Our household goods and car are enjoying their last night on Tin Can Island, a tropical paradise for 40-foot containers off the coast of Lagos.
Our goods should have arrived in Rotterdam last week, but as a result of congestion at the port, they had a bonus ten days of cocktails and afrobeat on Tin [...]
I’m not profligate with my categories (nor with my posts). So when I see that I have 22 posts in the category “Leaving this place”, I know that I’ve been leaving more than I’ve been staying these last few years.
And on a night like this, at 1:13 am, with the cold Harmattan wind whipping through [...]
My cellphone runs flat each day. The battery is fine; it wears out because I spend most of my waking hours with the phone pressed close to my ear. Callers always seem to be surrounded by fighting couples with screaming children, stuck in heavy traffic outside a mosque with a new 5000W PA from the [...]
Just finished Skypeing with a prospective landlady ahead of our move in four days. It wasn’t the most coherent of conversations as she kept breaking off and shouting in W_____ (local language) at the noisy mob of women surrounding her. She ended every phrase with, “Inch’allah!” — not sure if this is a positive sign.
She [...]
Diptheria, tetanus & polio booster? — check!
Hepatitus A & B? — check!
Meningitis ACWY? — check!
Rabies I, II & III? — check!
Typhus fever? — check!
Mantoux test? — check!
TB — check!
Yellow fever? — check!
Malaria tablets? — check!
We feel like a family of pincushions after all the vaccinations we’ve had these last few weeks.
No, we’re not staying in [...]
Say what?!