Our Lagos Home

As promised, here are some photos of our apartment. I meant to post these last week two weeks ago but a major "link" went down (says our Internet Service Provider) and everywhere in Lagos was experiencing extremely slow internet, supposedly. Things have gotten better but I just haven't found the time to sit down and put the proverbial pen to paper to get this posted.

The apartment is still looking a little institutional with our bare, white walls and general lack of coziness. But it's getting there, slowly but surely. I need to venture out to a local market soon to pick up some decorative items and get some artwork framed and hung. And we're still waiting on a few more pieces of furniture (like a desk and entryway table) to arrive.

Our welcoming foyer....  I heard phones on the ground are gonna be the next craze in interior design. 

To the right of the front door is the dining area. Right now it's serving double duty as an office too. 

Our living room furniture. 

We certainly didn't intend for every piece of furniture to be brown. I think throw pillows will help tremendously to tone down the brown. Pillows will also help with napping as the couches don't have much give. Definitely no flopping down on these bad boys after a long day.  I think they kind of look like brown plastic outdoor furniture, but they are slightly more comfortable than plastic. The foam here must be very, very dense.

Also, part of a desk can be seen in the picture above by the window. Hoping to retrieve the rest of it sometime this week.

Another view of the living room.

Not pictured: a new-to-us red rug under the coffee table.

The short hallway on the left in the photo above leads to the guest bath and kitchen and the open door on the right leads to the bedrooms. 

Master bedroom

We don't have much storage here so Ryan and I have separate closets, the one in our bedroom is mine. 

Master bathroom featuring a never-before-used- jacuzzi tub.

Not pictured in the bathroom is the button for the hot water. I've never encountered this feature, but apparently it's very common in places where water and electricity are scarce. About 20 minutes before showering you hit the switch, enjoy the piping hot water, and then turn it off when you're done. It was a little inconvenient at first, but we've gotten used to it now. 

Guest bedroom 

Spare bedroom + Ryan's closet. When our couch arrives from America it will go in this room.

On the other side of the apartment, we have the guest bathroom and kitchen. 

 

Guest bathroom

The kitchen. This was taken before we had shelves in the pantry to store food.  

The other side of the kitchen. That weird contraption is a drying rack because our washer/dryer combo doesn't do a great job of drying in a timely manner. 

Washer/dryer combo and our only source of potable water. We use that water for drinking, making coffee, cooking, and teeth brushing. 

The most interesting part of our apartment is the view out of the back windows, especially the window above the sink. Here's the view:

The corrugated metal on the left of the photo is a toilet area. I'm actually not sure what's behind the metal, and I don't intend on checking it out, ever.  However, not everyone chooses to use that spot. Many people just go behind a bush, against the wall, or squat down in the field on the other side of the wall.  There's a dock to the left of us and I've seen people just go into the water too.

To the left of the "toilet" is a very popular hangout spot. I even see some oyibos there in the evenings enjoying pepper soup. We walked over there once to buy a loaf of bread but they wanted to charge us something ridiculous so we didn't buy anything. 

Beyond the "empty" lot is what I've been lovingly referring to as the cinder block factory. Guys are out there 24/7 making, carrying, and hosing down those blocks. Sometimes trucks come and pick some up. 

What you can't see is the big wall that separates us from the lot next door, complete with barbed wire and electricity. When we were choosing apartments, we never thought to really study the activities that we'd be seeing out our windows before making our decision. Next time, we definitely will. Saturday morning I was cooking breakfast and we saw a teenage boy, totally nude, showering in the middle of the lot. Just a couple of buckets of water and absolutely no attempt at privacy. I know it's a cultural thing, but a need for privacy is so engrained in us that seeing others' blatant dismissal of it is shocking. 

Luckily, the living room windows have a nice balcony that looks out over the pool area. 

So that's the grand tour! As you can see, we have plenty of room for visitors.  If you've got extra cash lying around for the plane ticket, visa, and required immunizations, we've got ample free lodging to offer! 

Mama Said

Let me start by saying this past week has been the most exciting since we arrived 6 months ago. I just wish I could have enjoyed it more.  But these have been some tough days for us. We are finally in our beautiful, shiny apartment (pictures are coming soon)! However, it's been a difficult transition to living (somewhat) on our own after 6 months of hotel life.

We've both been sick with severe sore throats this past week. It started with Ryan and spread to me. It's just a cold, but even those seem to be a bit more brutal over here. And then I got conjunctivitis (awful). And I haven't been able to sleep due to the aforementioned ailments, the absolute silence, and our hard-as-a-rock mattress. And the stress of moving and unpacking and shopping and cooking. And well, it's just been a rough few days. Plus, unpacking is really lame.

I'm struggling with cooking here.
1. Our apartment is far from all the grocery stores. Traffic is awful. Once inside, the stores are crowded, noisy, foreign, and, of course, cash-only with the biggest bill equaling about $6. Checkout is slow and often manual.
2. I have to go to 3-4 stores per trip to find the stuff I'm looking for, which takes hours. Hopefully, I'll start to get a better idea of where to buy what in the near future.
3. The prices are outrageous. I find myself gawking at the price of things and just refusing to buy high-priced things I may want/need. And we have limited cash here.
4. I forgot what I used to cook all the time! Every dinner idea I come up with I conclude will be tricky here. Or ridiculously expensive. And, I'm  really just struggling.  Plus I have the added pressure of providing lunch for Ryan every day at work. There's always ramen-type noodles, but I can't do that to him yet.
5. All of the "yellow" onions I bought, are in fact, red onions. What the heck!
6. Non-American produce is filthy, bruised and ugly. It must be incredibly wasteful to only get the pretty stuff in American grocery aisles, but man is it more appealing.  The stuff over here appears to have fallen out of the tree or off the truck. Our best produce markets are on the side of the road (or under a bridge) and during rainy season, it isn' t a cleanly venture.

I did make a grilled cheese sandwich today that was just about the most glorious thing I've tasted in 6 months.

I've seen numerous people using the bathroom in the empty lot/local hangout area outside my kitchen window. Which is obviously very, very unfortunate. And I don't just mean #1. Wish we would have spent more time checking out the view before choosing this particular flat. Gotta keep the blinds closed.

Today I unpacked all of the toiletries we packed, and I really don't know what I was thinking. We have SO MUCH toothpaste and deodorant  Both of which can be easily found here (albeit at higher cost).  And why, oh why, did I pack ALL of our towels. And why do we even own so many towels to being with? I wish I had less of that stuff and more personal items like framed photos.

There's a weird leak in our kitchen. We can't figure out where the water's coming from because it isn't near the sink and it's not coming down the walls. It's just a puddle in the corner behind the door??

I've realized that some things are missing from our air shipment: my sewing machine, an over-the-door mirror, and some dvds. Boo. Hopefully they aren't lost and will turn up on our doorstep soon.

I'll post again soon and it'll be happier. I really am relieved to be out of the hotel.