Nighttime Adventures

Hi to all- this past Sunday we had the opportunity to visit a Nigerian Christian church. The church sits in a community where Muslims and Christians coexist in close proximity with one another. Apparently it was one the few communities where people refused to fight in the riots of 2001 where many people died. The church has a large congregation with young and old, families and expatriates. After church our girls went to a future classmate’s house with Valerie (daughter to Mark and Brenda). It’s so nice that the girls have already found some friends- it helps with them sleeping better at night. Speaking of nights-yesterday evening we got home and the girls found a huge cockroach, it took some time but our hero Randy finally conquered and squished it. So later when randy and i went to bed, we were settled under our mosquito net when just at the same time the generator was turned off-we discovered a huge cockroach inside inside our mosquito net over our heads. About 2-3 inches long. Needless to say it did not take long for us to wake up our neighbour to turn on the generator so we could have some lights on to tear our bed apart and find that bleepin’ cockroach. Randy said that one time it even leaped onto his head- I’m laughing hysterically while typing this with tears in my eyes. What a relief when we finally found it on our bed frame and randy smashed it with a shoe. With that to the beginning of our night-it took some time to fall asleep. We had a great rain storm after the cockroach incident to cool the night down. Nights are still trying especially last night with the cockroach and then–we got woken up early with Tanner fainting and smacking onto the concrete floor. Yesterday he started with a rash-not sure yet what caused it –but it progressively got worse with red welts all over his body. Then in the morning he was complaining of stomach pain and head ache. So we just happened to meet a doctor we will by working with in Vom so we called her and she was very helpful in getting tanner some blood work done and meds. Results were normal- with no malaria – probably just an allergic reaction to something. Today we got a chance to visit a local hospital and drive through downtown. I’m still amazed at the means in which people, animals, motor bikes and cars all co exist on the streets with no traffic lights and few traffic cops to direct vehicles. We still mostly live with the city water and electricity off. We have a water tank outside our current house to use for toilets, dishes and baths. The electricity came on for about 20 minutes today. We have a young housekeeper that works for us now while we are in jos. today she did our laundry, cleaned house and watched our kids for a few hrs. The kids loved it, she played games with them and the girls had fun helping her with the laundry. Interesting when i cant get them to even put their dirty clothes in the basket back in wpg. In the next few days we will be making a village stay about 1-2 hrs from jos. I’m surprisingly looking forward to it. Bye for now- i have great hopes that i will get a good night sleep tonight.---charlotte