Peter and Paula invited us out to Chevron's compound today. Peter and I are running a cub scout group together. Their compound is on Victoria Island, about 30-45 mins from Statoil. It took us an hour today, though because of a truck blocking half the road. It had been overloaded with bags of cement, which had bent the trailer in two.

Chevron's residential area is just like a US suburban estate, quite a difference from the world outside the compound. We walked from their house to the pool and their son, Sammy rode his bike (poor Erik misses riding his bike). Another group of Chevron people were having a birthday party at the pool, so we merged parties. We met a lot of people and it was great fun. It was particularly nice to see Erik, Daniel and Mathilde running free on the big playground and around the pool (where there were two lifeguards) and playing tag with other children.

Later we ordered pizzas and some people had brought food so it ended up in a nice buffet. The lady, Rebecca whose birthday it was was from South America and they played a game where she was blindfolded and had to knock the sweets out of a bag hanging in front of her with a large spoon, she kept missing, so the children tried and of course it was Erik Magnus who sprayed everyone with sweets when he smashed the bag open! The picture is of the children picking up the sweets afterwards.

Another couple from Chevron: Susan and Craig are coming to us tomorrow with their two children which will be nice. It is Nigerian Independance Day, which is a national holiday. Long weekend... yippee!

Jeremy