New Renovation!

That's right,

I've switched to the new dynamic HTML5 Blogger templates! Awesome, right? What d'you guys think?

Signing off,
The Traveler

Slow Happenings

I don't know why,

But it takes forever for people to do anything here. Like for example, construction work takes super long, and then sometimes, you'll see a half-constructed building just sitting there for eternity without anyone working on it. I even have an example more personal than that. We're building a shop in the backyard backyard, so that we don't have to continue working on cars in our own compound; it piled up like crazy and one time I didn't even know where our own car was, and it was our yard! We have parking issues in our own front yard. Now that's bad. So that's why we're building a shop. We pay some people to build the roof for us right? We tell them that we'll pay them this much Naira for them to finish up the roof. They agree and all that...but they don't do the work! Every day they had asked for more and more money daily, even though they were supposed to get their pay when the job was done. So I think we fired them and we're doing it on our own. And then, only like a week ago, some people killed A COW in the back next to the still being built shop, and left the bones and everything still there! So now, when I walk my dog it's less of a walk and more of a "watch Shep eat the disgusting rotting bones for the rest of your life."

Signing off,
The Impatient Traveler

Healthy Foods

Ouch, I could've made a better title than that...


But anyway, I think most of you get what this post's about. Healthy Foods, in Nigeria. And here's where I throw the curve ball; even though we're in a country which you would expect for the foods to be healthy, a lot of them aren't. Let me clear that up: many of the vegetables in the market look like they're fresh from the farm and all that, and technically they are. BUT. The farmers had injected a whole bunch of crappy chemicals into them, inorganic pesticides and all that. The scary part is that most of the time, we don't really know what we're eating when we have a carrot. And a lot of Nigerians still wonder why there are strange outbreaks of cancer and other related diseases here. Now that's more than a little scary. Also, the foods that are imported from outside, like yogurt and things like that are usually full of things that are definitely not supposed to be ingested.  Ewww. So, healthy foods in Nigeria is complicated, just like in...oh what's that place...oh yeah. America. But, don't get me wrong; there are still way more fruits and naturally growing vegetables that are eaten here than in most "Western countries." Like for example, we have a coconut tree in our yard which is regularly harvested by us, and there's the guava trees, and mango trees...actually, if you want the whole list, look up the post that I did on it using the search bar at the bottom of the site. But, long story short, there are bad foods which should be healthy, allegedly healthy foods which should be bad, and bad foods that are just bad. Hope I cleared that up for you!

Signing off,
The Traveler

TV

I’ve just noticed how addicting watching TV is,

I mean, I know it’s been proved by science and everything, but I’ve had a personal experience with addictiveness and television. For days, I’ve been asking my parents if I could go watch the TV, and I’d watch a few hours of it. In that span of time I could’ve been doing so many other much more productive things; it’s okay to watch the occasional show once and a while, but too much of it can hurt you. But Nigerian kids, just like most American kids, love TV. Especially Ben 10. :/. Yeeah. I’m not a big fan of Ben 10. And when I mean Ben 10, I don’t mean Ben 10: Alien Force or Ben 10: Ultimate Alien; I mean Ben 10 Ben 10, the original. But I noticed that when a kid here watches something, they watch it. Like for example, we went to an old friend of my fathers, and we were watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Her son was acting out every movement and reciting every word of each episode that we watched. It was a little creepy. He’d even get into the poses and all of that and I was just watching him from my seat, afraid of moving, cause he might think that I wanted to join him in his reenactment. Wait, I just noticed I contradicted myself: in the beginning I said that TV was bad and all of that, but just now I told the story of a boy who was bouncing around because of TV. Confusing.

Signing off,

 The Traveler

Foreigners

Yeah, weird title for a post, but I couldn't think of anything else,

Anyway, let's get down to the nitty gritty: there are surprisingly a lot of people from outside of Nigeria in Nigeria. It's not like you're gonna see an American every day of the week or anything, but still, my Dad said that there used to be a lot less. Every once and a while you might see a man or woman from some country or the other and all that, but it never really hit me how many there actually were until we had visited IITA, which I have talked about in previous posts. There are so many of them there; I think there are probably as many foreigners or maybe more as there are Nigerians there. Some of them are businesspeople, and a lot of them came to this country because of money. Some others come to Nigeria and decide to stay because they believe that it's nicer or more convenient to live there. There are so many reasons why they come, but I think a lot of them come for business, because there are a lot of business opportunities here. For example, Nigerians want hamburgers, but there isn't really a McDonald's up the street, is there? So if one were to open up their own burger joint, they'd probably make a lot of money. That's why some foreigners have in places like Lagos and Abuja, the two most popular cities. But in places like Ibadan and our hometown in Nigeria, Ife, there are no malls or even movie theaters, so that opens up huge prospects for making money and opening up a service to Nigerians that wasn't there before. Now that's what I call smart!

Signing off,
The Traveler

New Page

Yes, there is now a mysterious new page,

Which states that something is coming sooooon...what is coming soon? Information on what is coming soon is coming soon!

Signing off,
The Mysterious Traveler

Game Night Today

(Because of internet speeds I wasn't able to post this on time, so this is actually a few weeks old. :P)

We’re having another Game Night today,

And we’re thinking of barbecueing again. It doesn’t sound like much, barbecueing at a party and all, does it? Well, in Nigeria, there is no such thing as a “barbeque chicken” or anything like that. You can only buy barbecue in special stores (definitely not in the market), I don’t even remember seeing a grill anywhere to use. Yeah, so barbecue is not a part of everyday Nigerian life and culture; but I tell you, where we are, in the center of the Yoruba people, I can definitely say one thing about the Yorubas: they like meat. A LOT. You can find jerky-like meat called suya, meat which they call “meat”(?!) which Americans call beef…all type of stuff. And almost all of it is fried till it’s about the tenderness of a rock. A really hard rock. I really have no idea how I or they eat it. I remember when we first came here, and I think I almost broke my jaw trying to chew it. Are you a fan of Jawbreakers? Then come here to Nigeria, and if you aren’t vegetarian, go ask for a cube of beef with that rice and stew; you are going to meet your match!

Signing off,

 The Traveller

?

Now this isn't particularly connected to my travellings,

But I have to ask this question. A while ago I made a fantasy blog that was about a blogging wizard. What if I created another blog like this? What's you guy's opinion? And seriously, I need some answers here, I'll post a poll too about it.

Signing off,
The Traveler

Harmattan is on The Way

It’s getting much hotter,

And I’m beginning to feel the getting-baked-in-an-oven feeling that you always get whenever Harmattan is on its way. Dry Season can also be called Harmattan, and I switch it up sometimes, call it different things. One thing though that I am happy about seeing with the arrival of Dry Season is sun! Beautiful sun! In Wet Season it’s a dark gray cloudy overhang from morning till evening, and man, it can get a little gloomy. But now, the sky is a nice bright blue and the sun is not hiding behind any clouds. I think the most annoying things about these overhangs is that they are so dark of a gray and they look so ominous that you think it’s going to rain, so you’re preparing to get a huge downpour and everything, but nothing happens and you get all frustrated and stuff cause you were expecting something and bam the Earth’s weather patterns have to disappoint you. Also I’ve been craving for some of the fruits that grow on our trees in the yard but none of them have come out yet, so I asked my Father when they came out. He said they came out in Spring. There is no Spring in Nigeria. Thanks Father. Again.

Signing off,

The Traveler

Fort! Fort! Me Want Fort!

I’m thinking of building a secluded fort in the backyard,

Not the backyard backyard, I mean the backyard backyard. Huge difference. The backyard backyard is the backyard that is the back of the yard in our compound. The backyard backyard on the other hand is the back of the yard of the backyard backyard, so: the backyard backyard is the backyard of the backyard backyard which is backyard of the yard inside our compound. Glad we got that cleared up! But anyway, I’m planning on building a fort in the more wild backyard backyard, you know, an awesome place where I can just hang out and stuff. I’ve noticed while here that there aren’t that many tree houses, and I’m beginning to wonder if Nigerian kids even know what a tree house is. Maybe it’s a Western culture thing? Well mine is gonna be the best thing ever; at least I hope it’ll be. I haven’t even begun to make it yet. And I definitely know that if it’s going to be like I am imagining it to be, then it’s going to take more than a week to finish alright. And I want to make sure that it’s secret, so that the path and entrance to it is so hidden, that if you walked by it you wouldn’t even know that it existed. We’ll see!

Signing off,

The Traveler