Our first Sunday in Abuja.  We attended a Baptist Church and were warmly welcomed with a moderate 2 hour service, really not bad at all.  Nico loved playing in the dirt for a large part of the service.  As we were leaving church, Amira said “This church isn’t like our church in Michigan.”  Indeed it wasn’t.  Loud music.  Dancing.  Chairs sitting on the dirt ground under a tent.  Even after the differences were noted, there were many things that were similar.  We sang similar songs and we had a similar order of worship.  It will take us a while to find a church home, but it was a fun start.  

 

Mike successfully chalked up his first cultural blunder yesterday.  He has always seemed to keep me laughing (along with many others) through all of our travels and he definitely succeeded last night.  Since Nico was sleeping, Mike drove our friend Sheila home by himself.  On the way, Mike and Sheila stopped to buy a movie for us to watch in the evening.  Since there were hundreds of movies piled on top of each other, Mike told the employee with much gusto, “Sir, this is not my madame.  My madame is at home.  My wife likes romaaantic movies.”  The man looked at Mike, turned and walked away, not saying anything.  He passed the huge stacks of movies, stopping by a special case in the corner of the room.  As he bent down to open the door, Sheila and Mike looked at each other, both realizing at the same time that Mike probably just asked for porn!  Mike fired off a quick “Nooo, noooo, not those kinds of movies!”   He ended up buying a black market special.  For a mere 500 naira (less than $5), we got, all in one let me remind you:  Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek 3, Super Man, Super Man II, Super Man III, Spider Man, Spider Man 2, Spider Man 3, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Are We There Yet?.   The quality of the 14-in-1 special...let’s not go there.

 

So we can find some things cheap-cheap...but not much!  We are finding Abuja to be very expensive.  We were informed that we could pretty much buy anything but at a cost.  They weren’t kidding!  I found a small bag of Hershey kisses for $15 yesterday.  It took a while to explain to Amira why we couldn’t buy them.   We realized that it will take some time to adjust to shopping--where to shop and even what to buy.  We don’t have a good grasp yet on what a good price is for something.  We have a lot of figure out!  

 

 

Blessings to you as you begin your week!

Megan

 

photo:  Kenneth, our neighbor on our compound, rolled his mat under the shade tree and told all the children he wanted to read them a story.  The precious moment lasted for about one paragraph before Amira and Kevin ran off to chase each other with snails.  Amira loves her new playmates.