The little things

On my extraordinary travels to strange and exotic places, it is always the more mundane little difference that catch my attention. Almost like home but subtly and distinctly different.

So here’s a list of what I’ve noticed so far:

Cobblestone streets are in vogue in a lot of city centers. But it’s not rounded river rocks, but chunks of white limestone, and some other black stone. So you find some lovely mosaics in the most ordinary public places. In fact, Lagos has so many animal shapes, I intend to spend a day documenting them all. Ah, what a stressful life.

Shopping carts: as well as normal carts, the personal baskets come with wheels and an extendible handle – how smart!

Biscuit packages come in little prewrapped lots of 3 or 4. I guess this is to keep them fresher longer. But I abhor the waste this generates.

Purchasing fruit in a supermarket (called HyperMarkets here) has to be pre-weighed before going to the check-out. A little unusual.

Trash collection: They’ve introduced a very sensible solution to the problem of recycling and the smell from garbage in a hot place. They’ve instituted these ‘Ilha Ecologica’ spots which look like just a bunch of tall kitchen trash cans. But these are just chutes down to underground dumpsters (have you noticed that Dumpster is always capitalized in novels? Must be a brand name or something. Anyway I digress)

Radio: There are so many English-language pop songs that you feel at home. Until the announcer comes on, or they play a local group. It’s even been suggested to me that this is one of the reasons locals can understand English so well – they are exposed to it so much. Apparently English-language movies on TV are only subtitled, not dubbed, which lends to learning via exposure.