Our First Weekend

            Our principal arranged for a driver Saturday morning so he could take us to the show us where we will be shopping at the open air traditional market, the modern grocery store, and the bakery.  We started at his favorite booth in the traditional market.  He can get bottles of Coca-Cola there.  There is a vinyl marketing sign that advertises cold drinks but there is no electricity in her booth.  It is a three walled room about the size of a walk in closet.  Only one person can go in at a time.  It was interesting how everyone seemed to know the principal and his wife and then it donned on me that they are easy to recognize as the minority.  They buy bananas from one person and yams from another to spread out their money.  The market was very much like the ones in Taiwan but the individual booths were so much more rustic.  It was like a shanty town.

I am very glad I brought all the undergarments I will need this year.

I watched the store keeper refilling the containers with her bare hands.

             After visiting the traditional market I was really anxious to see the REAL grocery store.  To my horror it was about the size of a 7-11.  I hardly recognized any of the brands.  I think many of them have been imported from Europe.  The frozen food section was one deep freeze of packaged meat that looked like it was processed in someone’s barn.  I am assuming with all the rolling power outages it is too hard to keep frozen items.  The prices were very high like what we were paying in the Arctic.  I think Clint and I were both really disappointed.  We are not big cooks.  I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with what we saw in the traditional market.  The foods in the grocery store were so unfamiliar to us too.  I do think this will be good for us.  We are going to have to learn to cook more from scratch which is of course better for us.    Next, we went to a bakery.  It was all bread and rolls and no cakes, cookies, or pastries.  Can you tell I am missing sweets?  

Oh yum, warm eggs on the shelf in the middle of the pet food.

             The bakery did have some meat pies so we purchased them for lunch.  We ate down at the marina.  There was a slavery museum, a carrousel ride, a café and outdoor seating.   It was fun watching the little lizards scramble around on the grass and up and down the coconut trees.  Cross River is a wide, brown river.  I am assuming it is full of sediment.  We were so thankful for shade in the picnic area.  We didn’t have time to view the museum but we plan to return.  Calabar was the location where most of the slaves boarded ships bound for America.

A dance team was performing at the marina.

This boat went by while we were eating our lunch.

             Sunday evening we went to a performance for the students of a performing arts school.  They played instruments, sang, and danced.  We really wanted to work in our classrooms over the weekend but it was nice to also get a chance to look around and experience some of the culture.  One of my students played the piano.  When she saw me she came down the aisle to give me a hug.  It is a cultural thing to hug your teacher in the morning and when you leave.  My principal saw it and gave me a thumbs up.

With all the poverty outside of this performance hall, I was surprised to see so many video cameras inside.  There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor here.