The 40th good thing about Lagos: A ladies day out at the beach.

When I was here last summer, we had a fun Saturday outing to the ConocoPhillips beach house. So I was very interested when an ExxonMobil friend said she was reserving the ExxonMobil beach house for a weekday women's outing and arranging for the boat to take a group there. We went yesterday and it was a fun escape from the busy life of the city. It was especially fun to just go to the beach with some women. It's a different dynamic than when the men are along. We walked along the beach, chasing waves and crabs, both of which were plentiful. We gorged ourselves on the food we brought that could have lasted us several days and played a new (to me) dominoes game.















ExxonMobil's beach house is a larger house on stilts and then it also has a cabana in front nearer the water. We just set up in the cabana. Their house is situated on the same peninsula as our company's beach house that we visited last summer. But to get to this one, as we walk from the dock on the river, we pass through a village on the way to the ocean-view beach houses. This is not a great picture of our village helpers. But these women met our boat and carried our gear on their heads. It's hard to see, but the one carrying the basket also has a baby tied to her back. ExxonMobil has adopted the village school -- they paid to build a couple of new school buildings and pay the salaries for the teachers. This is from company sponsorship and individual donations. School was out about the time we were leaving and the school children came to greet us.














These children below came to see us off. I asked them if I could take their picture and they responded with these poses. I gave them each a small "dash" to thank them.









Here are the locals that came to the dock to see us off. Friendly, helpful sorts -- as long as they receive their dash/tip for their service.