long time no see?

oh, hi blog.  long time no see.  sorry friends for the break in updates - got busy/lazy...

things have seemed to slow down a bit, which is sometimes nice, sometimes a little boring.  it is nice to not have things to do every single day of the weekend and to have time to actually relax.  at the same time, there isn't much to do around/in our compound which can make for some boredom.  since i wrote last, here are some of the non-boring highlights:

• bombs: national nigerian day means a day off from work + parades, celebrations, parties, etc.  we were considering heading to eagle square where the biggest celebration would be, but heard that it got pretty ridiculous in terms of crowds.  one co-worker said that when she went last year, crowds of people would just surround them and stick their hands in her pockets/pants.  she advised that if we went to take nothing with us because we probably wouldn't come home with them.  in the end we decided to avoid the whole scene and lucky that we did, as a few bomb threats were made and then followed through with.  kinda scary... it ended up being a pretty quiet weekend for us as we didn't want to go too far and risk anything.  we heard of a few other bomb threats that week, but things have seemed to calm down since.
• national nigerian day: happy 50 years of independence, nigeria!  we had a celebration at school where we all dressed up in nigerian garb.  the kids put on an assembly showcasing nigerian traditions such as the pledge, national anthem, a naming ceremony, dancing, etc.  the PTA also brought in a dance group which did some neat dancing and crazy acrobatics.  the day ended with a food festival where we got to sample various traditional foods.  yum!
• tragedy: unfortunately, the week took an emotional dive as that same afternoon we learned that the elementary french teacher had been killed in an automobile accident.  i won't go into too much detail for various reasons, but i'll just say that it was a stressful week as i had to process the situation for myself, while also breaking the news to my students and helping them work through it.
• blake's lounge: that weekend we needed some fun after such a hard week.  saturday night leif, sara, catie & i hit a local outdoor nigerian bar/lounge which was a lot of fun.  there was live music and leif was pulled up onto the stage to sing/dance within our first five minutes of being there.  i guess we stood out - there were only two or three other non-nigerian people there that we could see... we ended up going again with a few other friends the weekend after that.  sara made her dancing debut on stage twice in one night. many of the nigerians recognized us from our first visit and are enjoying striking up conversations with us.
• fela kuti: fela kuti is one of the most well known nigerian musicians who was also very much involved in politics & human rights stuff.  yesterday we had the opportunity to go to the french cultural center in abuja to watch a documentary about fela and hear carlos moore read a portion of the biography he wrote about fela kuti.  he was good friends with fela and talked about some of his memories of them.  lindsay barrett was also at the event and he shared some of his stories about fela as he was a good friend who introduced fela to a lot of music that influenced him.  it was pretty cool to be at the event and hear about the guy, as he seemed pretty awesome/crazy.  it was also pretty neat because this is the first time the book has been published in africa.

those are the big things that have been going on.. other nights found us hanging out with friends/coworkers, taking late night swims, watching movies, etc.  sometimes it is a little tough because this is not a touristy area, so finding things to do can get tricky, but i suppose that's just part of the experience.  sara & i are thinking of possibly painting a mural on one of the walls in our living room if we are given permission to do so.  we also found legit brownie mix that wasn't too expensive (on nigerian standards) recently so that was a highlight.

since things have slowed down, i have been missing home more & more.  i miss how convenient life is in the states and am really excited to go home for christmas.  i'm also trying to figure out some travel plans for spring break/summer times.  that's it for now but until next time, let me know that someone is reading this and/or let me know if anybody is up for meeting up with me somewhere!  :)