Helloooo.....anybody there?

We like to think that we are unique. But really, we aren't all that special. We are prone to doing the same things as many others. It might be due to the last vestiges of the 'survival' programming in our DNAs, where the chances of survival are higher in a herd.

What I'm trying to say, to cut the long story short is that the fact that I too have been MIA is directly attributable to the Facebook phenomenon. In spite of the fact that I resisted the urge for so long, I have now, for almost a year succumbed, and have been badly infected by that deadly virus which has been going around. And yet, it doesn't give the satisfaction that writing does.........

I still have a lot to say, but demands of family and FB have bitten into my time, so that I almost never manage to sit down to put a fleeting train of thought to paper before it disappears. I would like to do more of that in the coming months.

New trend in Democracy

The opposition candidate alleges fraud(see Here) in the recent Afghan elections. This recent spate of fraud allegations after elections, and subsequent innovative solutions as seen in Kenya and Zimbabwe is leading to a dangerous trend, that in my opinion prevents one from knowing when fraud has actually been perpetuated, and when it is just a case of trying to get your share of the cake by shouting loudest.

There have been practically no elections in recent times in Africa, Asia or South America where fraud has not been alleged. While in countries like Ghana, one party let go, there have been 'innovative' solutions like power sharing as already mentioned above, or just massive crackdowns and human rights abuses as recently seen in Iran.

In developing democracies, or young democracies as the press calls them, I think that it would be unrealistic to await completely fraud-free elections. If that is the case, the question then is this -how much fraud is too much fraud? Do creative solutions not undermine the very tennets of democracy? How does one avoid politicians behaving like spoilt kids who alwasy want to have their way, while at the same time making sure that genuine concerns are addressed?

If I come up with plausible answers to the questions above, I'll be sure to post them. Meanwhile, anyone with any ideas is welcome to share.

Recently on my reading table: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell; I do not come to you by chánce by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

Meanwhile, if anyone is reading this, have a lovely week.

What if?

Is it disloyal to ones partner to wonder if one would have ended up with him or her had facebook and other social networking sites existed 5, 7, or 10 years ago?
The reason for such silly thoughts is the fact that I've been meeting up with old friends, principally from my Naija uni days in the last few days. I suddenly find myself meeting with old crushes and toasters.

I have a particular guy in mind in typing this. We met in 100L, and he really actively courted me. I liked him a lot, but as a good sister in the Lord, I didn't let things progress beyond one stolen kiss in the science faculty of UI. After I left Nigeria, I thought about him often. Since those were pre-GSM and pre-Émail days in Nigeria, there was no way of getting in touch. I had googled him a couple of times in the last few years, out of a curiousity to know what was up with him.

Facebook has reunited us. It turned out that he often thought of me too - at least that is what he says. We are both married with kids now, and its nice to be back in touch.

I am nursing a scientific curiousity. I still can't help but wonder, what if?

Back to the future

I was recently doing a spring cleaning on my email accounts when I decided to go down memory lane. Since unlimited storage is a relatively recent phenomenon on free web mail accounts, I have very few emails dating back to 1998, which is when I first opened my main mail account. Since one only had a few MBs at that time, deletion of emails was very routine, and I did not have the oversight to save copies of those mails.

One thing struck me very strongly: the people who were fixtures in my life at that time, with whom I constantly exchanged emails on a daily basis (even when we were still going to meet for dinner later), whose lives were so intricately woven with mine, so much so that I could not imagine not being constantly in touch with them , these people have been replaced by others over the space of time. Don't get me wrong, these people are still my friends. We still keep in touch - only instead of weekly or several times a month, its now once or twice a year.

Isn't that what maturity is though? Those people who helped nurse a broken heart, with whom we once plotted business ideas that never came to fruition, trips and surprises that still bring a warm feeling whenever I think about them are still in my life. I have made room for others though over the years.

The most surprising of all, with hindsight is the person closest to me now. 9 years ago, my husband and I were not that close, we exchanged forwarded emails every once in a while. While most of our early correspondence has been lost to the forced email account clean ups of years gone by, seeing those emails which I have saved, I would never have predicted that we'd get married and start a family together.........

Now you see why I never destroy old letters or cards or emails(except I am forced to) - the future is a conundrum that can only be unraveled(or maybe not!) by a study of the past.

If it is God’s will……

I am a Christian, and believe in God’s will. I have seen seemingly impossible situations turned around, because I believe it was God’s will, and I truly believe that with God nothing shall be impossible. In many cases where one has already done ones best God’s will is usually what makes the difference.

But, now the big but is that I totally reject as false the belief in ‘if it is God’s will, nothing can prevent it from happening’, when one has not done one’s best. If you have not yet recognised it as such, this post is a RANT!!!!

I urgently need for my sister to be here in two weeks time. The first time we discussed this issue was at the beginning December, and she told me that particular week would be best because she would be on a training trip to the UK and could afterwards fly over for a week or so. Now, the visa procedure for a private family visit here entails getting an official invitation letter from the town hall (against a small fee), the original copy of which the potential visitor would need to present at the embassy during their appointment. Together with this document, they’d need a copy of the host’s birth certificate, if related, their own original birth certificate, health insurance as well as the other minor required documents.

Now I know from experience that getting an appointment is the bottleneck in the whole visa application process, for the country I live in, so I told her to already start working on getting an appointment as early as possible. I was unable to get the iv done as early as I’d have liked it, and I had to send DH*. He got it done and sent it via snailmail on Dec 23. We got into an argument over that as I was of the opinion that he should have sent it via DHL. Lo and behold, the package arrived at home during the first few days of January (Kudos to Nipost). I again repeated the ‘please work on getting the appointment’ plea. She assured me she – would. I called weekly to find out her progress.

So, would someone please explain to me why she only started trying to get an appointment last week only to realise that her passport would be expiring in April, so she had to apply for a new passport, which she only got last Friday. Since one’s passport is not required to get an appointment, I wonder why she needed to abandon the quest for an appointment, which by the way was left way too LATE!!!! Anyways, here we are, four days before she flies off to London and she is still trying to get an appointment. Of course, things have since turned to ‘don’t worry, my God has assured me that things will work out’; ‘if it is God’s will, I will get the visa and be there’; ‘what’s even the big deal about the visa sef, kini mo fe wa mu ni ilu won**, afterall I just want to come see my sister who lives there.

Father, forgive me if my faith is not strong enough to see how you can act through this shoddy planning to enable M be here in February as planned/desired.

I have seen this scenario re-enacted time and time again, this, I-am-not-suffering-in-Nigeria- they-should-even-be-happy-that-I-am-thinking-of-visiting-their-country-so they-should-bend-all-their-rules-and-anyway why-do-they-have-so-many-rules attitude. I have seen it more times than I can count. An uncle of mine came into the UK sometime last year telling me that he was heading to the Netherlands for a conference in two days time – meanwhile he hadn’t bothered to get the visa in Nigeria, because the process was so long – he planned on going to the Dutch embassy in London, getting the visa processed, ‘express visa’ he said, and then heading directly to Waterloo to catch the Eurostar, for which he already had a ticket. Of course it didn’t work out.
And instead of realising it was his fault the only thing he could say was ‘ they should go to hell, there isn’t anything special about their country and its their loss; What stupid rules’. Stupid rule or not, it is still their rule, and its is clearly written on their website and in all the information brochures that you can only get a visa in your country of residence and I mean, he had known about the conference for months!!! And this is a man who expects blind obedience to his wishes from members of his own family o.

That’s why I try to refrain from joining the continuous bashing of our leaders. Fine, they don’t follow the rule of law, but neither do most Nigerians, including, as annoying as I find it, even members of my immediate family. Our ‘bigman’ mentality makes us believe that we at least should be above the law, which was made for the common man. May God help Nigeria!

Hey, anyone care to substitute for my sister?


* - Dear Husband
** -what’s the big deal about the visa, there isn't anything I need in their country

My close encounter with 'That One'

I met BO today. I had been sitting listening in an audience to one of Chicago’s finest economists argue with Joe the plumber about the American economy and its fundamentals. The debate was taking place in one of the rooms of the City Hall. Sonya and I sat together somewhere near the back of the room, ready to make our escape as soon as the debate ended, before the doors became jam packed. I turned and realised that sitting to my right was BO, the Illinois senator who had been running for POTUS and who had actually won, I was shocked that anyone could concentrate on J. the plumber's intellectually shallow arguments that Prof Segae was patiently trying to dispute when the president-elect was sitting in the same room. Or maybe they just hadn’t noticed yet. Behind our row sat a couple of men in loud Hawaii Shirts- they were not your typical layabouts, but they did not strike me as people attending this event for the intellectual stimulus. Immediately I guessed, they were Barack’s security detail - so obviously did they stick out.

When the debate started to wind down, Barack left the hall and I immediately followed. There was no way on earth I was going to let him go and not have shaken his hands and told him what a profound influence he was having on my life. He was really friendly and when I told him that Sonya and I were on a working visit here (she had joined me in the entrance hall), he asked if I knew Chicago. I said no, this is my first visit here. This hall is the only place I know here. Actually, I was planning to do a bit of sightseeing after the opening address. I ignored Sonya's look of astonishment - we were both so jetlagged that we had planned to head off to bed after the opening address. She waved goodbye and headed to the close-by four seasons hotel where we were lodged.

Could you recommend any particular spots for sightseeing? I asked Barack. He looked at me and said, well the History Museum - really teaches a lot Chicago’s history. You know what, I'm headed downtown now, why don't you come along and I'll show you around. I was so awe-struck as I gladly (whaddya expect!!!) accepted the offer. We started to walk off getting into conversation about mundane things. At the next traffic light, he hurriedly turned right into the huge mass of people - I had to almost run to keep up. Why did I get the feeling he was trying to shake off his bodyguards? Well probably because that’s exactly what he was trying to do. After we had turned a few corners, the crowd thinned out, and there was no Barack bodyguard around - at least none recognisable as such to me. He had relaxed visibly and took deliberate slow steps - well as slow as you can go when you have such long legs. I still had to go at double my normal pace to keep up.

We entered the gates into the grounds of the museum, you could see the instant recognition, but people gave him his space still. Amazing. As we went from room to room, he pointed out various exhibits to me and filled me up a bit on the history of the city. After about an hour, we stopped at the cafe, to get a small snack. I was amused to see that they had apple strudel on offer; I decided to see what a Chicago strudel tasted like. B just had a soymilk coffee. It felt so unbelievable to me to be sitting here with Barack Obama, having a coffee and talking about God and the world - surely, only in America.

When we left the small snack bar, after him giving the waitress, who had looked at us with intense curiosity, an autograph in addition to a fat tip, we got on the escalator, taking us to the lower levels of the building. Gentleman that he is, he let me get on first. I was surprised that he got on directly behind me though. I leaned back into him, enjoying the feeling - trying not to think what the heck was going on. I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the eye - how many other women get a chance to lean on Barack Obama? As I savoured the safe feeling of a strong man’s chest, I was brought jarringly back to earth by a voice, standing directly beside me, asking BO about how he felt being constantly described as African-American, when in fact he was biracial.

I turned slightly, and saw her then - a pretty, obviously biracial woman with hazel eyes, and light brown spring curls held back by an Alice-band. At least she’d be pretty if she lost that maniacal racial activist fervour in her eyes. She explained she was from South Africa in this lovely lilting voice and that even during apartheid, there was a separate racial category, just for people like her. I stood there thinking, how fucked up some people are. We had gotten to the bottom of the elevator, and I stood and listened as Barack explained to her why we shouldn’t worry about the boxes people try to put us in since they were never accurate and could never really define a person, his experiences and world view with any sort of accuracy.

We said byes and were about heading into the next exhibition room, when a PA announcement about an immediate evacuation due to a bomb scare came through. Oh shit, this was going to make the news. I could already see the breaking news headlines: ‘BO out with a strange woman at the Chicago History museum during a bomb scare’. I mentally prepared myself for the barrage.

Sure enough, as we got into the entrance hall of the building, there were on the left TV cameras, on the right, yep, the evaded bodyguards, but now they had their suits on. Sitting in the middle, as though presiding over the occasion was Michelle Obama as nicely coiffured as ever, flanked by Sasha and Malia on both sides. BO refused to answer any questions and I was about to follow suit. Until that is, the dreaded question came flying through the mike, straight at me. What is your name and are you mister Obama’s lover. I stopped and ignoring the first part of the question said – don’t be ridiculous, everyone knows how deeply in love Barack and his wife are and how happy they are together. I then turned to Michelle and asked her if I was wrong - she gave me a hi5 and said of course you are right sweetie. Don’t mind the press guys always looking for a piece of a juicy story.

The press guys were disappointed especially when they were whisked many meters from the candidate and his family by the security operatives. Since the bomb scare was called off and people immediately allowed back in, I realised it probably had been a ploy to get us out of the museum. Meanwhile, little Sasha had walked up to Barack while this was going on and demanded to see her little sibling again. Barack bent towards her and showed her his flag pin. I thought that was quite odd.

I walked up to Michelle and told her how much of an admirer of hers I was. She smiled and we engaged in small talk. Then Barack said it was time to go he said a quick goodbye, nice meeting you to me. He then headed outside, presumably for the waiting armoured black SUV that I had seen through the windows as we entered the entrance hall. I turned to Michelle to say goodbye and was washed in her icy gaze. She turned to one of their staff - "find out how much and compensate her". She then walked off to join her family without saying a word to me! That hi5 had just been for show - she didn't believe there was nothing between Barack and I!!!!
Then I woke up.

The real witches of Nigeria

See here for more. Thanks to Jon at The ongoing adventures of ASBO Jesus for the image.