Never A Dull Moment in Lagos

Many friends are curious what we're doing in Lagos in this crazy city with almost 22 million inhabitants.

Well there’s plenty to do, but it’s not visiting museums or strolling through a mall. No, it’s going out for dinner or going to parties or do a lot of sports.

In these 6 months we've surrounded ourselves with a nice group of, so far mostly Dutch, people.

The reason for this is I think because we’re not having kids here, so no school activities where we used to find our friends network.

But with this Dutch group of friends we surely have a lot of fun! And that’s all we want!

So I’ll give you an insight in last weekend’s activities while Hugo was still here.

It starts on Friday:

Friday afternoon we had Blandine at our house, she’s a tailor and originally from Benin, our neighbour country. She has made a few really nice things for me with fabrics from Nigeria. But because traffic can be harsh she came late, too late. 

Nevertheless I let her come of course, the Lankau family was at my house as well, Dennis’ and Mathilde’s boys are in town and were eager to have an African suit too. Hugo’s got one too last week, it really looks cool on him. I’ll add a photo of him and Johnson, the tailor who made his suit. He also made a few ruck sag towels for my aunt Joke.

Quickly while  Blandine was working with Nick and Dave, Hugo and I got dressed for "the all white party" of the KLM.

A bit strange theme I would reckon in an African country, but I’ve been told that it came from the Nigerian employees of KLM.

Hugo and I drove with Yinka and Rob came from the office with Ali. It took a long time to get there due to the traffic jams everywhere.

But we arrived and so did Rob a bit after us. Everyone, well almost everyone was dressed in white. You know what Nigerians say about white people dressed in white? We look like ghosts! So this was a party full of ghosts. Hysterical right? The party was attended by approximately 300 people, so a pretty big party. At the entrance we all received a number, this was a lucky draw for being able to do Karaoke on stage! Even if I had the right number I would not go on stage to sing, I have a few talents but singing is not one of them! But Maria our Dutch friend she was very brave, she kicked off as the first to sing. She did it brilliantly! There where about 5 other competitors, also an old man who had white hair. He was really old, he sang Frank Sinatra’s "I did it my way". To cut a long story short, Maria and an other lady where the two best, then the audience could clap for the winner, and very clear Maria had the most support from the audience, but the host said that the other lady won!!! This was very wrong and weird, she even admitted it to Maria. She could have won a KLM ticket. After this intermezzo we were lead to our tables for dinner. The tables all had names of destinations of KLM and Air France. Our table’s city was called "Quito". We all got a quiz question to fill in; "how many people fly to Amsterdam from Lagos per year". Our table plus two other tables were very close to the correct answer and so we had to come forward to the stage. Somehow the lady speaker chose Rob as captain and he had to be on the stage with one of each other team. We had to play charade (hints in Dutch). 

In all the chaos he whispered Churchill and I saw this so we won round one! It got more and more chaotic. The lady speaker did not like us, these horrible Dutch people who thought they could do anything. To be clear the two other teams where Nigerians. We had a lot of fun messing around there, we had a few wines to many, we were invincible. If you look at the photo of rob on stage it looks like if he's leading a church service and in front of him are his followers worshipping him! Afterwards I heard that it was extremely boring for the audience. First of all it took more than half an hour and secondly the people sitting at their tables had no clue what was going on there. All three teams won a goody bag. We had the biggest bag, which not necessarily means we won the most expensive gift. We won a big KLM towel and because Hugo was there with us, we went home with three huge towels. We gave it to our two drivers and our nanny Glory. They were very happy with this unexpected gift. There was lots of entertainment that night and we drank too much wine. We all left quite abruptly.

Saturday night; The Naked Chef’s Dinner kick off at the Kleinjan’s.

In the morning Rob and Hugo did their training session with Favour our personal trainer. While Rob and Hugo were down in the gym I was cutting the meat with Glory. When they were back Rob could straight away start cooking. Glory was there to chop things and make a few things for the next day. Luckily our kitchen is quite big. Rob was busy cooking, Hugo and I did the table set up. I like to do that, also because I'm not allowed near the stove. Normally I like to use fresh flowers, but in this country it’s extremely expensive to buy that. So no flowers on the table this time but candles instead. In the afternoon I’d tried to take a little nap so I could enjoy the evening. We were all a bit cautious with the alcohol consumption, probably due to the night before. Nevertheless it’s been a great night and of course ending with Rob’s favourite song  about a famous little bird from Brabant called "de Kneu”.

Sunday: 

Sunday morning was an early rising because we had to catch the boat to the Beach house of Nigerian Breweries.  We left 09:30 to the Boat Club. Here Sil and Dana were already waiting for us with a GMT boat full of people. We were going with 24 people and children. It was fun for Hugo because Dennis and Mathilde’s sons were there as well. Both similar age as Hugo. We had a surprise for the three young men, we rented a quad bike for them to kill their time with.

Also for Ayo was company, Dirk and Sofie took Saartje with them. Ayo was running after Saar the whole day. 

When you go to the Nigerian Beach House the formula is like this; everyone brings something to eat for the bbq and drinks that you like. So altogether there’s a potluck of nice food and drinks. We drink, chat, swim in the pool, (the sea it too dangerous).

This is how we escape the buzzing crazy city called Lagos.

When you arrive at the jetty, young men and girls including little children are there to carry our cool boxes and bags. It’s a 5 minute walk to the beach hut. Maria had already shown her talents on stage at the KLM party but she can also carry the African way! A lady with many talents, that's for sure! On Sunday she summed up her Friday night really nicely; "I came with nothing, won everything, but went home with nothing, because her goody bag was stolen. She said, "just like in real life, you come with nothing onto this world and you go with nothing".

The premisses is surrounded with high trees and a main building and a terrace both with thatched roofs, although they urgently need to be replaced. The main house has a bathroom, shower, kitchen and open area downstairs and upstairs, but it’s all open. There’s a covered terrace with a long table and a bar and there’s a small pool. 

Mr King is always coming on the boat and stays with us to cook, clean and serve us. I hear you thinking "can’t you do it yourself", yes of course we can, but this is Africa and this is how it’s done here.  All left overs are for the people on the island. It is such a relaxing place to be. Very often vendors show up, they spread out their goods over the fence trying to sell something, always for their best price. If you’re there during the week they won’t come, probably they're working in the city.

Around 3:30 we broke up and left this beautiful place. Rob and Hugo were flying that night to Amsterdam. Rob had one meeting in Amsterdam on Monday and came back on Tuesday. Hugo had arrived safe and sound in Brighton on Monday afternoon and went straight to the lectures he had, he came 5 minutes late for the first one. 

So this was our weekend, of course not every weekend is like this, but we keep ourselves occupied in and or outside Lagos.