Small World
Yesterday morning, Albrecht and Marieke's nanny brought Daniel and Axi to baseball at the school. We were also up early: Inger-Lise went to watch Daniel play and I brought Erik and Uli to the Den meeting, where David and I showed the boys how to coil a rope and how to whip the ends. David also showed them a magic trick. Afterwards, Inger-had her nails done, I had a haircut (while Mathilde watched) and Erik and Daniel played at the school.

We had a swim in the pool when we got back from the school and then it was time for
"Small World", which is one of the big fundraisers here. It is held on the other side of the lagoon in the grounds of the British International School (BIS) on VI. Several thousand people go to this event, so the traffic was bad. We decided to take the "Tarzan" ferry across the lagoon (for the first time) and we were there soon after 6pm when it opened.

The tickets cost 7000 Naira and covered all food and drink. Each country had a stand where you could get food and drink from that country - the French, Belgian and Italian stands were all together in one corner, serving delicious cheese and cold meats. The Jordan stand/tent was also nearby, where they had sheesha pipes. I had a puff on one together with some of the teachers from the International School.

At 8:30, the stage show began. There was a big stage set up and each of the countries put on a short performance on the theme "Cultural Treasures". They were all fantastic to watch and were all the more enjoyable because the cast were all amateurs from the Expat community. The British performance was hilarious - it started with the national anthem, the black rod announced the Queen, who came on with several policemen. Suddenly, mid-way through her speech "she" cast off her costume and underneath was a fat guy in tights and the music came on, playing "I want to break free"!

Jeremy