What a colorful world!

Not Made in China

2012-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

It seems that everything we use these days from the clothes we wear to the toys our children play with is made in China.

So you would not be mistaken in assuming that the chopstick - an omnipresent feature of Chinese (and Asian cuisine) is made in China. Think again. The chopstick is Made in the USA. In a place called Americus, Georgia. The tiny Southern city, with a population of less than 20,000 people manufactures 10 million chopsticks a week for export to China, Japan and South Korea. It is difficult for the chopsticks to be made where they are used because of a lack of raw materials but Americus is home to the poplar and sweet gum trees, which provide the wood used to make chopsticks. Apparently, the environmental costs are next to nothing, because, according to Georgia Chopsticks - the company which makes the chopsticks - raw material comes from scraps from lumber and paper mills in the area, so no new trees are chopped down to create the chopsticks that are made in America.

2012-01-01T11:50:00.001-08:00

Only a Number

2011-12-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

Keiko Fukuda is the first woman to be awarded judo's highest rank - the tenth degree black belt. She is 98.

Let the Season of Giving Continue All Year Round

2011-12-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season is drawing to a close and we solemnly usher in the year 2012. This season was a very special one in terms of giving. In the US, a lot of people dove out of their comfort zones and chose to help their fellow human being rather than use the money to buy self-indulging luxury items for themselves, we heard heartwarming stories of those who were giving record-breaking donations to the Salvation Army and anonymously paying off layaway items for total strangers. It would be so awesome if the season of giving could continue all year round, there is so much need in the world and it is not so difficult to address them. It costs less than most people would imagine.

For:

$1 - you can ship two books to a classroom in Africa. In many classrooms 20 school children share one text book. Organizations like BooksforAfrica and the RemiFoundation send books to schools in Africa

$2 - through the organization Little Kids Rock, you can buy a set of drumsticks (the ones you use to play actual drums and not the kind you eat) for a low-income public student in the United States learning to play the drums

$3 - you can pay for a field trip to a museum, concert or theatrical production for a high-risk youth, through the organization CreateNow

$4 - you pay for two hours of prepaid time for a soldier stationed overseas to call home. The organization Cell Phones for Soldiers was started by teen siblings in 2004 and has since mailed more than 1.5 million calling cards to American troops

$5 - you can partner with the organization Food for the Poor, whose mission is to renew hope by saving lives and transform communities. Your donation can buy a one-burner kerosene stove for a family that would typically rely on an open fire. The stove is reusable and less environmentally taxing than cutting timber

$6 - can pay for measles vaccinations administered by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) for 15 children in a developing country

$7 - can buy a week's worth of food for an abandoned dog or cat at a shelter run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

$8 - you can partner with St Jude Children's Hospital to buy a medical teaching doll to be used in educating a child about his or her cancer treatment

$10 - you can buy two specialized bottles for babies born with a cleft palate, who otherwise might suffer from malnutrition before receiving corrective surgery through Operation Smile

$12 - can pay for twenty pounds of multipurpose soap to help keep the families germ-free around the world, through Oxfam

Special thanks to Lauren Murrow and Rachel Mount who published this list in the December 2011 of the Oprah Magazine

For all the 'Chibuzos' out there...

2011-12-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

...here's some inspiration as we prepare to enter a New Year!

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

2011-12-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

It is finally here! Just in time for Christmas too...

Samasource

2011-11-07T20:07:00.000-08:00

Work not aid, will end poverty

I was so deeply moved by the work that Leila Chirayath Jahah is doing with Samasource, that I had to fire up my blog to let more people know about it. It all goes back to what the quote above says. For decades, the part of the world known as the Third World because it is home to some of the most resource-constrained countries on the planet, has been more or less given hand-outs by the more resource-abundant countries as a a way to inch them away from poverty and more to some sort of state of abundance. The formula has not always worked because, frankly speaking, most parts of the world are still poor, in spite of millions of dollars of aid, but then again, that is another story on poor governance and corruption which we will save for another time. The fact is though, that some of this aid might not have been needed, if only we had stopped to think outside of the box. My new favorite saying : The instructions for getting out of the box are on the outside of the box, if only we would come out of the box to read them!

Well, we are increasingly seeing a number of people thinking outside of the box. Fact is there are able-bodied and intelligent people in these parts of the world who do not lack willpower to get things done, given the opportunity. And so, many social entrepreneurs are channeling into something which should have been glaringly obvious in the first place: every self-respecting man or woman, just wants to use the talents that they have been endowed with to make a living and not have to rely on hand-outs from someone else. I was excited about this when I wrote Text The Job Done! about this time last year, and now I hear about Samasource, I am beside myself with joy!

Samasource, which is the brain child of Leila Chirayath Jahah, gets its name from the Sanskrit word for equal. The company provides 'microwork' in the form of transcription or data entry projects to people in the developing world. It aims to provide a living wage to the forgotten ones: living in the slum areas and rural backwaters, so that they can lift themselves out of their state of poverty. It is making a difference - with contracts with some of the global powerhouses - Google, Intuit and LinkedIn, Samasource has employed 1,500 people from Zambia to Haiti. Need I say more?

Elders' Corner

2011-10-16T18:25:00.001-07:00

Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

When more than half of the world learns of your passing on a device that you created: you can exit saying "Mission Accomplished!"
Fare Thee Well, Mr Jobs!

The Living Proof ~ Mary J Blige

2011-08-12T21:04:00.001-07:00

Move Me No Mountain - Soul II Soul

2011-08-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

Mr or Ms Right on Aisle 5

2011-08-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

Asda

British supermarket giant - Asda - brought a whole new meaning to the term check out with an online dating service that matched users who have similar food preferences.

Be Inspired!

2011-04-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

News from Ronkonkoma, NY

2011-03-29T18:17:00.001-07:00

And in other news ... a Ronkonkoma, NY raccoon was stuck with its head inside a peanut jar for eight hours last Sunday. The unusual sight brought out dozens of curious residents on a Long Island street. Children quickly nicknamed the animal Skippy. The raccoon's ordeal was finally ended around 3:00p.m., when a crew from the Long Island Power Authority came to its rescue. The jar fell off as they used a pole to grab the animal. Skippy quickly scampered away

Source: The Associated Press.

Aloe Blacc - I Need a Dollar

2011-03-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

The Bottle House in Abuja

2010-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

To combat the housing problem in the Nigerian city of Abuja and also to save our planet, Katrin Macmillan has come up with an ground-breaking solution. She is building a bottle house and plans to collect 300,000 bottles to accomplish this feat. Bottles are being collected and stored at House 29, Shell Imani Compound, Madeira Street. For more information, please call +234-7057626282.

Photo and information courtesy of the naijablogger

Visions of a Sunset

2010-11-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

From the soundtrack to the movie Mr Holland's Opus, Shawn Stockman delivers the timeless classic 'Visions of a Sunset'

Text the Job Done!

2010-11-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

According to recent statistics from the International Telecommunications Union, only 18% of people in the developing world have access to the internet. In sharp contrast, however, more than 50% owned a mobile phone at the end of 2009 and that number is set to rise and continue rising. This means that at least three-quarters of the world's 46 billion mobile phone users are in the developing world. It also means that the mobile phone can be a tool for economic empowerment unlike any other.

txteagle has succeeded in tapping into the expertise of the people in the developing countries through a new and growing innovation called 'virtual outsourcing'. It is the brainchild of Nathan Eagle, a research scientist from MIT, who was on a teaching assignment in rural Kenya and realized that this small piece of technology which was in the hands of so many people, actually had the potential to make money for them.

It is really quite simple : txteagle distributes jobs via text messages in return for small but handy payments.

Sound too good to be true? Okay, let me explain. You see the concept of crowdsourcing involves breaking down jobs into small tasks and sending them to lots of people and this is exactly what txteagle is doing. One unique factor about these jobs is that they can only be done by local people because they require local knowledge. For example, checking what the street signs say in rural Sudan, in order to provide the information to a satellite navigation system or translating words from English into a local Kenyan dialect to market a company's goods and services.

Payments are then transfered to the user's phone by a local money service such as the M-PESA system which is run by Safaricom or alternatively by providing additional call time units or credit.

txteagle is currently working with over 220 mobile phone service providers and therefore has the ability to reach 2 billion people in 80 countries, now that's what I call awesome!

Source of Information: The Economist October 30 - November 5, 2010 Print Edition

Project Raise

2010-11-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

Makutano Junction

2010-11-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

Edutainment is a form of entertainment that is designed to educate and amuse. It is an important tool among international development practitioners as there is increasing evidence that it is one of the best avenues to get certain messages across. The TV soap opera - Makutano Junction, is written and produced in Kenya and is the second most popular TV drama series in the country and the most popular TV series in neighboring Uganda. It is also very popular in the rest of the East Africa Region. The popularity of the series means that people are getting the important messages which can lead to an improvement in their lives.

The following clip highlights the reality of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and the importance of using bed nets.

Listen for a moment to the beautiful and dignified voices of Africa's mothers. Despite their burdens of poverty and hunger, they will tell you not of their endless toil but of their hopes for their children. But softly, ever so softly, they will recount the children who died in their arms as they were carried in a desperate half-day's journey by foot from the village to the nearest clinic.

Jeffrey Sachs, Time Magazine Jan 4, 2007

Interested in making a difference in the lives of children who are living under the threat of malaria? Please contact the Remi Foundation and be a part of the Books & Bed Nets program.

Edison Pena

2010-11-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

If you are trapped underground for more than two months, pray that you have some one like Edison Pena to lift your spirits. As the excitement over the history-making rescue of the Chilean miners dissipates, the world's interest in the lives of these 33 men has been kindled. Several accounts have testified that Edison Pena was the one who kept the men going, and it is not hard to believe given his performance on the David Letterman show. He seems to be one of those people who does not take life too seriously, by taking things in humorous stride. Mr Pena does not speak English and had to rely on an interpreter during his interview on Letterman. However, no interpretation was necessary as he brilliantly belted out the lyrics of Elvis Presley's 'Suspicious Minds'

What a guy!

Mr Pena will be taking part in the 2010 New York City Marathon on Sunday November 7.

Beautiful Imperfection

2010-11-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

She's back! The Nigerian-French singer/song-writer Asa, has released a follow-up to her remarkable debut album. Available for purchase now in continental Europe, Nigeria and South Africa, it is called 'Beautiful Imperfection'

'Be My Man' is the first single from her sophomore album and Asa delivers once again in her fresh, upbeat outstanding style.

This is what music is about!

ASA - Be My Man
Uploaded by naiverecords. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

The World Has Been Playing Monopoly for 75 Years!

2010-11-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

Monopoly, the world's most popular board game, celebrates its 75th year anniversary today. The game, which was first marketed on November 5, 1935 is now available in 111 countries and 43 languages. There is a Braille version for the visually impaired. A chocolate version was marketed by Neiman Marcus in its 1978 Christmas catalog for US$600. In the 1980s, artist and jeweler Sidney Mobell created a version of the game using solid gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires. This version is currently on display at the Museum of American Finance in New York and it is valued at US$2 million. Hasbro and Google created an online version of the game in 2009 and an Apple iPhone application was released in February 2010. So here's to many more years of 'passing Go', 'collecting $200' and 'getting out of jail free'.

The World's Most Expensive Monopoly Set Created By Artist and Jeweler Sidney Mobell

Photo Credit Museum of American Finance

See how it's made, as workers at the Monopoly manufacturing factory reflect on the board game:

The Tintin Movie: First Images

2010-11-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

So the first images of the Tintin Movie being made by the energetic duo of Spielberg and Jackson have been shared

Reflections

2010-11-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

Reagan addressed the issue of 'illegals' directly and with surprising candor. In a radio address in 1977, he observed that apples were rotting on trees in New England because no Americans were willing to pick them. "It makes one wonder about the 'illegal alien' fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of illegal invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do?" Reagan asked. One thing is certain in this hungry world: no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.
Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek

Tintin Earth

2010-09-24T16:44:00.001-07:00

The adventures of Tintin can now be viewed on a Google Earth like portal here

Chile's National Heroes

2010-09-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

As Chile's celebrates its Independence Day today, the country and the entire world stand in solidarity with the country's new national heroes. 33 miners who are trapped over 2,000 feet below the surface of the Earth.

Today came with news that a 12-inch wide hole had successfully reached the trapped miners who will be celebrating their country's bicentenary with a special meal. The miners have been provided with an impressive list of items to help to sustain their strength and survival.

A daily 2,000-calorie diet - consisting of energy-packed nutrition shakes as well as bread, ham, fruit, etc

Five liters of bottled water per miner per day

Aluminium poles and canvas to assemble cots

Toiletries including toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors

Clothing apparel such as waterproof shoes and lightweight clothing with copper fibers to resist bacteria and fungi

Music on iPods without earphones in order to encourage communal listening

Lighting

Vitamin D supplements - 250 times the usual daily dose in order to combat the lack of sunlight

Medication in the form of syringes for tetanus, diphteria, influenza and pneumonia vaccinations

A camera and a phone line to stay in touch with the outside world - family, rescue worker and medical personnel

Football jerseys autographed by Chile's national team

A mini-projector to show sport and movies

The list is impressive since all of the items listed need to be passed through a small hole 3.19 inches wide, similar to the one in the picture below.

Source: Newsweek Magazine September 20, 2010

News Source: BBC News

Mataano

2010-09-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Mataano which is the Somali word for 'twins' and it is also the name of the fashion label created in 2008 by Somali-born twin sisters - Idyl and Ayaan Mohallim. Their Spring Collection was presented last week during the New York Fashion Week at an unusual setting for a fashion show - the Museum of Biblical Art. That type of 'Out of the Box' thinking is bound to serve them well. Upcoming presentations of their Spring 2011 collection will be seen later this month in Ethiopia and Nigeria

Twitting on Tweeter

2010-09-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

So I decided to set up a twitter account since it seems like it is the place to be these days. I typed in my preferred user name and was told that an account already exists for the user name jolanaibi. With an unusual name like mine, you start to wonder, thoughts of identity theft began to take root in my mind - yes there is only one Jola Naibi on the whole planet unless one was born yesterday. Well, it turns out that I already had a twitter account, I don't remember when I set it up but it is my account all the same - password checks out correctly. I also already have one follower. So I have revived my account. Not sure what I will be tweeting about, given the word limit on twitter and I like to write, pages and pages and pages. But we'll see, maybe I can get a point across with a sentence or two. And for those of of you who are wondering about the blog title - it is intentional - apparently we tweet on twitter, but we could twit on twitter but why complicate things right! See you on twitter @jolanaibi

Gigonomics

2010-09-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

Of all the words that have been created out the current global recession (if there is one, depends on who you talk to these days), I like the word gigonomics best. It's the Word of the Month in the September 2010 edition of Reader's Digest which defines it as - the science of cobbling together a series of small, often freelance or temporary jobs to make ends meet in a bad economy. This explains why the teller at the bank the other day, was also the same person who attended to me at the cell phone store hours later. When I asked him, if he had a twin who worked at the bank, his response was a rueful "No, ma'am, that was me you saw at the bank. Just trying to work things together, make ends meet". There's a similar (possibly more alarming story) in the Jokes section of the same edition of Reader's Digest. Apparently a patient wakes up from surgery and finds that the nurse waiting on him in the recovery room, is also the person who had helped pick out interior colors for his house. Surprise! Surprise!

Gigonomics might just be catching on as a result of the recession but it might just be that people are discovering talents that were previously hidden under the arms of a nice cushy job à la the nurse who just happens to moonlight as an interior decorator, something she is good at and might be another way to pay the bills. A lot has to be said for people who step out of their comfort zones and channel their creative talents, rediscovering their purpose in life and maybe even getting paid for it.

The Fishermen of the Cape Coast of Ghana

2010-09-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

When You Are Happy...

2010-09-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

I will sing summery songs
for you until
my voice cracks,
and I will watch you
warmly
until I become
the firelight
dancing in your eyes.

Excerpt from When You Are Happy by Eileen Spinelli and Illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Work, Family and Life

2010-09-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by this article in the September 2010 edition of Oprah Magazine. I have written about the challenges of balancing family, life and work in a previous blog post. The Belgian tennis player - Kim Clijsters is a living example of this. She took a break from tennis to start a family and took that plunge that so many mothers find hard to do. She reignited her career, winning the US open this past weekend. I am sure if you ask Ms Clijsters she will tell you that it was not all roses, peaches and cream. It is hard work to be a mother, family person and balance a successful career, but she did it and so can you (even in heels!)

Palm Trees and Cows

2010-09-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

So the photoblog has been revived (AGAIN!) - http://jolanaibi.shutterchance.com/

The How Many (?) Second Rule

2010-09-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

You've probably been there lots of times. Something you have been savoring for so long is about to make its way to your mouth and then pow wow, by some twist of fate which is liable to make you irredeemably irritated it drops to the floor. Some of us count our losses and make do without that treasured treat. Other people have a timer rule, which I have heard ranges from 4 -20 seconds. The rule governs the amount of time required for a piece of food to remain on the floor before those deathly germs which can do harm to you once you consume it, crawl all of over it, rendering it inedible. There's an on-going controversy, as to how long it will take for theses germs to unleash their potent poison onto that piece of food, you had been longing to savor, while some people swear it is 5 seconds, others are sure less than 20 seconds. In other words, if you count steadily and pick up the piece of food before you count to 20, you should be fine. Well, the experts, in the form of Paul Dawson, a food science professor have weighed in on the issue and the verdict *(drum roll please)* is zero. That's right! If that piece of cheese cake which you swear will deliver untold delight to your palate falls to the ground all the bacteria and salmonenlla do not need advance notice of 20 seconds to crawl all over it. Apparently, 'they can survive for up to four weeks on dry surfaces and transfer to food immediately upon contact.' The good news though is that most of these germs are pretty harmless and rarely lead to illnesses (although, I say that with caution, watch the surface that your tasty treat falls on and weigh the consequences of a few minutes of untold delight to weeks of illness and ingesting pills which don't taste as nice). In that case, I guess it's still okay to count to twenty, even if it only makes you feel better.

Source: National Geographic July 2010 edition
Photo Source: http://artlife.blogspot.com/2009/11/follow-art-life-on-twitter-and-win-this.html

Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria

2010-09-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

The first international exhibition devoted to sculpture from the Kingdom of Ife (in present-day Nigeria), begins an 18-month tour of America in Houston on September 19th. The exhibition has already graced the shores of Spain and Britain. The show features over one hundred art pieces made in stone, terracotta and metal created between the 9th and 15th centuries. The pieces are on loan from Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, many of them have never left Nigeria. The exhibition also provides visitors with information on the Kingdom of Ife which has had an unbroken monarchy for over 800 years.
Here’s the exhibition’s itinerary for all the African Art aficionados:

September 19-January 9, 2011– Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
February 12 – May 2011 – Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
July 8 – October 9, 2011 – Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
November 11 – April 8, 2012 – Museum of African Art, New York

Kangaroo

2010-09-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Kangaroos are one of the more fascinating animals on the planet. Did you know that they are capable of going for months without ... to find out please toddle over to the Remi Foundation Facebook page where you can guess and watch as the answer (which might surprise some of you) is revealed in a few days

The Most Common Bird in the World is . . . . . .

2010-07-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

...is the chicken - the Red Jungle Fowl, with a population of over 23 billion. Chickens were first domesticated in Asia - Vietnam, made their way to Greece and then the rest of the Europe before making it to the rest of the world. They are eaten more than any land animal because of their low cost making them easily affordable, also putting them on the top of the list of most common birds.

In terms of totally wild birds the European House Sparrow takes the lead. It was also made popular by European settlers and can be found in two-thirds of planet Earth.

The world’s rarest bird is however, harder to determine some say that it is the Orange-necked Partridge which was last seen in 1927.

Brilliant. Legitimate. Inspired. Nigerian. Great

2010-06-21T16:05:00.001-07:00

Steve Urkel from Family Matters

2010-06-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

2010 World Cup

2010-06-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

By some irony of fate, or perhaps its just one of those wonderful coincidences that make you go hmmm, the World Cup kicks off on June 11 which marks the 4th year anniversary of my life as a blogger. It's even more of a coincidence since my first ever post titled One World Cup was about the World Cup.

I get really excited whenever the World Cup is on. I have always been an intrepid soccer fan. Time was when I was an avid follower of the British, African and European league matches, but sadly life got in the way and the World Cup, held every four years has become my only solace for following a game from start to finish.

I am even more excited this year, because it is being held in South Africa, the first time the tournament will be held on the African continent. Thirty-two countries have qualified for the tournament and a total of sixty-three matches will be held leading up to the final on June 25.

It was estimated that over 700 million people tuned in to watch the final game of the 2006 World Cup, in the era of Facebook and a revolutionized web which boasts of You Tube, there are chances that those numbers will increase.

The 2010 World Cup also puts the spotlight on the rich cultural heritage of the African continent. A preview of some of what we expect to see is highlighted on the Remi Foundation Facebook page

Do you know what a vuvuzela is?

Find out on the page and check out more tidbits on the World Cup country participants and more

How Well Do You Know Your World?

2010-05-03T09:31:00.001-07:00

The Traveler IQ challenge ranks geographic knowledge of cities such as: Oklahoma City, Chicago or Carolina by comparing results against 5,456,609 other travelers. Brought to you by TravelPod, part of the TripAdvisor Media Network

Welcome to Lagos!

2010-04-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I watched the first two parts in the BBC TV series 'Welcome to Lagos'. I don't live in the UK anymore, so I had to rely on the kindness of the folks who uploaded it onto YouTube (thank you MrZbigniewBrzezinski).

Here's my take on it - I thought it was fantastic and truthful. I realize that many people may not have seen this documentary so I won't go into too much level of detail so as not to give too much away.

What I found a bit surprising, was that not everyone shares my view. I have heard people say that it was too harsh in its portrayal, and it should have shown all the sides. I wondered about this for a while and thought to myself. What was the purpose of this documentary? The purpose of the documentary was to portray life in a megacity. The very first sentences of the commentator tells us this, by even going as far as to say that in a number of years mankind has evolved into an urban city with more than half of the 7 billion people living on Earth, living in cities - like Mumbai, Manilla, New York, Sao Paulo, to a name a few. Lagos which is the tenth largest city in the world is home to millions of people who have to live in a tiny space. The way they are able to do this has baffled many for years and now the BBC is putting a face to the millions of folks who live in the city.

I was surprised to learn that the State Government had petitioned the BBC in its portrayal and even the Nobel Laureate - Wole Soyinka had weighed in on the issue looking at it as a negative portrayal of Lagos. I think those people who are expressing their anger with the BBC's portrayal of Lagos in the documentary are missing the point. A better approach would be to carry out a deep analysis of why people would choose to live in Lagos, in the first place when the city is clearly overcrowded and bursting at its seams. The BBC did not make this up. It is the reality. What this documentary shows us is that there are too many people in Lagos, so much so, that there are even cities being created out of refuse sites. People in the higher echelons should examine what exactly it is that is attracting people to Lagos. One theory could be that the attraction to Lagos is for the most part - economic. The business man who is making a living to take care of his family from the things he is able to buy from the dump, compares himself to the other businessmen at another level saying - "the only difference between me and the people in the stock market is the suit and the tie" It is possible that he feels that he could not make a living anywhere else in the country and Lagos seems to be the premiere urban center of the country. Maybe it is time for the Federal Government to begin to explore the opportunity of developing other parts of the country so that people stay there, if they don't more and more places like those that we see in documentary are going to be springing up.

One thing is certain though, the spirit of the people living in Lagos and their unquenchable and relentless quest to live their lives is highly commendable. The people make up the city, the people who make up this city were portrayed as resilient, go-getters who are making a life for themselves in the face of some insurmountable odds. Who would have thought, you could make a living from the blood of cows killed in abattoir. There is a scene in the documentary, where after a hard day's work - the musician Vocal Slender freshens up to go into town - the transformation is electric. He goes from a disheveled scavenger to a clean and suave looking young man, with no trace of the dump on him and he does all this without even living the dump site.

I am trying to understand what the people who are against this documentary are seeing which is making them so offended. Some have said that the title of the documentary is misleading, I thought about this for a while but then I have to disagree, the places shown in the city are just as much a part of Lagos as the nicer parts and we have to come to terms with that. This is one city, there are many parts of it. I am curious to see where else the series will portray. I can say this much, if the series had taken us to only the posh parts of Lagos which do exist, I would have found it offensive and a slap on the face of the people who live in Lagos.

Lagos...still home!

2010-04-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This article appeared on this blog a few years ago. Since I wrote this, I have been back to Lagos several times.

While I have not been back to Lagos for almost a decade now, I try to keep abreast of what is happening in town through conversations - everyone who comes back from a visit has something (usually negative) to say; Google - you'll be surprised what the right combination of search words will get you; and more recently in the blogs - there is even a public access blog where you can spew your thoughts on Lagos among other things.

Interestingly enough one of the more recent sources of information on Lagos which resonated heavily with me was by an American journalist - George Packer's - writing an article on Lagos entitled the Megacity in the the November 13 edition of the New Yorker Magazine

Now the New Yorker is not a magazine I usually read a friend who subscribes told me that there was an article on Lagos and asked if I would like to read it...out of curiosity and doubtful that it would actually be accurate reporting, I reluctantly agreed to take a peek.. I admit that Brian Ross' recent ABC news piece on scammers in Nigeria has made me cautious about reports on Nigeria from foreign journalists so I had prepared myself for the worst.

I needn't have worried. Though not particularly flattering, the article is honest...brutally honest. For a Lagosian who has not lived in Lagos for so long, it was pretty disappointing to read that the same set of issues continue to plague the city, but also pretty uplifting to read about the resoluteness and determination of awa omo eko. Mr Packer did not make the sprawling 'one-shoe fits all' generalizations that we sometimes read in news articles about Nigeria, rather he is does an in-depth analysis of the situation in Lagos in interviews with everyone from city officials to the man on the street who is just trying to survive. Anyone who has lived in Lagos can relate to the issues that this article raises.

It begins with a description of how the island and the mainland are connected by the Third Mainland bridge 'a looping ribbon of concrete passing the Lagos lagoon over the floating slums beneath it' Reading that sentence, I am reminded of an evening years ago when returning from work on the island to home on the mainland, I encountered the worst kind of traffic on the Third Mainland Bridge - as the cars jerked forward, you could feel the bridge rattle underneath you and with a heart full of patience and mouth full of prayer, I contemplated my fate - at the worst the bridge might collapse under the weight of all the cars - the rickety and the sleek - and we would all perish in the water of the Lagoon...at the best we would survive and live to tell the day. Like most people in Lagos, who confront the daily grind comprising of orisirisi nkan (all sorts of things) - we survived.

A number of characters are featured in the article one of which is Adegoke Taylor who provides a profile of the Nigerian graduate trying to make ends meet as he seeks the perfect job. According to the author, the young man arrived in Lagos from his home-town Ile-Oluji in 1999 with a mining degree and encounters a number of brick walls as he unsucessfully tries to find a job in his area of expertise. He engages in every odd job imaginable and even joins the ranks of Nigerians who fed up with the country try to check out to make ends meet elsewhere - unfortunately he is denied a visa both at the American embassy and the British High Commision. Empathizing with his situation is not difficult, but this quickly turns into pure rage as Mr Packer then describes how Adegoke tries to scam him with a cock-and-bull story of a million and a half pounds buried under a tree somewhere which he and his business associate are willing to give Mr Packer in return for the equivalent in naira. The journalist is clever enough to read between the lines and explains it away by writing - ...a business opportunity had come in the form of an American and he would be regarded as a fool locally if he not tried to exploit it.

Tut-tuting about Adegoke's apparent lack of judgement in trying to pull one over this foreign journalist...I analyzed his situation and became even angrier but not with him but with the set of events which led to him being in that situation in the first place...at their initial meeting he tells the journalist that he came to Lagos in order to escape the dullness, stagnancy and monotony in his village. Thus, highlighting the fact that the migration to Lagos by people not just from neighboring cities in the country but from outside the country continues to be fueled by an economic desire to improve one's lot in life. Assuming, there were job opportunities in Ile Oluji which would be able to make Adegoke live a sucessful and modern life...I doubt if he would have to do all that he has to do to survive...while not making any excuses for the young man's attempt at scamming...still, it is sad that after several years and with billions of dollars in oil revenues ($50 billion in 2005 alone), none of the governments in Nigeria have thought to improve the quality of life in rural areas and raise their economic prospects making them more attractive for young people like Adegoke. Rather they are content to keep them - rural with just the bare necessities and watch as more and more people migrate to Lagos where survival is often hit or miss - and where the city has deteriorated into a quagmire of chaos where you can find the most beautiful housing developments miles away from some of the worst slums in modern civilization.
Slums like Maroko which was razed by the State government in 1990 leaving thousands of people homeless and destitute with no compensation for their loss of livelihoods. A decade and a half later the former residents of Maroko are still seeking some form of compensation. Mr Packer describes meeting the leader of the Maroko Evictees Committee during his time in Lagos, who gives the journalist a letter to deliver to the governor of Lagos which lists their demands for compensation. This letter is delivered to Bola Tinubu when he is met by George Packer in his residence in an upscale neighborhood in central London. A foreign journalist delivers a letter to the governor of Lagos - from the people of Lagos -in a foreign country . No prizes for guessing when or if the demands for compensation by the Maroko Evictees Committee will be addressed.

All in all, the article is one of the best that has come my way in a long time and I admit that it left me with a deep feeling of nostalgia for Lagos..from the description of the all-too familiar agberos to the father of five who travels from a neighboring city to come to Lagos to scavenge in a dumpster who summarizes his situation by saying - If you don't find some help, you have to help yourself.
Once you have lived in Lagos, chances are you can survive anywhere no matter how chaotic or organized. Lagosians are the perfect picture of resilience personified not allowing anything to get them down and taking what life throws at them in stride.

To put it all in some lively perspective, here's the music video of some of Lagos's best - Dare Art Alade in a collaboration with JazzMan Olofin and a number of talented musicians who collectively call themselves Storm All Stars paying tribute to Lagos in this music video called Eko Ile

Special thanks to fellow blogger BellaNaija who featured this video on her blog in December and who took also the time to give me a quick e-lesson on uploading videos

"EKO ILE" by Dare Art Alade,Jazzman,Sasha, G.T and Nkiru

FLAMBOYANT SHOTS | MySpace Music Videos

The Art Village in Abuja

2010-04-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

A view of the Art Village in Abuja, Nigeria. I thought it was one of the most under-promoted places when I visited the city a couple of years ago. We just happened upon it from looking out the window of the Sheraton Hotel where we were staying. You have to cross a precariously dangerous road to get to it, but it is certainly worth the visit.

Some of the photos from the Art Village will be featured on the photoblog in a few days.

Rainbow Days

2010-04-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

See more photos at Jola Photos

The Most Popular Fruit in the World

2010-04-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

What do you think the most popular fruit in the world is?

Take a guess at the Remi Foundation Facebook Page.

Books & Bed Nets

2010-04-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Every year nearly one million people die from malaria which is caused by a mosquito bite. 4 out of 5 of those deaths are in children under the age of five. Malaria is a constant threat to millions of people in more than 40% of the countries of our world.

Today is World Malaria Day. It is a day to celebrate the giant strides that have been made by those countries in the world that have successfully eradicated malaria but it is also a day for deep reflection. This is because even today, 2,000 children could lose their lives as a result of malaria, the same thing could happen again tomorrow and the day after.

Malaria can easily be prevented by using a bed net, which will keep mosquitoes out. Many of the people who need to know this do not and many of those who do know do not have the resources to purchase a bed net.

Today, the Remi Caxton-Naibi Foundation is launching a new program called Books & Bed Nets. This program is expected to create an awareness of the importance of bed nets in the prevention of malaria. Since many of the malaria-endemic areas of the world also have low literacy rates, the program also hopes to promote a reading culture and and an appreciation of literature among children and young adults.

The program will use a number of child-friendly tools such as the Public Service Announcement (PSA) below to deliver its message and accomplish its goal.

For more information and to find out how you can support us, please visit our website or send an email to info@remifoundation.org

Home is where...

2010-04-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Immigrants benefit America because they study and work hard. That is the standard argument in favor of immigration, and it is correct. Leaving your homeland is a bid deal. By definition, it takes get-up and -go to get up and go, which is why immigrants are abnormally entrepreneurial. But there is another, less obvious benefit of immigration. Because they maintain links with the places they came from, immigrants help America plug into a vast web of global networks.

Immigration provides America with legions of unofficial ambassadors, deal-brokers, recruiters and boosters. Immigrants not only bring the best ideas from around the world to American shores; they are also a conduit for spreading American ideas and ideals back to their homelands, thus increasing their adoptive country's soft power.

All of which makes the task of fixing America's cumbersome immigration rules rather urgent. Alas, Barack Obama has done little to fulfill his campaign pledge to do so. With unemployment still at nearly 10%, few politicians are brave enough to be seen encouraging foreigners to compete for American jobs

Culled from Lexington The Hub Nation from the April 24th 2010 edition of The Economist

And in other news, please read

The iPad and the Library.

2010-04-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to thank Steve Jobs for. I am from the generation of writers who has never been able to savor the virtues of a typewriter when it comes to typing. In my defense, I have attempted to use a typewriter several times in my life, but never had much success in expressing my creativity on one. Give me a keyboard and a blank screen and I should be good to go. The reason I am thankful to Steve Jobs is because I gather that his garage in California was the birthplace of the Personal Computer also known as the PC which evolved into the laptop which is my weapon of choice in my writing career. Without Steve Jobs, I might not have gone very far with my career, I might not even have learned to type so well without looking at the keyboard, something that I have been doing for quite a while now, but which I could never have accomplished on a typewriter.

When Mr Jobs’ newer invention – the iPod was introduced to the world a few years ago, I was not giddy with excitement like a lot of people were. I had a media player which worked perfectly for me. My Sansa MP3 player had the storage space and the battery capacity that I needed. Mr Jobs kicked it up a notch and introduced the world once again to a new invention –the iPhone. That got my attention. It was a neat little device, and I found all those apps quite fascinating. The only thing for me was that for a phone, I thought it was too busy. I never contemplated getting one, because, I asked myself, what happens when you are in the middle of a nice app like a game or something and the phone rings. So I looked at the iPhone and thought, “Nah! Not for me.”

The thing about Mr Jobs is that he seems to think about everything. Like Daniel Lyons writes in Newsweek – "He has an uncanny ability to cook up gadgets that we did not know we needed but suddenly can’t live without". For the people like us who harbored a desire to take advantage of the thousands of apps being created but did not want the encumbrance of a phone attached to the device, he created a new type of iPod the iPod touch. I became the proud owner of one earlier on in the year, and thus the whole world of neat apps d entered into my world. I enjoy using my iPod touch, and to be quite honest, I hardly ever use it to listen to music, which probably explains why my Sansa has not yet retired.

Mr Jobs was not quite done in his quest to revolutionize the world of digital technology. A few weeks ago, he launched the iPad which he described as a truly magical and revolutionary device. It’s the iPod touch but bigger. Tiny and highly portable, it weighs one and a half pounds and has a 9.7 inch screen plus it can hold a battery charge for up to 10 hours. Many of the reviews of the iPad have been positive – ‘its simplicity masks its transformational power because it is guaranteed to herald a new era in computing.’ Some analysts predict that the iPad could eventually become your TV, your newspaper and your bookshelf and even your cable company, since consumers could soon be watching their favorite TV shows on the iPad by purchasing subscriptions via iTunes.

The fact that 75 million iPhones and iPod touch units have been sold, speaks to the success of Steve Jobs and Apple, and one cannot help but admire their business model - try playing your purchases from iTunes on any device other than your iPod, iPhone or iPad and you’ll understand what I mean.

Some bibliophiles however have a bone to pick with Steve Jobs. You see, with the iPad, publishers can directly have books released on e-readers and Mr Jobs announced earlier on in the year that he has entered business agreements with publishers – Penguin and Simon & Schuster. This has led many bibliophiles to assume that this will lead to the demise of the bookstore.

One of my favorite writers, Anna Quindlen captures this notion quite eloquently by reminding us that "the invention of television led to predictions about the demise of the radio, the making of movies was to be the death knell of live theater…" Yet, there are many people who prefer the cool ambiance of the theater to the haughty decor of the movie theater.

It is after all a question of personal choice.

In the days before the iPad was launched in the US, the Washington Post asked its readers to weigh in on the issue by polling readers to respond to the question - 'Do you think tablet computers will revolutionize the print media?'

69% of readers responded negatively, with one reader stating "It's too early... sometimes a book or a paper is really the best choice for the situation, and that's not changing anytime soon.

Tablet computers will revolutionize the field of optometry. With people staring at computers at work, then the tablet on the way home and even at home, their eyes are surely going to suffer.
Commenter on the Washington Post Poll

The truth is e-readers have been around for some time now. On Amazon.com, which boasts to have earth's biggest selection of print media, the biggest selling item is the Kindle, which is an e-reader. Sony, also has its own e-reader. But I am quite sure that like many people, I can't imagine reading a whole book on a machine like the Kindle or the iPad. One of the apps I have on my iPod touch is called 301+ short stories. I downloaded it because it was free and the bibliophile in me just had to take a peek. I started with F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a story which I have found fascinating and which in my opinion the movie did not do much justice. I did not get very far, and resolved to look for the actual book in order to continue with the story. But then again, it could have been because the iPod touch is a smaller device and maybe if I downloaded the app on an iPad and tried reading it on a larger screen, I'd go further. Who knows?

I don't have an i-Pad yet and it is not on my list of things to get in the future. If and when I do get one, I can say this much, it will not be my preferred choice for reading. I am a bit like, Jonathan Lethem, who writes in this month's edition of Oprah magazine " for me, reading is a physical experience, one that vanishes, evaporates completely, the minute you have read something on the screen". Although, I can read newspaper articles, blog entries and even recipes on the computer screen, I derive joy from reading a physical book. I can't imagine having my library of books on a hand held device, but we are living in the 21st century and there are some people who could and do. There's nothing wrong with that.

While we are on the subject, here are some of the literary pieces I am currently indulging in.

An Elegy for Easterly ~ Pettinah Gappah

L'Homme Qui M'Offrait Le Ciel ~ Calixthe Beyala

El Plan Infinito ~ Isabel Allende

Malgudi Days ~ R. K. Narayan

La Vie Devant Moi ~ Soukaina Oufkir

The Book of Not ~ Tsitsi Dangaremgba

The Pirate's Daughter ~ Margaret Cezair-Thompson

If you counted that's seven books! I have this very bad habit of not being able to stick to one book at a time. Plus, I am taking Jhumpa Lahiri's advice in the introduction of R.K. Narayan's delicious anthology of stories - Malgudi Days - one story per day for thirty-two days.

The United States just celebrated National Library Week (April 11-17), something that has been celebrated since the 1950s, even the advent of e-readers and iPads will not stop that from happening. Libraries will be around for quite a while and so will the iPad.

(The Hassle of) Air Travel in the 21st Century II

2010-04-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

So this month came the news that Spirit airlines a US-based passenger airline will be charging passengers as much as US$45 for carry-on baggage. Read about that here. This is guaranteed to add more to the hassle of air travel in the 21st century. I found the following predictions of what the airlines will be charging pretty hilarious -

In the likely even of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down. To start the flow of oxygen simply insert your credit card.

$100 - On-Time Departure Fee; $25 - Delay Complaint Fee

View seating (formerly window seats) - $10; Access seating (formerly aisle seats - $10)

$20 to use roll-away stairs to enter or exit the aircraft in lieu of non-charge rope ladder alternative

$9 fee for bumping your head on the overhead bin as you take your seat; $3 additional penalty for looking up at the bin after you bump into it

(The Hassle of) Air Travel in the 21st Century

In My Country

2010-04-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

I have always found it fascinating when I introduce myself to people as a Nigerian and they say to me - 'You speak such good English!'. The first time this happened to me, I was in the English countryside and before I could even explain that I could not remember a time when I did not speak English, the lovely lady who had made this 'observation' was calling on her companions to come and meet me - 'an absolute genius' = a Nigerian girl who speaks perfect English. I was more amused than offended, because I quickly realized that it was as a result of (for lack of a better word), ignorance that people would think that someone from Nigeria speaking English was a genius. Nigeria is a former British colony, many of my fellow country men and women speak English, for many of them it is their mother tongue. I was a bit irritated recently when at a church function in the Washington DC metropolitan area, I was met with the same - 'You are from Nigeria, yet you speak English so well' .

It is a shame that the few times that Nigeria makes the headlines it is about things that are not altogether flattering - in recent times, it has ranged from the unexplained disappearance of the President to the Jos riots. Some people probably think of the country and believe that we are just a bunch of savages. The fact is there are a lot of things that people don't know about Nigeria that if they did, they would not be astonished to find that someone from Nigeria actually spoke English. The fact is there are a lot of things people don't know about the countries of the world, things that could change our world view and reduce some established stereotypes.

'In My Country' is a celebration of global cultural diversity. It is a school-based cultural exchange program which is open to school children all over the world and provides a platform for cultural exchange by giving school children a forum to share unique and special qualities about their countries. School children are eligible to participate when their schools sign up for the program which is being implemented by the Remi Caxton-Naibi Foundation. To find out more and to sign up your school, please visit http://www.remifoundation.org or send an email to info@remifoundation.org

The Remi Caxton-Naibi Foundation is working to connect the world together, through the children, for all our tomorrows.

The World's Largest Swimming Pool

2010-04-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

I am not a very sporty person, I actually prefer to watch sports than to participate in them. I am not lazy and can be quite active if I choose to, but one thing I do like to do is swim. I don't get to do it as much as I would like, but I did find this little tidbit from the National Geographic interesting. The World's Largest Swimming Pool which covers 20 acres and stretches half a mile is in Chile's San Alfonso del Mar resort. It is 115-foot deep and contains 66 million gallons of water. US triathlete
Amanda Stevens in describing her experience was quoted as saying - 'There should be a training camp here!'

Photo Source: National Geographic

The Land Where Women Rule!

2010-04-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

No man dares sit on this Nigerian throne

In Kumbwada, a curse has assured that only women will reign, locals say. And so far, the current queen pronounces, it has worked out better this way.
By Robyn Dixon
April 6, 2010

Reporting from Kumbwada, Nigeria

The palace, under a rusted corrugated roof, looks mostly like a shed. Only one delicate pair of feet in its single room is shod, and they are in black rubber flip-flops.

This is the genteel court of Queen Hajiya Haidzatu Ahmed.

The queen's henna-dyed fingers are childlike and slender, her smile girlish and her voice soft. Whenever she speaks, the men who are her courtiers listen, enraptured. Whenever she giggles, they laugh loudly. Whenever she explains some point, they nod solemnly.

In Nigeria's conservative Islamic north, women are barred from ruling, except in the kingdom of Kumbwada. Here, an ancient curse keeps males off the throne, according to locals. Male pretenders who dare to try will be buried within a week.

The last man who wanted to overturn the tradition of female rulers was the queen's father, Prince Amadu Kumbwada, 58 years ago. All he did was say he wanted to succeed his mother, then still alive. He was immediately taken ill.

The prince was rushed to a distant kingdom, where he eventually recovered. He never returned.

"There has never been a male ruler," the queen says, chuckling, a sound like dry, crackling paper. "Even my father just voiced his desire to be chief, but it almost killed him."
Her grandmother, on the throne for 73 years, died when she was 113.

Hajiya was a child when her father tried and failed to become his mother's successor. She was too young to feel any sense of rivalry, but old enough to believe the curse would kill him.

She points up to the nail-pocked iron roof with a mischievous smile, to indicate that it's God's will.

"It's a women's affair," the 65-year-old monarch says. "Women are the rulers and they rule as effectively as men, sometimes even better than men."

These are alien pronouncements in a part of Nigeria where women typically are relegated to second place and strict Sharia, or Islamic law, is the rule.

But in the community Hajiya has ruled for 12 years, women get a sympathetic hearing in cases of wife beating or divorce.

"When domestic issues come to me, the way I treat them will be quite different to other traditional chiefs," she says. "I'm a woman and I'm a mother and I have so much concern and experience when it comes to the issue of marriage and what it means for the maintenance of the home and what it means for two people to live together."

Kumbwada, an undulating region with low, scrubby forest, is so notorious for banditry that the road is dotted with police checkpoints every few miles.

For years, there have been hostile mutterings among northern Islamic clerics in other tribal kingdoms that the curse against male rulers amounts to witchcraft.

"Once there is evidence of the use of black magic in any situation, Islam considers it a deviation which must be reversed," Sheik Aminuddeen Abubakar, imam in the city of Kano, reportedly said several years ago. Reached by phone recently, he stood by his comments.

Musa Muhammad, the chief imam of Kumbwada, defended the queen, saying Kumbwada's position was unique.

"We can't live without a leader, and the fact that any male rulers that ascend the throne die quickly and mysteriously while female rulers reign for many years makes our case a peculiar one," Muhammad says. "This is an exceptional situation none of us can change."

As the traditional ruler, the queen handles disputes such as quarrels over land, divorces, petty violence, accusations of theft and arguments between neighbors. Government courts step in only if a traditional ruler refers a case or if the situation isn't resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

"The royalty have a very important role in Nigerian society," Hajiya says. "Of course we're different than the elected powers. The real power, the confidence, is with us. Politicians think you can buy votes.

"I am closer to the people. The traditional rulers are the ones the people trust."

Outside the palace, goats bleat and chickens cluck. Inside, it's so hot that rivulets of perspiration make their way down people's backs.

The queen could be a simple Nigerian villager in her baggy, shift-like cotton dress and blue-green scarf. She sits on her throne, an extra-wide, spotless armchair that looks designed for either someone very important or someone rather large. The throne is on a platform above her courtiers, elderly men in charge of collecting taxes, hearing complaints or arranging royal audiences.

Since her father's hurried departure, when the princess was 7, she knew she was the heir to the throne. As a child, she played at being queen with other children in the village who were relegated to the roles of domestic servants and courtiers.

"When I was young, there was a very strong peer group of all the children in the village, both boys and girls. We had leaders and other parts like staff among us. I got used to a leadership role, even when I was a child. So I was prepared for this."

Then, her subjects were children. As the real queen, she has more than 33,000 subjects, most of them poor farmers.

But apart from the childhood games, she had no education to prepare her for leadership.

"My only handicap is that I don't have a Western education, because in my time, people didn't educate their daughters. I'm not educated in the modern way, but in the traditional way, I have wisdom in my dealings with people. I'm proud to say that it would be hard to find someone educated who could rule as well as I can," she says with calm dignity.

The queen has her pet hates. She doesn't like divorce. She won't tolerate wife beating. And she can't bear the idea of leaving any case that comes before her unresolved, to be handed over to the local court system. She has never let that happen.

"I've never had a crisis I couldn't solve," she says.

Even politicians sometimes have to come to traditional rulers for help, she says.

"In a crisis, people don't listen to politicians. Once we intervene, once we speak, to the people, it's hands off."

Most traditional African rulers reflexively side with the male head of the household in a family dispute. So a girl resisting marriage to a much older man she doesn't love is likely to be ordered to obey her father. A woman who complains she is being beaten is likely to be told to obey her husband.

Hajiya had one wife-beating case early in her reign.

"I told him if he ever beat his wife again, I'd dissolve the marriage and put him in prison," she remembers. "Marriage is not a joke, and women are not slaves."

Since that case, she has made a point of campaigning against domestic violence whenever she holds court in local communities. She says she's never had another beating case. People know where she stands.

"Men sometimes say the women provoke them, so that is why they beat them," she says. "I tell them that there's no justification, whatever happens."

If a girl is miserable in an arranged marriage, the queen listens to her side of the story, even though she dislikes divorce.

"In such cases I try to strike a balance. I don't just end such marriages. I try to be tactful and see if there's any way this woman can come to love this man," she says. "But if that's not possible, if there's no way she can have any compassion for him or love, it's not her fault or his fault. It's just natural.

"I intervene and ask for the marriage to be dissolved for the sake of the woman, the man and everyone's sake."

She often addresses women's groups, urging members to become educated so that they can be future leaders. Most of all, she wants to live to see a female Nigerian president.

"It's my most ardent wish. I think the problems in Nigeria have become intractable. Let's try a woman. Men have failed."

She keeps her grown daughter, Idris, by her side whenever she holds court, grooming her to be queen. Her son, Danjuma Salihu, also grown, seated on the floor among the courtiers, has no hopes of succession.

He may one day become chief in another dominion though.

"But not here," she says. "Nobody has any doubts about it. He wouldn't survive it."

robyn.dixon@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The Remi Caxton-Naibi Foundation

2010-03-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

A US-based, volunteer-run and donor-supported non-profit organization. Our mission is to foster cultural and knowledge exchange by creating and managing school-based social and educational programs. Please visit our website http://www.remifoundation.org for more information.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Corneille

2009-04-02T06:42:00.001-07:00

The German-born singer Corneille belts out lyrics in both French and English. His style is sort of mixture of Marvin Gaye and Craig David with a hint of will.i.am. My favorite artiste of the moment. His debut album in English - The Birth of Cornelius was released last month

More information on this rising star is available on his website and Corneille discusses his music and his background here

_______________________________________________

Back to Life from the album The Birth of Cornelius

Les Reves de Star performed at the Africa Roll Back Malaria concert

Reloaded - The Movie

2009-03-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

Reloaded Part 1 and 2
Story - Emem Isong
Directed by - Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen and Ikechukwu Onyeka

***SPOILER ALERT***

Portions of the recently-released movie Reloaded are revealed in this article.

While I was in Ghana earlier on in the month, I was really fascinated by how much the Ghanaian commercial scene is pretty saturated by so many elements of Naija. The banks are everywhere - it seemed like there was a UBA round every corner (okay that might not actually count since it is the United Bank for Africa), then there was GTBank and Zenith (as if we did not have enough of those in Nigeria already).

It was the movies that really got me going though. There are Ghanaian movies but every one in Ghana who is into these sorts of things seemed to be an ardent follower of Nigerian movies. The one currently being promoted is Reloaded. To be honest, I am more of a Yoruba movie fan in terms of Nigerian movies and I have never really developed a taste for the Nollywood English speaking movies. I have only seen a handful that were impressive, the most recent being White Waters (with Rita Dominic and Joke Silva) which was pretty good.

I picked up a copy of Reloaded in Lagos just because I had seen so many promos of it on the streets of Accra and wanted to know what the fuss was all about.

The story written by Emem Isong who also co-produces the movie is mainly centered around three couples - Omoze and Femi (newcomer and incredibly talented Nse Ikpe Etim and the dapper Ramsey Nouah), Weyinmi and Bube (the elegant Stephanie Okereke and the dashing Ghanaian actor Van Vicker) and Tayo and Osita (the vivacious Ini Edo and the estimable Desmond Elliot). There is also a side story featuring a somewhat perfect couple Chelsea and Edwin (Rita Dominic who is also the narrator of the story and Enyinna Nwigwe). Uche Jumbo and Monalisa Chinda also make appearances in this movie.

Watching the movie, I was taken aback by the sense of entitlement which these women have when it comes to their men. It makes you wonder if is still indeed the 21st century where a woman does not necessarily have to be attached to a man to validate her existence. My first impression was a cynical observation that the women in this movie are actually giving their male partners permission to treat them shabbily. But then I thought well, society and the way it is set up has allowed these women to believe that they do have to be attached to some man no matter how rotten his character may be, to be able to mean something.

Take couple #1 - Weyinmi and Bube

Weyinmi has had five abortions for Bube. They are not married after being together for seven years (do the math and you realize that it's like she's been getting pregnant almost every year since they've been together). As a woman, I cringed with a mixture of fear and shame as she exposed her vulnerability and fragility by accepting to carry out the sixth abortion for him, even though he relunctantly agrees to marry her. What makes it worse is that Bube is a jobless layabout and Weyinmi is the one with job. She is clearly a lot more empowered that she gives herself credit for. While hanging out with the boys Bube extols his 'wife's' virtues telling them that she is the perfect definition of a wife and proceeds to define WIFE in the most derogatory and blatantly subservient terms possible. Leading the viewer to realize that the last thing he needs is a loving and equal partner but is more interested in someone who will attend to all his domestic needs and satisfy his sexual desires.

Then there is couple # 2 - my favorite pairing - Omoze and Femi

Omoze is clearly a no-nonsense vixen. She knows her husband can't keep his pants zipped up and is allowing his hormones to dictate his random infidelities. Femi cheats on his wife so brazenly and is unapologetically glib about it that you actually have to admire him. In one scene, after she corners him red-handed in a somewhat compromising situation, he deflects the issue from his own waywardness and berates her for carrying on publicly in an undignified manner. He does make a point. No person - male or female - is worth losing it in public for.

Then there is couple # 3 - Tayo and Osita

Osita is a first-class jerk with all the fancy trimmings and one actually begins to feel sorry for Tayo who is unfortunately and unnecessarily vulnerable as Osita subjects her to the worst kind of treatment possible. She has to bear the full brunt of the physical and mental abuse he metes out and tramples on her self-esteem considering herself a useless excuse for a woman

Like most Nigerian films these days, Reloaded is a two-part film. Part 1 leaves us with a captivating cliffhanger -while Part 2 picks up where Part 1 left off. In Part 2, the women are fed up with losing their dignity to these men and they are taking back what belongs to them in specially orchestrated ways. There's a twist in one of our couples' tales which is hilarious as it is redeeming. The movie also touches on the subject of bisexuality - one of our characters actually dabbles into a same-sex relationship, an issue which is for the most part taboo in Nigeria and even in Africa as a whole. You have to watch the movie to find out which one!

That said, I will admit that the story is a tad slanted to the female point of view making women seem like the harmless victims of the wiles and fancies of their male partners although the women in the movie do admit that there is no such thing as a perfect man or a perfect woman. At the end of the movie, the women get some measure of vengeance which is bittersweet and probably catharthic at the same time.

Reloaded is a great movie to watch and it has a very infectious soundtrack (the music credit is given to Okey Benson) - you might just find the signature tune stuck in your head for hours, just like its stuck in mine now.

There and Back Again!

2009-03-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Elmina Castle -February 2009

At the end of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the patriach of the Baggins Family - Bilbo - returns from his adventures after being freed of his inane obsession with the ring and writes a book about where he's been while he was away from the Shire. It is called There and Back - A Hobbit's Tale. It is also the title of one of Tolkien's hobbit-laden stories. In the movie, we are not actually told where There is and are left to guess where the interpid Bilbo has been.

I feel like I have been there and back again myself. I have been away from the blogs for a little while. Lurking in the shadows but not actually coming out of obscurity. All the while my blog remained cooly redundant almost like a shamelessly faithful scorned mistress.

Where is there? There would be the thousands of miles I have travelled along the way meeting a handful of bloggers who added meaning to the phrase - you are what you write. Interesting that the bloggers I have met are not much different from the impressions I had of them in reading their blogs. Okay so some were a lot taller than I expected - that would be the Naija Blogger, some were major surprises hiding behind aptly adopted names which prevented us from knowing that ahem we are actually cousins - what a surprise that turned out to be - twice! I promised myself that I would keep the identities of the bloggers who I happen to be related to secret, but the discoveries made me realize that there is no shortage of creative juice flowing through our collective familial veins. I was very delighted to meet the lovely Omohemi in Lagos. What a wonderful human being!

There would also be the hours that I have spent working on my yet to be published book of short stories. It's not quite finished yet but it's getting off the ground and is shaping up.

There would be my newly adopted fascination with photography. I got one of those new fangled cameras more on a whim than anything, I did not actually think I would be taking that many pictures, but there's something about having a camera that makes you want to capture what I call Kodak Moments and all of a sudden you are seeing things that you otherwise would have overlooked and then you find that you might actually enjoy doing this, next thing you know a photoblog is born.

There would be the Naija movies that I watched on YouTube. If you have not jumped on the bandwagon, you might sometime in the future. I could not help thinking that I was in some way promoting piracy or something illegal. I have not read the fine text for YouTube but is it legal to have these full-length movies on the web. How are the producers actually making any money? Is there a law against this? My guilt-ridden angst did not prevent me from watching over and over again. Notice the neon-lights on my forehead spelling the word H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E!

There would be my memorable visit to the Elmina castle on the Ghanaian coast - the oldest castle on the sub-continent. Making the walk that of long-gone ancestors forcibly removed from their homes and taken through the point of no return to a land beyond the seas. The history of the world tells us that the slave trade era is one of the most despicable periods in human history underlining the inhumane sale of human beings. Our impeccably articulate guide during my visit to Elmina emphasized the role of the 'white man' in perpetuating this crime against humanity and I could not help but ponder on how much the times have really changed in the centuries since and how man is still acting in an inhuman way to man - images from Darfur and similar episodes of injustice in Africa and beyond were on my mind as I walked through the deeply historical corridors of Elmina.

Check the photoblog for more photos from Elmina Castle

Twenty Nights under the West African Sky

2008-06-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

There is always something new to discover in the Cradle of Civilization and I was reminded of this as I stood on the brink of a historical paradise while ancestral spirits beckoned me to enter.

I am back home after spending twenty illuminating nights under the West African sky. ..crisscrossing from the francophone side to the anglophone side and savoring the delightful similarities that even years of enduring European colonization will not efface.

I met an affable little girl of about five years old who was babysitting her ten month old younger brother and doing an excellent job of balancing him delicately on her back ... the way it should be done. Barely able to hide my astonishment while my companions chided me for acting like a foreigner in my homeland I was rudely reminded how long it has been since I have seen such a scene.

The elevations at a place called Collines must have reminded someone of certain parts of the female anatomy thus garnering the name - Les Mamelles which served as a stunning backdrop for a panaroma of scenes of the West African country side including the longest row of garri sellers I have ever seen ... it went on for miles and miles.

At the end of my stay in Benin, I had seen everything imaginable on top of a motorbike - a family of five in matching ankara outfits - the father and the mother forming the outer slices of a sandwich of three children including one infant- a live goat lying on its back and its legs tied as it continually squirmed in protest all the while its horns moved precariously close to its captor's groin, men, women and children of various shapes and sizes often encumbered by a variation of items - the most memorable being a 15 feet iron gate!!!

The fact is that motorbikes are a popular and affordable mode of transport in this corner of West Africa. In Lagos, they are called okadas (a name derived from a defunct airline) in Cotonou - they are called zemis which is short for zemidjans and which in the local language means - 'Get Me There Fast' The zemis are the kings of the road...I remember this from my first visit to Cotonou as an adult over a decade ago and I was pleased to see that this has not changed. Although, I lost count of the number of times I almost got run over by them and car drivers treat them like a minor nuisance - a little bit like they are treated across the border in Lagos.

I pointed out to many people that I had never seen a woman riding an okada in Lagos while it is common to see a female zemi driver in every corner of Cotonou...a friend who has had a chance to live in both cities pointed out that the temperament of drivers in Cotonou is a lot 'different' from Lagos. One zemi driver who almost ran me over was polite enough to toss a meaningful 'Je m'excuse' in my direction in response to my loud scream as he rode away, a similar episode in Lagos earned me a hiss and a 'You no go comot for road'

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Glorious Beauty of the Sahel

2008-05-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful time reading Africa's Ragged Edge - Journey into the Sahel the cover story for the April 2008 edition of the National Geographic magazine. I have previously written about my love affair with the NG so this should not come as a surprise to anyone who reads this blog.

Paul Salopek's perilous adventure through the Sahel was reminiscent of Tintin - who to this day remains my favorite fictional character - accounts of his capture and imprisonment by the janjaweed in Darfur were in the mainstream media for weeks - he was eventually released following the intervention of the governor of New Mexico - Bill Richardson. Daoud Hari, Mr Salopek's fellow captive, who served as his translator during his Sahelian adventure has also written a book describing his ordeal - The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur available at amazon.com. A recent article in the Washington Post also provides a horrifyingly vivid account of Mr Hari's experiences in the region. The pair were imprisoned along with their driver Idriss Anu

Someone who went through an unimaginable ordeal like Mr Salopek's and lived to tell the tale, would be forgiven for writing explicit graphic details focusing on vivid images of the ugliness of this war, but he turns it around, opting rather to serve as an indefatigable champion of the region. He takes offence when a fellow compatriot dismisses it as a land of nothing, quickly admonishing a perspective of that nature as 'an outsider's delusion'.

Into the story of his experience as a captive of the janjaweed, he weaves poignant tales and wonderful descriptive images of an Africa that many are too myopic to see. He stops to pay a beautiful and moving homage to a woman he calls Fatim -

You will always be with me...for three days in Darfur, you were my mother

She had shared gourds of asida - a lentil paste - with him while he was imprisoned, a gesture which he appreciated as he acknowledged that she barely had enough for herself.

I like the way that Mr Salopek describes the good and the bad with unequivocal ease - the Sahel is the oldest killing filed in human history where Cain is still trading blows with Abel.

In the Gaga Refugee Camp, Chad he meets an only son, who has been named George Bush, whose family belong to the Mansalit tribe that has been terrorized and displaced by the janjaweed while in In Kirou Bugage, Niger, he juxtaposes two different theories of the regeneration of vegetation in the savanna contemplating an occurrence which has stymied researchers who attribute this to the increased rainfall as a result of global warming, while the local village chief attributes this to the leaf a tree called the gao. Our author is quick to highlight this important take-home message - Today, without fanfare or mercy concerts, some of the the world's poorest farmers are busy stitching huge tracts of the Sahel back together

In Kano, Nigeria, he dissects the issues which have made the area a hotbed for religious fanaticism - astutely observing that in Kano, the real enemy was poverty since ordinarily Muslims and Christians cohabit peacefully in this space of the world. His brief sojourn in Nigeria, takes a hopelessly hilarious dimension when it climaxes with his 'narrow' escape out of the fear of an imagined menace in the form of a matinal visit from a secret policeman...our author conjures up images of being imprisoned on some trumped charge and while his description of panicking, scrambling and later jumping out of the window of a two story building is funny, it is hard to blame him giving the ordeal he has had to go through in the hands of the janjaweed in Darfur. He needn't have worried his mysterious visitor grew tired of waiting and left, after all he concludes ...this is Nigeria

In Timbuktu, Mali, he visits the bedrock of Arabic intellectual history, which he describes as the Oxford of the Islamic world. His guide is a Malian albino who is clad in a loosely fitted garment decorated -oddly enough - with antimalarial capsules! It is in Timbuktu that he has what I considered to be another hopelessly hilarious episode which occurs during the conversion ceremony of a US Army veteran, an unmissable event as a modern centurion embraces Allah in exotic Timbuktu. The ceremony takes place speedily in the middle of a European league soccer match - the imam had to catch the end of the match.

His trajectory through the Sahel ends at Saint Louis, Senegal - at the edge of the Atlantic ocean where along with our author we are confronted with the harsh reality of our times...we meet Didier who has the incongruous honor of transporting African migrants to their uncertain future in destinations in Europe. Mr Salopek evokes the memory of a similar exodus through the same route although in a different direction when millions of Africans were taken to the New World reminding the reader that even now it is impossible to escape the Sahel

This was one of the most gratifying pieces of writing that I have read in recent times. Sometimes I laughed while simultaneously fighting back tears, other times, I squirmed as I reminisced a little and contemplated the vicissitudes of modern life. I grew up in the land he describes and while I savored the splendid photos on the glossy pages of the magazine - courtesy of Pascal Maître...I knew that Paul Salopek was right you can't escape it...I for one carry it with me all the time

Post Script
Big shout outs to my fellow-bloggers (no names necessary, you know yourselves) who sought me out during my brief absence from these 'colorful' pages...I am doing great...thank you.

In addition, to the splendid NG article on the Sahel, I have managed to catch up a reading a few great books worthy of mention

Imagine This ~ Sade Adeniran - You know a book is really engaging when you are reading it in your car at the traffic lights and praying that the lights don't change and are reminded where you are when the cars behind you start honking. Not that Ms Adeniran's excellent debut novel (self-published and award-winning, I must add) is a catalyst for minor traffic infractions - I brought that on myself - just that it is so easy to get caught up in it. Chalk it up to a combination of the author's brilliant writing style and the fact that the tales she weaves is so easy to relate to and uncannily familiar. Available from the author's website (Psst...if you order it from there, you get an autographed copy of the book) special thanks to Molara Wood for the heads-up

The Kabul Beauty Shop ~ Deborah Rodriguez - I took a foray into the non-fiction world to satisfy my continued fascination with Afghanistan...this time looking at it from another perspective. Great book!!!

The Memory Keeper's Daughter ~ Kim Edwards - I found it a bit eerie that the night I completed this book, the TV movie premiered on Lifetime, especially since I was just channel hopping looking for something to do since I was on the last pages of the book. It was one of the few times when I was grateful for the commercial breaks and was able to finish it up and watch the movie at the same time

A Fine Balance ~ Rohinton Mistry - I already talked about this here but could not help mentioning it again. Excellent vivid narration

Yellow-Yellow ~ Kaine Agary - I have waited a long time to read this and I need to say I love her writing style, read it in a day and half...one of those books like Ms Adeniran's that you can almost relate to

In the near future, I hope to read the latest from one of my favorite authors of all time - Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth will soon be a constant companion and (since I have the unnecessary habit of not reading one book at a time)...I will also be reading Simi Bedford's Yoruba Girl Dancing - what can I say, any Yoruba girl who likes to dance (and read) might want to take a peek at this one, which is what I am doing. *Wink* *Wink* at Omosewa...a visit to her blog introduced me to this fascinating title. Also catching my fancy, which is a huge plus since I am not a big poetry buff is Chiedo Ifuezo's Thoughts on a page...A collection of poetry. Available here and I am watching keenly for the release of Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them ---available for pre-order at amazon.com

If Fate allows, this weekend I am off to a place I like to call 'Zem city' - a special prize awaits the first person who correctly guesses where that is...

For lack of something witty and creative to say ... I am going to be unabashedly stereotypical and end with a That's All Folks! (too lazy to search for an accompanying graphic to do justice to this age defying phrase)

Update on Reid and Soanya

2008-04-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

A serious case of seasickness has caused Soanya to cut her mission short while Reid continues solo.

Listen to Soanya's interview on NPR here

Related posts

1,000 Days at Sea

Reid and Soanya - Fifty Days and Counting

25 Years of New Edition

2008-03-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

I know this going to sound incredibly biaised but I think that New Edition is the greatest boy band ever.

This special combination of voices has graced the airwaves with some of the best songs of the MTV generation delivered with Michael Bivins' suave personality, Johnny Gill's smooth and velvety voice, Ralph Tresvant's sweet distinguished tenor, Bobby Brown's seamless lyrical style effacing the perceived 'bad boy' persona, Ronnie Devoe's mellow yet dapper aura and Ricky Bell's collected and assured demeanor. Add to that the marvelous dance moves, the sometimes matching dashing outfits and of course who can forget the haircuts.

We have watched them grow from boys to men...special congratulations to New Edition for keeping it real for the last 25 years

One of the songs that started it all - Candy Girl

A personal favorite - Can you stand the rain?

Bringing the House Down at the BET 25th Anniversary Special with a sensational performance featuring a medley of their songs and a complementary solo performance from Mr Brown

New Edition - BET 25th Anniversary Perfo
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Flexibilitiness

2008-03-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

She is the closing act for the magical show Afrika! Afrika!, , watch Nokulunga Buthelezi move her body parts in ways many of us myself included can only imagine to aspire to.

Oh How the Days Go By!

2008-03-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

But, I would not have it any other way!

Remember this...Anybody?

2008-03-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember this...

New Money e don come
I buy garri for ten kobo
I give Mary to cook am
Mary cook am e no sweet
I beat Mary she no cry
I kill Mary she no die
Which Kin Mary be this one
Amina!
Amina!
Amina tara
A lazy girl

...and then I forgot the words...can someone help me out please...

The Corper Chronicles: The Call-Up Letter Debâcle

2008-03-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

After spending longer than we had originally signed up for studying for our first degrees, quite a number of us were more than ready to bid farewell to the institution we had called home for way too long and hitch our wagon to the next available gig.

For most of us this new gig was the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)

The NYSC was set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria to enable graduating students in the country to explore the eclectic national space which we all called home. For one year, graduates are dispatched to various corners of Nigeria to 'serve' the country in various capacities according to the expertise that they had acquired during their period of university study. This meant that medical doctors would inevitably be assigned to practice medicine in a clinic away from their resident state...etc, if you get the picture. The way it is set up all persons of Nigerian origin who wish to pursue a career in Nigeria and graduated at a certain age (irrespective of where you graduated from) are mandated to undergo the National Youth Service.

I am not sure what the process is now, but in those days, the process of the NYSC seemed quite simple enough - at some point in your final year of study, once it had been determined that you had met the passing grade, your name and qualifications were sent to the folks at NYSC HQ and call-up letters were sent to your institution assigning each individual graduate to a different state. Your time of service was preceded by a two-week sojourn on the NYSC camp enduring paramilitary-style training and all that good stuff. In principle graduates are not meant to be assigned to their state of origin, however, the reality is that it not difficult to get away with spending the mandatory period on the NYSC camp for orientation and then wrangle a redeployment from the folks at NYSC.

So back to my story, on our part, when it was time for us to say the customary adieu, and receive the call-up letters sending us to various frontiers near and far on our NYSC missions. The university staff - teaching and non-teaching alike were on a strike and most activities had ground to a halt - remuneration issues always played a prominent part in acting as a catalyst for these strikes, and I am sure it was the case this time as well.

Insiders informed those people who made it their duty to find out these things that the call-up letters had been received just before the university authorities had shut down operations and were to be located in a certain office in the academic building. Word of this quickly spread round.

And so, one lovely afternoon in the city of excellence, a group of students who had decided that they they had had enough of strikes did what any oppressed group would do when they felt that it was unfair at this crucial point in their lives to be held back by yet another strike - they broke down the door of the office where the alleged call-up letters were stashed. Well, okay, the more audacious and brawny among us did the breaking down while the rest of us cheered them on.

Aluta Continua.

The call-up letters were located and a sympathetic and cooperative member of the academic staff crossed the picket lines and did the graduating students the honor of signing off their call-up letters.

As names were called and students scanned their letters to discover where destiny was leading them as they embarked on this much anticipated time of their lives, groups of people were forming of students whom fate had flung together by sending them to the same state for their NYSC. There were brief interludes of loud jocularity - as friends who had walked the lecture halls together discovered that they were still indefinitely attached in their walk through life and would be going to the same NYSC camp and by extension would be serve their nation in the same state.

At the same time, another group was quickly forming - the group of students whose names were yet to be called. As the pile of letters dwindled to a handful, this group of students also grew and some watched quite avidly, realizing that the letters that were left did not correspond to the number of students who were left. It was somewhat disappointing to realize that after what had been gone through to keep us in step with each other there were some people who - due to no fault of theirs - would actually be left behind.

The reality set in solidly for me because I was part of the group.

When the last name was called and everyone came to the realization of what was going on, the self-appointed leader brought it to the attention of all gathered that there were some of us who were for some reason being left behind...because our number was pushing close to fifty a group of people offered to return to the office to look for the missing call-up letters. While they were away, enquiries were made - Did you sign up for at the time you were meant to? - at which point the group reduced as two students realized that they had not actually followed the proper procedure but the rest of us had and we were all the more worried when those who had gone on the hunting for call-up letters expedition came back empty-handed.

We could probably have given up at that point and gone our separate ways but we were a resilient bunch, years of enduring incessant strikes as undergrads had created a spirit of solidarity among us and besides we were still riding on the wave of euphoria that had been created when the office had been broken into to get those call-up letters. It was decided that one of us would have to go to the NYSC HQ in Abuja to investigate and possibly obtain the call-up letters for those students whose names had been inadvertently omitted.

Kayode* volunteered to make the journey to the NYSC HQ and the onus fell on those of us who felt the urgent need to get on with our lives to contribute money for his airfare and transportation. Those who knew about these things made a rough estimate and when the figures were divvied up - money changed hands as the necessary details were quickly scribbled onto pieces of paper - name, date of birth, sex, matriculation number...etc

Time was not on our side, the NYSC had a strict rule regarding corpers reporting to camp and at midnight on the scheduled last day, the gates of all NYSC camps nationwide are shut and no other corpers are registered regardless of whether they had a call-up letter or not. We were 72 hours away from 'midnight' and those of us who had not received our call-up letters were holding on to a prayer wondering what direction our lives would take. It just seemed so unfair to have to endure another year of exclusive redundancy and so Kayode was quickly absorbed into the group who had been posted to FCT Abuja as they made their travel plans, a few from that group volunteered to accompany him to the NYSC HQ to lend moral support earning a barrel of gratitude from those of us who contemplated our uncertain future.

* Names have been changed

The Art of Breaking Wind

2008-02-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

On a recent intercontinental flight, I had a fellow passenger in the section of the cabin where I was seated with a particularly horrid case of flatulence. Typically, when these sorts of things happen, one accepts it no matter how unpleasant the odor, as one of those things that our Creator in a burst of humorous creativity decided to bestow on us His creations.

It is only natural, everyone does it.

So when I sniffed the first wafts of the post-digestive vapors, I squirmed a bit and went back to the book I was reading. By the time my olfactory lobes had been held ransom to the nauseous scent for the fifth time in a row, I began to seriously think that there was something wrong.

You see, I have acquired a horrible habit of not being able to sleep on airplanes and so when I have exhausted all possible preoccupations - reading, listening to music, etc, my mind does tend to wander a bit. This is why I began to think that perhaps following the first encounter with the scent, my mind had sent a message to my sensory organs, transmitting me into a time warp where that was all I could smell...and trust me at this point that was all I could smell.

I scanned the faces of my fellow passengers for some telltale signs of not just guilt - yes it would have been nice to put a face to the smell - but also to reassure myself that I was not the only one smelling this.

And thus began my next preoccupation which was watching the obvious human reaction to the odor. I knew that the odors were coming from one source because they all smelled the same so I had ruled out the possibility that the whole cabin was letting it drop as a result perhaps of the meal we had all had. At the same time ruling out the somewhat appealing possibility that it was just a question of time when I would let it drop too - which would have been just peachy.

Talk about fire for fire - so you think you can fart, here take this.

Sadly, on this day, my digestive organs were quite subtle and there was nothing happening in that department.

As I watched two ladies and a little girl literally gasping for air as the wafts filtered through the pressurized cabin for one of several times during our journey, I deleted the warp theory from my mind and instead took another mental journey as I wondered what combination of culinary delicacies could have produced such an unpleasant yet consistent odor.

Shortly after this while back on solid ground and breathing fresh air, I was reading Rohinton Mistry's - A Fine Balance - when my in-air experience came back to haunt me albeit in a more pleasant way that made me smile. May I pause here and say that Mr Mistry is one of the most fluid and lyrical writers I have come across in a long time which is why the two sentences he uses to describe an encounter between a member of one of the lower castes in India and a local brahmin (supposedly an older and wiser man) not only made me reminsce but also made me smile widely

He pivoted on one buttock and broke wind. Dukhi leaned back to allow it free passage, wondering what penalty might adhere to the offence of interfering with the waft of brahminical flatus

I tried to imagine all of us in the cabin that day, somehow dodging those vapors as they made their way to the point of evanescence and smiled even wider acknowledging the fact that the art of breaking wind and the human reaction to it (no matter how unpleasant) is guaranteed to tickle the funny bone.

At the Foot of the Tower of Babel

2008-01-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

My cousin had just earned a combined degree in Business & Finance marked by stratospheric grades and had somehow deluded himself into believing that his (Nigerian) accent would score points against him as he navigated the somewhat perilous waters of the business world. In order to address this disastrous situation as it appeared to be to no one else but him, he decided to do something which as I tagged along was an immense learning episode for me.

Apparently, there are people out there who specialize in assisting people to change their God-given accents to any accent of their choice - preferably American or British (in this case)...because I had never heard of something as ridiculous as this, when my cousin announced that he was going for a trial class in order to determine whether it was something he could include in his already busy life...I asked to tag along. Apparently, it was one of those a trial will convince you classes perhaps to justify the astronomical amount of money a lady called Gertrude would charge you for these special classes. Gertrude's biography indicated that she had arrived in the UK in her teens from Eastern Europe and had had no prior knowledge of English, was self-taught and spoke English without a hint of an accent. My question as to whose determination an English accent is anyway since English is a universally spoken language was left unanswered by my cousin who threatened not to let me come if I insisted on being so cynical. The only reason I did not persist further was because I really wanted to attend Gertrude's trial classes and see what exactly she was on about.

We arrived in a poorly-lit section of Central London at the scheduled time, thinking we were the first to arrive at the dreary-looking building, we spent almost five minutes chatting in front of what we thought was the front door when my cousin spotted a sign that indicated that people who were coming to the building for the English Accent classes should go round the corner and wait to be let in. And it was round that corner that we saw them. For a moment, I was certain that we had stumbled upon some multi-cultural gathering - people of almost every nation and color I could imagine were there. Some of them speaking in their native languages other speaking English and I caught a few snatches of French and Portuguese here and there. I eavesdropped on a conversation where an Asian gentleman was animatedly telling a group of about four other potential 'accent-changing seekers' that one of his colleagues from work had recommended Gertrude's classes after taking a couple and how it was amazing how his accent had been transformed and he had recently been promoted. I had to summon all the willpower in me to prevent me from saying that any job that requires you to change your accent in order to get a promotion was not worth it all the time. All the while the amateur lawyer in me was trying to think of some Labor Law that made it illegal. As I glanced over in my cousin's direction, he gave me a glare that stopped my tongue, I did not need to be told that this was not the forum to discuss such issues. More than anything, I was curious to perceive the accents and was content to stand and listen while everyone chatted away. There was a lady who I think may have been from the Carribean whose voice reminded me of a nightingale's melody. It grieved me so badly that she would want to even try to change that accent that I began to dream up a scheme to send her an anonymous note begging her to drop the classes and keep her accent as is but was interrupted by an announcement calling on all gathered to enter.

Gertrude was a lot shorter than I had pictured her. The frames of her glasses made her look a lot like the Headmistress in the British series - Mind Your Language - which I thought was a bit serendipitous but my cousin whispered to me that it was all in my mind and they looked nothing alike. We chose seats at the back close to the exit. It was my idea since I was sure that we would probably be thrown out if I started to laugh out loud and also since my cousin was stuck between taking the classes and taking his chances with his (Nigerian) accent.

Gertrude gave the class a nice little empowerment blurb using herself as an example and assuring them that they could do it. All the while I kept saying to myself that if you really want to empower this people, you should let them know that their accents are fine just the way they were and anyone who says otherwise needed to open their mind up a bit.

I think I may have fallen asleep somewhere between the speech and when the class was asking questions. I was jolted out of a nap by the chorus of voices and gathered that the trial lessons had begun and it consisted of the class repeating short sentences dictated by Gertrude. Sentences like the Lion in Winter with the R at the end of the last word in the sentence rolled over the tongue like errrrr. Another class favorite was My House in Umbria - which gave the class a lot of problems because more than half of them would pronounce Umbria as Umbrella.

In the end, my cousin decided against taking the classes, since he could not afford them. Apparently there were additional fees not included in the informative material that had been mailed to him. Adding up all the costs made it thankfully out of his reach.

The Biblical account of how the languages of the world came into being takes us to the Tower of Babel. I imagine myself as one of those people who was standing at the foot of the tower on that fateful day when all those languages were created. I hesitate to believe that when the dissenting individuals descended they were all speaking different languages with one unique accent.

It still leads me to wonder what exactly defines your accent - I have had the good fortune of meeting a number of people from different cultural backgrounds some speaking English with ease others with difficulty but still making do. A google search informs me that it is impossible to put a number on how many languages exist in our world. The same search also lets me know that when it comes to the highest number of people speaking a language in the world there are more people speaking Spanish and Chinese than there are speaking English.

I think a lot of people confuse elocution and accent - elocution can be the way of speaking while accent is more of the distinct way of speaking. Whichever way you decide to look at it though, I think it is a shame that there are establishments which are training people to talk a different way than they should and people are actually patronizing them. I mean, if we all talked the same, what a colorful world we would be missing. Whatever happened to embracing the differences in ourselves. As for my cousin, he found a job with a multinational company, his boss is from a place called Gujarat in India

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hopefully it is not too late to send my Happy New Year wishes to all and sundry. May you find peace and happiness this year and always.

On Polygamy and How it Thrives

2007-12-04T09:21:00.001-08:00

I got the inspiration to write this from SolomonSydelle's recent post on Polygamy and the State of the Union in Nigeria

I remember a conversation I overheard a few months ago during which a gentleman who I had up to that point considered bright and forward-thinking justified the existence of polygamy by claiming that the ratio of women makes it impossible for polygamy to go out of fashion. I found that statement so incredibily chauvinistic and ignorant especially when said-person balked at the suggestion that perhaps he would not protest if his own daughter became a part of a polygamous union. See entire conversation here

While there are many ways we can confront the issue of polygamy and probably say that one of the reason it has thrived for centuries in our society is because of religion which allows it, SolomonSydelle tackles this point by drawing our attention to the fact that polygamy has historically been practiced by Muslims and Christians alike. Leading one to deduce that it is often more of a traditional and cultural issue in many cases more than it is a religious one.

One angle that I would like to look at this from (which I find particularly nauseating) is a situation where an accomplished woman enters a polygamous union. We have to admit that society can often unfair to women - it is amazing how many people are of the point of view that at a certain age, a woman needs to have a husband to validate her existence no matter how well accomplished she is.

This particular angle was highlighted in a movie that I watched recently. I love to watch the movies in Yoruba because it enhances my Yoruba-speaking skills which were not so stellar to start with and have begun to seriously deteriorate the longer I am away from home and also because in my experience the Yoruba movies that I watch border more on the reality as I remember it to be back home. I was given the movie Iya Oko Bournvita which features Sola Sobowale as the central character. We learn that she is a sucessful business woman who has acquired a fair amount of wealth from the lumber business. Her only flaw seems to be the fact that she does not have a husband and children. Her mother puts intense pressure on her (there is a scene where she is told that every woman needs a crown in the form a husband) and she feels less accomplished because of this so-called void in her life. She 'hooks up' with Jide, who already has a wife and kids and becomes wife #2. She is introduced to Wife #1 who instantly blows a gasket at the thought of her husband having another wife and evicts herself from that domestic situation. Wife #1 goes to complain to her family who send her back to her husband saying that polygamy is part of their religion and culture and she has acted badly by defying her husband's decision to marry another wife. You would think that Sola Sobowale's character would be somewhat comfortable with the fact that her husband's first wife is no longer in the picture (not that it makes it alright in any case), but she is the primary advocate of getting her back into the household and even refuses to move into the family home unless Wife #1 returns. While all this is going on, Jide (the husband) marries Wife # 3 (who has her own set of issues which I won't go into) and dares Wife #2 and the rest of the world by extension to protest.

Art too often imitates real life. I think this mini-synopsis of the movie gives an indication on how a polygamous situation can easily be created. Some women allow society to dictate what the level their self-esteem should be and this makes it alright for them to 'play house' with a man with a wife in a polygamous union, not realizing that she is merely a glorified mistress she calls herself a wife.

A lot of work needs to come from our womenfolk - while there are many out there who will swear to be single for as long as it takes rather than become an addition to an already established marital union, others would take the advice of our 'educated' friend whom I refered to in Overheard and start looking at other people's husbands when the tongues start to wag about their status.

Without conducting an indepth analysis on polygamous unions in Nigeria, I know for a fact that this could not usually the basis for most of these unions, but you'd be surprised at how many unions are born out of situations like the one portrayed in Iya Oko Bournvita. And thus, polygamy continues to thrive ...

Thanks for the inspiration SolomonSydelle

Check out the first installment of the Nigerian Curiosity TV

Coloring our World

2007-11-28T06:29:00.000-08:00

I was sent a link to a World Clock which I like to call the Tick-Tock Clock. It gives you a brief synopsis of what is going on in the world in terms of births and deaths, marriages and divorces, the status of an assortment of diseases and injuries, etc

At the time of writing this the world population is 6,636, 819, 444 but that will certainly have increased before this is published.

I am always very excited to receive my copy of the National Geographic because it usually has trivia questions from the National Geographic Bee which never ceases to serve as a glowing revelation to me of what a colorful world we live in.

Here are some samples -

Q: What river forms part of the border between Namibia and South Africa?
A: Orange River

Q: Taiwan and China both claim the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by which other country?
A: Japan

Q: On which island is Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, located?
A: Tahiti

Q: The 24-letter hangul alphabet is used for the language of two countries on which pennisula bordering the Yellow Sea?
A: Korean Pennisula

Q: The city of Kandahar is located in the southern part of what landlocked country?
A: Afghanistan

Suby and Sinem

2007-11-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

I was passing through London on my way back from Lagos a few weeks ago. It was not a particularly good trip for me given the reason I went home and on a whim I happened to pick up a copy of the British edition of the November issue of Marie Claire. I thumbed through idly, my mind in a million other places until I came across this article (see photo) featuring two of my favorite people in the photoblog community.

If you have never visited their page, may I recommend that you do. It was so amazing the way seeing this one article managed to lighten my mood and actually made the rest of the trip a little bit more bearable.

I guess I may have just been searching aimlessly for something remotely familiar and I was so grateful to have found it

The Land of Twins

2007-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Nigeria's 'land of twins' baffles fertility experts

by Joel Olatunde Agoi

Mon Nov 12, 1:00 AM ET

IGBO-ORA, Nigeria (AFP) - Igbo-Ora, a sleepy farming community in southwest Nigeria , welcomes visitors with a sign proclaiming "The Land of Twins".

"There is hardly a family here without a set of twins," said community leader Olayide Akinyemi, a 71-year-old father of 12, as he settled a dispute between two neighbours.

"My father had 10 sets, while I had three sets. But only one set, a male and a female, survived," he said.

The town's high incidence of twins has baffled fertility experts -- underscoring a more regional twin trend and an array of elaborate African rituals around them.

The rate of identical twins is pretty steady throughout the world at about 0.5 percent of all births, according to a 1995 study by Belgian researcher Fernand Leroy, who has worked extensively on twins.

But West Africa bucks that trend, particularly with a much higher incidence of fraternal, or non-identical twins than in Europe or Japan . That is especially true, experts say, amongst Nigeria 's Yoruba community which is largely concentrated in the southwestern part of the country where Igbo-Ora is located.

Overall, almost 5 percent of all Yoruba births produce twins, the Belgian study said, compared with just around 1.2 percent for Western Europe and 0.8 percent for Japan -- although fertility drugs in the developed world are changing those figures.

Yam consumption may be one explanation for Africa 's largesse, some West Africans and Western experts believe. Yams contain a natural hormone phytoestrogen which may stimulate the ovaries to produce an egg from each side.

For their part, Igbo-Ora's residents appear nonplussed about their twin phenomenon.

Some like Akinyemi support the yam theory -- and point specifically to the reputedly high oestrogen content of agida, the local name for yam tubers.

"We eat a lot of okro leaf or Ilasa soup. We also consume a lot of agida. This diet influences multiple births," he said.

Others are not so sure.

"The real cause of the phenomenon has not been medically found," said Akin Odukogbe, a senior consultant gynaecologist with the University Teaching Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan , the nearest big town.

"But people attribute the development to diet," he continued, adding that studies have shown that yam can make women produce more than one egg which can be fertilised.

Chief nursing officer at the hospital Muyibi Yomi, who records a monthly average of five twins for every 100 births, puts it all down to genetics.

"If a family has a history of multiple births, this will continue from generation to generation," she said.

That should be good news for Yorubaland, where twins are regarded as a special gift from God and bearers of good luck, Akinyemi said.

"Twins are treated with affection, love and respect. Their birth is a good omen," he said.

But while many African cultures see twins as blessed, they often believe twins also have divine powers and the ability to harm those who cause them displeasure.

In pre-colonial times some communities used to kill twins and occasionally their mothers, believing a double birth was an evil portent and that the mother must have been with two men to bear two children at once. A Scottish missionary is credited with ending this practice.

In Yorubaland and indeed in large swathes of sub-Saharan Africa , twins are also believed to possess one soul between them. This belief accounts for a whole series of distinctive, and in some cases macabre rituals that are often country specific.

If one twin dies in a Yoruba family, the parents order a wooden figure called an "ibeji" to be carved, to take the place of the dead twin. The half soul of the deceased twin is thought to live on in the ibeji figure -- which is clothed, "fed" and carried by a mother exactly in the same way as the living twin.

When living twins reach maturity they take responsibility for the ibejis' care.

Meanwhile, a twin who dies in Malawi is buried with a piece of clothing belonging to the surviving sibling.

But when a twin dies in South Africa , the surviving twin is made to lie face down on his sibling's coffin the night before the burial, to mourn his death and say goodbye properly.

Another variant has the surviving twin being made to lie face up in the freshly dug grave the day before his sibling is buried. If not, communities fear the surviving twin will pine so much for his dead sibling that he will also die.

Amongst the Yoruba -- one of Nigeria 's dominant ethnic groups who are also present in Benin , Ghana and Togo -- a mother who loses both twins will take part periodically in ritual ceremonies where she dances with both ibeji figures, either one in each hand, or both tucked into her shirt.

Anthropologists say the elaborate rituals surrounding twins go back to the days when perinatal mortality was very high for twins -- the increased chances of premature delivery compounding the problem of inadequate healthcare in traditional societies.

The rituals were destined to help communities come to terms with the loss of the babies.

The War in the Movies

2007-11-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

One theme which resonates among a number of movies being released for Fall 2007 is the war against terroism - a visible aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001. While some of this Fall's movies have themes which are centered on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and their impact on the American way of life others skirt around the issue but leave little doubt in the average movier-goer's mind what direction the story is going.

There is no doubt that the events of September 11, 2001 and beyond have had a profound impact on contemporary every day life - we are all reminded of this whenever we have to take our shoes off at the airport as well as other minor inconveniences which we are faced with in our daily life. It is not surprising that movie-goers get to have a taste of what we see on the news every day...what surprised me though was the almost conspiratorial way in which these movies were all released at about the same time.

In the Valley of Elah directed by Paul Haggis who gave us the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Crash, features a cast led by Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon. The story centers around a war veteran played by Mr Jones whose son goes missing after returning from Iraq. Ms Theron plays the local police detective who takes the case to find him while Ms Sarandon plays the missing soldier's mother. The movie was released in theaters in the US on September 21.

In Lions for Lambs, Meryl Streep (a personal favorite) shares the screen with Robert Redford, Derek Luke (another personal favorite), Michael Pena and Tom Cruise to tell the story of a couple of students who choose to join the war in Afghanistan and the impact their decision has on a number of people back home in the US. The US release date is November 9.

Even before it has been released for public consumption, Brian de Palma's Redacted is generating some brand of controversy in the US public opinion polls because of the plot line. Based on a actual events, the movie narrates the events leading up to the rape of young Iraqi girl and the subsequent murder of her entire family. The movie which has already received an award at its screening during the Venice Film Festival is scheduled for a US release of November 16.

John Cusack plays a young father who has lost his wife during combat in Iraq in Grace is Gone. Scheduled for release on December 7, it deals with one of the most sensitive issues which families who have lost loved ones as a result of the war are faced with - dealing with the loss

Mike Nichols directs Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Ned Beatty and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War - the movie adaptation of the novel by George Crile which is based on the actual events of a US congressman who funds the rebels in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. The movie explores the role the US government might have played in arming the group which would later be accused of assisting Osama Bin Laden. The movie is set for a US release on Christmas day

Released in the US on October 19, Gavin Wood directs Rendition which features Jake Gyllenhall, Reese Witherspoon, Alan Arkin and Meryl Streep telling a story of how interrogation techniques used in recent times can have an overaching impact on everyone involved directly or indirectly.

The Kingdom takes movie-goers to Saudi Arabia where a group of Americans travel to reciprocate the injustice meted out to some of their country-men at the hands of a deadly terrorist. The movie which was released in the US on September 28, features Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Jeremy Piven and Danny Huston

Explaining an Unexplained Absence

2007-10-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to everyone who wrote enquiring about my sudden disapperance from the blogging world. The last few weeks have been very difficult for me as I am coming to terms with the loss of my mother. I finally went home to Lagos after being away for eight years! It was not a rude shock but it was a reminder to me that there are many things I seem to take for granted in my daily life.

Sadly, I did not get together with any of the Lagos-based bloggers, much as I would have loved to...I had only four days to spare in Lagos and I had mentally over-extended myself...thinking I would even be able to attend Theatre@Terra...alas it was not meant to be. The good news is that next time, I absolutely have to make it a top priority to get together with everyone.

I have loads of blogging material from my trip...but I'll make this a really short update just to let anyone who still has faith in this blog know what I am up to these days.

In the world of books - I started reading Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss...and I recommend it...but top on my reading list is Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn - as is typical of the Literary Lion, it is heavy on the grammar which means yours truly always has to have a notepad handy to jot down some of the words I have never come across in my life but which our beloved laureate weaves so nicely into his writing. I am also looking forward to feasting my eyes on Lyrics by Sting.

In the world of music - I picked up a copy of Ty Bello's Greenland in Lagos and I absolutely adore it. I am so proud of her --- while the whole album is brilliant...I have a soft spot for the tracks - Ekundayo and Supernatural and have overdosed on both in so many days. I am also looking forward to listening to the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant collaboration - I understand that the album called Raising Sand is a genre and generational cross-cutting album, I have heard snippets and I love it.

In the world of movies - I saw The Namesake on the flight into Lagos...loved it but would recommend anyone who is interested in the story to read the book first. Nothing equals Ms Lahiri's narrative style. Due to popular demand, I had planned a follow-up to the Summer Movie previews with a Fall Movie preview, but sadly that fell through the cracks but better late than never so please watch this space for something of that nature. So far, a few previews that have caught my fancy -

Feast of Love ~Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke, Selma Blair, Alexa Davlos
In the Valley of Elah ~ Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Frances Fisher, Susan Sarandon, Jason Patric, James Franco
King of California ~ Michael Douglas, Evan Rachel Wood
The Jane Austen Book Club ~ Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Marc Blucas, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Hugh Dancy, Jimmy Smits
December Boys ~ Daniel Radcliffe, Lee Cormie, Christian Byers, James Fraser, Jack Thompson
Things We Lost in the Fire ~ Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro
Rendition ~Jake Gyllenhall, Reese Witherspoon

For those who still read La Racontrice, there will be no story for the month of October...I am working on something which I hope should be ready to share sometime in November. I'll probably make it a birthday present to myself... we'll see

Big shout-outs to laspapi and Omohemi...sorry I did not get a chance to get together with both of you but it was really nice speaking with you.

You Know You're Nigerian If...

2007-09-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

I have been spending more time than I usually do on Naija-themed websites, these days and one of the many things I found interesting and somewhat amusing is the lists that specify things that are peculiar to us Nigerians...in some cases it is broken down by tribe - You Know You're Yoruba if...etc.

I have one to add to the list - You know you're Naija, if you know what an agbalumo is.

Agbalumos also play a more or less central role in the story which appears in La Racontrice this month - it is called The Agbalumo Challenge

(The Hassle of) Air Travel in the 21st Century

2007-08-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

Flying is not what it used to be. These days every one seems to have some horror story to tell about long waits at airports coupled with extensive security checks. And while the woes that one has to deal with at the airport fall into a class of their own, it seems that the airlines are now in the business of meting out their own form of punishment to the passengers...sadly this applies to domestic, regional and intercontinental flights.

Consider this - a colleague of mine had to fly to Malawi recently for work-related reasons. On arriving at her destination she was told that her luggage was not on the flight. Her initial thoughts were that she might have to make do without a few essentials (not least of which were some of the work-related materials she had packed for her trip) for a couple of days at the most. Days turned into weeks and her luggage never showed up. When she returned to the States (still sans luggage) and continued her incessant calls to the airline officials, she was simply told that they had no explanation for her lost luggage and that they were willing to compensate her for the monetary value of her property. Of course, you can imagine she is seething with rage, no one wants to hear that their property has disappeared into thin air.

The same sort of explanation was given to a Nigerian family that we know whose daughter was getting married stateside. The couple getting married live in the US and the family decided to save them the hassle of traveling home to get married. Plans were set in motion to have a modest yet elegant wedding stateside. Planning began at least a year early and it was decided that bride's mother would come over about a month before the event, loaded with the aso ebi that everyone and their grandmama would use for the wedding engagement. Aso ebi had been paid for in advance and the mother of the bride recruited her younger sister to accompany her on the trip to the states. The latter traveled with her three children in order to (I believe) maximize the luggage requirements and allow them to be able to accommodate the needs of everyone and their grandmama who had requested for the aso ebi. Included in their luggage was the matching aso ebi that the bride and groom would wear on the day of the engagement - wonderfully embroidered to suit contemporary styles in Nigeria. The group of five set off and made a brief two-day stop-over in London before continuing over to the States.

They were not unusually troubled when upon arriving they did not have their luggage and assumed that it was on its way. Well when days started to turn to weeks, everyone and their grandmama became frantic. All of a sudden the airline is telling them that their luggage is nowhere to be found. The disappearing act of the pieces of luggage was attributed by some as the work of the Enemy and there were instant rejections of this peppered with the words 'It is not our portion' . The clock was ticking. A number of frantic transatlantic calls were made followed by a lot of scurrying about in Nigeria. It was up to the folks in Nigeria who had not yet departed those shores to coordinate the series of events which would lead to a new set of aso ebi, etc being ordered and made. I imagine a lot of tailors must have worked round the clock, because on the day of the wedding engagement - there was not a person who did not have the aso ebi that they had ordered which had been transported courtesy of two siblings (of the groom), the two fathers and a handful of loyal family friends.

I'll leave you to imagine the loud sigh of relief that emanated from everyone connected to this episode when the next set of travelers arrived with their luggage intact.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, people were still awaiting news from the airline (We Naija people are a resilient bunch...we don't give up that easily)...it turned out it was (and still is) a wait in vain

The wedding engagement day came and went, as did the wedding (which by the way was a beautiful occasion ~ the bride looked stunning and the groom looked dashing without a trace of the maelstrom they had endured from one of the world's leading airlines on them), the couple went for their honeymoon and came back to begin their lives together, relatives and friends who had come to witness the union returned home and the luggage is yet to be found! The airline wrote a one-paragraph letter of apology and has promised a monetary compensation. And somewhere in the world...there are several pieces of luggage containing among other things colorful pieces of gele, fila, iborun, ipele, waiting to be redirected to their righful owner. Or perhaps not. In the middle of the drama, someone had suggested that the baggage may have spitefully been stolen from the airport in the UK where it was last seen by (of all people) a fellow Nigerian who has used it for their own wedding. If someone did do that ... I guess we have no choice but to leave them to their conscience and all the attendant goodies that karma brings with it when it stops over for a visit.

On a lighter note, while all this drama was going on - I came across the following websites for the weary 21st century air traveler. Not tried and tested by yours truly, I was drawn to the concept and decided to share...courtesy of the July 2007 Edition of Reader's Digest

Flylite - recommended to very frequent fliers who seem to be off again even before they have unpacked from the previous trip. You register, send them a packed suitcase with your traveling essentials and they do the rest. Just let them know when you have to take off and when you will be at your destination and they send you your stuff. They also pick it up when you are ready to leave and are happy to start the cycle again. So based on my interpretation, they promise to be there for you from NY to Melbourne.

Airtroductions - I found this concept very interesting and welcome anyone who has tried (or tries this) with success to please let me know how it worked (works) out. According to them, you can make your flight more interesting and choose the person who sits next to you by building a profile and entering your itinerary and you match and sit next to them during your flight. From what I gather, the company does not do the matches you get to do this yourself (so they are extracted from any blame if you are put next to someone whose character you decide is unsavory)

Farecast - recommended for seasoned pennypinchers like me. The site provides you with fare predictions and lets you know when fares will rise or drop...so you know the best time to buy

Head Above Water

2007-08-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

The dilemma of college students trying to stay afloat in a storm of financial and emotional incertitude is one that is familiar to many and may resonate louder for those students who are studying overseas far from their friends and family as well as terrains which are familiar to them. Chima Nwankwo tackles this issue in a compelling piece which appears in a recent issue of the weekly magazine - Newsweek. Reading this it struck an all too familiar chord with me as it seems not so long ago, I was walking in those shoes down a similar path.

The article is aptly titled - I'm Counting Every Penny

A New Blogger Mom on the Block

2007-08-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Gbemi and her family on the wonderful new addition to their family.

Welcome little one ... I pray that you continue to receive unselfish and unconditional love and may your days be laced with special moments of joy and laughter

A Life in Books

2007-08-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

The news magazine - Newsweek - has a weekly feature called - A Life in Books - which invites a guest from the literary world (or elsewhere) to say a little bit about five books that shaped their life (and sometimes a little bit more about books). I thought I'd give it a try and so here goes.

Five Books that Shaped My Life -

Silas Marner ~ George Eliot
It was required reading for us in high school/secondary school and before the term was over I had read it so often, mine became so dog-eared and shabby. The book starts with the author's description of Raveloe where the story is set and I was so smitten by the picturesque description that I read it over and over and over. Shortly, after I read Silas Marner, I took the plunge into writing, for no reason in particular and I have not stopped since.

Just Before Dawn ~ Kole Omotosho
Many of the events described in this mixture of fiction and non-fiction predate my existence, which probably explains why I have read this over and over again at various stages in my life. It describes a Nigeria that I never knew but can still relate to and in some sense, it has further accentuated my deep belief that there is much that can be done in the land of my birth if only we could concentrate our efforts where it needs to be and do away with the frivolities

Les Bouts des Bois de Dieu ~ Ousmane Sembene
This is the book that started my love story with the late Ousmane Sembene. His depiction of the events surrounding a strike by rail workers in colonial French West Africa was an eye-opener for me in many ways and also a revelation of the differences between those countries colonized by the British and those colonized by the French...differences which are still very much visible in today's world

The Bible: the Book of Psalms ~ The Almighty
A lot of people describe the Bible as the most important book in their lives...for some reason, I have never regarded the Bible as one book but rather as a library of books. My grandmother, mother and aunt always had an resounding chant of Psalm 23 in Yoruba - Oluwa ni olusho agutan mi - The Lord is my shepherd - and ever since I can remember, I have used one of the 150 Psalms in this book as a guiding light in my life and also as a foundation for many of the things that I delve into. The Psalms are and will always be a soothing balm in the magical turbulence of life

The Interpreter of Maladies ~ Jhumpa Lahiri
Although this is not a list of favorite books, I wanted to add that in addition shaping my life, Lahiri's book of short stories is one of the most engaging pieces of fiction that I have ever read and one of my favorite books of all time. It is dotted with some complex yet colorful characters. When I finished reading it, I was inspired to write short stories and I did and a short-story blog called La Racontrice was born...and who knows what else will come of that...we'll see

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Two certified important books that I have yet to read

You Must Set Forth at Dawn ~ Wole Soyinka
If Ake is anything to go by, this is bound to be an excellent read. Plus I understand that it includes some juicy details of a period I actually lived through, so it is likely that I might be able to relate to some episodes in this book

Jane Eyre ~ Charlotte Brontë
I know the story since I read the abridged version as a young person, but I feel I am missing a lot not having read it in the original language it was written in. And once I am done, I guess, I can light a candle to the shrine in my heart that I have built for the Brontë sisters

-----------------------------------

What I have read recently

Half of a Yellow Sun ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The events that occured during the Nigerian civil war pre-date my existence but I have always been curious enough about that period to ask that older people in my life about what life was like during that time and have often heard the perspective from the Western part of the country, which one of the characters in the book describes aptly

You know, we didn't really understand what was happening in Biafra. Life went on and women were wearing the latest lace in Lagos. It was not until I went to London for a conference and read a report about the starvation.

The author does an excellent job in taking us back to a place that many of her readers did not inhabit but can get a sense of life before, during and shortly after the war

The Color Purple ~ Alice Walker
For a long time, any time I had the TV on, and was channel-hopping, I would come across the movie version of the book and I felt an instant void, not having read the book but having heard from uncountable number of sources that it is among many things a must-read. I addressed isdeficiency in my reading life in two days and could not put down this book - a captivating story told in what I was surprised to discover from Page One (because no one ever told me) the most simple language told in its raw form that it leaves nothing out and you are literally walking in the shoes of the character. There's a speech made by one of the characters in the story which I have often heard and read about and marvelled at how much I could relate to the first few sentences of it, so much so that when I came across it while reading the book, I could almost recite it by heart -

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles.

I also found it pretty eerie, that the character in the book who made the speech was played by a woman whose real name is her character's husband name spelt backwards and also (perhaps not by coincidence) the name of the company she runs

And while we are on the subject of books, I thought I'd leave you with a speech (long but worth it) delivered by Chris Abani during the TED conference. Living in the diaspora, I often find myself carrying a flag for everything Nigerian and African and constantly being on the defensive when anything negativev is said about Africa. I often do this in a sub-conscious way, but when I heard Mr Abani speak, I began to ask myself what I really know about the eclectic nature of the African continent that I was born in that makes me think that I can be the ultimate flagbearer, especially since, I have to admit to myself, that it is when I am away from home that I feel Nigerian (if African at all). Back home I am simply a Yoruba girl from Lagos trying to carve for myself a yet-to-be-defined national identity. Mr Abani's speech, among other things, challenges us to learn the stories of Africa

Ty Bello: Versatility Personified!

2007-08-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

From Kush to Depth of Field to an excellent solo album called Greenland. Special kudos to Ty Bello for making giant strides and sharing her versatile talent with the world.

Encouraging and inspiring...proud to be Nigerian!

Anything is possible...

2007-08-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

...when over 1,500 inmates of a correctional facility in the Philippines decide to perform their version of the video to Michael Jackson's 1980 hit Thriller.

Awesome choreography!

Heroes Monday

2007-08-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

Heroes Monday used to be a weekly feature about the American TV show ~ Heroes, it is now a monthly feature. It includes character and actor profiles as well as bits of trivia and a spotlight on a real hero.

As you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
Ernest Hemingway

Micah Sanders portrayed by Noah Gray-Cabey

Micah is the son of Niki Sanders and D.L. Hawkins. He is one of the youngest Heroes we have seen so far and his superpower ability seems to be able to over-ride technological devices. He has unconditional love for both his parents which is equally reciprocated.

Noah Trivia
Before becoming a child actor, he had established himself as a versatile musician
He is on record as the youngest soloist to perform with an orchestra at the Sydney Opera House
Sources - Wikipedia and IMDB.com

Real Hero ~ Monica Caison

Building on her experiences as a troubled teen, Ms Faison has developed an unsurpassed reputation as a vigilante for justice in the quest for missing persons. She has built a network of support to assist families to locate their missing loved ones through CUE - Community United Effort 'Center for Missing Persons' which she founded in 1994 and which has as its mission - To join efforts with all concerned, seeking closure of tragedies; as we remain in search of the missing. A wife and mother, Ms Faison often sacrifices her time with her family and uses her own resources to ensure that missing family members of people who need her services are not just a statistic. Read more about her here

All About AIDS

2007-08-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

The recent uproar over the revelation of the rule of Covenant University that graduating students who test positive to HIV-test will not be allowed to graduated...highlighted a number of flaws in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the world. In addition to accentuating the issues of stigma and discrimination, one alarming revelation from a number of editorial reports including this one which appeared on the online edition of a Nigerian newspaper...was that a high percentage of people think that HIV/AIDS is spread through sex and anyone who contracts the disease must have had some high level of promiscuity in an earlier life.

I will try as often as I can in the near future to update these pages regularly with as much information as I can on HIV/AIDS as well as the major progress being made in terms of prevention and treatment efforts...hoping that at least one person who is informed by what they read will pay it forward and pass the information on. In the long run, maybe just maybe if people are better informed, we can make a little difference in the way AIDS is perceived in the Nigerian society.

Here's an example of people contracting the AIDS virus in the process of just trying to eke a living

In Al Zarayeb, Cairo, trash is a treasured source of income. It is hauled into houses, carefully sifted through, recycled and resold. While, sorting though the garbage, fingers get pricked - often by discarded syringes and other sharp objects - exposing people to hepatitis and other infections, including HIV.

Source - The World Voice Summer 2007

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is promoting interventions by providing technical advice, training clinic teams all by using mobile testing and counseling clinics. Faysal Abdul Gadir, the UNFPA Representative in Egypt is quoted as saying - We are extremely happy with the results of these mobile VCT* clinics ...in a short period of time, we were able to overcome stigma that haunts vulnerable groups by gaining their trust and guaranteeing their privacy. Read more here

* VCT - Voluntary Counseling and Testing

The S.O.A.P Blog

2007-08-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

S.O.A.P stands for Speaking Out Against Profanity and the S.O.A.P blog is a platform for discussing the profane use of language which is now becoming a culturally accepted phenomenon in modern times. The blog which includes a number of bloggers as team members is not intended to villify or condemn anyone. It is also not a rally against any individual or group of individuals.

The most recent entry into the blog features Kiibaati playing the 'devil's advocate' and 'walking in the shoes' of those who indulge in the profane use of language by 'Keeping It Real' [???]

Submissions to be blog are encouraged and can be sent to letssoap@gmail.com

May I recommend

2007-07-31T05:38:00.000-07:00

Everyone who has an email address has received one of those messages which has the picture of a cute child attached to it and it says that the child is dying from some rare disease and AOL and TimeWarner or Microsoft are willing to help pay for her medical bills as long as this message is forwarded to everyone in your address book and $0.08 will be paid for each email sent. As a reasonable thinking person, when I read a message like this years ago, it occured to me that well if those companies REALLY wanted to help out...why not just give the parents of this child the money instead of putting them and theirs through the hassle of forwarding a gazillion messages. If you have come across a message like this that seems too good to be true...may I introduce you to the Urban Legend Myths. I received one this morning, here's an excerpt

Hi. My name is Lauren Archer, my son Kevin and I lived in Midland , TN.
On October 2nd, 1999 I took my only son to McDonald's for his 3rd
birthday. After he finished lunch, I allowed him to play in the ball pit.
When he started whining later on, I asked him what was wrong, he
pointed to the back of his pull-up and >simply said "Mommy, it hurts." I couldn't find anything wrong >with him at that time. I bathed him when we got home, and it was at that point when I found a welt on his left buttock.
Upon investigating, it seemed as if there was something like a splinter under the welt. I made an appointment to see the doctor the next day,
but soon he started vomiting and shaking, then his eyes rolled back into his head. From there, we went to the emergency room. He died later that night. It turned out that the welt on his buttock was the tip of a hypodermic needle that had broken off inside. The autopsy revealed that Kevin had died from a heroine overdose. The next week, the police removed the balls from the ball pit. There was rotten food, several hypodermic needles: some full, some used;knives, half-eaten candy, diapers, feces, and the stench of urine.
(You can find the article on Kevin Archer in the October 10,1999
issue of the Midland Chronicle.)
Don't think it's just McDonald's either. A little boy had been
playing in a ball pit @ a Burger King & started complaining of his legs hurting. He later died too. He was found to have snake bites all over his legs & buttocks. When they cleaned the ball pit they found that there was a copperhead's nest in the ball pit. He had suffered numerous bites from a very poisonous snake.
Repost this if it scares you!!
Repost this if you care about kids!! Please forward this to all loving mothers, fathers and anyone who loves and cares for children!!

A lot needs to be said for the overactive imagination that came up with this very tall tale. Fact of the matter is that is all it is - a fable. A well-meaning individual forwarded it to me and of course you can imagine the heading - TAKE THIS VERY SERIOUSLY. FORWARD TO EVERYONE!!! My humble recommendation is this - if you receive a message that sounds too horrible to be true (poisonous snakes in a ball pit can make any parent's skin crawl) plug it into one of those myth busters. One of the more popular ones is Snopes. Here's what the folks at Snopes had to say about the Urban Legend Myth above -

Though this legend has gotten around, there is no real life incidents that correspond to it. No children have been bitten by snakes in ball pits. Though injuries and one death have occurred in such play areas, none were snake-related . A ball pit is the last place an animal such as a [rattle]snake would choose for a residence. Just as we dislike snakes, they don't likewise care much for us. A rattler would avoid people and inhabited areas whenever possible

Another mythbuster is BreaktheChain which also had something to say about the story above -

You won't find an article about Kevin Archer in the October 10, 1999 issue of the Midland Chronicle. In fact, you won't find a Midland Chronicle - The paper doesn't exist. The title is a combination of the Houston Chronicle and the Midland Reporter-Telegram, both of which have been falsely credited with this story. Further, there have been no reports of a child by that name (or any other) dying in any McDonalds restaurant in Midland, TN; Sugarland, TX; or any of the other towns different versions of this letter place him in. McDonalds firmly denies the allegations - There have also been no reports of snakes or any other such risks in fast-food restaurant play areas.
Urban legends like the one about Kevin Archer often describe believable and plausible scenarios. They describe them as events that actually happened to give them more clout and urgency. A story about a child who died from a ball bit injury is far more compelling than a generic warning that alleges the dangers of the play areas. Nothing is worse than a deadly danger lurking behind a symbol of happiness and joy, thus this legend appeals on very fundamental levels.

This is not to say that all the forwarded messages we receive are false. One of the ones that I found hard to believe was the following story which I received as a forwarded message

A mixed-race British mom gave birth to twins recently - one of each. No, not a boy and a girl. Two girls - one black, the other white. The odds of such a birth are about a million to one.

To ascertain the veracity of the story I plugged in a couple of key words in Snopes and came up with the truth

Turns out it was for real and there are a number of 'Sounds too Good to be True' stories which the mythbusters have vouched for as authentic, just like there are a number of rumor-mongering stories tailored to raise your blood pressure and turn you into a nervous wreck assuming you are so inclined. I recommend a mythbuster to put your mind at ease

Stand in Prayer and Not in Judgment

2007-07-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Students who graduate from Covenant University in Nigeria must not only fulfill the academic requirements of achieving the optimum level of the grade point average, they also need to take other tests before the university gives them their degree – HIV and pregnancy. Unlike the other tests they have to take…these are tests they need to fail, otherwise according to what I have read – they would not be allowed to graduate.

The University Mission/Vision according to their website is to be a leading world-class Christian Mission University, committed to raising a new generation of leaders in all fields of human endeavor. Their mission also includes – to create knowledge and restore dignity of the black man.

I try to align this mission and vision statement with a regulation which makes it mandatory for ALL students who are graduating from this higher institution to test negative for HIV otherwise they will not be allowed to graduate. I am guessing that because the HIV testing requirement is paired with the pregnancy test for the ladies…the university –which is a Christian university – is trying to prevent sexual promiscuity among its students.

Someone should let them know that although HIV can be transmitted through sexual intercourse, there are other ways to contract the virus. There's the example of the late Kimberly Bergalis who got the virus from her dentist. Children are born HIV-positive because their mothers have the virus. There is the much-publicized case of the newborn who received a blood transfusion at birth and because of negligence on the part of the medical staff contracted the virus from the AIDS-tainted blood. HIV can be transmitted through unsafe injections, razors - think shaving sticks and barber's clippers and also needles for sewing weaves. That being said, so what if there is a student who is HIV-positive and who contracted the virus as a result of sexual intercourse. And so what...the university will deny this person their degree for that reason

I think the National University Commission or whatever regulatory body oversees universities in the country needs to step in and put an end to this high-handed approach which promotes the stigma of people living with HIV. In my opinion, for a university which claims to have a Christian foundation – I find this stand very un-Christianly…the Bible teaches us to stand in prayer and not in judgment and it makes little sense to me for Covenant University to take this approach with students. We are faced with a situation where a young adult attending the University (not just those who are graduating mind you, because it seems this senseless rule will be applied to everyone) who for whatever reason discovers that he or she is either pregnant or HIV-positive rather than reaching out to a guidance counselor or similar authority figure who would be able to guide them to the point where they can make an informed decision, they have to keep it under wraps and take steps which in some cases can be fatal – unsafe abortions or worse. Universities are supposed to be a haven where a young person can be nurtured and groomed to the point where they can stand on their own feet not hounded, grilled or terrorized.

A number of concerned Nigerians are planning a media address and mass protest against Covenant University’s narrow-minded rule.

Here are the details:

Date – Monday July 30, 2007
Time – 11.00am
Venue – Positive Action for Treatment Access First Floor Holy Trinity Hospital Plaza
Adesina Street, Off Obafemi Awolowo Way Ikeja, Lagos

Additional information is available here

The organizers would like to inform the public that it is not a protest against Winner’s Chapel - the Church that Covenant University is affiliated with or the Church in Nigeria as a whole.

I believe it might act as a forum for enlightening the university authorities and perhaps with a little more knowledge they can join the rest of the world as we all collectively stand in prayer and not in judgment when we think of the millions of people who are living with HIV in our world

The Literary Lion

2007-07-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Trivia
What did the stewpot say to the fire?
See end for answer

A Season of Wole Soyinka is currently taking place at Terra Kulture on Tiamiyu Savage in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. This celebration is produced by laspapi in collaboration with the British Council/Nigeria and Terra Kulture and started on July 1, 2007 and is expected to continue every Sunday till the end of July. All plays will be at Terra Kulture, and there will be two shows every Sunday at 3pm and 6pm Already staged are - Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?- written by Wole Oguntokun (July 1) and - The Lion and the Jewel- directed by Tunji Sotimirin (July 8)

Still to come -
Sunday July 15- Death and the King's Horseman- directed by Segun Adefila
Sunday July 22- Camwood on the Leaves- directed by Lekan Balogun
Sunday July 29- The Jero Plays (Trials of Brother Jero and Jero's Metamorphosis)
directed by Wole Oguntokun

While we were studying The Lion and the Jewel in secondary school, I was living with my parents and brothers in Lagos, Nigeria. My parents went out and left me in charge of my younger brothers. Later, one of them excitedly came to tell me that the man who wrote the book that I am always reading is outside our window. I thought it was another one of the numerous tricks that they were wont to play on me but was curious enough to look out of the window. And truly, there he was - Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka was having lunch alfresco with some friends in the compound next to us. From our position upstairs, we could see right into the compound and there was no mistake that it was him. My initial instinct was to grab my Lion and the Jewel, Brother Jero, Death and the King’s Horsemen plus my dad’s copy of The Man Died, run down the road, bang on the gate and ask for an autograph on each book. Alas, the voice of my mother was ringing in my ears. Strict instructions had been left that not only were we not to step out of the house (unless there was a fire, which she instantly rebuked), we were not supposed to open the door of the house for anyone except her or my dad. It took me a while to ponder this, especially since we had never met our neighbors where the literary icon was having lunch. Sad as it is for me to write this, I obeyed my mother and missed that opportunity to meet him. Fast forward to hours later that day and my brother was excitedly telling my parents who came for lunch next door and the first thing my mother said to me was – “Ah! Ah! Why did you not go now?” I am still looking forward to the day I get to meet him.

The Literary Lion was born on this day seventy-three years ago. In the clever and masterfully-written Aké, he shares his childhood memories and narrates the celebration of his birthday, following an episode where he had been hurt while playing with a friend and subsequently bed-ridden for a short period. The young boy who would grow up to be Nigeria’s foremost writer expected his parents to roll out the drums and the red carpet for his birthday. Here’s what happened -

All was ready on the thirteenth of July. I headed home from school with about a dozen of the favoured friends, led by Osiki. They all stacked their slates in the front room and took over the parlour. On the faces of the guests, everyone on his best behaviour, was a keen anticipation for food and drinks, and some music from the gramophone and games and excitement. Now that they were home, I became a little uncertain of my role as celebrant and host; still, I took my place among the others and awaited the parade of good things.

We had settled down for a while before I noticed the silence of the house. Essay was still at school, mother was obviously at her shop with Dipo who would probably be strapped to the back of Auntie Lawanle. But where were the others? Come to think of it I had expected mother to be home to welcome my friends even if she had to go to the shop to attend to her customers […]

My mother rushed in not long afterwards, Dipo strapped to her back, Auntie Lawanle and others following, carrying the usual assorted items which accompanied them to the shop every morning. This was impressive because it meant that the shop had been closed for the day and it was still early afternoon – obviously Birthday was really about to happen in earnest. But she came in shaking her head and casting up her eyes in a rather strange manner. She stopped in the parlour, took a long look at my friends, looked at me again, shook her head repeatedly and passed through to the kitchen where I heard her giving orders to the welcome ring of pots and pans and the creak of the kitchen door. I nodded with satisfaction to the guests and assured them.

‘The Birthday is beginning to come’

A moment later Tinu came in to say I was wanted by mother in the kitchen. I found her with her arms elbow deep in flour which she was kneading as if possessed. Without taking her eye off the dough she began

‘Now Wole, tell me, what have your friends come for?’

It was a strange question but I replied, ‘We’ve come to eat Birthday.’

‘You came to eat Birthday,’ she repeated. For some reason, Lawanle and the others had already burst out laughing. Mother continued, ‘Do you realize that you and your friends would still be sitting in that parlour, waiting to “eat your birthday” if Tinu hadn’t come and told me?’

‘But today is my birthday’ I pointed out to her

Patiently she explained, ‘No one is denying that. I had planned to cook something special tonight, but…look, you just don’t invite people home without letting us know. How was I to know you were bringing friends? Now look at us rushing around, your friends have been sitting there, nearly starving to death, and you say you’ve brought them to eat birthday. You see, you have to let people know…’

The Birthday proved to be all that was expected once it got over the one disappointing limitation – Birthday did not just happen but needed to be reminded to happen. That aspect of its character bothered me for a while, it was a shortcoming for which I tried to find excuses without success. The Birthday lost its stature for me after this , almost as if it had slid down from the raised end of that fateful see-saw to the lower end and landed in a heap, among other humdrum incidents in the parsonage.

Trivia question answer -
Have you no shame – at your age, licking my bottom
Lakunle to Sidi in the The Lion and the Jewel

Keepin' It Real

2007-07-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is part of the Blogged and Found series which turns the spotlight on blogs which I have found that have had a tremendous impact on me by making me laugh and cry and more than anything inspiring me deeply often in a subtle kind of way.

I usually find blogs through various sources on the internet. The Antique Mommy is one of the first few that I discovered in a magazine – Good Housekeeping to be precise. Her article – Scarred, for life (an excerpt of which appears below) featured in the July 2007 edition of that magazine It was so easy to relate to what she illustrates so poignantly that I also went back in time and took a calm rollercoaster ride to the precarious episodes that I have had in life some of which have left a souvenir in the form of a somewhat visible scar.

Scars of Misfortune
I have another three-inch scar at the base of my throat, where a surgeon relieved me of my cancerous thyroid when my son was about 8 months old. My mom came to Texas and took care of the baby, while I went through the long recovery and period of isolation required with radiation. I also have a one-inch scar on my groin, where a surgeon (whose face I never saw) extracted my badly misbehaving appendix. This happened at a time in my life when I was single and living alone. A girlfriend carried me to her car and took me to the hospital. When I woke up the next morning, she was sitting next to my hospital bed praying over me. Those scars reminded me that life can come crashing down on you in the blink of an eye and that a friend can make all the difference.

A Scar of Blessing
And then there is the mother of all scars, the one that put an end to my bikini days but was the beginning of a life far better than any day at the beach. When I look at it, I recall the day, three years ago, when my son was pulled from the safe haven of my body and into this world, where he would begin the story of his own life. And collect his own scars

La Racontrice presents...

2007-07-10T12:40:00.001-07:00

Testament

Heroes Monday

2007-07-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Heroes Monday is a weekly feature about the American TV show ~ Heroes. It includes character and actor profiles well as bits of trivia and a spotlight on a real hero.

Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse. John Osborne

Tim Kring is the creator of the TV series according to Wikipedia he turns 50 today. No superpowers have been attributed to him as of yet. He is also the creative mind behind – Crossing Jordan and Strange Woods. In the 1980s, he created a TV series similar to Heroes called Misfits of Science which featured Courtney Cox-Arquette.
Source: Wikipedia

Happy Birthday Mr Kring!

Real Hero ~ Eli Kahn
Eli Kahn is a cancer-survivor who following a successful battle with the illness that almost took his life, created a fund-raising scheme for cancer research. Cartridges for a Cure collects donated used ink jet and laser cartridges from printers from a wide range of source from individuals to organizations. These cartridges are then sent to a recyclable company which sends a check to Eli. All proceeds are sent for support of pediatric oncology research at Johns Hopkins University. Eli’s brilliant innovative idea is expected to contribute in the search for a cure for cancer in children

Eli Kahn's photo appears courtesy Volvo4Life Awards.

Speaking Out Against Profanity (S.O.A.P)

2007-07-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

I am usually quite vocal when a situation arises where I feel a violation or an injustice is being done. Lately, I have found that living in the US, when it comes to speaking out in public against profanity, it becomes a situation of when in Rome do as the Romans do, when elsewhere do as they do elsewhere. I remember riding the subway from MD to VA, when a group of youths - there must have been three or four of them - boarded the car I was in. It was during rush hour so it was full to capacity and ordinarily I would not have noticed them since I was in the middle of good book, but they came in so noisily it was impossible to ignore them. There was a central character among them who was giving them a play by play account of his experience the previous night and they were cheering him on. Within seconds of them getting on the train, the whole car was silent with the exception of this young man who was very loudly and very graphically describing how he got busy with some girl the night before. I wish I could say he left out any of the details and I wish I could say that I managed to tune him out by reading my book. He was standing inches away from where I sat and at one point I looked at his face and actually felt pity for him, since it seemed to me that his story seemed to validate him in some way with his peers who at every dazzling turn would cheer him on as if he had scored some winning goal. More than anything, I wished someone would have told him to shut up…to say it was disgusting was an understatement. I scanned the faces of my fellow passengers and I saw a mixture of horror, bemusement and indifference in their faces. I would have said something but I was weeks-old in the country a Johnny Just Come (JJC). All I could do was look and listen.

When the train pulled up at their stop, the boys stumbled out as noisily as they had entered, the storyteller’s voice echoed back to us through the station and it was as the train doors shut that the drama started on the train. It seemed suddenly everyone had something to say about it. From behind me I heard a female voice say – None of y’all had no soap to wash that mouth out. Another person said ‘To think that that is someone’s son’ The lady next to me clapped her hands together and said she was thankful that she raised her daughter right and no boy would be talking trash about her kid like that in no train. A few people were narrating the experience to the other passengers who had boarded the train at the stop where the boys disembarked.

I found the reaction just as bad as the experience and when I shared this with people who had been in the country longer than I had, one of the many reactions I received was most people would never say anything for many reasons, some said that freedom of speech allows you to speak your mind. I ask - Is there any freedom of hearing which allows you to censor those things that are unpalatable to you? Another person actually told me that in situations like that one needs to be careful because any one of those boys could be a member of a gang and carrying a pistol which led me to believe that no one on the train dared say anything because they were afraid they would be shot at. Better to listen to gory details of an adolescent having unsafe sex than tell him to zip it and risk getting shot at? This is Rome, we do as the Romans do, elsewhere, even before I said anything, there would have been someone who would have said something. A simple – Come...you no get mama for house would have been enough.

Another time, more recently and still on the train, a group of youths stumbled on the train while I was again minding my business trying to read my book. I gathered from their noisy exchange that one of them was a rapper who had just released a demo album and they were all listening to this on their various music devices and passing comments as well as sharing the lyrics loudly with the rest of the passengers on the train. Lyrics which consisted of using derogatory words to describe women and parts of their anatomy….again no one said anything to hush them up. I glanced at the woman seated next to me who was also pretending to read but from her body language I could tell that she was finding this whole experience irritating. That episode came and went and no one spoke out against the profanity

A lot of people blame rap music for the promotion of this language…in some ways they are right but the people to blame are not the rappers but the music companies who think it is okay to churn out records with tasteless lyrics and for the most part, the blame goes to the consumer. If they did not have a market, they would not be in business.

In the April 2007 edition of National Geographic Magazine, James McBride admits his own initial myopic perception of rap music as he traces the root of rap/hiphop music to West Africa. The author tells the story of a young man called Assane N’Diaye who comes from a fishing village in Senegal called Toubab Dialaw and who along with his cousin and brother- meditate, pray and compose rap lyrics about life in their village, the humiliation of poverty, and the vagaries of life and death at the mercy of the sea- We watch our mothers boil water to cook and have nothing to put in the pot.

Mr McBride's article confirms that rap music can be a poetic outlet for an artiste and like the music you'll listen to below, it does not have to be laced with profanity to make an impact.

Heroes Monday

2007-07-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Heroes Monday is a weekly feature about the American TV show ~ Heroes. It includes character and actor profiles as well as bits of trivia and a spotlight on a real hero.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes
Maya Angelou

Niki/Jessica Sanders portrayed by Ali Larter
I have to admit that the character of Niki/Jessica is one that I find a bit confusing because I am not sure when one is the other. One thing is certain, whichever one inhabits the body, has superhuman strength coupled with the unconditional love both characters have for Micah. She is a cross between good and evil on the series but most of the evil she has done has been in order to protect her family.

Ali Trivia
She can be seen in the 1999 movie Varsity Blues opposite her good friend Amy Smart

She also starred with Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde

She performed in the stage play of the Vagina Monologues in NYC in 2001

Prior to starring on Heroes she made appearances on Dawson's Creek, Chicago Hope and Just Shoot Me!
Courtesy of Wikipedia and IMDB.com

Real Hero ~ Zinhle Thabethe
She is an AIDS activist from Durban, South Africa, who has had to endure discrimination and near-death experiences as a result of her HIV serostatus. She brought to the limelight the reality of treatment of HIV/AIDS for the average African by stating - Africans do not know what western time is. Many people in Africa have never seena clock or a watch their entire lives, in order to point out that the Western system does not necessarily apply to the African context in terms of taking life-prolonging medications against HIV-infection. Ms Thabethe sings with Sinkithemba, a group of 30 South Africans living with HIV who blend a traditional Zulu and gospel to produce heart-stirring melodies. She is a mother and a nurturer, a fighter and a hero

Forever, For Always, For Luther

2007-07-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Photo appears courtesy of J Records from MTV.com

Luther
Vandross
April 20, 1951 - July 1, 2005

He is described on AOL music as R&B's unforgettable balladeer and vocalist, while ITunes and MTV confirm that his smooth and versatile tenor was one of America's consistent and compelling voices. I have nothing more to add to those except that I miss him and wish he was still here making music.

Finding meaning while we’re dreaming

Of the Splendor of it all

A House is Not a Home ~ Aretha Franklin

Shine ~ Luther Vandross

Here and Now ~ Luther Vandross Live at Radio City Music Hall

For You To Love featuring Jeff Lorber

Always and Forever ~ Luther Vandross

'Til My Baby Comes Home ~ Fantasia

She Doesn't Mind ~ Luther Vandross

Give Me the Reason ~ featuring Kirk Whalum

I Really Didn't Mean It ~ Luther Vandross

Don't Wanna Be A Fool

Smilin’ faces, goin’ places It’s a wonder, it’s so clear

Ain't No Stopping Us Now

The Best Things in Life are Free ~ Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson

Never Too Much ~ featuring Paul Jackson, Jr

Easy livin’ and we’re givin’

What we know we’re dreamin’ of

Love Won't Let Me Wait ~ John Legend

There's Nothing Better Than Love ~ Maysa and Kevin Whalum

Sometimes it's only love ~ Luther Vandross

Superstar ~ Will Downing

I'd Rather ~ Luther Vandross live at Radio City Music Hall

If Only For One Night ~ featuring Dave Koz and Brian Culbertson

Heart of A Hero ~ Luther Vandross and the Los Angeles Children's Choir from the soundtrack to the Motion Picture Hero

Your Secret Love

Take You Out ~ featuring George Benson

Power of Love/Love Power ~ Luther Vandross

Flower’s bloomin’, mornin’ dew
And the beauty seems to say
It’s a pleasure when you treasure
All that’s new and true and gay

Glow of Love ~ Luther Vandross live at Radio City Music Hall

When I say goodbye it is never for long
'Cause I know our love still lives on
It will be again exactly like it was
'Cause I believe in the power of love

May I recommend

2007-06-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

We have a family wedding in a couple of weeks. I love weddings, just the thought of two individuals and their families being united seems so special to me. What I am not too fond of is the preparation leading up to the wedding...especially when it comes to selecting the clothes et al. Don't get me wrong...I like to dress up and look good but the prospect of going to a mall and searching for matching shoes and bags for some obscure color like fuschia pink is the worst kind of punishment for me.

This is what I was faced with late last year when I scanned the wedding announcement which had details of the outfits for family members. I was hoping (seriously hoping) that I could get away with using a pair of shoes and matching bag in my arsenal of...but alas it was not to be and so in the months leading up to the wedding, I felt like there was a proverbial monkey on my neck as I realized that I needed to get with the program and go to the nearest mall...and begin my search.

That is until I found Zappos. If you are like me and would rather spend an hour in the bookstore in a mall than at the shoe store trying on shoes and matching them with bags and other accessories, then you might find this information useful. From the nice comfort of your computer, you get to browse an assortment of shoes and bags and have them sent to you by the next working day. Overnight shipping is free...so if you order at a certain hour of the day say on a Tuesday, chances are you could be trying on your shoes by Wednesday. If you are not satisfied with your purchase, you can send it back just as long as you have not walked around in it on concrete, pebbled, cobbled, etc ground. Plus, which is a big plus, you have a whole year to return.

Their range of shoes is quite wide but like every good thing, there are two slight snags. First, overnight shipping is only available for locations in the continental US; second the shoes are quite pricey and I only recommend them for special occasions unless of course there is a sale on and then you can get a good bargain.

My humble recommendation- Take a peek at Zappos, if you see what you like at a good price, you save yourself a trip to the store - this includes finding parking, chasing after the kids who want to go in the opposite direction of you, buying an overpriced Caramel Frapuccino from $tarbuck$ and any other thing that you get up to in the mall. Hope this helps someone out there the way it did me

Heroes Monday

2007-06-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Heroes Monday is a weekly feature about the American TV show ~ Heroes. It includes character and actor profiles as well as bits of trivia and a spotlight on a real hero.

Heroes, notwithstanding the high ideas which, by the means of flatterers, they may entertain of themselves, or the world may conceive of them, have certainly more of mortal than divine about them. Henry Fielding

Hiro Nakamura portrayed by Masi Oka

Hiro is a huge science fiction aficionado who has arrived in the US in the company of his side-kick Ando in order to fulfill their destiny which they have seen in the comic books drawn by Isaac Mendez. His superpower ability is to manipulate space and time which has led to him jumping back and forth between various eras. The end of the last season, saw him centuries behind the actual reality of the show.

Masi Trivia
In 1987, he was featured on the August 31 cover of Time Magazine as one of Asian-American whiz kids

He used to work with George Lucas' visual special effects company and nursed an ambition of one day earning an Oscar for technical work

He has a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics

On the show, he translates his dialogues himself from English to Japanese

He was recently named Coolest Geek by Spike TV Guys Choice Awards

Sources - Wikipedia and IMDB.com

Real Heroes ~ Judea and Ruth Pearl
One of the hardest things for parents to deal with is the loss of a child and it becomes even more painful when the death can be perceived as senseless. Anytime I think of the parents of Daniel Pearl - the Wall Street Journal reporter who was the victim of a brutal killing- the words of the song What's Goin' On by Marvin Gaye pop into my head. Only love can conquer hate.

Judea and Ruth Pearl founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation as a way of fostering harmony between Jews and Muslims in the world. The foundation promotes cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music and innovative communcations.
No one would have blamed this couple if they had become bitter and hateful on the contrary, they took the higher ground and proved that the power of love is a force like no other which can also be a calming balm for troubled souls

Osamuyia Aikpitanhi

2007-06-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

I try to imagine the day he was born and the joy of his mother holding him in her arms. I try to imagine him growing up and hoping for the best. I think he may have been reaching out for greater heights and perhaps was more than a little disillusioned that his dreams could not be fulfilled in his homeland. This is perhaps what led him to leave his home, his family, his life in search of something that he felt would give him a sense of purpose.

The news reports about his death leave little to be imagined and give a graphic account of the final hours of his life. One word shines out to me as if neon lights were circling it and it keeps taunting me endlessly - illegal. I wonder whose idea it was to label human beings illegal. As long as you are inhabiting the Earth created by our Lord, no one has the right to put the label illegal on you. No human being is illegal. A piece of paper does not give one person the privilege of being called legal while not bestowing the same honor on another.

There is a letter being signed on the internet as part of the outcry against the inhumane treatment that led to the death of Osamuyia Aikpitanhi. A worthy gesture, but sadly a million signatures will not bring him back. We read about how he was allegedly a wanted criminal in his home country. True or False. It does not matter now.

He was labelled illegal and now that he is gone what label are they going to give him

May you find peace sleeping in the arms of your Maker who does not need words on a piece of paper to acknowledge that you are His.

Rest in Peace Osamuyia Aikpitanhi

Summer 2007 Movies V

2007-06-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

Out in the cinemas tomorrow - the events leading to the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl are brought to the silver screen with Angelina Jolie in the role of his wife Marianne; Zoe Cassavetes directs a film featuring her mother - Gena Rowlands and starring Parker Posey; and the sequel to Bruce Almighty pairs the gentleman from the TV series The Office with Lorelai Gilmore of the recently-ended Gilmore Girls

A Mighty Heart Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman

Broken English Parker Posey, Gena Rowlands. Directed by Zoe Cassavetes

Evan Almighty starring Steve Carrell, Morgan Freeman and Lauren Graham

Reid and Soanya - Fifty days and counting

2007-06-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

You might remember Reid and Soanya…on their incredible journey on sea without touching dry land for 1,000 days. Just thought I’d give a brief update for those of us who have not had a chance to visit their blog. They recently completed fifty days and here are some excerpts of what they had to say

Reid - First of all, I'm so happy to have Soanya. I remember that all the time and act appreciative, the same way that I'm appreciative that we are finally on the sea. I knew Soanya for three years as a friend. Not a lot was revealed then. When she decided to go, my answer was yes and suddenly she was with me and we adapted completely. I am lucky that she is such a lovely woman to be with and I certainly believe that on all occasions, a man is naturally blessed if he has the love of a good woman. That Soanya turned out to have an inner wisdom and strength is something I am grateful for every day.

Soanya - I know many people are wondering: Are they getting along? Do they argue? Do they annoy each other to no end? We don't argue or annoy each other. Part of that is if we don't like something the other person is doing, we point it out right away and other person should remember not to do it again. Part is also that we match each other really well. Truth be told we're in some kind of heaven in terms of our relationship. There are times when we just hold each other and observe our environment. Last night we laid down on the yoga platform and watched the stars. It was a clear warm night with only some clouds on the horizon. If I knew the names of constellations I'd have been able to name every one. We saw some shooting stars too.

Click here to read more about their odyssey

Raise Your Voice

2007-06-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Ugo Daniels' Blog

Some of the best of Naija bloggers are raising their voices for something special and new called BlogVille Idols. Contestants belt out tunes by using a phone-in system recorded on the blog hosted by Cheetarah and produced by Opeke and Pink Satin. I just listened to all the songs and I loved them all, it was hard to vote...click here to be a part of it. It all ends next Friday.

My favorite song of the moment is True Love by TuFace Idibia. I heard it for the first time yesterday and loved it instantly, I also discovered that I am possibly the only Nigerian on the planet who had not heard of TuFace Idibia. Even my mother knows his music. I guess I need to pay more attention to these things!

Dedicated to all the organizers, participants,judges and voters of the BlogVille Idols. Everyone is a winner in this one

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Heroes Monday

2007-06-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Heroes Monday is a weekly feature about the American TV show ~ Heroes. In addition to character and actor profiles as well as bits of trivia, it includes a spotlight on a real hero.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. Umberto Eco (1932 - ), Travels in Hyperreality

Claire Bennet portrayed by Hayden Panetierre

Save the Cheerleader…Save the World was (and for some of us still is) the original mantra for Heroes and the indestructible Claire is the cheerleader that they speak of. Her superpower ability is her indestructibility and she is one character who has struggled with a lot of emotional upheaval in the last season. She found out who her real parents are - both of whom have superpowers thereby giving meaning to the saying – the apple does not fall far from the tree - but discovered her true love and loyalty lies with her adopted parents especially her father whom we learn will go through the fire and back for her

Hayden Trivia
She started her acting career before she could speak and as a child she took on a number of roles including in American soap operas.She played the annoying but memorable little girl in the movie – Remember the Titans

She is currently working on a debut album set for release sometime in the summer

She takes karate and boxing lessons

Her surname – pronounced Pan-Uh-Tee-Aire-Ee – is the Italian translation of Baker

Sources – Wikipedia and IMDB.com

Real Hero~ Rose Mapendo

Ms Mapendo’s story is one of courage and perseverance in the face of extreme adversity. She and her family were imprisoned during the period of ethnic cleansing of the Rwandan genocide and her husband was subsequently executed. Ms Mapendo delivered twin boys prematurely while in captivity and fought against all odds to keep them and the rest of their siblings alive. They were eventually rescued and resettled in the US after a series of episodes during which the twins – now bustling young boys- almost lost their lives. Ms Mapendo is the recipient of the Volvo for Life Award - and her hame Mapendo translated from Swahili means ‘great love’ and she has channeled her spirit into an organization for people displaced by conflict called – Mapendo International