We've moved to Yenagoa

We are at Miriam and Turner's Wetlands Center in Yenagoa, a very nice facility in a busy thriving city. We went to a funeral for an old friend of theirs and a pretty influential politician, in good ways, I think. We will bring a book home about his life that was handed out during the ceremony. Very nice, though long enough! Quite a warm day, but we find ourselves adapting some to the heat. We came home, had a late lunch at a local cafeteria restaurant offering Nigerian and more western food, so we can choose one surefire dish, like a fried rice, and one hazardous dish, like catfish Nigerian style. Fun. We've tried a few things, and had no particular side effects. Drinking lots of water. Miriam and Turner are very helpful and pretty forgiving of our limitations.
We flew down yesterday (Friday) morning from Abuja, where we were met by Mike, a person on the staff who drives etc. Mike knew Jamie when she was here, and spoke very kindly of her, as did Lucky, Blacky, and Michael. Very nice people working here. About a 90 minute drive to the facility. We had had a leisurely few days Weds/Thurs in Abuja, getting some clothes washed and doing some tailoring. Jamie had had a suit made for Mary Ann while she was here, but it was a little snug. Peace, the house helper at the Abuja house, worked with Mary Ann and fixed it up to fit, and Mary Ann had it to wear to the funeral today! Jamie, it was beautiful. An interesting tradition at the funeral - as a sort of sign of respect, people use a specific print in or on their clothing, and we received a delivery last night of 4-5 yards of fabric. Miriam made wraps for her and Mary Ann, and simple shawls for Turner and me. At the funeral, however, many people had beautiful full outfits, of quite complex designs, which they obviously got done in very short order.
So clothing and fabrics have been fun. We were in the market, and found these very nice straight up-and-downs, loose fitting, very colorful dresses. Mary Ann wanted some, but Miriam told her she was going to get some clothing later. Mary Ann tried to be irritated - she wasn't that irritated, but thought they were nice, and told me we would be back to buy a few. Well, the next morning, there was a bag in front of our door with two of them in it, with a note wishing Mary Ann a happy birthday! Nice.
Our location here in Yenagoa is very different from Abuja, which was pretty dry and dusty, prairie-like. Yenagoa is thick, lush, green, green, green. Lots of palms and other rainforest-like trees. We bought ripe bananas on the side of the road which were amazingly good. Very tropical fruitlike in flavor, with an almost pineapple like tang. And pineapple - top notch. Well, I see I'm back to food. Probably time to close for now. Thanks for listening. Love, Mary Ann and Jim