Last night, Guy came home from being gone for a week for a business trip. Being the "gourmet cook" that I am ( ha ha) I pulled out some gumbo Guy had made a while ago and defrosted it for his homecoming meal. ( Thank goodness he isn't picky about me cooking for him!) I went into the pantry to get out the rice, and opened up the tub we keep the rice in. I was totally surprised to find small black bugs crawling in the rice!!!! Yikes!! I went into the plastic bin which is sealed tight and had several bags of rice in zip loc bags. I was totally shocked to find bugs crawling both inside the bags and outside the bags!!! There was only one bag that there were no bugs inside. I immediately put that bag in the freezer and threw the other bags of rice in the trash.
This morning, when Happiness came to work, I told her about the bugs in the rice. She immediately said," Madame, you didn't throw the rice away, did you???" I told her of course I did. She said that she would have kept it and put it in a bin and waited for the bugs to crawl out. Then, she would wash the rice very well and then cook and eat it. ( I don't know about that!!) But, I did feel a little bad about throwing the rice away in the trash when she would have eaten it. Then she said ," Oh well, the gardener will find it when he goes through the trash today. He will be VERY happy." I looked at her a little puzzled. She said, "The gardener always goes through all the trash in the dumpster. If he doesn't, then, the garbage men will rummage through it. And, if they don't then, the security guards will." I couldn't help the sad feeling that came over me. I know there are hungry people out there...but I guess in my mind, I always thought they were "street people" people you see begging for food. But, these people were people who actually work on my compound. I suddenly felt really wasteful that I had thrown the rice away. I am sure that rice could have fed a family for a while. But, then I felt a little good that at least the gardener or the garbage men would have a "lucky day". This started me thinking about the state of Nigeria. The president of Nigeria was declared too ill to run the country about three months ago, so the vice president of Nigeria was declared the interim president. one of the national papers reported that the president was dead, but no one wanted to admit it. Another paper reported that the president was indeed alive. However, no one in the country has seen the president for three months...so is he alive or is he dead??? no one knows. No wonder many people in this country lie to each other. No wonder people have to dig in the garbage for food even though they are considered to have "good jobs" by Nigerian standards. Their own government cannot even tell them the truth about their own president...let alone take care of the people in their country. It really makes me see things in a different perspective. You really can't judge a person until you have walked in their shoes. If I grew up here, maybe I would be digging in a dumpster, too.
For the last six weeks, I have been working with a friend of mine on decorations for a huge event held here in Lagos called Small World ( I had mentioned it in a previous post). This event is a HUGE fundraiser for many charities here in Nigeria. We started off with a decorating committee of about 6 women...but it dwindled down to just my friend and myself. Needless to say, with 27 countries represented and about 2000 people attending the event, we had our work cut out for us!!!:) The two of us had many painting sessions til about midnight or 1 a.m. Last week was the most emotionally and physically exhausting, though. The sun here in Lagos is unforgiving and the heat is almost unbearable. The entire event took place outside, so we were outside everyday last week getting things ready with the other committee members (operations, security, main stage,etc.). Saturday was the actual event and I was actually outside from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. I kept applying sunscreen, but it would sweat right off. My friend and I didn't even take a shower the end of the day. The school where the event was being held said that we could take a shower there, but like so many other places in Nigeria, there was no water and no lights in the shower area when we were going to take a shower. So, we "showered" outside with bottles of bottled water. we were filthy! our skin was covered in dirt an my friend's feet were covered in dirt and mud. We couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation.:) We were so tired, but everything turned out to look beautiful. I just wished I could have enjoyed it a little more...but I was so tired. The Small World event did manage to raise 32 million naira for charity. Now, I need to regain my sanity...I am not sure whether to blame my forgetfulness now on Malarone, exhaustion or both!:) ha ha
