The Beach House

On Wednesday August 22nd we went to the Beach house of Nigerian Breweries with Rene and Henriette and their son Thijmen and a friend and Martin and Isabelle and their two young children Floor and Pieter. We were not sure whether we should go or not, as the weather wasn’t so nice. This is the rain season so, it’s kind of unpredictable what weather you’ll get. We went to the Jet Ski Club where the captain would bring us per speedboat to the Beach house. But when we came there, there was no captain King (yes this is his name). Nigerian love these kind of names. King, Sunday, Innocent, Loveday, Grace, Peace, Glory and so on. Captain King was stuck in traffic, which is interesting because it was extremely quiet on the road due to the Eid el Kabir festival. We decided to go with his assistant instead. The boat ride takes about 20-25 minutes. You pass fishermen houses on the water and of course fishermen on the water and a few huge container ships and oil platforms, which is interesting to see.

Coming at the jetty by the beach house, children, teenagers and other young folk were already waiting for us. They’ll then carry your cool boxes and bags to the beach house, which is a 300 meter walk. At the end of the day you pay a few hundred Naira per person who helped carrying.

It was still cloudy, but the temperature never really drops. So we installed everything and out came the Dutch apple pie from Henriette’s cook ☺! We introduced everybody to Glory’s bread chips, this is made of Indian bread also known as "naan bread". It is delicious and perfect with a dip like humus, yoghurt dip or just plain.

We didn’t do much there except for talking and chatting together. The boys and kids were in the pool the whole time. When we arrived, the pool was more empty than filled, so the hose came to fill it with water, but the hose wasn’t very new anymore and it was full with holes! The water came out everywhere and there was a lot of mud because of this. There are people who are grilling for you and they serve it and wash the dishes afterwards. We decided not to give all the meat directly, because they grill everything at the same time and we want to take our time and let it digest a bit. They like to keep the leftovers. You only need to manage them a little, because if you say you’d like to eat at 13.00, then they start prepping the bbq at 13.00, and it will take much longer.

At 16.30 we were back in Ikoyi and in 20 minutes we were back at home very satisfied of all the food and drinks. We went for a swim and ate a bit later that evening. This was a lovely day at the “beach”.

Friday around midday I received a phone call from the office. The lady who is in charge of our house called. If it was alright to start fixing the two bathrooms in our house. This was originally promised before we moved in. I agreed and let about 6 or 7 men in. They started the demolition of the two bathrooms Friday afternoon, they worked till 6pm. They left the whole house in dust behind and will come back again on Monday morning to finish it.

"Schau'n ma mal" is what Austrians would say!

On Friday night Rob and I had another tennis lesson with Kenny. Unfortunately, it rained a lot and therefore the courts were soaked. At 18.30 the guard called us that our tennis teacher had arrived at the gate and if he could come in. Rob and I were surprised, because he was booked for 8pm. We could play at 7.30pm he said. We were like, "no way, it’s wet and slippery, we can’t play”!, but Kenny and his twin brother swept the court for an hour, till it was dried up! Everything around us was wet, but not the court we played on.

Rob had troubles with his hand, it was extremely painful, so he played half court, half strength, this was doable for him.

Saturday Rob wanted to show me "Mile Two Road", this is a road full with little vendors. They sell everything there: sofa’s, doors, toilets, goats, clothes, cows, and too many other things to mention. The interesting thing is that all goods are sold in category next to each other.

We went there with Yinka, but due to a closed bridge we ended up in a huge traffic jam. When we arrived there, it was raining cats and dogs! We decided to drive around, but not get out of the car. There was a lot to see, it was very interesting to go there, but everything here takes up a lot of time. I got hungry and tired of being in the car the whole time. We will go back there when it is not raining! We saw cars, believe me, you can’t imagine in what kind of condition they are. Little taxi vans packed with people. We saw a fire with huge black smoke, where they were burning tires, this can't be healthy.

Never a dull moment in Lagos.