has black skin and I am so very obviously white skinned, with no hope of tanning either - shame ! This makes us sitting targets - pun intended !

This time we were on our way back home on a major highway from a major city. We were stopped, again and again, in fact several times...

Each time the soldiers in their fatigues were around to back up the smartly dressed - also armed - police.

Our driver and any other male passengers were usually asked for ID and to step out of the car. In this area there had been certain civilian activities that had been worrying the police. So even my presence did not allow us to pass through the road blocks with a wave, a greeting and a smile. Although I was always allowed to remain seated inside the car with the children and not asked for any ID. Although money was expected. (I must be rich because I am from London, I am saying nothing!!).

It was decided by some that they would try and extract money from us by looking at every single document the driver or the male passengers were carrying. Being unable to fault anything, from the drivers license to the cars import documents the smiling men still held out their open hands with a smile and declaring ''welcome to our country'', wow, what a welcome.

At the last request to stop on that road, (actually who am I kidding, these are demands to stop and if anyone doubts that they will soon understand the ''shoot-to-kill'' policy) I was asked bluntly ''whose children are they?''

I looked blank for a few seconds and then declared

''ours!''

- one was my own child and one was my niece.

In this culture they are classed as my children

anyway, even if I didn't give birth to them.

I think my surprised reply made him smile and he allowed us to go with a ''good day''.

At all of these stops (at least 20 on this journey) they are armed with rifles that look like they were made in the dim and distant past of the 1960's, usually slung over their shoulders or as one in particular did, slung menacingly round his hips, just at eye level of people seated in a car.

I can now truly say I have looked down the barrel of a gun and lived to tell the tale.

He was the only one we ''dashed'' money to. Not surprisingly.

Rain, Rain go away ...

and it hasn't even started yet ...

I have uploaded a short video in the middle of the deluge, taken on my mobile phone - hence the poor quality, but the batteries gave out on my camera, typical.

The rainy season is starting as the brief showers show us a taste of what is to come ... only the real rain is more prolific. At times you can't even see your extended arms in front of you once the precipitation (that's rainfall to me and you) reaches its heaviest ...

I know it's good for the crops as planting season has just finished, giving the seeds and plants time to fix strong roots before the rain washes away the weakest plants. There will be another planting season after the rainy season finishes. I am trying to get used to the idea of Summer at Christmas and winter in 'our' Summer ... I think it's too confusing for an old timer like me. The kids seem to pick these things up really quickly.

I love rain, especially the warm kind ... which this is. I would have gone out and given everyone a show by dancing in the rain - not really, but I don't think it would have been appreciated anyway. I don't think my talents are recognised, I could bring rain to the desert just by singing ... anyone want to pay me a fortune to try ?

Goat, chicken or turkey ? Gotta be goat ...

I had to talk about animals somewhere down the line and now is as good a place and time as any.

Goats ! They live around the compounds. Everyone knows whose goat is whose, no-one would dare steal another persons goat. They may get on each others goat (aggravate them) but they would not steal it. They eat anything and everything, normally grass and vegetation, which abounds in great amounts, but they have been known to nibble at paper and washing and anything you leave lying around ... don't sunbathe with bare feet ... your toes could get munched !

There was the apparently hilarious time I was sitting in the upstairs parlour area that has now turned into a family tale. The description of me screaming and calling for the kids to come and protect me is never forgotten. the cause of the initial fear and then comedy sketching was a goat .... do you expect to see a goat peering around the door frame at you while you are sitting quietly pondering the complexities of life or in other words lazying around reading my book .... I still can't forget it myself, ''Upstairs I exclaim, how did it know to come upstairs and what for ??''

And unlike cows or is it horses ... goats can walk back downstairs again, thank God because there was no way I was going to carry it back down again ....

Now the procedure for killing a goat starts when meat is required for the cooking pot ... of course. The good, (usually) old gateman or yardman is called to do the deed. He holds the goat along with any other available or willing people strong enough to keep it still. The throat is slit and the blood drains away into the ground - at least the goat doesn't know what's happening.
The goat is then place on a metal grille that is laid over an open fire. The hairs of the goat are burnt off ( a bit like my eyelashes - but that is another story, follow this blog...) and until the skin is charred.

Some unfortunate soul - usually the housegirl has to wash the goat after all this and then it is placed on plantain leaves layered on top of corrugated zinc (the same that is used for roofing).
It is now cut into piece for cooking or drying. The pieces are washed and cooked in stew to eat with rice or soup ie. Okra, Ogbonno, Egussi, Vegetable or bitterleaf etc that is then eaten with pounded yam, ground rice or the new 'low glycaemic index' and low carb fufu's such as ground millet and wheat - good for diabetics.
The pieces for drying are left on the metal grille over a low fire until they have dried hard and tough. The pieces become soft again when boiled in water.
I would say if you have never tasted goat meat then do, it needs longer cooking than lamb but is still tasty. If you buy the western variety that is ... now I will be corrected no doubt, but the African goat has such distinctive and strong flavour that it didn't suit my stomach.

Neither is any single part wasted ... from head to leg !

It's normal for the children to participate in all these procedures as they will be doing this when they have their own families ... to be honest I couldn't watch it, but all the kids around do ... and did.

True story, worth a read: goat held by police accused of armed carjacking !!

Motorbikers heaven !

Every where you go, be it town or village, city or compound you will see a motorbike. Usually tens or hundreds of them. Everywhere. Why?

Well if you consider the state of the roads; pot holes ranging from 6 inches to 6 foot wide, 1 foot to 10 foot long and upto 2 feet deep in places you will understand.
Motorbikes can easily access places where cars can't.

Most of the people that live near the towns and in villages travel by public transport or motorbike.
The motorbikes are taxis called ocada

and they carry between 1 and 6 people - on ONE motorbike, that has been made for 2 people .... Now it's not unusual even in Britian to see youths zipping about without a crash helmet on. But here its unusual to see anyone on a motorbike WITH a crash helmet on.

To 'catch' the motorbike taxi you may stand on the main road and any passing motorbike taxi will stop if you put out your hand and flag them down. It doesn't matter if they have a passenger or three on already ... as long as you can fit on, then you have a ride for a small amount of money.

The other places to catch a ride are the local market places or anywhere thats busy. They don't have formal signs on their bikes, so your guess is as good as mine. I was told that you can tell a motorbike taxi-man (they are always men !! a woman wouldn't want to do that anyway ...) because they are dusty and wear old clothes !!

These clothes usually consist of a t-shirt, possibly a jacket

if it's night time or raining, a thin pair of trousers

or long shorts, and flip-flops (they call them slippers) !!!

Now I could be wrong, but I thought on a motorbike you were supposed to wear protective gear ... at the very least a crash helmet ? You'd think I was making a joke the way they laughed at me when I mentioned these few points....

Now don't think that families lose out, oh no. The ocadas will pick All of you up. Now if I could have, I would have .. but I didn't like to ask anyone if I could snap them and their family on a bike ... this ranged from a woman with a baby strapped to her back on the back of a bike to the whole family ..

This is what I have seen. Let's start at the front and work our way back ....

1st. 6 month old baby in front of the handlebars
2nd. the driver
3rd. another baby
4th. the mother
5th. another toddler (between 2 and 4 years of age)
6th. the father

That's not too bad considering I have seen coffins carried on motorbikes, large drums of oil, ladders, animals, desks, chairs, fridges, firewood in a big bundle 6 foot high and more, much more ...

There's only ONE RULE to riding on an ocada : - YOU MUST NEVER HOLD ON TO THE DRIVER .....

Oh My Goodness .... either you sit with your arms in your lap, at your side or holding your baggage, child, relative or onto the back of the motorbike !!

Older ladies and Nuns of a religious order MAY sit side saddle - that is perfectly acceptible and it is VERY advisable for women to wear 'long knickers' ! As to get on the bike you have to hoist everything up and straddle the saddle !!! Preserving dignity as best as possible ...

You may ask where are the 'law enforcement agencies' while all this is going on ... all I can say is that this practice is perfectly acceptable, if not legal, and if you are stopped a t a road block a small amount of money will allow you passage through without too much hassle .... to your intended destination.

And if you wonder why those most sensible of human beings - women of course - don't wear crash helmets ... because it messes up their hair ! I would like to see them doing their hair in fancy styles with no head !!

Shopping ... yes, please

I love shopping and most women do ... well I love shopping in my style. I don't particularly like going with anyone else who wants to drag me to their choice of shops. Just the awkwardness of me I suppose. Anyway, here I have to go with the driver and preferably a member of the family. I can be taken to the best places and nicest shops, they obviously know the area like the backs of their hands.

They speak the language of the area (although everyone speaks English - I don't want to get ripped off) and they haggle. Not a British trait that I have ever heard of. Haggling is like food to the local people. Without getting something knocked off the price they feel cheated, depressed and they will not shop at that store or market stall again ...
The driver takes us to the nearest town and we prepare to go shopping ... then I remembered to reach most of the shops entails limbering precariously across creaky wooden boards, pallets or metal grills placed from the roadside to the front of the shack ... er, I mean shop.

No, shack is probably the best description. That is to say some of the shops are made of a roughly built wooden structure, others are built from blocks and rendered and painted, and the actual goods inside are usually fine to purchase.
Concrete Block built shop.

I am not knocking the products just the whole set-up - there appear to be no regulations regarding Health and Safety of customers nor employees ... nor anything at all that could constitute Public Health or Consumer Rights.

I visited a business centre on the second floor.
It was like the nursery rhyme about the old man who lived in a crooked house. The concrete steps were sturdy and strong. It was just that each step was a different height ranging from half an inch to 12 inches and on a slope downwards of about 100 degrees, instead of sitting at right angles of 90 degrees, so that you are walking on a flat surface, the step being at 100 degrees means that the step is sloping back downwards.
I learned the technique to walking up or sliding back down these public staircases all by myself !! I am proud of this achievement (- and this is the style in most public buildings-) hold onto the railings for dear life and pray they aren't loose - unfortunately that is also a frequent occurrence !!

These boards linking road to store front, stretch from the ''hopefully'' tarred road where the car is parking, to the shop door, as there are no pavements ! Anywhere! At all ! That's why I returned home as deaf as a post, cars use their horns to inform just about all living things that they are approaching, or overtaking or just on the road in the vicinity ! Wow. Imagine using your horn non-stop in the West, you would be arrested pronto.

Talk about a walk on the wild side. A friend of mine said 'don't get eaten by the Lions'. I don't think there are any Lions here but he should have said 'don't get knocked over by a dangerous driver', that I could understand ...

Now some of you may be wondering what the big deal is about walking on a wooden board? When you realise it's perching over a 3 foot deep gutter that is around 2 to 3 feet wide you may agree with my anxiety.
Impressive eh ? Water 'an' all

If you are lucky the gutter is empty, letting yourelf risk the 'half run' across the boards, or would it be better to go slow, which one would make the wood break the fastest ? Decisions, decisions ...

Or you may be unlucky and the gutter is full of stinking sludge, where the rubbish has blocked the free-flow of the water that has now accumulated in it.

And don't forget mine is the only white face for miles so if I fall in I am going to be the talk of the town for years to come ... I wouldn't dare show my face, nor anything else in public for at least an eternity !

Just a quickie ...

Just a short one ... and believe me I saw it with my own eyes ... or as the citizens of that area say ''with my two naked eyes'' ... meaning their eyes were open properly and they didn't need glasses to see it.

So what did I see .... a petrol (gas or filling station) station called:

'Climax Oil Ltd'.

Needless to say, I didn't go in for a fill up ....

Day trip or washing ...

The day trip was organised and off they went. Too many of them piled into one car. Who cares, there are road laws and no-one but no-one follows them. The police don't stop you by chasing you with their cars, only by road block. So off they went with their snacks and fruit. Promising to buy more food on the way. With a man in charge of the expedition that is very doubtful!

They have gone to the Lake. It's massive. We went last week and promised to go again for the day. But if I had gone then a child would have missed out. I don't mind I went before.

Having the day free I couldn't choose between helping with the cooking or washing some clothes ... the choice wasn't as easy as you may think. For a start the cooking is done over an open fire and the washing by hand. Ah, the good old days eh ? I used to hate washing day on Mondays when it was with a twin tub, by hand is far worse. But, when done properly and time taken the clothes do come out far cleaner.

The back of the house and the poultry house on the left from the compound

Getting the water in a bucket from the stone reservoir in the back of the compound I plonk the plastic bucket on the concrete steps at the back of the house. I then plonk my bottom next to it. Using the old fashioned hard soap, the green carbolic type. Scrubbing and rubbing. Not an easy task for someone used to an automatic washing machine.

A bucket for washing and a bucket for rinsing, but I still have to go and fetch more to really get the soap out. I could have used Omo but it does need a lot more rinsing. It's so hot and sunny, reaching 34 plus degrees centigrade. At least the washing will dry. I could hang it on the lines next to the steps. But I am going to put mine upstairs on the front veranda, it's surrounded with the wall and protectors, whilst allowing the free-flow of air. So the washing is not seen from below. It's also nearer to the bedrooms. Lazy? Not really, but the heat is so tiring. High humidity makes every task feel ten times harder ...

There is no other good car around. They have taken the best car. But I feel restless now. It's not like in the west. I want to be able to drive around or catch a safe mode of transport and go to another village. At least we have small shops at the end of the church compound. They don't sell much except teabags, bread and sweets ... I venture this far alone but not further.

If I am walking along the road people would want to stop me and talk. It's also hot, dusty and dangerous. Drivers do not take care ordinarily. Now they would be staring at the only white woman (onya ocha means white person and I have heard it several million times now) walking on the road. There are no formal pavements or designated safe pedestrian areas anywhere.

I decide to stay home .....