Dinner on the first night: don't be fooled by the camera flash: we were eating by kerosene lamp.
Fabrics for sale in the market in Akure.
Me and Gregory - oops I mean Tolu Olopete as I must now learn to call him
One of the many wonderfully named churches in Akure. The guide book says that Christianity "chokes" south western Nigeria where we are. No comment............
I was up at 7 yesterday Friday to get into the local school at 7.30 am to share in the morning assembly. St. Thomas Anglican School is immediately behind Tolu's house and has 350 primary pupils and a similar number of senior students. Morning prayers are held in the open air and last about half an hour with a lot of druming and chanting. I addressed both sections with a simple message about honesty and got a round of applause when I told the students that I found their country very beautiful and their people very friendly. All true! (NOTE - I did not mention the roads or the power cuts). The pupils all joined in my prayers with vigorous Amens and then we said the Lord's Prayer together. I hope to visit the school again. Just to set the scene, I should point out that there are neither doors nor windows on any classroom, there is no electricity, and a member of staff was drawing water from the well when I arrived.
We returned home for breakfast and then I went off the internet cafe to compose post 2. We should have been leaving for Benin City about 10 but in fact we left home about 11 and by the time we had called at Tolu's office and done a couple more errands it was 12 noon. The journey to Benin City from Akure is 175 km. Little did I know it was going to take the best part of six hours to get there. Tolu's daughter Titi came part way with us: we were dropping her at a relatives house on the way. We encoutered a pretty bad hold up on the first part of the journey where the road had become a lake with pot holes, but that was nothing compared to what was to come. About 60 km outside Benin City we hit a very bad traffic jam and it appeared that we were a long way from the front. Just as we were manoevering to see how far back we were, a number of minbuses packed with soldiers arrived behind us. They jumped out with much noise and started heading down to the source of the problem to clear a way for themselves. Somehow we ended up on the left hand side of the road in the privileged line, and in the following half an hour crept past about three kilometers of traffic jam. It was slightly menacing for a time - with some soldiers behind hitting the car and shouting MOVE MOVE; and others in front shouting STOP STOP! But once they saw that the car contained an "Oyeebo" (Yoriba for white man) we seemed to be OK. Eventually we came to the source of the problem - a massive water filled crater and a disabled and ancient timber truck. We were both relieved and embarassed to have got to the front in this way. All around were people shouting at me HEY WHITE MAN TAKE PICTURE! TELL YOUR COUNTRY WHAT NIGERIA IS LIKE! HEY OYEEBO! TAKE PHOTO! SHOW YOUR PEOPLE HOW WE LIVE! It was quite an experience. We only learnt later that many people spent all night on the road. We would have done as well if it had not been for our stroke of luck.
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