Our Home and Staff in Nigeria

Now that we've downloaded pictures from Nigeria I thought I'd post some pictures of our home and our staff.
Click on the pics for larger view.

Emeka our Driver
Front of the House
Back of the House
Our Pool
Jade and Alice our Nanny, Lexi and Glory our Cook

NIGERIA INTERRUPTED

Well, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything but lots have been going on with a few disturbing incidents.

First of all let me begin by saying we had a very wonderful Holiday visiting with family and friends. We missed Nigeria though, can you believe that??

A week to the day after we left Nigeria, we received a very disturbing email stating "Possible Bomb" at Shell Club. Well, we were in shock to say the least. More emails followed and we found out that indeed a Car Bomb went off at the Shell Club which is right outside of our Residential Area. Thank Goodness no one was hurt, there were about 9 cars that were damaged. They said the blast was so big that the car with bomb flew so high in the air that it flipped a few times and then landed on other cars. At the same exact time another car bomb went off at another Residential Area not to far away from our Shell Camp. They were both detonated by cell phones. This was the first time that Expat Residential Areas have ever been targeted and it took everyone by surprise.

The powers that be decided to start evacuating all the spouses and dependents from the camp a few days later, in a few days they were able to evacuate 250 people without incident. It has been decided that the spouses and dependents won't return to Nigeria until at least August 2007. They feel since the election is coming up in April this should be enough time for things to settle down and the children will be able to start the new school term in Nigeria. This has made it very difficult with school, we've had to register Jade back in her old school (same class) and Lexi will start a new Pre-K as soon as she gets over her cold.

Darren will be returning to Nigeria alone, his flight is Saturday, January 13th. Due to this seperation from family, Shell has added two more company paid trips home and then when we are able to return Darren will be allowed to come home to help us move back.

The one good thing that has come out of this is that we have been able to bring home two of our greybabies to live with us while we're home. We left two at the Kennel as they are the shy ones and we didn't want to upset the routine they've been used to. So we have Blacky and Reigni home with us and they are very happy and act as if they never left. Blacky had his birthday the day after he returned and is now 9 years young and looks better than he has in years. He's slimmed down and gained muscel back and looks like he's back to racing weight. This is really great since extra weight in the older years is really bad for them.

Well, I guess that's it for now, I'll try to update as often as I can with news from Nigeria and Darren.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Merry Christmas to all!!!

We are getting ready to leave for our Christmas Holiday, our home trip begins Monday, 11 December. We leave Port Harcourt, Nigeria for the airport at 10:00 AM and will fly to Lagos which is about a 50 minute flight. We will stay at the Lagos Sheraton for a few hours before our flight on British Airways. We will fly to London and stay a few hours at the airport before going on to Houston. It will take us about 2 days to get home...a 6 hour flight to London then a 10 hour flight to Houston, talk about jet lag. Here in Nigeria we are 7 hours ahead so it will take us a day or so to get used to the time change. We are very excited to see all of our friends and family and of course our greybabies, we miss them so much.

We have our Annual Christmas Eve Party again this year, it is the 9th year for our party and so far we have 36 confirmed guests, it will be a very festive, happy time for all of us.

It will be so nice to go shopping for Christmas and groceries, we have 2 small stores on the camp that have what you need most of the time, but it's nothing like shopping back home. Vegetable shopping is always an adventure, they have booths set up outside in the back of one of the stores here on camp and when the sellers see you coming they start calling you over all at the same time...Madame Madame, please see what I have for you today!!! They also remember you, so if you told them last time you were there that you will buy from them the next time they tell you, Madame you said you would buy from me this time. They all have pretty much the same items although some do have more variety than others. I usually take our cook Glory with me and let her deal with them, she knows who has the best and handles them great. Actually, we only go there when we need things between shopping, Glory and Alice (our Nanny) go on Wednesday's to the "Market" on the outside of the camp where they can purchase vegetables much cheaper. Once we're allowed to go off camp (when the elections are over) I will probably go with them. We also have a lady that comes around who sells Prawns and Fish and let me tell you the size of the Prawns are remarkable, they are so big and so good and the Red Snapper was mouth watering. Glory is an excellent cook and she's been spoiling us with all the great dishes she's been cooking. Last night we had Shrimp Fried Rice that was to die for, we even invited one of our friends over who is alone here (his family went back home) and he couldn't get over how wonderful the food was.

Well, I guess that's it for now, I will write again to let you know how our "Party" went. Until then:

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday.

Dina, Darren, Jade & Lexi