Abeokuta Trip and a few other things....

Jeff spent this last week in Cameroon on business and left me behind in Lagos since my visa had expired. Usually I would have been ticked missing out on the trip but instead I spent the week with an x-pat family from our ward at the cheveron compound and had a ton of fun! Hands down the nicest compound in Nigeria. If you have ever seen "The Truman Show" i swear there is no difference between them. Every house looks exactly the same, everyone has the same vehicle parked in front of their house, at 7am all the moms are either riding their bike or jogging around the block, its almost creepy really. The whole place is surrounded by a giant cement wall so its really like a mini america in the middle of Lagos. The family has the cutest 4 little boys all under the age of 6 so it was a week full of craziness but it totally reminded me of home.

During the week S. had planned a trip out to Abeokuta, a smaller city about 3 hours out of lagos known for its "sacred rock" and batik indigo dying pits. I had never been there before and S. wanted to go there before leaving nigeria so we rounded up a few other chevron women and headed out there for the day. We some how ended up with a cockroach infested van so we were constandly on a hunt for those dang things. Our first stop was the sacred rock. We had a guide hike with us to the top which was very neat. Here's a things we saw......

In the 1820's you would find people actually living in these crevasses in the rock hiding from slave hunters. This is one of the many spots dedicated to preparing and grinding their food.



This is seriously a bedroom. You can't tell but it is VERY small. Like you had to get on your knee's to make it through the door. People would cram in here and sleep on literally a rock hard floor. I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be especially since its all open - i'm sure rats, lizards and who knows what was running around beside you....



The chief's grave...



We were AMAZED at how dangerous this major tourist attraction was. Of course there were no rails or anything so one wrong step could result in a deathly fall to the bottom. There was a safe option though, an elevator ride to the top.....but this is nigeria, so of course the elevator was not working.



This is the main shrine where the juju ceremonies take place. Juju is like a kind of witchcraft and a very real practice in west africa. There is a lot of EXTREMELY superstitious people here. Anyways, this is where people long ago and locals now offer sacrifice, hence the "Sacred Rock". I made the mistake of asking what kind of sacrifices, the guide told me both animal and human.....gross. Anyways there was a live sacrifice just a couple weeks ago. The priestesses or witches, is what the locals call them, cover the door in blood and feathers of the animal, then seal the door until the next year's sacrifice (thank goodness it was a animal sacrifice this year!). You can still see some of the remaining feathers. Kind of creepy.



This was the true test. If you could climb up the "belly of the rock" to the top, you would have done it just like the local people did 100 years ago. Although im sure they didn't have to use ladders, but still. We all made it to the top though!



Did i mention how unsafe this was?? This is what we saw as each of us came out the belly to the top where the platform to the elevator is supposed to drop you off......



All of us at the top.....



On the way back down we had the option of going to meet the local "witches" that practice juju that lived on the other side of the rock. Some of the ladies in our group were afraid that they would suck our souls out so only the "brave" went to greet them. In their defense the guide did freak us out when he told us their eyes were red as blood, which they sooooo were not! Anyway it was definitely not as scary as he made it sound. They were happy to meet us, or maybe just happy to charge us 100 niara to say hello, but still we saw a few more of the rooms where they kill and prepare sacrifices . We weren't allowed to look inside, which was a good thing because the guide told us that inside is where all the heads of the sacrifices lay, human and animal. That kind of creeped me out, although i dont know if it was actually true or not.





These boys were making fried fish for dinner. Obviously letting your 10 year old cook with an open fire and a boiling pot of oil is not dangerous here!?



Anyways, all in all it was a neat little hike! After we loaded up back into the van and head over to the dye pits.





They would soak indigo leaves in these pots, add some dye and then the fabric would sit inside for a while. We learned about the different patterns they made. They would either fold and sew it in strips then dye it or tie little knots all over by hand (kind of like tiedying but much more work), or they would stamp/paint wax prints all over the plain white fabric then after it was dyed scrape it off. Each one was a ton of work. It was cool watching the whole process though. Here's a wax print before it entered the pot and coming out of the pot....




This one is a machine sewn one. You can see how little it is all folded up....



These kid's job was to pull out all the stitching after the fabric had dried.





Here's a few different one laying out in the sun to dry. We learned you have to dip the fabric, dry it, then dip it again and again depending on how dark you want the color. This can take days for just one piece to be completely finished especially if its rainy season and it can't lay out to dry.




They sold the fabric for about 2500 Niara for 6 yards which is like $15 US dollars. Although that is they oyinbo (white man) price so im sure the locals could get it for at least half that. It was soo cool to see the whole process!! After that we headed to the fabric market and did some shopping. It was nice to have a different selection then the stuff we find in Lagos. I found some fabric that is by far my most favorite yet! I just have to figure out what im going to do with it now. Anyways it was a very fun day and we learned a lot. I have a much better appreciation for all the hard work going into making fabric here!

I really loved every minute of hanging out with S. and her kids at chevron. Poor Jeff spent most of his week sitting in a hotel doing paper work and waiting for meetings. He even spent his birthday in a really nasty hotel room eating local food. So to make up for the worst birthday in the world the kids and I surprised him with a cake when he came to pick me up. We found this cake in a magazine and decided it was very fitting. I'll admit i had completly forgotten what it was like to make anything with kids around. Every time i turned my back for 3 seconds i would turn back to find huge bite marks in the cake or finger prints in the icing. Between all of that though and all the improvising we had to do since we couldn't get half the ingredients in nigeria it turned out pretty darn cute. The kids were beyond excited to surprise jeff!!




He was very surprised and loved the cake! And i was very happy to have my husband back again!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF!!