Back to my blog with peaceful Mauritius

Hello Blog,
Long time, no see! This time I salute you from Mauritius!

Amazing, beautiful, green island! When landing to Mauritius, one thing I learnt is you should stop everything you do and watch the beautiful green fields, volcano which has been asleep in the last 700 hundred year, the biggest lake in the country and turquoise ocean!

After we landed, a very modern, cleaner and nicer airport (compared to Lagos) greeted us. I am positively surprised as knowing the Lagos Airport, I was expecting something old, crowded and not in proper order. The Mauritius airport was exact opposite and I was out in 15 minutes.
We were staying Lux Grande Gaube and the driver picked me up at the airport.
He was a very nice and intellectual guy who was originally Indian (long long time ago) and was born & raised in Mauritius. When we were passing through, he told me all the stories about his home town - Phoenix - and the capital - Port Louis. I have seen amazing buildings in Phoenix as they are building it like a modern city. Port Louis was a real port with a big bus station and the port where ships were waiting to be filled.

First impressions are positive about the country and ultra positive about the city. They ask what kind of scent you want in your room or they come for soap service so you put the soap crumbles next to your underwear.

More pics to come, a lot more to see in Mauritius! Let the fun begin...

Cheers,
G.

Lisboa here we come! :)

OK, the name of the blog is Hello Africa but give me a break! I'd like to talk about our girl's weekend out in Lisbon with my dear friends Belde & Canan - you will see the photos of them below :)


Amazing amazing amazing... After a freezing week in Geneva (-20C but I managed to run :)), we decided to have a weekend escape to Lisbon. 
Absolutely perfect choice: nice weather, warm city, chill out places, nice restaurants (Eleven is highly recommended as a Michelin Restaurant) and nice clubs (Silk, Lux, Urban Beach)...


First moments, when we arrived. Stayed at Sofitel Liberdade and the location of the hotel was perfect. Belde and Canan are discussing what to wear for the night :)

First day at the restaurant... I don't remember the name but it was a lovely place where we had wine-tasting and delicious Portugal appetizers. 

Next day: Shopping in Chiado!

The church that we've never managed to find the gate!!!

China tiles: A Protuguese classic...

Canan got very excited when she saw the theater building :))) Belde was our guide on the road :)

From the palace with amazing view. Cannot imagine this place in summer!

Docas and cool place by the sea: Opart... MUST SEE especially during the sunset... under bridge like Istanbul and nice restaurants are placed one after the other by the sea. Am sure it'd be cool to have a drink when the sun comes down in summer.

beautiful churches and culture...

Wedding in Nigeria - Mix of Praying & Dancing

First Nigerian wedding experience: AWESOME!


When Chidinma (one of the young girls at work) invited me to her wedding, I felt really happy as wedding was a must-see tradition in Nigeria! 


Since I got the invitation last year (December), I totally forgot about it and missed the pre-wedding preparations as well. Anyways, I have been there and it was so much fun. :)
Key highlights:
- There is a color code for every wedding and the guests are expected to follow the code. Today the color code was gray and fuchsia and everybody was dressed in different tones of these two colors.
- Bridesmaids dress up look alike from the head to the toe!
- Bride bring a style of fabric (in gray and fuchsia) to all  different groups and the people among these groups buy the fabric and have a dress made from the same style fabric. For instance the people in the family was wearing different style of dresses from the same fabric and P&G group was in different one.
- Ceremony starts with praying and wedding at the church. This part takes 2 hours and another 2 hours for the party after the official part.
- The first part is praying with the leadership of the priest and the second part was the actual wedding ceremony. The bride and the groom told the wows and wore the rings. 
- After priest announced them husband and wife, everybody started dancing in the church together with the bride & groom.
- The part took place in a hall next to the church and there were around 200-250 guests. 
- Bride and groom came to the party hall dancing after everyone got seated.
- The party was really full of dance and fun!

At the church...

 At the party...

The bride dancing....

Official Nigerian food... jellof rice, fried rice, fried chicken, fried fish and cabbage salad...

Bride's flower is going going gone while All the Single Ladies is played :)

Strike in Nigeria due to Fuel Subsidy Removal

Jan 9th Monday and it started...
The government removed the fuel subsidy as of Jan 1st without a real notice and overnight, the fuel price in Nigeria went up from 64 Naira (40 cents) to 150 Naira (1$). Since fuel is the major cost of all consumer products, agriculture and even the generator, it caused a major reaction among the Nigerians. Since last week, everybody was talking about the major strike Union Labors called for as of Monday Jan 9th. 
What a coincidence! This week was the week of the big visit: Our CEO was planning to come to Lagos and we were to have detailed plans with him like store checks and consumer home visits. Until the last minute we worked like crazy to make things happen but all the signals were on the negative side.
On last Thursday, my agency called me saying that they are having difficulty to recruit consumers due to the recent developments on fuel subsidy removal and people were really nervous about it. As they had more serious issues like increasing prices of essentials and limited disposable income, they were less willing to participate in a consumer home visit and talk to some unknown people about their category habits.
It was painful for me and my agency as well since we worked on the preparations until the last minute. We spent all Friday and Saturday doing the dry run with the consumers before the big visit.
Despite all the preparations, we got the news this morning that the strike has started and the trip has been cancelled. It is sad that all the company was working on this trip since November.
It is also sad for the country as well as the subsidy is not sustainable (current cost is $1.3 trillion). There are also many examples (Ghana 2004) saying that subsidy is beneficial more for the rich rather than poor. However, the problem with Nigeria is that citizens do not trust the government and they'd like to see solid actions from the government as a signal that this money is used for the benefit of the citizens rather than being pockets by some of the governors.
So the summary, we stayed at home all day and majority of Nigerians were out there protesting the government.
Bob visit has been cancelled but it is anyways interesting to experience one of those historical times in Nigeria!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16464922