We had a nice three day weekend, thanks to Nigerian Labor Day. A few of us went out to Usuma Dam, about 20 miles Northwest of Abuja for a hike and a night of camping under the stars.
This was a beautiful grasshopper that Gordon managed to capture. He was about the size of his pinky finger.
This was a local, who seemed to be drunk on palm wine, and was harassing us for money. She just groaned at us and was physically impeding our return to the campsite. It was kinda scary.
The local fishermens' canoes, parked for the evening on the shores of Usuma Reservoir.
The camping crew (r to l)- Lilly, Brian, Gordon, and me. Lauren and Chris joined us for hiking earlier, but had to return to Abuja in the evening to disassemble the Seussical set. Lauren directed a fantastic show-Horton Hears a Hoo, which involved more than 30 of our students, while Chris did all of the set design and creation with help from his art students and other volunteers.
A nice view of the sunset and village from camp.
The weather was bearable, probably about 85 degrees Fahrenheit with a lot of humidity throughout the night. We slept without the rain fly and watched the stars for about 3 hours. We had a nice hike in the evening and in the morning. Rain came for most of the day once we returned to Abuja.
Arriving home from work, the guards were looking at this lizard, frozen in stance with an enlarged belly. There are lizards everywhere in Nigeria and this one in particular is a female, the males are darker in color and have more yellow on their backs and heads. Usually they let you get about 3 steps from them and then they take off, and this one didn't, poor thing, something was wrong with it. They do push ups, maybe to shed some of the heat, which is funny to watch.
Gordon and Khalid have been leading the chess club this year at AISA and Gordon will be taking over the club next year. There were about 30 students who participated in a chess match on Saturday while their parents either watched or shopped at the AISA PTA Yard Sale/ Craft Fair.
Saturday afternoon the guards came up to our apartment to have us come down to check out what it was they found next to the lake inside our compound. This is a black and yellow cobra, at least 8 feet long- without it's head. They found it slithering along and killed it with a machete.
Its muscles were still active, making it twitch and coil.
