The 73rd good thing about Lagos: Variety! always something different to see from the car window and always something different not working at home

Sunday: We had our regular church meetings today -- most Mormons are watching General Conference sessions instead. But we'll watch conference live on the internet later tonight. So we get double duty church today, but we won't feel guilty about staying home the last Sunday in October, when they'll have a marathon viewing of all the sessions of Conference at the Stake Center. Last week I posted some video of the big road -- the Lekki Expressway -- on the drive home from church. This week I had my camera ready both going and coming to get some footage to show you the small market road. The first video is on the drive to church -- I started when we turned off the Expressway onto this narrow road that goes by a market area. The video ends when we leave the paved road and go onto this rough sandy area that cuts over to the road that the church is on. Our driver recently started using this alternate route after the road to the church got such deep ruts and puddles that it was quite hazardous going. Now we just have a short stretch of that difficult road. I like this route because there's always something different to see. It's hard for you to catch it all on the video, but I saw quite a few children either in buckets or beside buckets of water getting cleaned up. There's several churches calling people to come to their service. It's not as busy going to church, as it's early morning, but the second video on the way home shows a little more happening. When I've been down that road on a Saturday, it's really bustling with activity. Again, I wish I had a way to edit the video, but, as yet, I haven't figured that out. So I'm sorry about the boring walls that intersperse the bursts of interesting stuff.

In other news, we didn't have any water coming through the taps this morning -- this has happened before. When it still wasn't on when we got home from church, I called the office. They said there was something wrong with the pump and they were working on it, but didn't know when it would be fixed. Update: It finally came on around 6 PM.

Monday morning update: I've had all kinds of problems with the slow and spotty internet connection getting these videos uploaded. I started on this post early Sunday afternoon and it's now early Monday morning (I woke up at 4 AM and I thought I'd check to see if it had uploaded -- but, no luck, it had lost the connection) and I'm hoping for a faster connection -- but a bit ago just after finishing the uploading, I lost my connection and the post was dropped. So I'm trying again. I just hope I can stay awake while I'm subbing at the American school today.

Monday afternoon update: Stayed awake at school and had a great day subbing for the art teacher, got home around 3 needing a nap, but three workers were here trying to fix our internet connection (which means mostly they stood around looking at the wireless modem wondering why it was doing funny stuff). And again, no water coming through the taps in the apartment. They were here till about 4:30 and I again tried to upload these videos. I was interrupted by a loud pop in my laundry room/pantry and saw water pouring out of the door. It looked like it was coming out of the ceiling. Too much water! Called the maintenance office to send someone -- it was an emergency! (I'm wishing now I had reached for the camera to take a picture to record the event -- but I was too panicked.) Two guys showed up in about 5 minutes. They were able to turn off the water. I guess the penthouse above us had been complaining about the water pressure. Maybe by increasing the water pressure to the building, they increased it a bit too much. The pipe to the water heater burst and it was spraying up into the ceiling, which made it look like the water was coming from there. There was about an inch of water in the kitchen and dining room. As the maintenance supervisor said -- "It's a good thing you were home, or your apartment would have been underwater before we could have stopped it." What a charming thought. The apartment maintenance people soon had 5 guys here cleaning it up. They say they'll fix the pipe to the water heater tomorrow. In the meantime, there's a lot of canned food in the pantry that will need to be dried off. Who knows if my washer and dryer have been damaged by the water. And, by the way, they weren't able to fix that particular wireless internet problem. Life here is never simple!

Tuesday morning update: Running the fan and having the AC blowing and keeping it cool all night has helped to dry things off. Hopefully we won't develop bad mold problems from this flood -- though it's a common problem here. I'm still trying to upload the videos. A worker came to fix the blown pipe. So far the washing machine is working and there's no leaks.

Tuesday noon: Video uploading failed while I was working out in the fitness room. I'm trying again. Housekeeper is complaining that there's no water coming out of the kitchen sink and also now no water to the washing machine. But there's water in the bathroom -- so I can take a shower. Finally our driver came to pick up Brent's passport to get to the company guy who is making occasional feeble efforts to get our sea shipment out of customs -- packed in Houston in May, it's been in the country for 2 months. Messages to the driver earlier in the morning couldn't go through -- probably because the cell phone network was down because of the rain today. The maintenance supervisor came by to say that there's a problem with the water supply to this building and they've shut it down while they work on it.

Tuesday evening update: The water in the kitchen and laundry room came on with a thin stream in the late afternoon. Not strong enough to run a load of laundry. More problems uploading the video. I think I'll publish this post without the video and try to get the videos on the blog another way.

Variety in problems: the spice of life!