Of late.....

Well, a couple new excitements of late...

The Labor Union went on strike for a week, in favor of getting the government to lower fuel prices, as well as to take back the rise in the V.A.T. that had been placed, bringing tax up an additional 5 PERCENT!!!--So they got their way...fuel's back to 75 Naira ($80 cents) per litre & the VAT isn't upped...they had a couple other demands as well...I can't quite remember what they were...
I heard that life in Lagos pretty much came to a standstill, but for us, it was ok, actually. The strike itself was a peaceful demonstration, but the fact that it's labor union means almost everything stops. Thankfully, a lot of workers supported the strike, but still kept working.
Our teachers still came to school & the Sheraton staff kept working, so I still got to go to the gym....:P(Hallelujah!)

In other news,
We had a special occasion with about 20 (out of 150) kids of our Secondary school, who were invited to the Japanese embassador's house for a Haiku competition (a type of Japanese poetry). He made it real special for them & showed them a nice documentary about life in Japan (which half of us missed, cause we came straight from our house, whereas Simon had gone ahead to pick up the teachers & kids & take them to the emabassador's house..he, thankfully, was on time), followed by a question & answer session, a prize giving for the competion's winners & a lunch together. Each student got some books about life in Japan as well. We all, teachers, missionaries & students alike, enjoyed the event.

We got to spend some good time talking with the embassador & his wife (who was cute...) afterwards. Turns out 4 out of 6 of us missionaries present had been in Japan at some point.--Perfect!!

One interesting thing was how the embassador compared life in Japan with life in Nigeria for the students, bringing out the similarities in both cultures almost every time he answered one of their questions, helping the students to relate to the Japanese people. A truly wise man (especially when you know what a feat that is....)!--bringing out the similarities, instead of focusing on the differences.

At top is a picture I took of most of us, with the embassador & his wife:
L-R: (Simon, Mary, Michelle, the embassador's wife, the Japanese embassdor, Richard & Arturo)