Well everyone, looks like our departure date will be September 13th. We've been very very busy these last few weeks purchasing furniture and household items for our new home. I never thought I'd ever say this but I'm actually getting tired of Shopping. We only have a few things left to get though and the Freight Company is coming by Friday to give us some boxes and figure out what size freight we need. It's really happening and it's almost here, we're getting pretty excited and anxious.
We fly out on Wednesday September 13th at 3:30 PM on Air France and arrive in France where we will only have a two hour layover instead of a nine hour layover like we had on our visit, so that helps out a great deal since we'll have the kids and cats.
We found out that the airport in Port Harcourt has closed for repairs so we will be flying into Lagos and spending the night then flying out of Lagos to Owarri which is about a two hour drive from Port Harcourt. We're told that the two hour drive can take up to 5 - 6 hours depending on the rain and traffic so we're trying to prepare ourselves for that journey with two kids and two cats.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Pictures
Pictures of Garden at one of the homes we visited at the Residential Area.
All of the homes have the most beautiful gardens you'll ever see.
Take a look at this Front Patio, stunning.
Here is a picture of where your staff lives behind your home.
Count Down to Departure
Well, looks like Darren's first day of work in Nigeria will be September 18th, so everything will start moving really fast now.
We just found out today that we will be able to get the house we looked at while on our trip to Nigeria. We're so excited, it already has a pool and an open Hut kind of thing (I took a picture of one of these from another house so I'll post it) and a really nice size yard. It also has a really large back patio that we will probably close in with windows all around so we'll have an extra room, a large front patio and the gardens all around the house are just beautiful. I wish we would have taken pictures of it, but it was already dark when we went to see it the first time and raining pretty hard the next morning when we went to take another look.
Here is the picture of the Hut thing I was talking about.
Picture at the School.
We just found out today that we will be able to get the house we looked at while on our trip to Nigeria. We're so excited, it already has a pool and an open Hut kind of thing (I took a picture of one of these from another house so I'll post it) and a really nice size yard. It also has a really large back patio that we will probably close in with windows all around so we'll have an extra room, a large front patio and the gardens all around the house are just beautiful. I wish we would have taken pictures of it, but it was already dark when we went to see it the first time and raining pretty hard the next morning when we went to take another look.
Here is the picture of the Hut thing I was talking about.
Picture at the School.
Friday, August 04, 2006
We're Back!!!
Well, we made it back from our trip to Nigeria. It's going to be very difficult trying to explain how Nigeria really is. The drive from the Airport to the Residential Area was very rough for me to see. Let me put it this way, think of everything you've heard about Nigeria and Africa as a whole with all the poverty etc. and it's 100 times worse than what you can imagine. But the Nigerians are smiling all of the time and are on the move. They walk everywhere rain or shine and they always look busy. I didn't take pictures of the villages because I wasn't sure if that was okay to do, I know you can't take pictures of the police so I didn't want to take pictures without asking permission, I'll try to take pictures next time. On the drive all I could think of was how I was going to explain what we were seeing to Jade and Lexi when they are with us. You know kids say whatever comes to mind.
The DRIVING....OMG it's an art only the Nigerians can manage. They have people everywhere, cars coming from all directions, horns blowing, motorcycles everywhere with three sometimes four people on them and it's nerve racking. Traffic jams cause all cars want to go at the same time inching the way until someone just pushes through, it's WILD!!!
Garbage everywhere, just thrown in the street, people cooking on open fires right next to the road, burned out automobiles left everywhere and we're told occasionally you will see a dead body on the side of the road which is left until someone from Shell removes it. The custom is whoever picks up the body is responsible for the burial and nobody has the money for that so they are just left until someone from Shell takes care of it which is usually two days. Prior to Shell taking care of this they would stay for months so two days is really good.
Shell's Residential Area (RA) is very nice, we checked into the Guest House which was two rooms and a bathroom and we were assigned a staff driver (Solomon) who was available to us from 7:00 AM - 6:00 PM, if we didn't need him he just stayed in the car outside our room until we needed him. We met wonderful Expats who showed us around and gave us information on living there, everyone was very friendly and helpful. We were taken to see the school, club, golf course, tennis courts, pool and playground and also saw some houses. There is usually a wait for moving into a house and you have to stay in the guest house while waiting for one to come available which will be hard with two kids and a kitten. We did meet one guy in Darren's group who will be leaving around the time we are moving there so we went to see his house and talk to the Housing Department and we're hoping we can get his house but don't know if that's possible since some others have either been waiting. The only thing is that we have children and they usually try to get families taken care of.
Well, that's enough for now I'll post a few pictures later of the RA and some of the beautiful plants and trees.
The DRIVING....OMG it's an art only the Nigerians can manage. They have people everywhere, cars coming from all directions, horns blowing, motorcycles everywhere with three sometimes four people on them and it's nerve racking. Traffic jams cause all cars want to go at the same time inching the way until someone just pushes through, it's WILD!!!
Garbage everywhere, just thrown in the street, people cooking on open fires right next to the road, burned out automobiles left everywhere and we're told occasionally you will see a dead body on the side of the road which is left until someone from Shell removes it. The custom is whoever picks up the body is responsible for the burial and nobody has the money for that so they are just left until someone from Shell takes care of it which is usually two days. Prior to Shell taking care of this they would stay for months so two days is really good.
Shell's Residential Area (RA) is very nice, we checked into the Guest House which was two rooms and a bathroom and we were assigned a staff driver (Solomon) who was available to us from 7:00 AM - 6:00 PM, if we didn't need him he just stayed in the car outside our room until we needed him. We met wonderful Expats who showed us around and gave us information on living there, everyone was very friendly and helpful. We were taken to see the school, club, golf course, tennis courts, pool and playground and also saw some houses. There is usually a wait for moving into a house and you have to stay in the guest house while waiting for one to come available which will be hard with two kids and a kitten. We did meet one guy in Darren's group who will be leaving around the time we are moving there so we went to see his house and talk to the Housing Department and we're hoping we can get his house but don't know if that's possible since some others have either been waiting. The only thing is that we have children and they usually try to get families taken care of.
Well, that's enough for now I'll post a few pictures later of the RA and some of the beautiful plants and trees.
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