Kaleb’s Travels

So, as explained in my other blog entries, my nana and I were in Nigeria in March because we went to see my poppa who works there. While we were in Nigeria we stayed at Poppa's apartment so we could get to see him lots. The apartment was in the city about half an hour away from the river.

This is the Pool

Poppa's apartment building was 12 stories tall! His apartment was on the 7th floor. There were three buildings that made up the apartment block and they were all the same height. There was a carpark a the front of Poppa's building where you could park your car. There was a pool in the middle of the three buildings and on the opposite side of the pool from Poppa's building was a wall. The pool was very big it was about 40 meters long, 20 meters wide and three meters deep. There was a playground next to the pool which was made of plastic so I didn't go on it because it didn't look very strong. There were elevators on either side of the entrance hall that separated the ground floor flats. The stairs were on the pool side of Poppa's building and went right down from the top to the bottom of the building. There was also an intercom system down stairs on the ground floor. There was a buzzer, speaker and video and you could talk to whoever you were visiting before you went up to their apartment.

The main area of the apartment was the lounge room and dining room which were joined together. The apartment had air-conditioning and lots of indoor plants, white walls, white tiled floors and two sofas. The TV and stereo were both really big. There was a lot of bright African art on the walls too which I really liked. There was some in the lounge room and some in the kitchen. There was a balcony coming off the dining room which looked out over the pool and you could see lots of houses going into the distance. There were a table and two chairs and some plants out there too.

Here is the lounge

The main bedroom was Poppa's room and I could tell it was the main bedroom because it had a spa bath and a big shower. The spa was really big and fun. It had four modes that it could go in and it was very comfortable. The shower in his bathroom was so much bigger than the one in the spare room (which was where I stayed). My room was pretty much the same apart from the small shower and no spa bath. They both had the same sort of furniture. In my shower there was a lever not a tap (like in a Australia) to turn the water on.

The kitchen was connected to another balcony. From that balcony you could see the carpark and beyond that a construction site, buildings, houses and the river. There was a washing machine and dryer out on that balcony and also a gas cylinder. In the kitchen there was a water filter because you couldn't use the tap water. In fact, they have a house rule that you never drink the water out of the taps! We couldn't drink the water from the tap because it has lots of germs in it and I think you can get sick from drinking it.

My poppa has a lady who works in the apartment as a maid. Her name is Faith and she is very nice. She has brown hair and brown skin and brown eyes and smiled a lot. I liked her because she was very friendly and very polite. She cleans the apartment very well. Faith took me down to her apartment in the basement on the building to visit her two children. Her apartment was about 1.5m x 2 metres in size and had a small bed for her and her two children. They had a very small TV and a set of shelves. They shared a kitchen and bathroom with all of the other staff from the apartment buildings. I was very surprised by how small her apartment was. Especially because she lived there with her two children and Poppa had the whole big apartment to himself... and Felix. She got to take filtered water down stairs in bottles so they could at least have clean water.

Felix is Poppa's bird. He is a grey and red African parrot. I don't know if he bites but I don't think so. He talked a little bit but he didn't say much. He says "Hello" and does wolf-whistles. I like Felix because he is nice and funny and he doesn't bite I think he lives in a cage on the back balcony. He doesn't fly around the house because he is a bit naughty sometimes.

When we ate in the apartment we didn't eat many different foods because I wouldn't eat meat. We had rice and vegetables for dinner when we weren't out. Our typical breakfast was toast and eggs, for lunch we would go out, and was usually rice and vegetables. My favorite breakfast was toast and eggs because Poppa makes great eggs. My favorite place to go for lunch was Chocolate Royale because it was such good food. And, my favorite dinner was rice and vegetables because that's the only thing we had at home. I had some little snacks sometimes like crackers and biscuits and other stuff.

I really liked my stay in the apartment. My favorite part of it was seeing my Poppa and getting to go in the spa bath. I wouldn't like to live there all the time though because I would miss everyone too much but I would love to visit again so I could see everyone at Poppa's office and to see Faith and Felix... and of course Poppa!!!