Girl you're so fine o... You blow my mind o...

Going out in Abuja is fun, given you know the right people and the few fun places there are. This weekend was just amazing, and people that go on about how boring Abuja is and how there is just "nothing to do" are not really trying.

After Friday's game (there is no better way to start a weekend than leaving work 2 hours before the official end, sitting in the VIP area of a massive stadium, drinking canned star while watching your team win 3:1, qualifying for the next round) I spent the evening at a friend's place, having Asian food and watching a movie. Saturday I was being more adventureous: after I survived the past week without any injuries, accidents or kidnapping attempts I decided to try and discover Abuja a little more. I had not been to the famous "Arts and Crafts Village", a bunch of little huts in which touristic souvenirs are sold (traditional dresses, masks, decorative items, jewelry, etc.). For me it was a great opportunity to put my bargaining skills to a test and my pidgin knowledge to work. It must look (and sound) funny, a white (I m still very white, haven't even tanned all that much) blonde girl, all alone sourrounded by a bunch of Nigerians trying to sell their "art" and "craft", telling them "you dey give me oyinbo price oga - wetin dey real price now?", "Me no be johnny just came, no go vex me with that your oyinbo price now o". I think I managed to get pretty good prices. Speaking (a little bit) of pidgin usually helps a lot around here. People do get the fact that you didn't just get here two days ago and that you are probably not just some tourist who is only spending a week in Nigeria. It strenghtens your position as a "local", which in turn helps to get the "real" price instead of the oyinbo price.

After the touristic shopping I was kind of stuck on the express way. I had gotten there by taxi, but I didn't wanna get a taxi from there because by now I know the mentality (Ah, dat babe, dey oyinbo tourist shopping now, I go make am pay tourist price), so I walked by the side of the expressway for a bit, trying to get into town again. I had to cross at some point to catch the exit of the express way, and even though this might be hard to imagine for most non-Nigerians, people cross express ways all the time. There are always loads of people on the express way (only God knows what they are doing there, and they do cross. This is not my first time attempting to cross, so I just waited a little (in the meantime 3 other people crossed, while I was still waiting, thinking that there might not be enough space..) and eventually made my move. Right after I had reached the other side a police car drives by, slows down right next to me to honk at me. Honking in general doesn't mean much around here, especially when you are white and you are out alone its the constant background noise, but it hadn't happened with a police car before. I wonder whether it was because of "oyinbo on the express way" (people on the express way are normal, oyinbos apparently are more of a rare sight), or whether they just wanted my attention. It probablay was a combination of both.

Saturday night I went out with a group of my friends. First we had a few drinks at a local pub in Abuja's red light district in Garki. The place had a (very bad) live band, loads of hoes, and very expensive beer. It was fun. Around 1am we checked out the "club" that belonged to that pub, some shabby establishment that was filled with more hoes, drunk men and interesting music. We stayed there for about 30 minutes before our male friends had pissed off all the drunk Nigerina men around by trying to protect us from their "attention". We moved to "basement", a really fun club I had not been to before. Excellent music, loads of people, many many beers.

Going out in a group of white people is very different from going out with my Nigerian friends. When you are the only white chick sourrounded by a group of Nigerian girls, men feel somehow more restrained to just go ahead and grab you - they don't seem to feel any such constraints when you are in a group of other white people. They just think they should "try their luck". And if they don't get lucky with the first white babe they hit on, they try the other three in that group (makes you feel really special). Luckily enough we had our male friends as guards around. They would do their best to "protect" us from unwanted male attention. It was funny to see - especially one time, when one of our friends dragged me and my colleague close because apparently there was some guy behind us who had tried to grab us for a while, and this guy comes up to our friend, asking him whether we both "belonged" to him. I think it got my friend a round of respect, being there with two women all to himself.

I spent my night at my colleagues place in Maitama, I went swimming in their pool in the morning (well, it was actually already noon) and we had pancakes in their airconditioned seating area. It once more made the contrasts so real to me; there is bucket showers and no lights for 3 days at my end. Theres a pool, a washing machine, and daily cleaning boys at my colleagues place. We live in the same country, in the same town. And we live two different lives.

Last time I blogged about the way people carry out their arguments here. This morning it reached its height. Yes, there are daily fights which I cannot help but overhear (mainly because they are really loud), but so far my colleagues have never carried out their agressive fights in front of the whole team. My office has a traditional Monday morning meeting, which is usually led by my boss, or the boss of the regional project (we all work for the same foundation, but in different divisions). My boss left a while ago, so meetings were held by the other boss who is not around until Wednesday. I honestly did not see the need for a meeting, which is mainly aimed at reporting back to our oga what we have done throughout the week and what we are currently working on. Nevertheless, one of the project managers decided to call for a meeting. Ten minutes after the official start, one of our colleagues shows up, sits down and makes a comment on how this meeting should not take place and how he feels snubbed. This remark led to a heated argument in which these two project managers yell at each other in front of the whole office team. We all tried to calm them down, asked them to resolve matters like civlized people, but they continued yelling and shouting at eacht other. I have never experienced such a situation in any of the offices I have worked in. The tone was rough sometimes, there was harsh criticism, but there was never a situation of two people yelling at each other in front of all their colleagues. In between I was thinking about just getting up and leaving the room but I didn't want to create even more of a fuss. Just as a sidenote: I am working with these exact two people on an internal research project, it's only the three of us and things weren't exactly perfect before, I guess I will have a really interesting research group meeting later today.