Down to Port Harcourt.

This week, I flew down to Port Harcourt to the Shell school - along with Bonny Island the three of us make up a Nigerian partnership. There have been 4 kidnappings this week in PH, so I was very glad to be travelling as a Shell employee (safety is everyone's responsibility!)
The domestic airport at Lagos is how I imagined an African airport to be- all corrugated iron roofs, tile floors and millions of people lying on the floor, lying on window sills, lying across chairs (and underneath them.)
I arrived in PH after (thankfully) a very straight forward flight on Arik air and then sat in the curtained bus and travelled with armed soldiers in front, 2 motorbike police at the sides and an armoured personnel carrier behind!!

the view from my seat on the bus

PH camp itself is really beautiful, very lush, like living in the jungle and so clean and quite. It was a pleasure to be able to walk around. You have to make your own entertainment and the ex-pats organise quizes, fun runs, games etc. We all went on a fun run/ walk and then ate a huge Dutch meal prepared by one couple (everyone takes it in turn to cook for the runners/ walkers ) I loved it, and could happily live there but knowing me (couldn't even face  a week in the Maldives) I might develop cabin fever after a few months.But I saw, vultures, lizards, hawks, and maybe if I screwed up my eyes and imagined a bit a green mamba! (Course it could have been a banana frond)
Coming back I decided to invest N1000 (£4.00) in going into the 1st class lounge at PH airport - the departure gate was a heaving mass of people trying to get out of PH for the weekend and there wasn't a square millimetre of space to be seen anywhere. Well it was like sitting in my Auntie Eileen's front room. All chintz and antimacassars, and china teapots and cups and saucers (no milk of course or coffee - but heigh hoh this is Nigeria)