Weekend Over

Another weekend over, Wales won again and this time I did get to Pat's Bar to watch it. It's definitely more interesting when there's French guys shouting 'Allez Bleu!' and other welsh people around. Most of the people watching were probably English and were supporting Wales (Only the French could support the French, right?)

Sunday I planned to go to the beach but in the end I didn't go because firstly N... wasn't feeling well enough to spend all day on the beach. Secondly I wanted to catch up with some of my OU work. Then there was the Eastenders Omnibus. I guess I'm 3-4 episodes behind the UK but, I saw Den and Andy Hunter both get killed off in the same episode. Good they were boring anyway.

This evening we went to the Golf club which was about as uneventful as usual until we left. On the way back from Ikoyi to Victoria Island, before the bridge there was a motorcycle accident. First we saw the white and chrome bike lying in the middle of the road and immediately we thought uh-oh... Then when we passed we saw there was a white lady with blood over her and a white guy lying face down in an awkward body position on the road. Our first thoughts was that the guy was obviously dead. I tried to call Tocaro, an emergency service we were once subscribed to who's number I still have on my phone it wouldn't go through so I thought the best thing was to keep trying while we head to their medical centre not far from our house.

We arrived and it was in total darkness with For Sale signs on the walls. We tried calling again, it rang this time but nobody answered. A man near the Tocaro place told us that they'd moved to 'Mega Plaza' area. Our next option was to go home and try the clinic next door. They sometimes park an old ambulance outside our house. N... went to tell them where to go but they asked her to go along with them.

While we were outside the house waiting we started thinking about what to do. Mike remembered that the British Council building is very close to the place we saw the accident and that if we had thought quickly enough that's where we would have gone first.

Within minutes N... was back with good news The guy had come around and was able to be carried off with his wife and his battered bike into the British Council Building. Turns out the man and his wife were british and people around were saying he was drunk but that could easily be concussion I guess. So we were all relieved to hear that.

The expat community is quite closeley knit so no doubt we will find out who he is pretty soon. N...'s next door neigbour is probably the only person importing and servicing large engine motor bikes in Lagos, no doubt he'll know more about it.

Busy Week

I have been working solidly on the new Enumeration Forms for phase 2 this past week or so. It's been tough but I've finally got the form that I believe we should have had since day one. Of course Neither Mike or I were around for the development of the first form until two months of enumeration had been completed. I knew at the time that I wanted it to make some major changes but had to realise that a committee involving our client and our subcontractors doing the enumeration had spent many weeks putting it together ensuring it did the right job.

The old form rambled on for six sides of A4 with a lot of repitition and redundancy, while simultaeously missing out some key information. The new Form which I've been working with Mike to complete is just 2 sides of A4, and collects more information in a more logical way. I've also tried to solve the issue of having more than one building in a property (well duh!, hospitals, hotels, prisons...), so instead of them having to complete a new set of forms for all 5 buildings in some properties now the enumerator can just add the building details to a separate form, so 30 sides of A4 becomes 4. Hah, So many Trees will be happy now.

The Parrot Is Dead, I can't remember if I blogged about the Parrot but we got an African Grey Parrot as a dream of Dad's since he was a little boy. Everything was fine, Oscar, that was his name, even started saying 'Hello' on his second day. But this morning Mike came down to find him Dead. For Some reason None of the Monty Python jokes made Dad laugh...

I was watching the parrot last night and saw him just sitting still facing the wall, I thought then that either he's depressed or sick. I tried to give him a bit of attention stroking the back of his head as the guy who sold him to us told us to do. He closed his eyes but otherwise stayed totally still. Awww.

Another Week over

Just came back from Bobs Bar a couple of hours ago. Had dinner at Victoria Palace hotel, so a typical friday basically. Pats bar last night was very lively too so I didn't want to stay out too late tonight as I'm trying to have the new form prototypes ready by tuesday. That's going well the form looks so much better, even if they don't agree to our changes I think I'll adapt it to the old form structure so that we can firstly save paper and secondly avoid so many problems with missing fields.

Congrats to my Brother who passed his Driving Theory Test Wednesday, I hear his driving test is booked in time for my next visit to the UK. That's good, I'll have my own Des! (Designated Driver).

If he passes in time maybe he can pick me up at the airport! so Dan if you read this, if you pass your test I'll pay you half my hire car money to come and pick me up at heathrow.

progress

Tuesday we had a meeting with the our client and their IT department head with the heads of the Commercial department, we just wanted to thrash out any ideas they had where things could be improved ahead starting phase 2 of our project.

We found out that they had some problems with the data, after some heated discussion it turned out that the majority of the problems the commercial department had came from the way their own IT department had presented our data to them. So we were relieved about that. We also had a discussion about the form and I agreed to have a new sample form ready by next week. The form we are using now was prepared and being used in the field a month or so before I arrived here to start this project in 2004 and at that time there were major changes I wanted to make but because of the amount of upheaval that would be required with these forms already in use I kept back. Also i was under the impression that our client had been involved in long discussions about the original form and it had been approved by them. Now we are facing difficulties because the forms aren't flexible enough to alow us to represent the data properly.

That eveing Joseph's meal was very tasty, using butter beans and beef to make a kind of baked beans pie. it was nice tasty food. He also takes a lot of care with presentation of his food which makes it taste all the better.

Wedesday, we went to the project office around 1pm and I tried to make headway on the new form. At 5 pm we headed out to Bob's bar for Happy Hour to celebrate Timis birthday which we missed Tuesday because he didn't tell us till it was too late.

Mike's Back

What I forgot to mention earlier was that Mike came back last night, we'd forgotten to ask Monika to make up his room so Dad and I had to try and set up his bed.

We went over to the project office today around 12 and N... took the laptop I set up for her, this means she can really get to grips with the Verification statistics and I can concentrate on clearing up the data for delivery to our client ASAP.

Joseph the new cook started today and, thankfully he is really really impressive so far. He seems to really know food and knows how to make anything taste amazing. My only criticism is that I went to work with Bad breath because he cooked my breakfast with onions and garlic. Beautiful taste but I regretted it later.

Dinner was very good too. nicely cooked pork with veg. He's got a bit of a learning curve with our eating habits. but so far he's got a distinction.

Yay Wales

Saturdays Rugby Game was awsome, wish I could have been there 38-8.

Sunday went to the beach because we were invited to the opening of a bar there, Joey Ducane, the guy who helped Nana with the police wahala last year, is the owner and it really has the potential to be a top entertainment spot.

He's set up a stage for his band and got some very capable staff, what I liked were the bouncers keeping all the rif-raf out such as people trying to sell you 'gold' neclaces and such and also Girls up to no good.

The music was provided by the dj from Pat's bar on Saturday night, Keith Massey. So that was good. There was a few power problems and speaker problems but as long as they didn't try to play too loud the music didn't get too distorted or cut out altogether with the power failing.

I guess they need a beefier Gen, and also judging by the mains hum some kind of good earth rod, 2 metres of copper rod hammered into the sand might do it, but I'm not an Electrician.

Joey's Mum was there, Senator Buknor Akerele, who resigned as Deputy Governor of Lagos State, rumour has it because she couldn't stand the corruption any longer.

Also I met the Ambassador for Gabon, who was, erm... very relaxed shall we say.

Joey's Band didn't start playing until about 6pm and everybody was either leaving or allready gone, so hopefully he'll learn now and get the band going around 4 or 5.

I'll definitely be back next week, weather permitting

Time to update

Well , I think you need an update.

Thursday, the new cook didn't show up! no doubt because the pay was too small for such a large amount of work. Charles was at the doctors most of the day and didn't come into work until lunch time so we had to manage with the one driver.

At the project office a guy came to sort out our 2005 ID cards, he took my photo to use as a sample card.

Thurday night we had dinner at Pats because of no cook and then stayed on for the music later. I drank the larger share of 2 bottles of wine and felt a bit woozy in the morning.

Friday we went to the project office and continued work on the verification data and I tried to work though some of the duplicates.

Later Friday Evening Dad and I went to the golden gate chinese restaurant. The food and service was as always there very good. Later we went to Bobs bar too watch some old guys rock.

Today, I'm looking forward to the rugby, hopefully Wales can keep the upper hand against italy.

Good Wednesday

So still no cook!

Aparently the cook was successfully interviewed today and will resume tomorrow for breakfast. He's apparently worked for a few hotels before and for Guinness Nigeria so lets keep fingers and toes crossed.

I am starting to see the end of the tunnel with the paperwork at the project office, I'm catching up with the work being done by the verifiers. 2 data entry guys are starting tomorrow, one who's worked for us a few months ago and he's bringing along a friend to help out.

I went to look for a tv in 'Mega Plaza' and saw the exact same model as my tv at home for £300. I paid less than £120 in Comet. N... is going to go and look for something similar on the weekend, I may follow her but it'll probably just increase the price because I'm 'Oyibo'. (whitey).

N...'s fasting is going well, I dropped her off at church on the way back from the office. She broke her fast there.

I was hoping to have a meeting with someone in the IT department in our clients office but he was busy in meetings all day.

Charles the driver that has been taking me most often recently was sick today and yesterday he complained that he felt his B.P. was getting high and he wanted to see his doctor. So we only had mr Bello available, We were hoping our spare driver that usually drives mr ogunbanjo, Okere, would come but we haven't been able to reach him.

Full Time Steward Required Apply Within...

Woke up this morning and went to make tea and porridge as I usually do. I didn't see the new cook around but guessed he was outside or sorting something out upstairs. I wanted to see him to show him exactly how I wanted my eggs.

After I had made my tea I saw Dad and he told me he'd fired the new steward this morning because he couldn't communicate with him. I have to agree that I had difficulty understanding him and making him understand me, and I usually get by reasonably well with most people.

This is just too much hassle. I think if you need a cook you shouldn't really fire your tried and trusted old one just because he's 'old' until you've found a suitable replacement, it's just not worth the hassle. I know that if I was a good cook and I knew I was a good cook there's no way you'd get me to work for N18,000 a month. that's about £70 a month. It'll cost you N1000 (£4) a day just to eat properly here so that kind of money seems absolutely absurd to me, yet Peter was always grateful for his salary.

I hope to be surprised by the new steward that starts tomorrow, but I will not be shocked if he turns out to be just as useless as the last one.

The TV guy turned up today and rerouted the satellite cable from the spare dish to my room and got that working, Just have to get a decent TV now. N... was Fasting today 6am - 6pm, I intended to join her but I was hungry! I will do it some day.

Dad and I went out to eat this evening due to the lack of a cook, food is good at Pats Bar so that was all right by me. It looks like I've got some Ironing to do as well...

YADT (yet another dull title)

A week to go on the project, I'm glad to say soon I'll have some idea of the verification stuff that's been done. I located a large amount of verification work that was done before I travelled in December and I'll include that in the totals tomorrow.

N... is still a great help at the office, once she's finished with the verification stuff she can help with some of the other issues we have to sort out before we hand over the data.

A new cook started today, Adetola. or Tola for short. I wasn't aware that Peter was gone, I last saw him on Sunday on my way out to N...'s place. The new guy seems to be having a few 'teething troubles'. I'm finding it difficult to hear what he says and he obviously didn't understand how I wanted eggs and spinach for breakfast, I ended up with Spinach omelette but it was pretty tasty anyway.

I had lunch in Apapa going from the Project office but dinner was ready when I came home. However he'd decided to just use the leftovers we had in the fridge from Saturday and make a bit more of the same to go with it. Table hadn't been laid by the time the food was ready and when he did lay it under duress he put the knives and forks the wrong way round. I don't know who recommended him but really Peter was a lot less stressful. We have to start training all over again, Mike is guaranteed to have a bit of a shout when he gets back.

Sunday

It rained heavily today so I guess that's the end of dry season. I had thoughts of possibly going to the beach until I realised when laying in bed that it was very dark outside for 9am and very cold. rain and AC don't mix well.

I had a slow start with breakfast around noon and a trip out to the Hair dressers with N..., I got my hair cut and she had her hair 'dry cleaned and twisted' sounds scary and it was. 5 people were twisting up her hair extensions and then later they brought boiling water and washed the hair in it. She also had a pedicure, something I have no intention of doing, there's nothing wrong with my feet so why start intefering with them now. but all that only cost £12, pretty reasonable I think.

While I was waiting for her, a couple of 'not-quite sober' british guys came in to have their hair cut. One of them was far too chatty, asking all kinds of questions about what I'm doing here, but it turned out he was Welsh. He didn't know the score from the rugby yesterday so he was delighted to know that Wales won 11-9. Yay!

I wanted to watch the Rugby in Pats bar yesterday but circumstances meant I was stuck in the house. still I did see it and despite it being only a narrow victory in a pretty dull game I was very chuffed. Wales seemed to be in possession and playing offensively most of the time and that's what I like to see. Plus Ryan Jones turned up on the pitch, he went to my school ya know.

This afternoon I drove the Land Cruiser over to N...'s house to borrow her Satelite TV smart card. We've got a spare dish and decoder in the house, all it needs is a valid card to make it work. So that'll be cool. I waited in yesterday for a guy to come and do the wiring but he never showed. I think I can do it myself though if I have time.

Back at the Helm

Sorry for the delay in posts, Had a fairly eventful first week back in Nigeria and haven't really had time to get things together to write.

Basically I've been working on finding out how to reward our staff at our project office who've been verifying the data. It's quite tough to come up with a formula based on what they've been doing. number of forms they've checked and number of errors they've corrected all need to be rewarded.

The forms are being filed nicely now, we can quickly locate a street, and most of the forms seem to be sorted so you can quickly find a particular address.

We are pushing to complete phase 1 on 14th Feb, Valentines Day. After that we start Phase 2 in anticipation of getting the contract sorted.

I've got my KiSS DVD player working with my amp and speaker setup, but I've only got a 14" TV that was spare, I've got some cash to get that but I'd better reclaim some of my expenses before buying it so that I'm sure I can have enough cash to last February.

N... has been assisting me in the project office and she seems to really like her work, and she's a real help to me, especially with the paperwork I've had to do with the verification stuff. I Interviewed a guy to help me out with my work but he was only experienced in Networking and PC hardware problems, not Linux and no programming experience so I don't see that as a full-time job, so unless he's interested in a data entry position he can't help much.