the last day of 2016

16.30 - fun time at Elegushi Beach

Harmattan is filling the air with thin particles of sand. Lagos skyline is blurred as if there was fog and sun at the same time. It is the last of day the year. Victoria Island and Ikoyi are asleep, most Lagosians are busy on the outskirt of the city to prepare the New Year celebrations, be it at Church or with their families. And the Young sleep in anticipation of the night to come.
Lagos Island though is still alive, particularly the Balogun market which buzzes are usual, perhaps a little less because of no deliveries being made that day. Customers and sellers were still out and about to buy and trade goods of all sorts.

12.00 noon - gingery view at Balogun market

I was looking for a hat, of the kind of Panamas. A year ago, I had got one chinese paper-made that looked nice at that time. This time, going through the market, it looked like the latest version of something similar to a Panama hat was everywhere the same (paper-made but a bit heavy and plastic in touch with a wrapper sealed with a golden medal). As we were going through the market it became apparent that male fashion is distinctly split from female fashion geographically. When one is looking for something, one should first figure out which section of the market the item belongs to and then head there and try one's luck. Touts, looking for a tips from seller and buyer, were offering to shepherd customers to the likely destination of their choice.

13.30 - Pot carving workshop in Ikoyi

While the city was fairly empty, beaches were very busy with people willing to relax and have fun in the waves with their families and friends. The usual set-up of hawkers, 200 naira for trousers, a shirt or a t-shirt, 300 naira to have one's picture taken (as advertised on the pink t-shirt of the photographer), suyas packed in small aluminium boxes (to be distributed across the beach without customers needing to go to the suya stand and wait there) and obviously the usual touts from the bars set along the beach offering the "best location" to have a drink which, if one is not careful, can be expensive if one has forgotten to negotiate beforehand.

17.00 - busy time at Elegushi

In the evening, parties across town, Bar Beach with a Glo sponsored "count down". We landed in Spice Route, an indian flavoured restaurant/club, awash with whisky and Bollywood music, built around a giant Buddha overlooking the dance floor. It is arguably one the best place in Lagos, though not the preferred one for affluent Nigerians who like to park their Ferraris, Porsches, Rolls-Royces and other G-Wagons along Akin Adesola to go to SIP on the first floor of what used to be called Paris-Deli and which was recently rebranded ZenBar. Sip includes its own VIP lounge, separated from the rest of the club by a simple transparent glass wall, to make sure that VIPs can fuel the curiosity and the envy of ordinary folks, outside of the VIP aquarium. And I suppose that the aquarium also satisfies the appetite of the "big fish" to mark their status by sitting and sipping their drinks in the aquarium.

23.30 - dancing dinner at Spice Route

It is now time to wish Happy New Year for 2017!

The Ogiamien family in Benin City: about wood and history

Roland Ogiamien in his wood-carving workshop Wood Roland Ogiamien is a renown wood carver. He is now retired in his home town of Benin City and is now in his 80s. We met him in his simple workshop, a barn opened on the surrounding greenery. A part of the studio is used to store wood pieces and make sure they are well dried. He is using a collection of german ustensils to carve and polish the wood. He spent most of his career working out of Lagos before relocating to Benin. Roland was explaining that the wood he uses today is different that the one he worked on in his early days. Ebony has become rare and wood carvers have had to switch to other types of wood. Traditional heritage is a large part of his inspiration which he translates on wood with his own particular style, exploring various techniques for the finish of his pieces. Roland Ogiamien and two of his favourite masks History Ogiamien is the name of an important royal family in Benin Kingdom. Towards the end of the ...

Iragbiji, the town of Chief Muraina Oyelami

running up the hill Iragbiji is a small but lively town, in Osun state, surrounded by hills made of curvy rocks emerging from the plain and partly patched with green. It is part of Yorubaland, about sixty kilometres East of Osogbo . The heart of the town is the palace of the Oba (King of the area) next to a yellow multi-storeyed central mosque. The Oba is a muslim. the Oba of Iragbiji Chief Muraina Oyelami , a versatile artist born in 1940, is residing in Iragbiji. He is both a talented talking-drum player and a painter. He welcomed us in his house for a talk on Yoruba culture especially about the talking drums which evolved in shape overtime to the modern form of goat skin cylinder whose sound can be altered by squeezing the ropes that are tied along the circumference of the drum to produce tons and therefore allows to emulate the Yoruba language through rhythm and tonality. three sets of Yoruba drums There are actually three types of drums each playing a specific ro...

Lagos Island - Balogun market

hot sales Lagos urban area is said to count around 20 million inhabitants. 1 million additional everyday. People say Lagos is like a giant market and one of its epicenter is Lagos Island. Besides former colonial administrative buildings and the banks and insurance who built skyscrapers along the Marina, there is a large area devoted to trading and markets. The densest one is probably Balogun market which is located between the central mosque and Tinubu square. Three or four floors of shops, people, goods all so tightly packed that cars are not welcome and motorbikes have a hard time moving. pick what you need During the day 4 million people are coming to Lagos Island to do business. They will rent a space for an hour, half a day, a day or longer and trade. hen lost in the clothes section One can find pretty much everything, one needs only know where things are. But generally organised by specialized clusters. There is so much happening that one can only get a small glimps...

Nigeria, the land of plenty

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