Taking in some High Life at Blake’s

So I had to dispel this illusion people were getting of me not being a party girl and boy did I do it big time!

Every time the other volunteer’s had been going out dancing I made my excuses  - to be honest I can’t hear over the noise any more and the music is not really to my taste – too much hip hop , zip zap stuff I don’t really like. But I was rapidly getting a very undeserved reputation as a party pooper. I wasn’t consciously going out to change that but I most certainly did.

It all started  with a meeting at work when I noticed one of the external attendees. Then, myself and a colleague had to attended a related government shindig and were filmed in attended for Nigerian TV! After the symposium, there was a dinner and I ended up sitting next to my previous flat mate here in Abuja who was there representing VSO when who should sit down beside us but the aforementioned person. Amidst fuel shortages it was becoming to get tricky getting taxi’s and my ex flat mate suggested to this person that he run me home – nice touch B and much appreciated. We sat chatting waiting for his driver to arrive, and he ended up asking me out for dinner that weekend.

So I thought we were just going to eat typical Nigerian point and kill fish when we ended up walking into this nightclub restaurant. My heart sank and I was already beginning to think of excuses to leave early when I heard the music. High life! Just my sort of Afro-Latin beat. I must have been beaming from head to toe! For me, this has always been the music of West Africa and finally here I was amongst it – trumpets, trombones! It turns out that Blake’s is something of an Abuja institution and I am now a big fan.

Short of it was I had a great time! We did eat fish, we didn’t talk much because the music was too loud but that didn’t matter. The music was great, the dancers athletic, the beer was cold and it was costing me nothing! Next thing I knew we were heading home and it was 3:30AM!

Getting into the house proved to be a humourous problem. First I had to rouse our gate man. That was OK. Then I tried to get me key in the door only to find my flat mate had locked up and left her key in the lock. C had returned from her night out, assumed I was in bed as usual because my door was shut and went to bed. So I had to try and raise her by calling her mobile and waking her up at 3:30AM, but my phone provider was having an off day, so I ended up having to re-rouse our gate man, borrow his phone and raise C. A very drowsy and very surprised flatmate stumbled down the stairs to let me in. We did have a laugh about it the following day!