Fabric, local music, and a waterfall...

We made progress with our work assignment this week but the more interesting stuff to blog about at the moment is how we spent our personal time the last three days…

Thursday late afternoon we went to the outdoor market in Ado.  It’s the first time we actually got to be with the local folk, walking and mixing with the people and the street vendors.  (As mentioned before, the security has been very tight.)  It was quite the scene with 15 IBM’ers stopping at the stands and checking out the selections of fabric.  Attached are a few pictures from our outing.   

Friday we headed out to a bar in town (although it looked more like a concrete construction project) to hear a local live band play named for the lead singer Queen Roseline Yabode.  I don’t know a whole lot about African music but this was very good.  Many of us bought their CD for the equivalent of 70 cents.  The event was outside and while thoughts of malaria-carrying mosquitoes popped into my head occasionally we had our DEET spray on and there were no bugs around.  Here are a couple of photos of the evening including one of the entire group compliments of a teammate Christina Hu (www.christinahu.com) who is a great photographer!

Today we visited what are and will likely be the most popular tourist sites in Ekiti state.  The first was a springs called Ikogosi Warm Spring (similar to Saratoga!) where they are building a resort.  It is unique in that separate warm and cold waters spring from different sources, eventually joining in a pool but each retaining its thermal identity.  It is not open yet but we were given a tour of the site, walked up to the source of the springs, and then along a wooden plank path through the forested area.  We then drove to the base of Erinta Waterfall where we hiked up a fairly steep mountain to reach the waterfall itself.  We all enjoyed being out in nature for the first time. 

One other picture to share - recall on Monday we had a greeting from the King of Ado.  Here is a shot from the gathering we attended (again thanks to Christina).

Nigeria #ibmcsc