Blogs from Logos, Nigeria, Africa

Wednesday June 13 We're sitting between the borders of Benin and Nigeria and I'm up in the front with the Pastor (more in a minute!) when the truck jumps forward. Looking through the left side mirrors, I see we've been clipped by another truck who doesn't even stop and acknowledge it! This is coming after Benin officials accused us of having fake passports! Good morning! We were giving Pastor Emmanuel a lift into Nigeria as he'd delayed his departure to make sure Cecilia had her visa. Conversation was stilted at first but slowly warmed up as he told us a bit about himself. We'd been close to one border but were advised not to cross there and so we were heading a little further north to another crossing. Upon arrival at the border (a rope separated ... read more

Gideon was the Health and Safety Manager in Ghana and has featured many times in my blogs, I grew very fond of him over the 18 months that I knew him, he introduced me to Ghana, he insulted me, he made me laugh, we had many long conversations about Ghana, England, politics, religion and his family and he met my family and Joe when he made his first ever journey on a plane to the UK... and even if he is not politically correct at all I very much consider Gideon to be a friend, as does the rest of the safety team. Gideon got himself another job with career progression, so sadly he left the company last week. Ghana will not be the same without him Good luck Gideon, I wish you all the best ... read more

Hello all, firstly you will notice my Nigeria Blogs will not have any photos, I will be taking them but on my old camera. For my own securty due to going to Port Harcourt I decided it was best not to bring my SLR. I have not brought the cable for my old camera so I will upload any photos when I get home. This time I flew Virgin airlines and atually they were really good, the plane was almost empty so many of us did the ritual of moving fast to get the best seats so we could lie down - two women even had a row over it. at that point I laid down and got at least 20 winks. On the flight I met a gent called Valentine, he was keen to show ... read more

From 8am to 9am every day this week there has been a speaker discussing different aspects of health and safety to 250 people from the whole company - todays speaker discussed respiritory systems, as part of his discussion he talked about smoking, he advised that smoking was neither good for you or bad for you ... infact its up to you to decide for yourself, I thought hmmm I am not sure about this one I will talk to the first aiders about this in the class. we talked about the dangers of smoking, some agreed that smoking is bad for you but if you smoke it is your choice and you still get cancer anyway if you dont smoke. A gentleman asked me about breast cancer, he said that in Nigeria they can predict it ... read more

or so they tell me... its a herbal remedy with magic spells... hmmm I dont think so and most of them dont beleive it either... On driving into work Jane has been pointing out these incredible slums, Nigeria is very overcrowded and is filled with much poverty such as the rest of Africa therefore they build where they can. These slums are built on the water on a lagoon, they are huts built on stilts and this area is called Makako. Many fishermen and families from the country areas come to Lagos in the hope of finding their riches and a better life in Nigerias Oil Rich capital of Lagos; however this does not always happen for them, two out of three Lagos residents live in slums with no access to clean readily available water, electricity ... read more