A day at the beach in Lagos

Easter Sunday.

On one side of the piazza families are congregated in front of the compact church. On the other side, we take in the ocean view and the sun from the cloudless midday sky, sipping coffees, content. A stroll takes us to a cove of beach which is perfect and peaceful, still in view of the pretty town but tranquil. Stunted oranged rock formations bound our section of beach to the left and the right and we share this 100metres of sun with precious few others.

Breaking the solitude of suntanning and wandering thoughts, two Americans bound onto the scene:
"Shit, the water's cold!"
"My nipples have gone hard"
"I wanna climb this rock and jump off"
"Whoa, check out those two topless girls!"
and so on as they voiced every private thought with an exuberance that seems to come natural to Americans.

The two girls - the cause of the final exclamation - were clearly scandinavian; the boys took their half-nudity as an invitation: "Where y'all from? Australia? New Zealand?" No reply came, and they pressed on: "Sweden?"
"Ja"
With the poise and composure of a schoolboy meeting Elle MacPherson naked, one of the guys uttered something which made me laugh out loud: "Wow, cool! You wanna come and jump off a rock with us?" Smooth.

But already the Swedes were dressing; the American advances had been thwarted and they exited stage left. The girls exited stage right. I remained on the sand, peace had resumed and the breeze now carried just the sound of waves lapping at the shore.