"Don't scratch the car or I'll beat you!"

These were the words that the driver said to a little beggar girl who was plastering herself to our window. We'd been invited over to another teacher's house for dinner. This teacher is a local hire and her husband is an important dude at one of the local oil companies here in Lagos. To begin, when the car arrived, we were introduced to the driver, but there was another guy in the front passenger seat. So, I asked him if he was a friend of the driver and he quickly stated that he was a private police officer, hired as security protection for our teacher friend and her husband. It was only then that I realized he was sitting with some sort of automatic rifle pointed down between his feet, while keeping his finger on the trigger! I didn't (and still don't) know if I felt safer or more insecure at this realization. Never the less, we were safely whisked away to her beautiful home where we enjoyed a lovely dinner. Later on, her driver took us to the grocery store and on the way you often see children and adults begging on corners, in front of stores, or walking up and down the narrow space between moving vehicles on many main roads. This little Muslim girl saw us (two white women) and immediately came up to our window and began fake crying and begging for money. We 're getting used to this as it happens pretty often. Unfortunately, our driver was unable to ignore, and he rolled his window down part way and told the little girl to get off the car or he'd beat her! We were a little shocked and felt a little chastised ourselves, not knowing if it was OK to talk in the back seat - it sort of felt like we were little girls in the backseat of our father's car and he'd just told us to shut-up:(