Ahhhh, life in Paradise. All doubts aside for the moment. I think we all know that the situation in Palmgrove Community, Nigeria, is less than pleasant at times. For all the white people who have been here, they understand much more the difficulties with the system and people. For the rest of you, we who have been here are responsible for your opinions and thoughts on this place. So, I would like to throw in my two cents and for this blog say that Palmgrove does have the beauty of unity; it is just easy to overlook it when one is discouraged. A....

A few months ago Leanne, Amase, Dan Dan and I were out sight seeing. We had two motorbikes and we basically drove around to see what we could see. We saw an old palm oil refinery that was rusting away because of mismanagement, as well as a University of Agriculture and all the nice trees they planted. The weather was nice and the trip was even nicer. After a few hours of driving around, the bike I was sitting on lost its shifting lever and so we had to turn around, look for it and bolt it back on. At that point we decided that we had seen enoug....

Here in Palmgrove one ends up finding many different ways of constructing things.  One that contrasts a lot with what I am used to is the Soak Away.  It really isn't anything new.  It's what professionals might call a septic field tank.  It is a big cement tank in the ground where the sewer of the house goes to.  The sewage soaks away directly from the tank into the ground around it.  That is because the ground around here is all sand which absorbs water really well.  In the time I’ve been here, I have never seen a situation where ther....