MY NAME IS CONCHITA MARIA NEGRIL: March 2007

Friday, March 30, 2007

I almost went to the police station....

TAKEN FROM MY JOURNAL.......

To call on a client 2 miles away took us two hours to get to because of so much traffic. I’m not sure but I think the temperature is over 100f.

In Lagos the citizens jump between their native language and English often and effortlessly so I can usually understand about 25% out on the street.

Yewande was in the passenger seat to her Toyota and her salesperson Akin was driving. I was sitting behind Yewande in the back seat. Yewande told me to sit there so we would draw less attention as we drove. The traffic was crazy. Hundreds of motorbikes and cars intertwined at all times. There are no traffic lights. Everyone seems in a hurry. Everyone seems busy. There are ten times as many people on foot, in the streets. There are no sidewalks. No one was overly aggressive. On the contrary, they were respectful to me when I would say no or wave them away. There were just so many of them! It was a bit overwhelming.

At one point late in the afternoon Akin tried to make a left turn on a very busy street. He was stopped by three men in white uniforms who surrounded our car. Yewande was on the phone talking to client. She is on the phone to the store or to one of her clients non stop. Very impressive. Two of the officers were probably thirty five, one was young, maybe twenty five. They were banging on the driver’s window of Yewande’s car, and motioning for Akin to roll down the window. At first he wouldn’t. They were all yelling. I took a picture.
That really made them mad.

One of the older men pulled out of his pocket a shiny round metal object that was maybe one inch long and round. He gave it to the young officer. I didn’t recognize what it was at first but quickly, when he bent down by the rear of the car I figured out that it was a tire deflator!!

Yewande sprang into action. She threw her phone down and started yelling at the men. So powerful she was! I heard her say between her native language and English things like, “This is against our law!” and “I will not let you do this to my car!”

Akin rolled down the window. The young officer noticed this and stood up and put his hand in the car and reached around to unlock the back passenger seat of the car. The opposite door from where I was sitting.

Instinctively I made and fist and smashed his hand against the inside of the car door thinking that I wasn’t going to let him in under any circumstances.

Yewande was outside of the car by now and everyone was yelling at each other. For about twenty minutes I sat in the car, because Yewande told me “not to move” and watched in horror as the young officer held his hand, almost in tears and the officers yelled.

How did it end?

We paid the officers money and got to leave.
to sit in the car to take us to the police station to force us to get money and I did the right thing by not letting him in. Yewande also explained that she had to promise that I would delete the photos because the officers were so angry that I took them. They didn’t want their faces on record!

Mosquito net. I would wake up in the middle of the night wrapped up in it and freakout because I was a mummy! Still I'm bittem allover my bod.

IGUANA

Screw your squirrels and lizards, these Iguana come after you! This one is about a foot long I think. Orange head, isn't that cool?

AFRICA HOTEL PART 2

Guarded hotel, I can't leave beacuse I'm a target. The people rock and are sooo cool mostly. But They want to see me talk to me. get money. So When I go out on my own I get mobbed. yeah that's the word. Mobbed.

My Lagos Hotel

May 23 2007 1:45am

I can write in my book right now because the power is on. It has been on and off most of the night. There have been people out in the halway most of the night. It's unbelievable. How many people can be on my floor at one time? Oh my GOD! they are singing GOD songs! And Someone is hammering! I mean it! I can't sleep. No TV although they had one channel for about 45 minutes forme to watch chanting or something like that.

2:07am Sorry, the power went out again. No writing . It's so dark!

There are two buckets in my bathtub to capture the water when it comes so I can shower in the morning. I wore my BATH and Body lotions that I love so much and guess what? The mosquitos love me for that! I'm bit up. bad.

I'm taking self pix in my hotel room to pass the time.

3:07 power serge and I lost my ipod charger. Ipod ok. Oh thank GOD. Shut up people in the hallway!

I WROTE A MINI JOURNAL ON MY TRIP. THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS.

I am writing this in a hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, in the West of Africa. I am in a hotel lobby and my computer is running on batteries because the power in my hotel goes out often. Lagos is a huge city, some say it has over 15 million people. The city has power issues. I have not been on the internet in 4 days. The hotel staff is turning on the generator and trying to get the air conditioning on for me.

big ps: remember to find me in every picture and LOLA is in this pic too!

MY HERO...

Yewand Ode owns the SIGN*A*RAMA Nigeria. Strongest, toughest, most motivated and driven woman I've ever known. Oh yeah.... she saved me from being carted off to jail too. More about that later.

AFRICA!

Lagos, Nigeria. West Africa. Population is estimated at 15 million people. I was there one week. umm... let's look at this.

Ywande's family.

MILAN and an airport self pic.

OK, so I'm on my way to Africa. I'm excited, a little nervous, I have my malaria pills and I'm ready to rock and roll. Stop over in MILAN ITALY. How can I ease my anxiety? Wait! There's GUCCI! And those sunglasses just jumped off the shelf and onto Scott's face! I'm feeling good about this!!

Sunday, March 18, 2007

THE BEACH PART TWO

THE BEACH!

Saturday, March 10, 2007

YOUR MONEY IS SAFE ONLY DURING THE DAY.

GOOD ROMANIAN FOOD

The food is great. The menus have so many choices. One restaurant must have had 200 different entries. I'm serious! We ate cow stomach meetballs . great! Here I am with one of the menus. Look at the fourth item down.

One of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in Europe is on the left. Every morning my dirty clothes are folded. I can't figure out how to lock and unlock the doors, but who cares? There is a gym next door to work out, but you can't wear shoes in the gym and it took awhile of a lady behind the counter pointing at me and saying "White sock!" to figure that out.

Timisoara SIGNARAMA

Isn't this a cool looking SAR? That's Alex and his son Sebastian. Alex is a great guy. He treats us like royalty. He is a kind, smart man with a great business. He's been working so hard for this business we are in awe.

When we took this picture, Scott set me on the stair and went across the street to snap pix and Alex came out and saw me on the stair and thought I was trash and tried to kick me off the stairs! Scott screamed across the street "NO!" I was saved at the last minute.

This is one of the nicest SARs we have ever been in.

ROMANIA!

It's getting interesting now! Do you know where Romania is? It just joined the European Community in January, but for years it was behind the Iron curtain. We are in TIMISOARA (timmyshora) a fantastic city with awesome people. Romania is know for gymnastics and we are near Dracula! The weather has been about 22c or about 75f.