DAY 9 - Everybody loves cake!

After seeing the photos, you may think that I have brought the cake tradition here as I love cake and chocolate! but it is not the case at all!! :) They eat cake for birthdays and even bring cake to the office when someone has a birthday, they celebrate business results with cake, even when they celebrate a business result, the cake is always available there! :)

Yummyyy and greatt! I love cakes and am with my first cake in the office with the delicious half chocolate half carrot! :))

together with my lovely team :))

super cake!!!

DAY 8 - Have you ever seen the CV of a housekeeper with all aspirations and dreams??

Yes, I did hence first time in my life. What is funnier is I just started treating it as a usual P&G interview CV and tried to assess the person based on success drivers. :)))
Of course it was the most stupid thing in my life and I burst into laughter for 10 minutes. :)))

My candidate was secondary school holder who claims to be a focused neat individual, a good care taker, hardworking / proactive worker (wow!! and it continues), can adapt to work in a fast pace environment while ensuring job completion within time and budget management, a good team spirit. I think we should hire this person for best-in-class multinational companies not for my one-person-little home management. :)) She is basically talking about all the success drivers we look for in the individuals:

• hardworking / proactive - LEADERSHIP
• can adapt to fast pace - EMBRACES CHANGE
• ensuring job completing - OPERATES WITH DISCIPLINE

and it is not enough. She is also listing what kind of food she can make and mentions she is open to learning different international cuisines. :)
Further there were two reference letters attached to the CV as well. Both were talking about how wonderful she was and why I should have her as a housekeeper in my house.

My mom's comment was even more hilarious! She said why they'd have told us Africa is still developing, they even a CV for housekeeping while housekeepers in Turkey barely know how to write and read!!! A real teacher's comment... :)

After a sound P&G style CV and many good words about her, of course I could not stop myself but hired her immediately :) although I don't have a house yet!!!

At least I have a housekeeper now who can keep me wherever I am as she was saying in her CV she can adapt to fast pace environment with or without a house!! :))

DAY 7 - Lekki Market here we come!!!

Bazaar experience in Lagos?? Of course, a Turkish girl would never say no to a bazaar wherever she is! :)

I would not miss this opportunity and we decided to go to Lekki Market as our Sunday activity with three friends - Quentin, Ashley and Brenda. Before we went there, we made a quick google search to set our expectations. It was awesome with all the paintings and especially the wooden masks!!! 

After 20 minutes drive from Ikoyi (as there is no traffic on Sundays yaaaayyy :)), we arrived the place. When we drove into the narrower streets, we were there again on the BUMPY roads like my first consumer immersion experience. But this time we were in the car and it wasn't raining :))) First look from the market place...

Lekki market is actually a local bazaar where one can find everything from vegetables to fruits, clothing and any basic household goods.

What really attracts tourists' attention is the wooden masks & variety of goods , paintings and hand made jewelries. 
There are art stores which sell variety of products made from wood or local paintings displaying Nigerian or other African (tribal) culture and art. 

My personal favorites for my future house in Lagos :))

 

The big artist! Painter of all these nice paintings. I promised him to come back and buy some stuff when I move completely!!! :)

and the awesome masks outside Nigeria from different tribes across Africa:

GUESS WHAT THIS COULD BE? It is actually a scary bag with a snake head and crocodile legs on it and the seller said they were real!!!!! OMGGG :))

Of course like all bazaars #1 rule in this bazaar is NEGOTIATION!! But as a difference, in order to be able to understand what is the minimum you can get and to learn where the best products are, there are local boys around to help you!

I am de-briefing Kevin what kind of mask I was looking for my boyfriend! :) 

 Ashley is with Eric who was her key guide in the bazaar :)

 And the pay-out of the bazaar: Super-nice mask wooden and hand-made @ 1000N (less than $7) from an initial price of 2500N. :)))

DAY 5 - First nite out in Lagos

Wow I am so excited!!!! After delicious dinner at home (made by our dear cook Kingsley), we decided to go out. 

First destination was the Jazz concert in a place called Jazz Hole (it was a real hole from the outside :)) in Ikoyi. When we arrived, I was asking where was the place as from the outside, I would never think that there could be a nice place inside (see below :)).

Contrary to how it looks, Jazz Hole is a book and music store with rich archive. There was a very nice group playing street jazz mixed with soul and r&b. It was like the real jazz experience from New Orleans. The audience was a balanced mix of white and black Lagos residents. We also learned that there was a performance in this hole (!) every Friday! yaaayyy :))) After two hours of delicious music, the concert ended and we decided to continue for the night at expats' usual place: Radisson Blu Hotel's bar in Victoria Island.

While you are going from Ikoyi to VI  (short-cut for Victoria Island ;)), you see Radisson Blu's blue lights reflected on the ocean. It was so nice and posh that everybody was chilling while sipping their drinks. The music was lively as it was like we were in a club but everybody was relaxing in their chair rather than dancing like crazy.

  
It was so crowded but we finally found a table to sip our Mojito and Capirinha. :)) The music was so nice that they were playing all the popular dance hits; even hey hey (dennis ferrer) as my favorite!!! We stayed there until like 12.30 am and it was the time for the crowd to move to the club or their homes (we were on this second camp :)). 


As expectedly, there were many security controls on the way back but as we were with our trusted driver, we went through all of them with no issue. 


SUMMARY of first night out: delight of jazz, enjoy Radisson's ocean-looking bar and no security issue! I call it a nite out in Lagoss :))

DAY 3 - First consumer immersion with Africa consumers

It was hilarious when they told me that there was a field visit to see Ariel's trial activities with lower socio-economic class African women. Perfect! I was going for my first consumer visit!!! yyaaaayyyy :)


However; nobody told me that the trial activity was simply a street demonstration of Ariel performance in one of the muddy streets and it could have rained as this is the rainy season. I was all posh on my hills with my designer jeans and bag. It was fine for everyone while we were going there and we chatted about consumers' choice, Ariel's problems in the market, etc etc. Then the car dropped us in one of the main streets and I thought the market we are heading to was close. 
There are two big optimisms here:
1. there was no market like the way we know market. it was just a kiosk at the side of a small street like you see below

2. the activity was an open-air one, not inside a market or a consumer home!!!!
OKKK, good to know and I can deal with this :))) at least I tried, sooo harddd

We turned into this street and as you see, the beginning was ok. I could have found some ground to walk on even with my high heels. :) However, after a while we kept walking on the inner parts of the street where the roads were even worse to walk and finally as a gift, it started raining. At the beginning everybody in the team was asking me whether I was OK but later they started giving advices like "next time you should wear sneakers or something flat so that you can walk" after watching me jumping above the holes on the street. :) there was no video or pic available with me jumping but I am sure you can imagine the picture :))))
I am sure everybody laughed at me but I left a signature with my way to understand consumers' lives. :))))
LEARNINGS #3: Don't assume anything, just consult from people! especially in Nigeria as you can come up with something extraordinarily unexpected!
NEXT STEP #1: Buy a pair of plastic rain boots AASSSAAPPPP :))

DAY 2 - 24 hours without electricity

Yes, it is exactly true. We lived without electricity for 24 hours! I was able actually which surprised me most :)) 
I arrived P&G guest house in Ocean Parade and everything was seemingly nice. The next day, when I woke up there was a problem with the conditioner. It was not working and my room was so hot. When I turned on the lights, the ugly truth hit me: there was no electricity. Actually I did not mind that much as I was going to be at work most of the day. 

But it was really frustrating when I came back home in the evening and there was no lights again. LEARNING #2: you have to pay everything in advance so that you can use the service. Since the company forgot to pay for the electricity that day, we were left with no lights but just the candles that night. 

I went to bed at 10.30 since there was nothing else to do. So going back to basics, a person can survive without electricity and lights! OMG - Welcome to Nigeria!!!

The lifesaver we had for the night:

DAY 1 - Arrival

After getting the visa from Nigerian Embassy in Ankara (two trips to Ankara for STR), I was on the way for my first long visit to Nigeria. Unlike most countries, for a work & residence permit, I needed to be here without my passport for 2-3 weeks. To be honest, I was dying of excitement as this was my first official visit to Nigeria for a long stay. 

I arrived Murtala Muhammed airport like the first time. There was no waiting line like the first time. There was no problem in getting the luggage like the first time. Howeverrr, this time I could not see the driver as soon as I left the airport!!! Ooo this is not good as some people surrounded me asking questions where I was heading to and whether I needed help. As the troubles always overlap, I realized that I did not take the cell number of the driver and did not know who else I could have called. For the first time, alarm bells began to ring in my mind!!!! OMG, what am I supposed to doo??
 Then my mind reminded me that I had the phone number of the first driver that I had last time. While I was dialing the numbers, I was praying that he would answer the phone. YES YES he picked up the phone and told me to wait where I was as he was going to call the other driver. I was going to kiss him on the cheek if he was with me, luckily he wasn't :)))

We realized that the driver and the escort were waiting at the other exist of the airport. 
So LEARNING #1: make sure to get the driver's cell phone all the time and remember that there is always more than 1 exist at the airport :))

Just before arrival - bright side turning into dark! :)

Not very good news started to arrive. The landlord decided to give the house to somebody else. Ooopppsss this is not good!! I needed to go for another round of househunting trip. OOO this is not good! Don't loose the temper, everything is going to be fine. I think now I began to understand what people meant by saying that finding a house was not easy.

So let's go back to my nice pic list to remind the houses I have seen last time. OMG, this is like a nightmare as I thought I have closed this chapter already. but unfortunately, it is opening from the beginning again! oh noooo :(

let me remind what I have seen...

Pre-trips look & see (Aug 22-26)

I heard quite a lot of things about Nigeria and mostly the negative comments with a lot of warnings. Then it'd be meaningful to come here and see from my own eyes before deciding.

Everybody including my manager was so nervous and she was calling me in every 5 minutes to say that there could be a waiting line in the passport control or I should not worry if I cannot see the driver (yeah everybody has a driver here, no taxi or public transportation yaaayyy :)) immediately as outside of the airport can be pretty crowded. I think Lagos wanted to show me the bright sight in this first visit and everything went very smoothly: there was no waiting line at the passport and they almost treated me like VIP. Secondly I found my driver at the moment I left the airport. :) Things were quite smooth; I arrived at the hotel with little traffic (especially when compared to Istanbul) although I was a bit shock with constant horning from the escort car following us to open the road, met my manager during a lovely dinner and met the General Manager with whom I was going to work directly.
Everybody was so warm and friendly: the hotel staff, people at work. Although I was a bit embarassed when I could not catch what the keeper at the hotel meant by "how was you di??", later I captured that he meant "how was your day?", things were all positive. :)

There was one more challenge ahead of me: finding an apartment for me within a certain range the company determined for me. As for all the other subjects, everybody was so pessimistic about house hunting as it was not easy to find a decent place among the few available and within a certain price range. We were allowed to live on an island called Ikoyi and the rents here were skyrocketed, namely a decent house would cost around $70K per year and there is also the service fee ($15-20K). I talked to many expacts and made a list of things to check: electric generator, water treatment, outdoor facilities (as I need to spend quite some time in the compound), availability of white goods, availability of service quarter (sometimes it is attached to the house sometime separate in the garden of the compound), sattelite and wifi networks. These could seem as basics as first glance, but nothing is a standard in Nigeria even the basics (I learned later with a first hand experience :)).

Unbelievable, I have found two nice places at my first try and everybody was shocked (literally :)) They were both nice, light with high ceiling, brand new with all white goods in a decent compound with security. Especially one of them within my price range had another major advantage: the next door neighbor was a girl from P&G and she was just moving there from Cincinnati. I was shocked (what would an American do in Nigeria :)) and clearly very happy as we could have got used to all the challenges here (below is the nice house I mentioned).

After two days of house hunting, I clearly liked this nice house with a P&G neighbor and accepted the offer as West Africa Consumer & Market Research manager located in Nigeria. :)

It was so easy and I was so happy about it. With all these positive feelings, I went back to Istanbul to pack my stuff. :))