Abeokuta - Fabric Market & 1st Church in Nigeria

A friend Kay set up another trip to go shopping for fabric and to visit the first church in Nigeria, St. Peters Church. We got a bus and headed out to Abeokuta at about 8:15AM and it was raining and has been for the 24 hours. We had a little bit of traffic and arrived in Abeokuta around 10:45AM (just a guess) and the negotiating started. We wanted to see the dye pits and making of the Batik and Adire cloth (application of the casava paste or wax) but there was some hesitancy to show us. We finally started walking done an alley on our tour. Unfortunately it was raining, therefore no one was applying the Batik or Adire cloth but we did see a few people folding and pounding the cloth (no pictures allowed). Interestingly, they were folding Nigeria designed fabric (batik styles) that was made in China. Luckily, it was easy to tell the difference and the cost was different (15oo naira for 6 yards of the fake stuff vs. 2500 naira for the real stuff. We did also see the indigo dye pits where two women were dying fabric (no pictures allowed).

After the short tour we went back onto the main road to the fabric stalls to spend some money. Most of the fabric I bought (3 of 4 pieces) was tie dyed campala (spelling?) where they take fabric that has a pattern on it and then it is folded and dyed.

Sharon shopping...
Here is a view of St. Peter's Church from the top of Olumo Rock from a previous visit to Abeokuta. As it was still raining, we had a 5 minute tour of the church building that was not currently being used for a service.The interior of the church was simple and the A-frame ceiling was made of timbers.