Questions worth pondering/ words to live by

 

No seriously, do. No one knows tomorrow.

The last few months have had some shocking high profile accidents and deaths like the terrible accident that killed Paul walker and his friend and the accident of Michael Schumacher. These incidents show us that death is no repecter of persons, it might be anyone's turn tomorrow.

A lot of young people are dying, since I'm Nigerian I'm quite aware of deaths of Nigerians, with the advent of Facebook, it's easy to see it is really about 3 degrees of separation in many cases. The death of a certain young man that I don't know, but who went to uni with my bro and knows a few people that I know is what has spawned this post.

Money, fame and love do not protect one from the inevitable end of all mankind. So may we number our days as is written in the bible in the book of Psalms 90:12

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance

These are some of the questions I have been asking myself and you should consider asking yourself too if you haven't

1) what footprints will I leave in the sands of time?

2) if today were my last day on earth am I ready to go?

3) do I have my priorities right especially with respect to work life balance? Remember, an employee can easily be replaced in most cases, but never a parent and only with difficulty a child, wife/ husband or friend.

4) am I in Gods will for my life?

5) am I taking care of myself like I should be ( adequate sleep, destressing, proper nutrition etc)?

May the souls of the departed rest in peace and may God grant comfort to the loved ones left behind.

Good daddies rock!

I came across the Daddy Doing Work blog via a post on the Good Men project Facebook page. Apparently, the photo below went viral.





I follow lots of mothering blogs and pages, but this is the first time I have been made aware of the also large ( it seems) community of daddy bloggers out there. It's awesome that there are men out there who are comfortable enough with their masculinity to be hands on dads. I think most men find it fulfilling, and more would find it fulfilling, once they break out of the boxes that society has pleased parenting into.

I'm glad when I see young Nigerian men stepping up to be the daddies they should be. My father was distant in some ways, but I remember him bathing us to get us ready for school in the early years and playing monopoly with us. In his sixties now, he still gets down on my kids level to play with them whenever he is around them.We definitely had a close relationship with him, perhaps closer arguably than the average Nigerian kid had with their dad ( he has gotten more traditional Yoruba as the years have gone on though, but that's a whole different story for another day).

I was facetiming with a younger male friend yesterday and while we were talking, DH was on the floor playing with my son. My friend said wistfully, I don't have any memories of my father playing with me like that. He will become a father soon, and I wish him from the depth of my heart all the best in fatherhood and that he breaks the cycle of passive fatherhood.

If you had/ have an awesome dad or if your DH/ partner is an awesome father to your kids, I would love to hear your story, so please leave a comment. Don't be shy, the cobwebs have come off this blog for good. Lol. Have a great week ahead.

To new beginnings

Dundee United

The words Dundee united, the name of a Scottish Football club has a hilarious claim to fame in Nigeria.
It is an insult.
example:

Dundee buruku* - stupid idiot
Dundee united - absolute fool

Apparently this slang term for idiot came about after Dundee United FC lost several matches during a tour of Nigeria in the 60s and 70s. I grew up using the term without really giving a thought to how it came about. Apparently the rest of the world became acquainted with the Nigerian use of the words via the BBC documentary "Welcome to Lagos".

Hilarious! Read more here



*buruku is Yoruba for bad/stupid

Back to the basics

I have been away from blogging for a while. I know that's quite an understatement.

Juggling children and a career in obodo oyinbo is not easy at all o, my people. Like I have mentioned in previous posts, I like to write, but can only write when I am in a certain state of mind. I am back to that place where I can blog. I will still be updating this blog from time to time,as the spirit moves me, in Naija speak. Please also check out my new blog the (Complete) Chatterbox Companion, with anecdotes about my family life. A link to the blog is under the Arins Odyssey 1.0 Tab on the pages panel above.

Lemme share this funny story with you my readers before I end this post i think it depicts the Nigerian obsession with marriage.
So I just had a baby, and my aunt came to visit from Nigeria. She met one of my friends, an American Lady.

American woman: how old are your children

Aunty: 26, 24 and 20

American woman: oh, so they are already very manageable

Aunty: yes o, they are marriageable

Me: Aunty, she said manageable.

Aunty: oh yes, indeed, they are manageable

Me( trying to cover my embarrassment: they are manageable and marriageable.

Lol!

Nigeria@50 - a series

Its been a long time! I don't know if anyone still comes around here, but just popping by to do some PR for the Nigeria@ 50 series. Check Loomnie's blog for more details http://loomnie.com/2010/09/25/nigeria50-a-series/.

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.

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.

A COMMON destiny!

Today the 70th anniversary of the Kristalnacht antisemitic riots was marked in Germany. Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, is often regarded as the starting point of the Holocaust. For Anglican congregations, today was Rememberance Sunday - which is a day of rememberance for all those who have given their lives in the pursuit of peace and freedom. One part of the pastor's sermon in Church today got me thinking about how, 60 years, the amount of time that has elapsed since the end of WWII wasn't such a long period of time if things are put into perspective. Such conflicts in places like Northern Ireland, the Balkans and even the Hutsi-Tutsi war have gone/went on for so much longer. Seeing how far Western Europe has gone in putting behind the hatred and enimty of the war and in uniting and forging a common destiny is a great lesson, especially for Africa. Below are a few outstanding examples of how far people on different sides of World war II have come in terms of moving on in the last 60 years.

The Dresden Frauenkirche(The Church of our lady), destroyed during the (deliberately? some might controversially argue) bombing of Dresden (which was one of the most beautiful Baroque cities in Europe) by the US and British troops just a few weeks before the end of the war, as well as the Coventry cathedral, destroyed by German bombers during the same war were both kept for years as war memorials. The Dresden Frauenkirche was reconstructed and rededicated in 2005, having been rebuilt over a period of 13 years with donations from severaly sources, including support from the city of Coventry. The new cross on top of the dome of the cathedral was constructed by Alan Smith, a British goldsmith from London whose father, Frank, was a member of one of the aircrews who took part in the bombing of Dresden.

Volgograd was almost completely destroyed during WWII. The Battle of Volgograd/Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in human history, with combined casualties estimated to be above 1.5 million. I visited war gravesite and memorial in Volgograd(Stalingrad), Russia sometime in early 2001. Some groups in Germany were financing the excavation of the mass graves, and identification of soldiers bodies, both Russian and German. The names of the victims identified so far are engraved into a wall, with the graves of Russian soldiers on one side of the road, and those of German soldiers on the other side.

It always amazes me anytime I travel in Alsace, the region in France of which Strasbourg, where the council of Europe has its seat, is the capital city. Alsace is a region that lies between Germanz and France and which has several times in its history been transferred back and forth between the two countries. In fact, during the last war, members of the same family were drafted to fight on different sides. Yet, today, the people of Alsace, France and Germany have moved on. Alsacians can now speak their language freely and celebrate their culture openly. One can move freely between both countries, live in France and work in Germany and vice-versa. You can do your shopping across the border in the same currency, without any stress or fear (Of course once you cross the border, even though there are rarely any checks, you instinctively sense you are in a different country due to the difference in architecture and landscape).

These are a few examples of how far these peoples have come in the 6o years since the war ended. How I wished many African countries would take a cue. A peculiarity of African wars is that most of the conflicts in Africa are tribal/ethnic conflicts that have spanned centuries - before the Europeans arrived and complicated the problems by forcing them into one country, Hutsis and Tutsis were killing each other, etc. Wars within a country only destroy the common future for both the agressor and the aggrieved. The current conflict in Congo has very few winners, perhaps 0,001% of the population.

Even in Nigeria where thére is currently no war going on, tribalism has continued to pull us down. This disease that makes the fact of a person being 'my brother' the single most important fact in political appointments or in the prosecution of offences is pulling us back as a country. There is a subconcious tribal war going on in that country. Its time to realise that as long as Nigeria remains one country, we share a common destiny. To paraphrase that biblical admonishment to captive Jews in a foreign land 'pray for the peace of the land you are in, for in its peace, you will find your peace'. Without peace for the Igbo, the Yoruba cannot have peace in the same country. As long as some people in the North continue in ignorance to refuse vaccination for their children against polio, all of our children will continue to be at risk of polio. As long as progress and justice bypasses the Niger Delta, true economic progress cannot come to the whole country. Our destinies and futures are shared. We need to let that fact permeate our minds and hearts.

Yes we can!!!

Overwhelmed and filled with gratitude to be alive in these extraordinary times, I am jogged out of my unplanned but extended hiatus from Blogville by the awesomeness of the history-making election of Barack Hussein Obama as the next president of the United States of America.

While I am not American, I believe one does not need to be American to realise that we are at a "defining moment in history" to quote the US President-Elect. Happy disbelief and enormous joy apart, my main emotions today have been melancholy and deep reflection.

What Barack Obama has achieved is undeniable proof that with determination, hard work and God on your side, nothing, absolutely nothing is impossible for he who believes. Yes we can.
"Yes we can" has become more than a campaign slogan, it has become a mantra that will be chanted by generations to come, the symbol of a new era.

As a Nigerian, I feel the twin emotions of despair at the bleakness of the situation of my beloved nation, and hope that "Yes we can", yes we can turn that nation around. Yes we can, destroy the ills of corruption, injustice and lack of integrity that plague our public space. Yes we can, shatter the chains of tribalism that have kept our nation enslaved. Yes we can create a better tomorrow for future generations. The greatest thing that we can gain from this historic occurence as a nation is an awakening to the possibilities that abound to us as a people if we pick up the mantle of change and determine not only to say, but to act in the knowledge that yes we can begin a new day.

As a mother to be, I am reassured that with the God's help, I can confidently leave behind, on this historic day, any insecurities and fears about future difficulties that my unborn child might face as a person of colour growing up in a predominantly Caucasian society, my fears about any limitations or barriers that will be placed in the way just by due to skin colour. "For nothing is impossible to him that believeth". If God decrees a thing, no one can stop it. Yes we can.

For me personally, this is a watershed moment - a moment that internally frees me to go for what I believe. Not to worry about whether my decision to take a leap into the unknown, to maybe leave a great job to follow the path that is dear to my heart, yet as fully clear as it is. To follow my heart down a path that I believe to be the right one for me, as I silently chant “yes we can”.

Melancholy

I originally drafted this post on 9/6/2006 but never posted it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I've just watched a one hour video with excerpts of interviews from Maaman Vatsa's widow and sons. Its just so sad. One of the things that make my blood boil is our denial as a people. My father and I had a heated argument about contemporary Nigerian culture a few weeks ago. According to him, one has to be careful, because western values are eroding our society, and lie at the root of our problems as a nation. I just could not hear that calmly. Western people have public structures in place, universal education, enough food, regular electricity and clean water for all their people. I don't care what they are doing wrong, I'd like to have a part in it!

We in Nigeria on the other hand are God-fearing - the number of Public places of worship is unbelievable- yet we cannot provide education, portable water, constant electricity,etc, etc, yet we have the audacity to sit on a moral high horse about other people's values. We have such a huge LOG in our eyes, so big that we are 3/4 blind, yet we claim to see the gnat in other people's eyes.

We claim to be godly, but obviously we do not adhere to the saying "cleanliness is next to godliness", as the amount of rubbish on our roads can attest to. We are such egoists that caring for number one is uppermost in our minds. We get slighted at the slightest hint of disrespect. "Don't you know I'm so and so". People are content to live in their mansions surrounded by stark suffering. We wallow in our ability to throw crumbs under the table to our fellow Nigerians. We claim that we are decent and regularly express outrage at the morals of westerners, yet anyone who has ever been to female halls of residence at a Nigerian University knows that our exclamations are a case of pot calling the kettle black. At least, the Europeans mostly do it for love, or desire. What do you say about a nation of people who worship the god of their bellies. What about using every means possible to extort money from fellow human beings. We are not the poorest nation on earth so we cannot claim that we are the way we are because we are poor. And a lot of our people are well educated, but the education seems only to make them worse.

Many times I despair for our nation. Every nation has its ups and downs, but how do you retrive a people whose morals and ideals have been corroded away by selfishness and greed? Is there still a chance to pull us back from the edge of the precipice or have we already fallen over?


Nobody can convince me this was how our cultures were. Just a little glimpse back into my relationship with people who have since passed impresses upon my mind that it was not always this way.
We have become a people with no ability to "cut our coat according to our cloth" not as individuals, not as a nation. We are a nation of suffering people, yet at the slightest opportunity, we carry out orgies of spending, regardless of where we get the money from.

Manners?

- You come in, they continue staring at the tv screen or sometimes even at you, without saying a word. "D, how are you", you ask? He smiles back, answers "fine" if you are lucky, and promptly ignores you, absorbed in whatever it was he was doing before you came in.

- Their uncle comes in, and says hi to the adults but "overlooks" N and Y. He ignores them because he is sick of having to always greet them first, old enough to be their father as he is.

D is a 10 year old son of Nigerian parents, born and bred in the U.k.

N and Y are Austrian, in their early teens.

One thing I cannot stand is bad manners.

A short story

I crept up the stairs, sure that the boys were too absorbed with playing football with the neigbourhood kids to notice that I was absent. They, just like I was about to, were taking full advantage of having been left unsupervised by our usually over vigilant parents. We were not allowed to mix too freely with the neighbours or play with the kids on the street; running wild, my mother called it.

Right now, I was intent on something more important than playing football. I crept up to the door, and saw that they had left the key in the lock. Wow, my great chance to explore the content of this mysterious room was finally here. I entered, shutting the door behind me in an attempt to fool anyone coming up the stairs into thinking that the room was empty. I was not worried about my parents returning home too early, the room overlooked the street below and I would be able to hear the pii pii of the 504 horn calling us to open the gates and let them in.
There were so many interesting files and folders to go through, and I got more absorbed by the minute. When I glanced up at the clock and saw that I had been at it for about 15 minutes, I decided to go through only one more file before leaving. I reached for the bottom file, making sure to remember its exact position so as to be able to replace just exactly as it was.
I opened the file and started to peruse its content. It contained a tax declaration for my parents for the year of our lord 1982. When I got to the part where the children of the claimants were to be listed, I froze and felt cold all over from what I read. “Taiwo Ajala May 12 1971; Kehinde Ajala May 12 1971. Tinuke Ajala September 1974………”


I frantically placed the sheet aside in order to be able to look through the other contents of the folder. I forgot about putting the sheets aside in the right order. I found the birth certificates of all the kids listed in the folder and some other documents that I was too agitated to read. I replaced the papers back in the folder and put the folder back on top of the file. “No, it should be at the bottom”, I thought to myself as I turned away from the door to replace it at the bottom of the pile and to arrange the pile neatly.
I headed for our room, climbed up to my oasis, the top bunk of the double-decker bed that I shared with Tope. I lay down with my thoughts, too upset to think rationally. My poor, poor parents. What a harrowing experience they had been through. I started to think how I could make it up to them; how I could show them that I cared. No wonder they were so careful with us and very concerned that we not run wild. I decided that I would talk to my father when my parents returned home. I would hug my mother. I was puzzled as to why I had no recollection, but decided that I was probably too young to remember.


My parents returned home three hours later. Immediately my mother changed and went downstairs to the kitchen, I knocked on the door of my parent’s room. When I heard the “come in” in my father’s deep voice, my heart leapt into my mouth, I still didn’t know what I was going to say.

“Daddy, I would like to come clean with you”, I started. “I went into your study while you were away and I looked through some folders. I’m sorry about Taiye and Kehinde. What happened to them? Did they die? It must be really be painful for you and mummy”.

“Don’t worry, nobody died”, my father reassured me. “The forms you saw were only a template, don’t worry”.

"But....", I started to say.

“And by the way, what were you doing snooping in my study, that’s very deceitful and I am very ashamed of you”.

“I’m sorry sir”, I said, hanging my head.

“Go to your room right now”, he said, displaying none of the fierce annoyance that I had come to expect from my father when he was dealing with any of our misdeed. He even had a sort of amused look on his face.

It took me several years to realize that Taiwo and Kehinde Ajala, were my parents way of defrauding the old Western State and claiming extra benefits.

You can't cheat an honest man

I have gotten several e-mails in the last few weeks informing me of the fact that I had won in a lottery where the winners were selected randomly. The mails then went on to detail a list of personal information which needed to be sent before I couldreceived payment of said win. These emails could have fooled only very naïve, child-like people, or very greedy people, blinded to the very obvious by a desire to get something for nothing, or much for peanuts. How can you have won in a lottery that you didn't enter for? And the official from the lottery board has only a yahoo or hotmail email address. Hellooo???

That is why I am very irritated at the following report on the BBC website about the arrest of lottery scam suspects.

My irritation stems from the ever-present debate when the issue of scams comes up. Is it only the scammer that should be punished? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying its right to cheat anyone out of his or her money, and I believe that scammers must be punished, but like Mickey says in Hustle “you can’t cheat an honest man”.

I am never taken in by freebies, it is a natural law that you never get something for nothing and anyone who wants to because of their greed, deserves whatever follows. I am sorry for the naive people who were taken in, but it seems they must have a bit of intrinsic greed.

Maybe I'm just being to hard on the poor stupid people.....

Thought provoking

The images above are from a blog titled The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus which I came accross a couple of months ago. While I don't always agree with his positions, I am glad for the thoughts they provoke.

Asa in Concert

Someone I know posted a video of "Fire on the Mountain", the widely aclaimed single from Asa on her page a few months ago. I listened to it, it was quite good I thought and forgot all about it. As the months went by, she was mentioned by several people in various blog posts, on facebook and I finally got curious.

I watched the video of her interview on New dawn with Funmi, and she sounded so down to earth that I was intrigued. On her official homepage, you can listen to her various tracks. As I perused the page, I found that she would be playing inseveral locations Germany, and I found she would be playing in a city close to where I live!!!! Immediately I decided that I would be at the concert. Now, you have to know me for you to realise that it was not a very "selbstverstandlich" (logical) conclusion. In the whole of my 30year(in four weeks), I have only been to I think five concerts. Most were accidental attendances, as in my hubby wanted to go and I tagged along. The only other concert I had consciously decided to attend before now was a Shaggy concert in Moscow, and I didn't even pay for the ticket - I knew one of the organisers and he gave me a free ticket.

So, anyway, I decided to go to the concert (apart from the fact that I like her music and also do anything to support other hardworking Nigerians, I also needed a bit of a distraction). I immediately set my PR forces in motion -i.e. I sent an email to all my friends inviting them along. It turned out that one of those friends had bought an Asa CD accidentally in Nigeria over the christmas holidays, and she was immediately for it. She said she was going to invite some other friends of hers. I also decided to invite some of my colleagues, so it was a very jolly group of us that went along.

Meanwhile, I was able to buy the CD in Media Markt, an electronics store here, where I had also previously bought Ayo. For the first time, I listened to all the tracks including "So beautiful" which has become my favourite - when I sing "e bami kira fun mama mi, orisa bi iya ko si laye".....I sing it for my mother.

The concert was great - she knows how to work the stage! Everyone I spoke to enjoyed the concert and we all think she is going places. She is also very inspirational, I mean, her voice is not typical, and it must have taken a lot of determination to get where she is. I should take a cue from her wrt my book.....

We got a chance to speak briefly to her afterwards and also to take pictures with her. I even have an autographed CD to show for it!!!! In all, it was a great experience.