Things we heard...

Sitting on the metro in Dubai a young boy was repeating the station announcements to his dad. The announcement would be something along the lines of "The next stop is Dubai Mall". And the little boy would say "Daddy, daddy, the next stop is Dubai Mall". We had to laugh though when after the announcement "The next stop is Dubai World Trade Centre" the little boy very excitedly said to his dad "Daddy! The next stop is Dubai World Train Centre!"

Visiting friends in Dublin we were told that we were "going to go to a real pub. A pub for a pub". Apparently there are too many diddily-eye pubs in Dublin for the liking of most Dubliners.

"Innit". Nobody quite knows what this means, but sit and wait for a London train and you are bound to hear one of the local teenagers say it. Also usually followed by "know-what-I-mean" and a few expletives.

At a restaurant in Florence: The menu stated that "12% service charge is included". An American at a table close to ours, who had made a point of being annoying all evening, asked the waiter "Is this the same as a gratuity?". The waiter, not missing a thing, responded "It is a kind of a tax".

Israeli Airport Security: "Why did your boss send you here? And why did he send you now? Why couldn't he send someone else? How many people work in the company you work for? Where did you go while you were in Israel? Where did you stay? Did anybody try to make contact with you?"... The whole security clearance process ended up taking 3 hours.

Nigerian Immigration Control Officer: "So while you were visiting this place, did you show favour to the locals?".
Me: "Yes!"
Nigerian Immigration Control Officer: "Well then maybe you can show some favour here now?"
Me: ???

Oh, so you live in one of those countries that has 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad weather.

A sign outside a Coffee shop in Rotterdam: "Auto correct parkeren, anders geen verkoop" (park your car correctly, otherwise no sale) - is it such a problem that they have to put a sign up? Guess that is what happens when you smoke the good stuff...

Lagos - It is loud and crowded. But don't let that put you off.

This week I was in Lagos, the main port city of Nigeria, for work reasons - apparently not many people are there just for holiday! Before I left for this trip I was told by some of the people that I work for that Nigeria is "Africa with a Capital A". As opposed to The Gambia, a few countries to the west of Nigeria, where the company has also done a lot of work and is described as "Africa for Beginners". So arriving in Nigeria I was already expecting to find myself outside of my comfort zone. Back to the blog...

In good African tradition, I think this blog is best written in story format:

Story 1 - An Introduction

Lagos is a city of around 8 to 15 million people, depending on which website you decide to click on. But even that is just a guess because of the constant flow of people into the city and the near impossible task of keeping track of all of them. But what ever the number, Lagos is constantly increasing in size and is expected to be in the top 5 cities in the world in terms of population by 2015. With such a large population the problems that are most obvious are over-crowding and a lack of infrastructure. Best way to get around this? Create jobs for 10 to 20 people that would normally be done by 1 or 2 people. For instance I had my boarding ticket, passport and baggage checked by no fewer than 12 people when leaving Lagos.

At check in:
Person 1 - check that I have a booking
Person 2 - check that I don't have suspicious articles in my check-in luggage
Person 3 - check my booking details and issue a boarding pass and takes my check-in luggage

At passport control:
Person 4 - check that I have a boarding pass and can proceed to security check
Person 5 - check that I have filled in a country departure form
Person 6 - check that I have the necessary visa and provides the exit stamp

At security:
Person 7 - check that my passport has been stamped so that I can proceed to the metal detector and x-ray machine
Person 8 - body search, even though the metal detector did not bleep
Person 9 - check my carry-on luggage even though it was cleared by the x-ray machine operator

At the gate:
Person 10 - checks my passport
Person 11 - checks my boarding ticket
Person 12 - checks my carry-on luggage

And now you are ready to fly!

A view of Lagos from the waterside

Story 2 - Okada

So Lagos is over-crowded and has a shortage of infrastructure. This means that the best way to get around is on a motor-bike, or at least on someone else's motorbike. An Okada is a commercial motorbike. You can either catch an Okada from a type of taxi rank for Okadas, or you can just wave one down in traffic. Officially an Okada driver is only allowed one passenger at a time. Unofficially the only limitation is whatever the driver can fit on the bike. Sometimes this is two passengers. Sometimes it is a passenger carrying a 2m long box above their head. And sometimes it is a passenger with livestock. Nobody wears a helmet and to be a truly competitive Okada driver you have to have mastered the art of weaving between traffic and dodging potholes while hooting every 10 seconds and using one hand to tell vehicle drivers what you think of them.

The Okada - guaranteed to make anyone into a nervous backseat driver.

An Okada driver with his two passengers

Story 3 - The outskirts of Lagos

On one of the days in Lagos we managed to get a bit out of the main city. The city has sprawled so much that you really do need to drive at least 60 to 70 kilometers before you get into the quieter outer suburbs. The trip out of the city is best described as noisy - everybody is constantly hooting - with crowded streets and drivers having to do their best to avoid potholes. People often joke about driving along roads with potholes as big as cars. I now know what they mean. On more than one occasion we drove into a pothole and a few seconds later drove out of it. Since drainage is not existent, the potholes are also mostly filled with water which makes guessing the depth of the pothole an art. And then of course most roads don't have road markings. It really is a case of trying to fit as many cars on the road as possible and road markings would just be a waste of paint. 

Traffic - this is actually one of the best parts of the road that we travelled on. 

The way back from our day out was far more interesting. Although we were quite some distance from the Nigerian border, we were stopped by immigration control. Passports! was all the uniformed man on the side of the road said. Unfortunately I didn't have mine with me. A huge mistake in hindsight. Realising that they had us in a precarious situation we were asked to get out of the vehicle and to step into the chief immigration control officers office. He asked where we were from and what we were doing. After the usual official type questions he got down to business. "So, this place that you have been to. Did you show good favour to the locals?". Of course we answered with a confident Yes! "Well then maybe you can show some favour here then?". At this point we played stupid. And we played it well. If he was going to make us pay money to be able to leave, he would have to say it out loud. He was obviously not too keen on doing this and we eventually all agreed that a can of coke would ensure that we could depart without any further problems. We definitely got off cheaply that time. 

The rest of the trip we saw customs control check points, police check points, army check points, road safety check points and some that we didn't quite know what they were. 

The trip also took us some 4 hours to complete. The 4 hours were spent watching taxi drivers fight on the side of the road, convincing hawkers that we didn't need a new toilet brush or a dozen peeled oranges, watching the Okada in action, and taking in the sights of the informal markets along the road. Unfortunately photo opportunities were rare as people will quickly look for a reason to demand money from you and if you are found taking a photo of them then there is no escape. 

A side street

But maybe next time I will find a way to be a bit smarter about taking photos without being noticed. The only problem is that being one of the only white people in the area automatically makes you stick out. 

Story 4 - Hanging out with Fishermen

On the outskirts of Lagos we came across a quaint fishing village. The fishing boats were made out of hollowed out trees and any thing else that would help to keep the water out. The side of the boat has a section that sticks out for installing an outboard motor. 

Palm tree and a fishing vessel. 

There are a huge number of palm trees in the area and in a few places we came across 'palm wine' which you could have served with 'bush meat'. Maybe next time. 

The people were generally friendly and were quite keen to have a chat. Although this usually ended with a "what do you have for me?". 

One of the local fisherman that was keen to have a chat but even more keen to have his photo taken. 

Story 5 - The left over bits

Whilst in Lagos we also managed to get a tour of one of the container terminals. We were quite fortunate in that the port had a Wafmax vessel in port. The Wafmax vessel is the largest vessel that the port can accommodate and can carry up to 4,500 containers. We took a chance and tried to see if we could get a tour of the vessel. Unfortunately the tour wasn't allowed, but we did manage to get up on to the side of the vessel and watch the containers being loaded. 

View of the port from the vessel

A view along the quay wall. 

Lagos is loud! The city keeps you on your toes as there are people looking for an opportunity to make money everywhere you go - often through corrupt means. But mostly it is full of people trying to make a living and get on with their daily lives. If ever you find yourself in Lagos, all I recommend is going in with an open mind and heaps of patience. And maybe some good ideas on how to take photos without looking like a tourist - I know I could use that advice.

Euro Cup Fever!

Orange. Everything is covered in Orange!!

There is more Orange out now than there was for Queen’s Day! The reason? The Euro Cup Football Tournament started on Friday. The tournament is being jointly held in Poland and the Ukraine this year. 16 teams are taking part and have been divided into 4 pools. The first round of games started on Friday and the finals take place on the 1st of July. Here in the Netherlands, Euro Cup fever has slowly been building

I am still feeling all soccer-ed out from the 2010 World Cup held in SA and I am not sure I am ready for more soccer fever! It just feels too soon. Normally we are not exposed to the Euro Cup much since SA does not participate. But since the Netherlands plays and is quite a strong team, it is really big here. My threshold for soccer (most sports actually!), is quite low and I am struggling to get excited about this tournament only two years since the end of the World Cup in SA. But Justin is really happy that there is another month of solid sport on again!

There is mixed feelings about what the Netherlands performance will be in the tournament. The general feeling from people we know seems to be that the Dutch team is not at their strongest at the moment and some people think they won’t even make it through the first round, lol. The media, however, is adding some pressure by saying that it is the last chance for some of the great names to win it as they most likely won’t be playing anymore by the next tournament.

Yesterday was the first game for the Dutch side against Denmark. We proudly wore all our Orange gear to watch the game at a pub at the old harbour with a group of Justin’s work colleagues. The Dutch tried their hearts out but unfortunately lost 1 – 0. Not the best of starts and a real pity. Apparently, they went on to win the 1988 tournament after losing the first game. The Dutch squad play Germany on the 13th of June and Portugal on the 17th of June. They are in quite a tough pool and will have to improve the outcome of the games if they hope to get to the next round. We will have to wait and see what happens this time.  

In other news our tax forms are officially finished and posted off, yay! Now we can look forward to doing our SA tax. Oh yay. Not.

Justin played cricket with the 3rd side again today. Since his sterling batting performance last weekend, 38 not out and saving the game, he was chosen to open the batting today. So he opened the batting and the bowling, lol. It is quite a change in opinions for the team since they usually think that an opening bowler should bat last and this was one of Justin’s great frustrations of last year. The team has changed somewhat since last year and this has probably helped. Hopefully this year he will have more opportunities to prove himself as a batsmen as well as a bowler. His figures today were 20/3 off 7 overs and he made 21 runs before being run out. Well done!

Justin is in Nigeria for work this week. He is working on a container terminal project in Lagos. Bron is not exactly excited about him a) going to Nigeria and b) a week after a crazy plane crash in Lagos! He flies on Monday and returns on Saturday morning. Please be safe and come back in one piece!

Hope you are well and have a good week!

x

The Dreaded M Form!!

Theme of this weekend: death by admin! Topping the list is doing our Dutch Tax Returns and tackling the dreaded M Form.

After much delay and having to request the forms again, they finally arrived. The size and thickness of the envelope itself was quite daunting! The M form itself consists of 105 questions and is accompanied by an instruction booklet of 103 pages – all in Dutch!  

Each question is in the format of a flow chart i.e. question, answer yes or no, follow the arrow to the next appropriate box and either fill in an answer or move onto the next question. Fortunately we were able to skip most of the questions; however, the tricky part is working out whether you have to answer each question or if you can skip it. So EVERY question was typed into the ‘translate’ function of Google. Generally Google translate is really helpful but you realise its shortcomings when you enter long complicated sentences and try to make sense of the garbled syntax and how it relates to you and your income. Fun times.

The Dutch tax year runs from 1 January to 31 December with returns due by 1 April. It is at least a bit easier to think about what you were doing in one calendar year rather than trying to remember what you did in parts of different years like how the tax period works in SA. Most of the questions were repeated twice, once relating to the period you lived outside of the Netherlands in 2011 and once for the period you lived in the Netherlands in 2011. That also helped to reduce the number of sentences we had to type into Google translate! Lol.

And then…. We were finished! Yay, we made it! And with our sense of humour intact, lol. It took a few hours but in the end we only had to fill out 9 of the 105 questions. Justin only needs to ask HR one question about his travel allowance and then we are ready to post the completed forms off well in time for the 1 July deadline =)

Sho, glad that is over! Still not sure what the story is for doing tax in the future, if we always have to do an M form or if we can do tax online in future, but now that we have done it once hopefully it will be easier next time! Huge thanks to Daniel, a colleague of Bronwen, who also recently filled out an M form and was able to give us some helpful hints n tips. Thanks Dan! You rock =)

Next task to tackle: US visa application! Woohoo! More fun times ahead! Not.

Congratulations to our friend Sue and Justin’s brother Brenainn who are both graduating from UCT this coming week. Enjoy it guys, you deserve it!

PS: Thanks for the 9000+ page views!

x

The dreaded forms! How they arrive in the purple envelope on the left, the form in the middle and the information booklet on the right.

Working hard at filling in the forms

...... or not!

A snack to help ease the process! Yummy biltong and marshmallow Easter eggs  from the SA shop in London =)

Justin's bit: Today was game no. 2 of the cricket season for me. Today I played for the VOC 3rd team, the same team I played for last year, against a team in Amsterdam. A much better performance than last week which included a decent bowling performance and a knock of 38 not out to help guide the team to a 1 wicket victory. Sjoe, it was close! Looking forward to the rest of the season.