The 312th good thing about Lagos: a Good Friday canoe trip

Every other Easter weekend we've lived in Nigeria, we've made use of the long weekend and traveled somewhere.  I was feeling pretty deprived that it wasn't going to work out to get away this year.  But then the weekend shaped up beautifully with some day trips and I was glad that I was in town.  On Friday a friend organized an outing to the village of Ibeju where she had a contact who organized canoe trips on the waterways around the Lekki peninsula.  We had gone on a canoe trip before, but this was in a slightly different place, and though there were many similarities, our village visit on this trip didn't come with a masquerade performance.  But it was still a thoroughly delightful and relaxing day and it was so nice to get out of the city and enjoy nature.  We drove out Lekki peninsula for about an hour and parked the cars near this big tree which seemed to be a nice meeting place for the men of Ibeju.

We were greeted enthusiastically by the children of Ibeju, who crowded around and loved to have their picture taken.

 I liked the Palm Sunday cross this child wore.

 I decided to "hold it" rather than take advantage of the toilet facilities that were offered us.  Although private (if someone was holding the cloth over the doorway), there wasn't even a hole in the shelter -- just a crack in the concrete, and you would be dodging everyone else's splashes.

 When we walked through the village to the waterside to get the canoes, the children followed and several grabbed Brent's hand.  This has happened before and it always surprises me, because it seems like most children in the States are scared of him -- probably because he's such a big guy -- but African kids seem to warm right up to him.  None grabbed my hand, but maybe that's because I was busy using the camera.

 We got to the water and our guide got us each into our own dugout canoe.  The canoes were different sizes and he tried to match the canoe size with the passenger size.  There were a couple that we rejected because they seemed to be about to sink.

Some of the boatmen were really built, like this one.  I was commenting on his muscles to the woman who rode in his boat and she said she was looking forward all the time and didn't even notice -- at least that's what she told her husband! 

 We passed quite a few boats that weren't going to be going anywhere soon -- or ever.

 After paddling down the narrow canal, we came to a wider river.

 We passed some other local boys having fun on the water.

 Lining up for a picture.

 And our boatmen treated us to a song, though I don't think the little girl in the canoe of the boatman dancing along with the song really appreciated it.  She seemed kind of nervous.

We did some canoeing down some narrow canals that were really pretty and we seemed like we were in the jungle and away from civilization.  At least, it seemed remote until the boatman in the canoe in front of me got a cell phone call and paddled with one hand while he talked on the phone.

 And there were other evidences of civilization.  The boatmen were not above product placement, though I don't know that he had a sponsorship deal.

We took a break from the water to visit the village of Iba-Oloja.  We had to walk carefully on this raised plank platform from the dock to the land.  Our guide said during the rainy season, the water would get up quite high, almost to the plankss.

 We had lots of children greeting us here too.

Most of the village seemed quite primitive, but they did have a solar power system, with a sign crediting a Lagos State rural development initiative, with a reminder to pay their taxes.

 I was told that this contraption is designed to heat water.

We were led to the village store, owned by our guide's father, and encouraged to purchase something to support local business.  We bought a few packets of cookies and crackers and were surprised at how cheap they were -- much cheaper than at the stores where we shop.

We stopped in a room behind the shop and the children sang us a couple of songs.  One was about the "oyibo" (white person) and what it basically was saying was that they hoped the white people would bring them something of value.  So it seems they are teaching the kids young to look for the white people to give them stuff.  Not the lesson I would be teaching them....

We walked through the agricultural area of the village and there were cassava fields and areas with large termite mounds and these piles of sticks.  They had a water or soda bottle strung up on a pole above each pile.  Our guide said it was voodoo -- they would put these bottles on the pile and no one would dare to steal the sticks because then they would be cursed from the voodoo.  I guess whatever works....

 Next we visited the village school.

 And some kids were there playing soccer and other kids followed us -- there were LOTS of kids in this village!  We only saw a handful of adults,

but we saw older kids were taking care of little kids.

 We didn't see evidence of books or other supplies, but there was a locked door with a sign designating the "library."  But there was this "passage reading" on a blackboard that I thought was interesting.

 There's a big lack of books and other learning materials in Nigerian schools, so the children tend to learn a lot by rote and by reading from the blackboard.

 We got back into our canoes and headed back to our starting point.

 I wasn't able to get pictures of the pretty water birds we saw, but we didn't see any monkeys.  There were some pretty water lilies.

 Back in the village, we were greeted by more kids.

 This boy was having fun playing with a live beetle tied on a string.

 These kids were hard at work making some tomato puree.

 Our guide took a few minutes to give us a demonstration on raffia making, which seems to be a village activity, based on the piles of raffia around.  He said this one stalk would generate about 150 pieces of raffia.

It's always a good thing to get out of Lagos and get a different view of life in Nigeria.

The 311th good thing about Lagos: an Italian musical evening

We've been very fortunate here on a number of occasions to have enjoyed some very fine musical evenings courtesy of  the diplomatic patronage from a variety of countries.  The most recent concert, a week ago Saturday, was sponsored by the Italian Consulate and the Saipem construction company, which was celebrating its many years of working in Nigeria.  These evenings where musicians are brought in from other countries are almost always of an excellent quality of performance, and generally without any ticket charge to us, the appreciative audience.  The other interesting thing is that most often there isn't much information given out beforehand about what will be on the program.  I was given an invitation to this "gala concert" and when I asked what was on the program, the woman sharing the invitation had no idea, only that performers were being brought in from Europe.  But we went, hoping for a fine musical evening and that is certainly what we got.   The other thing typical of these evenings is that they start later than scheduled (this one was an hour late, which is not unusual), and then there are generally some dignitaries giving speeches at the beginning.  The Italian Consul General gave a fairly lengthy speech in Italian, after which a translation was read by the emcee (actually there were two speeches given in Italian during the evening -- at the beginning and near the end -- and when the emcee announced she would translate the  2nd speech there were audible sighs from the audience).  So the price paid is the patience to wait for the musical portion of the evening to actually begin.It was an evening of "popular" classical and operatic music, along with a bit of jazz.  The featured musicians included the "Quintetto Dell'Opera Di Milano," which (for those non-Italian speakers) was a brass quintet ensemble from the Milan "La Scala" Opera House.  They were fabulous musicians and we really enjoyed their versatility in performing a large range of music.  They were joined by an accomplished percussionist, a performer and teacher and also active jazz vibraphonist, Andrea Dulbecco.  He was really fabulous.  Here is a clip with him performing a bit of Joe Green's "Xylophonia."

Also on the program was an operatic tenor, also from La Scala,  Giuseppe Veneziano.  He was very upright and stuffed shirt and proper -- he almost seemed to me to be a caricature of an opera star.   I loved him -- loved his voice, his operatic mannerisms and his performance.  Maybe in the video clips below you'll see what I mean.

 He had obviously been doing some teaching and mentoring of some of the music students here at the Muson Centre, and I think it's so great for them to have this opportunity.  A couple of the more accomplished students were introduced to sing solos that were not on the program.  He seemed almost paternal and very proud of them as they performed.

The featured performers were joined by the Muson choir which sang a few things on their own, accompanied by the brass and were joined by the tenor on a very unusual performance of segments from the 4th movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the "Ode to Joy," which was accompanied by the brass quintet, instead of the normal full symphony orchestra.  Lacking the quartet of soloists,  just with the tenor, and just with the brass accompaniment, it proved quite a bit less thrilling than it should be.
This little clip is from the ending of one of the encore pieces, where the tenor invited the Nigerian soloists to join with them.  The final note shows his great breath and vocal control.

 

This last clip is soloists, choir and brass joining in an impromptu encore of the Italian classic "Funiculi, Funicula" which is a really great response song.  This song was composed in 1880 to commemorate the opening of the funicular rail car on Mt. Vesuvius (which was later destroyed in the eruption of the volcano in 1944).  Bet you didn't know you'd learn that by reading my blog! It was clear that the tenor soloist had spent a bit of time rehearsing this with them and they had fun with it.

I had "Nessun dorma" running through my head for days after this concert, but I have had more annoying ear worms in the past.

The 310th good thing about Lagos: A reminder of Easter blessings

Several years ago the Bible Study group I am in had a Passover celebration to teach us about the Jewish rituals.  The group leaders decided to do it again this year.  We didn't have the advantage we had last time of being taught and led by a Jew, but we followed an extensive script based on a Messianic Passover, so it was a little different because the script made reference to Jesus and related how he had fulfilled the prophecies promised in the Passover. 
Again, we began our celebration with a washing of the feet -- we had our feet massaged and washed and then took a turn to wash the feet of another.  It made me realize again how intimate this act is and how humble Jesus was to do this for his disciples.

The script for the Passover celebration is actually quite lengthy and we were on cushions sitting on the floor.  We had the matzoh and parsley dipped in salt water and horseradish and all the traditional things and a meal of traditional Passover foods. 

 Through this Passover celebration, and all through this Easter time as I've been reflecting on the meaning of this holiday, I've had flashbacks to our visit to Israel summer before last. As we ended the Seder with shouts of "Next Year in Jerusalem," I had visions of the ancient trees in the Garden of Gethsemane,

 and the peacefulness of the Garden Tomb setting,

which reminds me of the wonderful gift we've been given,

 that Jesus is not here, He is risen

I wish my family and my Christian friends and blog readers a meaningful Easter holiday -- a time of hope and faith and gratitude for our Savior, who was not passed over.