Monday, March 29, 2010

Malaria

Yes, I got it, and it wasn't fun.

It was like having the flu and fever with some cold mixed all together. I'm just almost over it now, but luckily I got some malaria medicine. It was disgusting and I don't want to ever have it again. You had to crush pills in water and then drink them. Good thing is that I'm pretty much through. You can only get malaria a few times a year, because each time you get it, you get temporarily immune to it. Great news for me!

Signing off,
The Traveler

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Blue Parrot

Hello,

A few days ago, while I was typing on my mother's laptop, a heard a weird screeching noise. It was definitely coming from a bird; it didn't sound human. My dad asked what the noise was, so I looked out our window and saw a blue parrot. This species of parrot is a very rare bird. It was sitting on a palm tree, doing it's singing/screeching song. My dad took our camera, and very quietly went to go photograph it. Unfortunately, my dad came back disappointed.When he got there, the parrot had moved to a closer tree to him. It was saw him, and flew away as fast as it could. Oh well! Right now we're in Lagos for a short stay, so we're just relaxing at the moment.

Signing off,
The Traveler

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Cashews

Hello everyone,

I've been very busy eating all of the new and different fruits. Some of you out there probably don't know what the cashew fruit tastes like. Well first thing first, let me describe what the fruit looks like.
    Imagine a green sack, with a brown, hard, gray cashew nut hanging on the bottom. The sack is bigger at the bottom and smaller at the top. The skin is very taught and almost rubbery feeling. It's a little smaller than your hand, and by the slightest squeeze will squirt out an excess amount of juice. Got that mental image stuck in your head? Now, imagine biting into the juicy, green fruit, and getting a mouthful of mushy-like flesh, and juice coming out of the fruit like a water hose. It tastes tangy, yet pleasingly sweet, with a hint of something that is just native to the cashew that isn't describable.
    Now, there are two ways of eating the fruit: either eat it, or drink it. Drink it: take a mug and squeeze the cashew CAREFULLY until it's almost dry. I say carefully because if you aren't it'll spray onto every thing and onto you. If the juice stains, your shirt will never be clean again. To eat: gently eat it over a plate or (it can be this juicy) over a sink. Make sure you avoid getting any juice on your clothing, or it'll be forever stained.
    My family and I found the biggest cashew we had ever seen, it was bigger than my hand! We juiced it out, and it almost filled the cup we were squeezing it in halfway. We have a cashew tree in our yard, and there are so many cashew fruits falling everyday, we have about five to eat every morning. And they're soo good! Soon we'll be having piles and piles of mangoes to go along with the cashews. My father collecting all of the cashew nuts off of the fruits, so then we can roast them and have it fresh. Tasty!

Signing off,
The Traveler

Sunday, January 17, 2010

40 moveece into cd!

My family walks up to a store that has a display of different dvds,

    But different than usual dvds. These ones are in a thin cardboard envelope with a photocopied sign on the front. One might say, "Harry Potter VS. Lord of the Rings," or "Starcomedy." This is all enclosed in a resealable plastic casing. On the top of it, there is the Hewlett-Packard logo, except red and the letters are in gold. Next to that says NEW 2009 MOVIE. On the side of the envelope say 40 MOVIES IN 1. WORKS ON ANY CD-ROM OR DVD PLAYER. If you turn the case over, you see a set of little boxes housing pictures of movie posters. For example, there will be HARRY POTTER A 1, HARRY POTTER A 2, HARRY POTTER A 3. And in fine print at the bottom of the case, you will see a grammatically incorrect passage saying that no part of the dvd shall be copied, or recorded without asking permission from the company. It sounds like one large scam, right? Actually, these disks are real, and the do hold movies.
    The only difference is that the "movie company" is probably someone in China in their office illegally copying movies to his computer and putting them on a CD, then getting money out of it by selling the disk like it's real. We actually just bought one of these disks out of curiosity recently called "HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE VS. JOHNNY THE MAD DOG." On that one cd we got Ice Age 3, Year One, Harry Potter #6, and 10 other movies my parents would probably watch.
    The reason Nigeria has very few legally made disks is because that the U.S sells it to them at stupidly high prices, and the Nigerian distributors just can't afford it. Instead they buy from the pirates that produce the disk in China who want to make a profit at what they do. So no, I do not blame the Nigerians one bit for buying the pirated cds and dvds. They deserve to have movies and programs too.
    But I do blame the pirates for the quality of some of the disks. "Works on every cd-rom and dvd player." Not! Every time we try to play something on our dvd player, the video is very choppy. And sometimes when you use the computer to play it, it'll actuallly freeze the whole system and you have to restart it manually. I know they're pirates and all, but come on!

Signing off,
The Traveler

Friday, January 8, 2010

7 Levels

Whew,

    I'm tired just thinking about this trip I had a few days ago. My parents wanted to examine this waterfall that people said flowed out of a rock. So we drove to what I think is called Ikere, a town not that far away from Ife.
    When we were driving in that area, I saw beautiful mountain fromations. Huge cliff-like mountains jutted from the ground, to make something close to a wall.
    When we got to the park that the waterfall flowed through, we got out and started hiking. Some rustic-looking steps were put on the path in the beginning, but then it became more difficult to traverse for steep narrow parts would sometimes emerge. We climbed a little, and we finally got to the base of the waterfall.
    The water was very cold, but that was really refreshing if you've been living in 87 degree heat. We couldn't even see where the water fall started because it was still very high up.
    And the only to get up there was to traverse the "steps." The steps are how the park seperates the different levels of the mountain. There are seven steps in all. We were on the first step. The waterfall was on the seventh step. We had six steps to go through if we had wanted to see the waterfall to flow from the rock.
    So we started going up towards the second step. It was a really good climb to strengthen my mountain climbing skills. The trail to the second step was a cliff. There were many places to put your feet and hands, but still it was a very tiresome task. But it was fun!
    When we got to the second step, pretty much everyone was heaving and/or sweating. We called it a day after that, and said we'd get to the top another day. That water fall was beautiful, but I don't know how anyone can see where it originates because it's so high up!

Signing off,
The Traveler

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2010

2010,

Doesn't that year sound like something from a science-fiction movie?  Anyway, we're doing excellently. We're back in Ife for good. No more going back and forth between places. We have all of our things. Please read most of my recent posts and "Stuff has Shipped" for more info on our stuff. Well, now we have our HP Pavillion desktop back so we can post pictures. We have all of our comfortable mattreses and toys and games and books etc. It's pretty chilly for me right now. Since we're acclimated to the tropical climate, 75 degrees is chilly. Even though we didn't watch the Rose Parade and sort of missed the countdown, we had a blast. I wa actually just playing Spore a few minutes ago. Oh yeah, you guys in America and porbably Britain are still in 2009. I have one thing to say. Nigeria is a year ahead of America!

Signing off,
The Traveler