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To my surprise and joy, Claus Donath, the Sales Engineer from KUSTERS, provided me with a number of interesting photos from our Nigeria time. They arrived yesterday and I rushed to see them and was surprised to see pictures, I thought where lost forever! A real boost to reanimate old memories!- In times of bad news from all corners, this was at least something which lifted my spirits. The pictures below show some highlights form our trip to Kano and Kaduna. Our mode of travel was by air, in my Cessna 208. This made us very flexible and it provided a change. We visited the Kano market to purchased many "smelly birds" for the voliere at Texco Village which we let swim, during our stop-over, in the Hotel Pool. I think the management of the establishment did not appreciate it! Sorry for them. This was only one of many trips I made with Claus and all where funny and as well as very successful!
The Texco Village comprised of 4 prefabricated bungalows, two for guests, one as our residence and one was used for our Electronic Service Station (USTER Zellweger). In the center was the Crocodile Bar. Downstairs was the Restaurant and Disco and upstairs the "Crock Top" mainly frequented by friends and regular customers for drinks after a busy day. The "Crocodile Pond" was at the entrance of the Crocodile Bar. The Bar and Disco was very popular on weekends for many years. It was also the Home of the Ikeja Hash
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TEXCO VILLAGE... in the 80th
The Motto " Coldest Beer & Hottest Girls in Town" was quite appropriate! Unfortunately security in our region deteriorated by the day and so, slowly our guests preferred to stay Home and drink a six-pack in front of their "telly". In short the once very lively place died and so did the economy in general. Very tough times laid ahead!
Major Happenings 1978
In summer 1978, on the approach, flying back from a business trip, with Erich Scholl owner of (Scholl AG), we noticed smoke over the TEXCO Village. After landing and reaching Home
we learned that one of my wives brothers set the Crocodile Bar ablaze. This out of rage because of Jeanette's (my 1st wive) alleged actions against him (I sympathized with him and let him go!). Dinner was served under a palm tree in the compound.
With the help of some erectors from Luwa AG and Schweiter AG and our staff, we constructed a provisional Bar/Restaurant building. In a German Furniture Factory we built tables, chairs, bar stools, etc.
This all in our spare time and over weekends. Simultaneous we constructed the NEW Crocodile Bar was taking shape. It had also an open Bar on the Roof-Top, called "CrocTop" ;. Within three months we were back
in business.
1982 we enjoyed a "Mini Boom" and under the gentle pressure from some of our principals, we constructed a new flashy office building and renovated the TEXCO VILLAGE.
We added also a transformer in order to get a more stable power supply from the high tension line. We also installed a second Rolls Royce Generator.
All this was capital intensive and also the boom was soon dying. OK, we had now a super infrastructure but were running out of cash again!
