My First Sense of Nigeria...

So I landed around 5:30, but we're just getting to the house.

I've seen some pretty amazing things already. When I got out of the plane, the heat and humidity was shocking! It feels like the middle of a Maryland August. It's so steamy...shortly after we landed in came the rain and thinder. Thank God we were able to land safely before the storms arrived!

The airport itself is quite interesting. It was like nothing I've experienced at home. There were masses (and I truly mean masses) of people standing outside when we walked out the door. There were so many people that it was quite difficult to move our luggage carts to the curb where Yinka's brothers were picking us up. There were guards walking around amongst the crowd with rifles on their shoulders and people were constantly trying to "help" you get to your vehicle (for a tip of course). This was a different experience for me to say the least. The great thing about it all though is that Yinka and his brothers are very protective, so one of them was with us and one was in the vehicle the whole time just to make sure we were safe. Never did I feel threatened or worried, rather I was just in shock. I'm quickly learning that the constant hustle and crowd of people is just the NIgerian way, or perhaps the Lagos way.

Everyone drives like a maniac here...only the fit survive (Mom Putt would never make it). Trying to get folks to stop blowing their horns is a dream. Just a note about driving here...some streets have absolutely no lines, so people drive everywhere (4-5 cars across the two lane road!). And truthfully, on the roads with lines, people still drive everywhere. And the most jaw-droping thing...the taxi vans speed by with people literally hanging out the doors. When I saw this, I was like..."This pure craziness!" I will take some pictures to post...that may not be until I return though since I just discovered my phone has no camera :-(

Anyway, I've seen a lot of great things in the past few hours as well. We went to a mall that looked much like a shopping center in the U.S...I managed to get some KFC for dinner while I was there. The city skyline in Lagos is pretty fabulous too.

With that, i'm going to sign off for the night. It's 10:45 pm here. I will admit that this week is going to be more adventurous and exciting than I ever imagined.

-DMW