Theodora

I have not had so much to say nor felt so incapable of expressing myself in any form as I have felt in the last few months...... Ever since we lost the gift we hadn't planned on, a lot has changed for me. I feel things just as deeply, but can't really be bothered to express myself. Its’ not really that I'm grieving - after all I never really got to know him that well. Even though I was only in the very early stages, at a point where there were more imaginary changes than real ones occurring in my body, I had begun to imagine that he could hear me. I always wanted a daughter, but somehow I knew this baby was a boy. I also knew that I would give my life for that little piece of life growing in me. Sadly I didn't get the opportunity. I only know that God knows best. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be His name. I wanted to call him "God's gift" *. I know that any child that He chooses to give me will be His gift.

I learnt one thing - every single child born healthy is a gift from God above. One can't always choose the date like one can with respect to most other things on God's earth. In this one area, one must learn to say YES to God's will. I was not sure I wanted to be a mother before. I wasn't sure when I'd be ready, but the fleeting couple of months that my gift spent with me made me certain that I'll be ready as soon as He allows.

* Theodora - God's gift

Life is....

........what happens to you while you are busy making plans. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. When I've had a chance to wrap my mind around it, I'll probably put up a post about it.

419 Mail

I just got this in my inbox. I can't believe some people are actually taken in by such obvious scams.


FROM DESK OF ENGR. WILLIAMS SMITH EVANSPETROLEUM TRUST FUND OFFICE.CONTRACT AWARD DEPARTMENT.NIGERIA NATIONAL PETROLEUM COPORATIONLAGOS-NIGERIA.
CONTACT: christcharlesglory@yahoo.com
ATTN:Sir/madam,I am the chairman of the contract award committee,federal ministry of petroleum resources, Nigeria I am in search of an agent to assist us in the transfer FIFTY MILLION, FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS,And subsequent investment in properties in your country.You will be required to: (1) Assist in the transfer of the said sum(2) Advise on lucrative areas of investment(3) Assist us in purchase of properties. If you decide to render your service to us in this regard,35% of the total sum will be offerred to you.PLEASE SEND REPLY TO INDICATE YOUR WILLINGNESS IN ASSISTING US SO THAT I WILL DIRECT YOU ON WHAT NEXT To DO. INCLUDE YOUR DIRECT TELEPHONE ANDFAX NUMBERS IF YOU ARE RESPONDING.THANKS FOR YOUR ANTICIPATED ASSISTANCE.

YOURS SINCERELY,Chairman of the contract award committee(CCAC)
ANTICIPATED ASSISTANCEDR CHARLES CHRIST. Gwilliamssmith22@yahoo.com

Rare, medium or well done

I was in the supermarket this evening after work to get some supplies and I decided to get some meat. Normally I just get lamb, and its usually available packaged and/or deep frozen. In the particular supermarket that I went to, they had no frozen meat section, and the fresh lamb looked a bit suspect to me, so I decided to get some beef for a change. The butcher asked what I wanted to use the meat for in order to advice me on what to get. Just as I was about to say beef stew, I caught myself. No need to get myself entangled in explaining what that is. I said "steak". I got my meat and headed home.

Chuckling to myself, I thought about steaks. My husband likes his steak rare, I like mine of course, like a typical Nigerian, well done. We have worked out a compromise, I take out his steak first and cook mine until I'm sure its well done. My husband likes to make a joke about this. Often when we are in a restaurant, and I order a well done steak, he says jokingly to the waiter "first make sure its dead, then fry/grill it till its dead again and then hit it just to make sure". Na im sabi. Don't mind him, when I cook stew, if I'm lucky, the pot lasts the day with him picking out the pieces of meat to snack on everytime he walks around the kitchen. Meanwhile when he buys me lamb, he always complains good naturedly that making stew with it is waste of perfectly good meat.

Talking of steaks, for some reason, I have never managed to get well done steaks in the Netherlands. On the occasions when I was lucky, I got a medium steak. Mostly, it was just rare. In fact the last time, when I finally decided to swear off eating meat in Holland, the meat was so rare I kept expecting a "Moo" anytime. And even my oyinbo colleague admited that it was way too raw, even for her who liked rare meat. My aversion to raw meat is I guess funny, because I love Sushi so so much.

By the way(and completely off topic, but anyway, thats me), if anyone reading this knows where one can get nice suya in London please tell me. I had suya from somewhere in Peckham about 4 years ago and I must confess that I was quite disappointed.

Be safe.

GOP

In many news reports, the Republican Party is referred to as the "GOP". At some point, I guess it was during the last elections, I decided that they were probably referring to themselves as God's own people, seeing that many evangelicals are affiliated to the party, and Dubya claims to do nothing without being led of God. I don't know what made me google GOP tonight, but now I know that it stands for Grand Old(or 'Ole) Party. Makes much more sense of course. Thank God for Google - the bane of ignorance!

Everyday Nigerian Heroes 1: Ilasamaja Youth Forum

The Ilasamaja Youth Forum was started a few months ago, here in the words of the president of the organization, Abu Olawale Raymond:

“What happened was that we went to the internet,” Raymond said, in a chat with Saturday Sun, “and we saw stories about young people in different parts of the world, coming together to do things for their communities, and working with other organizations like the UN. We decided to come together and think of programmes that we could do that would benefit our community, as others have done. Since then, we have held seminars on HIV/AIDS, liberating the youths from poverty and we celebrated International World Youth Day on August 12, this year. On environmental sanitation days, we visit areas in our community that we feel need cleaning and do what we can to clean up these areas.”

For once a good story about Nigerian youth and the internet. The collapse of the pedestrian bridge and their voluntary work in helping pedestrians cross the road to avoid casualties is what makes them heroes:

The incident that forced them to become heroes was the collapse, a couple of months ago, of part of the pedestrian bridge that goes across the Apapa-Oshodi
Expressway at Ilasamaja bus-stop.

....... casualties followed as people were forced to dash across the highway, trying to dodge cars coming at breakneck speed, driven by motorists who didn’t know the situation of the collapsed bridge and just thought the pedestrians were breaking the law. Many died, especially among the elderly and young children, who didn’t stand a chance against on-coming vehicles


It was this state of affairs that led the Ilasamaja Youth Forum, led by its president, Abu Olawale Raymond, to decide that too many members of their community had been lost and something had to be done before more would perish. So they printed the name of their organization on lemon reflective jackets, picked up a few sticks and headed for the highway directly under the collapsed bridge, where they have remained everyday for weeks, trying to slow down traffic so pedestrians can cross safely.

Again a sad reflection on our society that the police and LASTMA only started to "assist" only after IYF got involved.

Their work eventually brought the situation to the attention of the police, who sent a number of their officers to assist. Sometimes, LASTMA officials also pitch in. Some other youth organizations, including the Action Congress, youth wing of Ward F2, also joined forces with them, for what is essentially a full day’s work, everyday.

Its not easy, but its heartening that in a country where millions have to struggle to make ends meet, young people are going out of their way to do things like this.

Raymond says they have to juggle the time they have to be able to work there, since most of their members are students and workers. He himself is a student at Lagos State University who also works.
“We resume everyday at 7 am, which is a very busy period because people are going to work and students are going to school, and then we work till 9 am. Then another group, that is the AC Youth Forum, continue from then on. We ask some of our members who have to go to work in the morning to write letters to their companies to let them come to work a bit late so they can take part in the work. The students who don’t have lectures in the early morning also take part at that time. Those who can’t take part during the week help out at weekends. The others, who can stay the whole day, do so. We have about 19 members who do this work everyday.”

Praise is also due to the Action Congress youth forum and all other youth groups carrying out such voluntary acts of community service under dangerous conditions all around Nigeria. I implore anyone who can do anything to assist or encourage such groups acts to please do what they can. The financial assistance offered by Oceanic bank for the purchase of caution signs is a fine example of the type of support which can be offered.

We decided that we needed to erect some caution signs to slow motorists down to make our work easier. So we approached Oceanic Bank, that has a branch nearby and asked them to help us pay for these signs to be erected. They gladly agreed to do that and complied as promised.”

One can lament till tomorrow about the government not doing its job, and they would be perfectly justified. However, doing one's on bit, while clamouring for greater accountability and effectiveness of the government through peaceful but persistent means is, in my opinion, the only way forward for Nigeria. These youth deserve praise for doing their bit.

Read the full story here: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/living/2008/jan/12/living-12-01-2008-001.htm

*This is the first of what I hope will become a regular series of posts, about ordinary Nigerians, both young and old, giving back to their community and to the country that has given them so little. *

Lago Maggiore

Here is a picture of the back view of Lago Maggiore taken from the balcony of our hotel room. This picture was taken during our summer trip. I love this picture so much, because it gives me such a sense of peace. A really beautiful landscape contains the most unimaginable colours - such colours as would make you think a painter over imaginative if you had seen it in a painting. Hundreds of shades of green and blue and grey, its amazing. I guess that is why I love impressionism, especially anything by Claude Monet.
Info: I am generally a sucker for landscape photos.
I liked the photo so much I even made it into a card. Here is a picture of the card: