The Road to Lekki Market

These hungry-looking goats are tied to this engine block. We think they are going to be someone's meal later in the day. That is a kitchen/restaurant to the right behind them. I'm guessing the big yellow containers have cooking oil.
Big giant yams. These get cooked and then pounded and turned into a white ball that is stiffer than mashed potatoes. They eat it with different types of soup (gravy).
The curved things on this round tray are smoked fish. They sell them in little roadside markets everywhere. Smoked or not, I don't think I want to eat some fish that has been out in the hot sun uncovered all day.

Another produce vendor.

It had rained the night before our trip to Lekki. You can see by the puddles why we have to take medicine so we don't get malaria.

Lekki Market

Lekki is an area on Victoria Island. There are many different markets there, but the Lekki Market we like has all kinds of fun African treasures such as wood carvings, paintings, beads, African clothes & fabric. We call this young mother the Bead Lady. She hand makes her jewelry, and I wish I had gone to her shop before buying necklaces at other shops. I like the two necklaces I bought from her best. The humongous necklaces on the right are what a Chief would wear. They were really interesting and very expensive.
This shop was mostly full of wood carvings. I think I bought some small animals here so he let me take a picture. They do not want pictures taken otherwise, unless you pay them to do it. You can spend lots of money getting carved items, and they look like bad dust collectors. I bought some anyway. Hey, I'm in Africa!

This guy was actually working on a carving and not selling. He was not happy that I snapped his picture. We're not supposed to act like tourists since we are really missionaries. Hard to do since we want to be able to remember all the interesting things we see here. We will probably get to go to Lekki Market one more time before coming home. The merchants expect you to dicker with them over the price. We are getting better at that. You know you have paid too much if they agree to the price you offered quickly. You feel much better about the price if they look really mad at you because you have taken advantage of them. It's a game! I wonder if it will work when I get home to go to Dillards and try to talk them down on price for a pair of shoes. They would probably call Mall Security. I can see I will have some adjustments to make when I get home.

May - Time to Plant the Garden

Elder Snow brought us back some zucchini seeds from Salt Lake when he returned after General Conference. Sister Jones and I buy a lot of zucchini whenever we can find nice little ones. So Saturday morning, May 9, I pulled up a section grass and worked some sand into the dirt to make it soft and fluffy. Then I planted 4 seeds in my little circle, and four days later I had these little seedlings.

This is after 1 week of growing.

Saturday I worked in my little garden again. I pulled up more grass to enlarge the growing area and put tiles left over from the mission home construction around as a border so that Brother Evans doesn't mow them down. I pulled out 2 seedlings so it wasn't too crowded to produce nice plants. Aren't they cute? Anyone in Idaho want to have a race to see who will be eating zucchini first?

African Laundromat

This is a typical Saturday morning at the apartment compound next to us. There were four residents all busy doing their laundry. On the left is a man washing his clothes. You can see his shirts laid out on the cinder-block wall for a quick dry in the hot sun. This is the African way!

More Shopping at Alade Market

Sister Jones and I went to Alade Market again Wednesday afternoon. We shopped for fabric and each bought some interesting tie-dye fabric. Then we went out a different way so we could also buy some food. I decided to pass up these cow feet. Maybe if they had a recipe to go with them. I should have asked the price. They don't really like us taking pictures without asking or paying them for the privilege.
Instead I got some tomatoes. These baskets of tomatoes cost 300 naira ($2.00) each. It's fun how they get these to stack so neatly. We see them displayed like this at little stands by the side of the road, but this is the first time that I bought any packaged like this. As I took the top one off, I could see that it was spoiled as were others in the pile. So I wanted to look through and pick the good tomatoes. No Selecting, I was told. Since I had already taken a picture and messed up her display, I decided I'd better buy something. She let me pick another basket. It had about 3 or 4 nice tomatoes and the rest were so-so. I think I will stick with my other produce stand where I can pick and choose the ones I want. I bought a nice cabbage from another vendor. She wanted me to pay 400 naira, which I knew was too much. Brother right jumped in and let her know that was way too much, and she gave it to me for 200 naira. It helps to have an African along.

To the Wonderful Mothers in our Lives!

Linda's mother, known in our family as Grandma Rose, is visiting with 3 of her great-granddaughters - Brianna, Megan and Kayleigh.
Kurt's mother, Grandma Irma to us, with three of her good-looking children - Tim, Kurt & Lucy. Kurt and I are both so grateful to have had wonderful, loving mothers that taught us to do what is right. We are so blessed. Happy Mother's Day to you both!

Haylee with Miriam on her graduation day at BYU Idaho

Alicia, now packing two children, out for her daily workout.

Tara, with Ethan (#2 child), always ready to give her four children hugs.

Suzette with all three kids (Kayleigh, Tyson, Megan) at Disneyland on the cup ride.

Heidi, with Amber & Brianna, visiting the California State Capitol Bldg. with her grandmother.

We love and appreciate the mothers of our 12 darling grandchildren. They are all loving and kind and trying to rear their children in righteousness. That is no easy task in today's world. Keep up the good work!

Alade Market - Not Your Average Shopping Mall

Alade (Uh-lah-day) Market is a fairly large market made up of rows and rows of little stalls. We only went into part of the market, and I would guess that it is anywhere from 5 to 10 acres in size. This man was walking by carrying 2 live chickens in each hand. We walked by some wire cages, stacked one on top of each other that were crammed full of live chickens. On our way out we went by where they were getting ready to break the necks of some chickens. I decided not to look.
I'd heard of these giant snails before, but this is the first time I'd ever seen them. Brother Bright said that they cook them with lime. I'd have to have fasted for about a week to want to try a bite of this slimy guy. At this same stand they had bowls with tiny snails. Sister Gold from my ward had talked about cooking Periwinkles, and I got to see those. They are a very small snail with shells that are periwinkle blue in color. They also sold smoked fish and dried fish. It smelled pretty fishy and gross in this part of the market. They also had other meat for sale, like goat and beef. I didn't take any pictures, but it is just sitting out with no refrigeration or covers.
Here's a shoe shop to my left. Ladies love all kinds of colored sandals. They also wear high heels with real pointy toes. You can see how narrow these aisles are - it's kind of a one-way path.
This lady is getting her hair braided with extensions added in. The extensions are just a synthetic fiber like what a super-cheap clown wig might be made of.
Cute airy straw hats. I've seen several hat shops around Ikeja, but I've never seen any women wear these types of hats. They are fun to look at though.
There are lots of tailoring shops, and this one was on a corner where two aisles intersected. This flat iron is heated on the green stove at the back of the table. The handle is wrapped in fabric, but it was still hot to hold. They let me iron on the fusible interfacing. This would be one hot job to do for very long since there is no electricty, hence no air conditioning at this market.
These are some fairly typical cotton prints. They feel pretty nice. These have been waxed, so they have a shine to them and are not at all wrinkled. They sell them in 6 yard pieces, and their asking price is 2,500 Naira, which is about $17.00. That doesn't sound too expensive for 6 yards, but at the fabric market in Ibadan, it would be about half that much money if you dickered for it.
This is a peak inside the fabric store. There were many fabric shops. Some sell lots of the lace fabrics, like eyelets. They also sell the head ties in the fabric shops.
This seamstress (they use the term tailor) was busy sewing on her treadle machine. They take your measurements, you describe what you want, and they sew it up. Sometimes you are in for a surprise when you see the finished product.

We only shopped for a couple of hours and got to see some interesting things. We hope to go another day and look in a different part of the market. We saw lots of ready-made clothing shops, children shops, lingerie shops, housewear, etc. I guess this is as close to Walmart as I'll get here in my part of the world.