Cidersweet's Very Own!

This One Is For You

2009-08-07T11:48:00.002-07:00

Yah, this is my 100th Post at last! And it is dedicated to you all. Thank you for your honest rants, serious debates, off-days, goofy days, thankful days, random days, interesting slangs…
Whenever I’m feeling 'somehow' I remember Blogosphere. And the way you express yourselves is so original. (Once upon a time I used to be discouraged about our –Nigeria’s that is- level of creativity; in the papers, I could almost always tell an article that was culled from The Daily Times or bbc because it was always more interesting/stimulating. (I’m not trying to put us down oh! It is what I observed, once upon a time. Newspaper articles are cooler now).

Then I discovered Blogville, so in my itty bitty way I’m saying thank you all (note: for fear of sounding too mushy -or as if I’m about to receive a Grammy- I’m keeping it short):

To our beautiful and strong-spirited Adaeze- I wish to be as kind-hearted; to the level-headed Adrian; to my first blogger friend and very brilliant writer Azuka (who has not updated in a l o n g while :- (); AkaBagucci the interesting and deeeep thinker…

To the funny and friendly scriptwriter(am I right?) Bibi; to poetic Blogoratti who makes weekly planning a pleasant activity; to the passionate, very funny and strong BrownSkinNaijaChic who likes Mortal Kombat(lol); my friend B. Suleiman who vamoosed before I got the opportunity to ‘stalk’ his blog…

To our so lovely, half-Northern sista Cappuccine Baby who has a new blog I don’t know yet; to Chikito, the blogger that introduced me to blogging…

To the encouraging brotha Dan Asabe (Dan Arewa); to the thoughtful and poetic Deola…

To the honest, so refreshing ExSchoolNerd Laide, whose rant about her Mumsi I always remember (lol); to the delightful, observant Enkay whom I just discovered, oh me like you!

To the really friendly and pretty Fareeda who goes the extra mile to support Nigerian artistes like Darey; to deluvly, hard working Funmi…

Ladidi! level-headed, intellectual and lovely Northern chica; Laspapi, the deep thinker whose Girl Whisperer articles I thoroughly enjoy; Levi & Irene- Levi who speaks so warmly about his beautiful wife Irene; the lovely, encouraging Lolia (who posts amusing cartoon sometimes), whose confidence in Nigeria strengthens mine; Stand Up Comedy’s finest: Lucy! whose mix of humor and Physics always impressed me; the peaceful, beautiful and so talented Lyricist Cathy D; to Miss Leggy and her interesting family, friends & sincere poems…

To the honest, totally deep Milesperhour; the cool talented actress herself Miss FlyHigh; to the pretty Natural Muze who is so good at writing…

NaijaGirl di ndu!! Encouraging, super inspirational, forgiving (don’t ask me how I know, I just do lol), who always makes me appreciate God more(“nobody can do it like He does” in deed); Nice Anon, whose writing style and really deep post about relationships (in May I think) so tripped me…

Observer whose cutting wit I so appreciate; the sweet One (and 1 + The 1 equals Unlimited)…

To the level-headed Pam (lol, I always remember her post on our foreign affairs minister- “kai, Ojo… Ojo… Ojo!”)…

To the kind-hearted, good natured Roc (whose sensual tales doth make one read on and blush :-)…

To the truthful and funny Saved Girl, who taught me to say “mooch”, lol; to the inspiring, encouraging Simeone; to the cool, July baby Smokie; to the awesome don-t-just-sit-there, do-something! activist Stand Tall!; to the amazing Solomon Sydelle, with intense TTTEC issues and lovely tales of TK, TE & Bomboy- a mother and loving it- I usually wonder what is adorable about super-active, noisy, attention-craving little people and I have actually found answers in 2 places- here & my Sis’ kids place)…

To T’s very informative blog and interviews; to the cool, analytical TaireBabs, whose self-confessed love for tv I can so relate with (and whose description of someone smiling like a pussy cat still amuses me); to The Ice Queen herself! Warm, sweet, humorous, and such a Johnny Depp fan; to The Lamp (of Light Her Lamp)… awesome, inspiring…

And to this guy Walkwater! Your sincerity and passion is really something my friend. I’m glad I know you.

In summary, I so appreciate you. You are His very own. I love you I love you I love you! Nmuahh!! (LOL! That I will never receive that grammy does not stop me from channeling the stars! But my appreciation is sincere).

Kurungus!

Nigerian Calabash

2009-08-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

Bad news for consumers in Naija. By the end of this month, we may no longer have the chance to retrieve quick cash from nearby ATMs, as the Central Bank of Nigeria is serious about getting rid of every ATM situated at non-bank locations -shopping malls, airports, hotels, etc (oh mahn! That’s so wrong).This is because banks have broken CBN’s operational guidelines for ATM placement. More info in the dailies.

Moving along…

This was inspired by Mo Abudu, and I fapped the first three from her show. Name at least 5 things Nigerians are brilliant for:
1. We show people warm hospitality – we know how to cook and accommodate even impromptu guests (it’s funny that in these days of GSM this still happens); we also take care of our elderly folks.
2. We are quite respectful, be it title-wise (Aunty/Brother/Uncle), gesture-wise or tone-wise. (I remember some people saying Hausa folk are so disrespectful because they don’t attach ‘Sista’ or ‘Brotha’ to names, forgetting that each ethnic group is entitled to its own unique way of showing respect).
3. Our energy and resilience is remarkable (this has its downside sha- we tend to accept bad things without much fight)
4. Our food - spicy and diverse. And our colorful attire.
5. When we are truly serious about something, we excel in it

This was post no. 99

It's called 'Western Education' today

2009-08-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

Sadly, the North continues to be synonymous with religious crises. Sometimes it is called a political upheaval, but recently it’s supposedly about Western education.

As someone once pointed out, the youths encouraged to carry out these horrific deeds are the uneducated ones who have not reaped the benefits of Western education; the people who believe that “the world is flat and rain is not caused by evaporation…”, as The Times of London quotes.

Right now there’s temporary peace, abi, so it’s time for people to vamoose while they still can. In places like Kano, Kaduna, Plateau State, numerous folks have packed their things and relocated to more peaceful(at this time) states. That September 2001 Jos experience really rocked us, but we still weren’t prepared for a repeat… followed by another… and another. It becomes useless for struggling businessmen to pick up the few pieces they have, only for them to be destroyed again & again.

Those who stay behind are to remain vigilant; their lives depend on it. It’s so bad; when folks have finally managed to relax, hell erupts again- and it doesn’t help that it starts in the early morning hours (the last thing on the mind at 2am is fada (fight) -unless you’re having a vision inspired by God or by excess beans in the belly). So the advice to “check if the elderly beggars are still on the streets” is clearly out (this was the advice I was given when schooling in Minna. The theory behind this is that beggars are warned about impending riots).

But I still thank God; I shudder as I realise that for some countries, life is infinitely more uncertain than this. War is a daily reality. Mass burials, decay, no food to stock up on, no place to hide, agony... things I’d rather not dwell on. But while we thank God that our portion is not as heavy, the fact remains that Nigeria is in trouble and we all know what the problems are. It’s how to move from ‘here’ to ‘there’ on the back of a totally lame government that confounds.

Still on somewhat related news…

I get confused sometimes. ‘Why did I stress myself to go to the university again? Erm, so that I could/can get a good job.’ This answer usually pacified me, until I was faced with a class full (kai, school full) of young ladies who were uninterested in schooling. ‘Is it enough for me to say ‘Yan Mata (young ladies) you need to get to Uni too so that you can get a good job’? Not really. I’m sure I could have attached the you-will-become-an-independent-woman tag, but it wasn’t the correct answer to me. In the end I just shut up and focused more on forcing Chemistry down. If only I had come across this article sooner:

“What is the purpose of education?”
By Luke Onyekakeyah, The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper, 4th August 2009.

“…Though the fundamental philosophy [of education] has always been to impart and acquire knowledge through teaching and learning procedures as is done in school or any similar institutions, the purpose of spending time, energy and resources to impart and acquire the knowledge depends on the society’s needs... The Eastern world has a distinct educational system tailored to solve problems in those countries… I discovered that because Japan is an earthquake prone country, their educational system is tailored to handle this problem. School curriculum is designed to produce experts that would effectively tackle society’s problems. Consequently, Japanese engineers, architects, planners, etc are trained to carry out their profession with the country’s problems in mind. Thus, buildings, bridges, highways are designed and built to withstand earthquakes…

[But Nigeria’s]educational system is blindly tailored to the colonial education system [whose target then was to produce clerks, accounts officers, administrators, managers and other white-collar job oriented manpower]. But the colonial education purpose in Africa is no longer relevant. No country in Africa has been able to develop a homemade education system that is tailored to address local development needs. That partly explains why most countries in Africa are retrogressing…

One of the greatest problems facing this country since independence is energy. At the same time, we have in this country abundant solar energy, gas resources, coal, wind and geothermal energy to name a few. We have abundant solid mineral resources that can’t be exploited because the educational system has failed to produce the needed manpower to exploit these minerals…”

Of course, the universities offer the necessary courses- petroleum engineering, geophysics, environmental science, etc but you know now: output is negligible.
His solution: We need an educational revolution. Mercy Ette says she knows that the solution she profers is likely to vex folks, but sha, the educational system can be revamped only when all the institutions are closed down and re-structured. Ahh! I can imagine not only the President’s face, but undergrads’ too. They certainly won’t be doing this:

Well, we hope a revolution will happen on that elusive “one day”.
Till then.

At last

2009-07-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

It has been a while oh; I’ve not had any access to the internet until now (thank you Sis) and I agree with so many bloggers that Blogosphere is experiencing harmattan this summer (hahaha… yeah, some jokes are funny only to the person that cracked them). I have lost track of all the things I’ve been wanting to blog about (lie: I have been having “blogger’s block” for long now). For now, lemme just do a this-n-that post:

Who has read Chimamanda’s book of short stories titled “The Thing Around Your Neck”?
I read one of the short stories in her book from Nairaland and it’s awesome: http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-258296.0.html

Who was once a fan of “tests, tests and more tests” like me?

1.Time you’re spending with an old friend seems less and less enjoyable. The two of you are drifting apart. Your response:
a. stop returning phone calls or IVs and quietly let the relationship die
b. honestly tell your friend it’s just not fun for you anymore
c. express your concerns and work it together

2. Your other half has a habit that is becoming increasingly annoying. Your response:
a. threaten to end the relationship if things don’t change
b. live with it. You have annoying little habits too
c. honestly tell them what annoys you
d. try making a joke about it

When internet access initially got to the country, aside from checking emails, I always frequented emode.com (which later became tickle.com, which later shut down). Nobody loved their “tests, tests and more tests!” like me. I introduced as many people who had spare time to check it out, and we always had a fantastic time sampling alternative ways to react to situations and learn a little more about ourselves (tsuntsaye biyu, dutse zallah –lol- two birds, one stone).So I was just reminiscing when I posted the above questions, fapped from ivillage.

A Soft Rant
I have never ranted in my blog, and I say it’s high time:
I want to be 17 again! I want to be carefree like I (never) was back then. I want to keep having crushes on cute actors of all age-groups without worrying that I’m an agbaya. Oh! Let me get to the point: I wanna have a crush on Zac Efron but now I’m too ooooold! :-/

Hm. As if I want to re-experience WAEC/JAMB/parent/boy troubles. My Kawata Har Abada (BFF) and I had a real good time watching 17 Again though, mostly because Zac Efron is sooooo cute (I’m sure I can get a witness, lol). As I never liked High School Musical et al, I never really noticed him until now. I was seriously unhappy when he morphed back into his older, Matthew Perry self in the movie. Well done, Guy. If only I was 17… :- )

But really, this is how it’s going to be abi? Every year the actors get younger and cuter while you get older but “younger at heart” (I am so taking it personally, sulks).

So, I hope your weekend has been relaxing and interesting. Have a good new week.
Cheers!

LIFESPAN THE MOVIE!

2009-07-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hi! Hope your weekend has been good? "If so, doxology" (heheheh, an over-used phrase one of my English teachers yabbed us for using whenever we were told to write letters during examinations).

Ok, so in case you haven't heard, there's a new 3-D animation coming soon, straight from Naija! It's called Lifespan, and I'll leave Emmanuel Anyifite to tell you all about it:

It’s hardly news to say that Nigeria has not caught up with the worldwide advances in feature length animated films. South Africa beat us to it, and produced the first African 3D animated movie. But now, Mighty Jot Animation Studios are out to change the state of affairs, and have come up with a movie which when it premieres in December, will become Nigeria’s first animated movie.

Written and directed by Stanlee Ohikhuare, the film is titled ‘Lifespan’, and will be released in cinemas locally but will stand up to the best that is out there internationally.
A pioneer in 3D technology in Nigeria, Ohikhuare is well known for his television commercials for various companies and brand names, including Zain, Coca Cola and Chicken Republic. He had to stop two other films in other to concentrate on ‘Lifespan’, a self-funded project which has taken three years to make.

Lifespan is a compelling movie whose central theme is the scourge of malaria. In an imaginative leap, the film is set in the past, about 4,000 years ago in the ancient Benin Kingdom.
A colony of mosquitoes are split, with one group wanting to remain the bloodsucking predators that nature has made; while the other group prefers to tow the line of prudence to ensure their survival by other means and be less menacing to humans. They attempt to get a magical potion for malaria, and so embark on a quest to a cave inhabited by men.

The aim is to get a dose of human blood to perform a purification ritual that will end the spread of malaria forever and lead to a peaceful co-existence with mankind. But all is not what it seems, and there are hidden agendas and selfish interests at play.

In a trailer preview, we glimpse a movie which when released would be comparable to the best that Hollywood has to offer, including blockbusters like ‘Antz’, ‘Happy Feet’, ‘A Shark’s Tale’ and ‘Madagascar’ – all standout works in new technology driven movie making. Ohikhuare hopes giants like Walt Disney will help with the international distribution and marketing of ‘Lifespan’.
South Africa’s first 3D movie, titled ‘Wild Safari’ was released in 2005. It combined real images with animation and special effects, enhancing the stunning visuals in three dimensions. ‘Wild Safari’ was based on an inspirational contemporary tale targeting international viewers of all ages. Many noted its debt to classic American animation like ‘The Little Prince’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ – with the added elements of fantasy, high emotion and entertainment.
Similarly, Lifespan would attempt to capture audiences with its storyline. Its makers say the film will show the scourge of malaria in a captivating style that only 3D movies can. It also promises a wholly Nigerian outlook: characters have Nigerian names; local music is played; and some of the country’s most popular actors are featured.

Characters in Lifespan will be voiced by popular actors and actresses, including: Joke Silva as Queen Shebaz; Kate Henshaw as Queen Shekil; Bola Edwards - Akpor; Ashionye as Ivie, and Femi Sowoolu as Opiah. Others are Idia Imahe as Omon; Ighodaro Umaigba as Waspie; Patrick Edwards as the Ant and ace comedian, Basketmouth as Scout.
3D animation in Nigeria is largely limited to television commercials at present. It is expected that the genre will witness a major turning point with the release of Lifespan.
The estimated cost of the film is N300 million, still a pittance in comparison to the whopping $300 million used by director James Cameron for his own animated movie, slated for release soon.

“Lifespan is not an attempt to become a local champion, neither is it a project for local consumption alone,” says Ohikhure. He insists that the film “will put us in the spotlight for global scrutiny and criticism, to enable us get better and eventually bridge the gap between us and big time production firms like Pixar and Dreamworks.”

-Lifespan and the 3D revolution by Emmanuel Anyifite

To watch the Lifespan trailer, the youtube link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaHE5rZXURI&feature=related

Cheers!

You've Bean Served!

2009-06-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

I remember the time
You never liked me at all
Though Mama coaxed and Aunty threatened,
Your dislike for me just got more intense
You never thought I made any sense

Then you went to boarding school,
Breathing many a sigh of relief
But to your horror,
There I was, a major part the welcoming committee:
Rice & Beans! Grits & Beans!! Weevils & Beans!!! Pap & Beans!
(Actually, the Kunu & Kosai was nice-
“Kunu & Kosai ke? It’s Pap & Bean-Cake, bush girl!” Your School Mummy teased)

For six years, it was-
Beans, Beans, and more Beans
Until one day, you simply stopped fighting-
You fell in love with me
And now your week is so incomplete
Without me as your precious girki-treat

But enough of me and my lame info-
Please allow me to intro
Our very own maestro-
Mabel Segun!
[girki = cooking in Hausa]

-Brief Interlude-
Me: Whew! Beans dear, you are a great dish but a really crappy poet, ok? Just stick to your normal job.
Beans: Whaat?! Do you know how long it took me to create that masterpiece?
Me: Not long enough. Don’t be offended. We are all gifted in different areas; all I’m saying is “akara becomes bone in the mouth of a toothless person”.
Beans: Eh?
Me: A Yoruba proverb, meaning a simple matter becomes a problem to a person of little ability.
Beans: Oook, it’s like that ba! Me too I sabi am- “Medicine that is mixed with food – if it does not cure the disease, it will cure hunger”. A Nupe proverb, meaning nothing is entirely useless. Even though the poem was crappy, it still passed a message across.
Me: Ok o.
Beans: And I have another proverb for you, since you are giving me the patronizing silent treatment- “One should not eat hot food in a hurry”
Me: That’s simple now. Analyse this one: “Where dishes break, the breaking of calabashes is of no consequence” (Urhobo)
Beans: Eh-heh, I get. “Opelenge fell against a dish but the dish did not break. She fell against a mortar and the mortar split”. Figure that one out.
Me: (shakes head). You’ve forgotten that I am the “system” and I know everything ko? It means some people overcome a major disaster, only to be overcome by a minor one. Ok o, I’m tired of this banter, as everyone else is right now.
Beans: (smiles sagely) “He who says ‘we don’t want any more food’ makes himself unpopular” A Yoruba proverb ‘your omniscience’ should have remembered. You should never presume to know other people’s minds. You should only speak for yourself.
Me: Toh. Whatever.
Beans: Yess! I win! The name’s Beans, people… James Beans (poses coolly… in my plate)

Ok, so onto Mabel Segun’s translation of a Yoruba praise song for beans. (Note: I am NOT apologizing for my extremely goofy post. Lol)

O Beans, protector of the soil
Who has spread your tentacles
Over the entire farm
Filling food that staves off hunger,
Whose customer develop
A craving for water
Assuming various forms-
You become *ekuru
Eaten with wraps of *eko;
Assuming various forms-
You become a stew, *gbegiri
Without which people
Simply toy with their bowls of *oka;
But when beans thrive,
They gorge themselves with oka
And burst the seams of their attire;
Not for nothing does tasty *akara-
Put on bold airs in the dish-
Whether it is *llarado,
Fried in medium oil,
Or *towobopo
Wallowing in deep oil,
More delightfully, O Beans,
You become transformed into that delicious food which goes by the name *oole.

Ekuru –steamed, seasoned bean paste eaten in crumbly form
Eko – cooked corn paste wrapped in leaves
Gbegiri – delicious bean stew
Oka – cooked yam flour
Akara – aka kosai (Hausa) or bean-cake; fried bean balls made from bean paste
Oole- short for olele, another name for moyinmoyin
Ilarado & towobopo she didn’t identify, sorry.

NOTE: All non-goofy info fapped from Mabel Segun’s book “Rhapsody: A Celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture”.
This post was inspired by Roc (in your recent comment) and NaijaGirl (you once said proverbs always make one wiser/authoritative). Thank you v. much!

The Space In-Between

2009-06-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.
An awareness of our freedom and power to choose is affirming because it can excite our sense of possibility and potential. It can also threaten, because now we are accountable.

Any time your emotional life is a function of someone else’s weakness, you disempower yourself.”
Stephen R. Covey, The Eighth Habit.

Makes serious sense, but I also understand that positive change takes some time.
PS: I haven’t been able to think of one solid thing to blog about; the days have been “somehow” (but at least I have now updated, lol).

Also, you might have heard about the danger of putting your car's air conditioner on before allowing fresh air in -it may cause miscarriages and cancer. So many things researchers are finding out these days. (My bro who has been complaining about his dry skin doesn't even want to use glycerin for fear of what future research might reveal :-)

Anyhow, happy weekend.
Huta lafiya! (Rest well!)

"Treat Me As I treat My Neighbor"

2009-06-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

By Max Lucado

Hi! Before you read some Max Lucado, here’s a thankful post (I read Adaeze & Lolia’s thoughtful thankful posts and they reminded me of what someone once said: “When you hear the appreciative words God’s children say to Him, you fall in love with Him”).

I seriously appreciate:
1. Company, as in, people I’m comfortable with. Whenever I’m chanced to have meaningful conversation, discuss/listen to interesting issues, learn things, laugh etc I do it with passion.

2. Christ – the exciting possibilities we have because of what He did/is doing for us. For example, imagine the power God has given us against all evil, not because we’ve done (or have promised to do) anything holy, but because of Christ (Matthew 10; Titus 3:5).

3. ‘Comic Relief’- truly, a sense of humour is a blessing. A newspaper columnist admitted that he’s really tired of writing about the same problems our country is having, and has decided to cultivate his sense of humour to help him cope. Country aside, life can be horrible. But I have a question- it may have an obvious answer: Do you believe Nigeria can be transformed in our own generation?

4. Churches – When I was in university I stopped attending church for over 2 years. It was a double case of “too much Church, too little results” (in my life and in others’ lives- yes, I was very judgemental), and “too many Churches, orishirishi (different) doctrines”. It was an uncomfortable period for my roommates and I, and eventually they became very annoyed with me (you know how religious we can be) but in the end clarity came: with the Bible as a reference point* or ”anti-virus”(or anti-antiChrist), one can learn so much from different churches- from how to pray, to receiving God’s blessings. Now for closing hymn, let me sing “Years I Spent in Vanity and Pride” :- )

5. Creative, courageous people.

6. Cute actors like Freddie Prinze Jr, Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder, Wolverine, Just Friends), Denzel Washington… etc (ok I was watching a witty Prinze Jr. film -Jack & Jill vs The World - when I wrote that).

*See Galatians 3 & 4; 1Cor. 1. The early christians faced the same confusion many of us are facing, so it is a merely a case of DHCN - ‘Doctrine Has Changed Name’.

And now for some Max Lucado>>>

"Treat Me As I Treat My Neighbor."
Are you aware that this is what you are saying to your Father? Give me what I give them. Grant me the same peace I grant others. Let me enjoy the same tolerance I offer. God will treat you the way you treat others.

In any given Christian community there are two groups: those who are contagious in their joy and those who are cranky in their faith. They've accepted Christ and are seeking him, but their balloon has no helium. One is grateful, the other is grumpy. Both are saved. Both are heaven bound. But one sees the rainbow and the other sees the rain.

Could this principle explain the difference? Could it be that they are experiencing the same joy they have given their offenders? One says, "I forgive you," and feels forgiven. The other says, "I'm ticked off," and lives ticked off at the world.

It's as if God sends you to the market to purchase your neighbor's groceries saying, "Whatever you get your neighbor, get also for yourself. For whatever you give him is what you receive."
Let's take this a step further. Suppose your neighbor's trash blows into your yard. You mention the mess to him, and he says he'll get to it sometime next week. You inform him that you've got company coming and couldn't he get out of that chair and do some work? He tells you not to be so picky, that the garbage fertilizes your garden. You're just about to walk across the lawn to have a talk when God reminds you, "Time to go to the market and buy your neighbor's groceries." So you grumble and mumble your way to the store, and then it hits you, "I'll get even with the old bum." You go straight to the skim milk. Then you make a beeline to the anchovies and sardines. You march right past the double-chocolate ice cream and head toward the okra and rice. You make a final stop in the day-old bread section and pick up a crusty loaf with green spots on the edge.

Chuckling, you drive back to the house and drop the sack in the lap of your lazy, good-for-nothing neighbor. "Have a good dinner." And you walk away.
All your brilliant scheming left you hungry, so you go to your refrigerator to fix a sandwich, but guess what you find. Your pantry is full of what you gave your enemy. All you have to eat is exactly what you just bought. We get what we give.

Some of you have been eating sardines for a long time. Your diet ain't gonna change until you change. You look around at other Christians. They aren't as sour as you are. They're enjoying the delicacies of God, and you're stuck with okra and anchovies on moldy bread. You've always wondered why they look so happy and you feel so cranky. Maybe now you know. Could it be God is giving you exactly what you're giving someone else?
Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm

Sorry, the post was long. Happy new month!

2009-05-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

This was inspired by Bibi, BSNC & Miss FlyHigh’s cool audio blog. And partly Nice Anon. They were talking about ‘firsts’- first crush, first fight… you get. I had a little time, so I thought of some of my random, okay ‘firsts’-

- First blog I read:
Her username was Chikito, and I was thrilled by her hilarious F.G.G.C Owerri tales. That was in 2007, and I never knew what a blog was. That was the first time I was reading a story written by a Nigerian (on the web), and I was blown away. She had stopped updating since 2005 though. Since then, I have been exposed to interesting blogs… like yours :- )

-First Fight:
My first and last physical fight was in Primary 5, with a boy who always bullied me. While I have forgotten the names of many classmates, I still remember his name and surname. The annoying thing was that he wasn’t bigger than me (we were the same size). He just had the ability to tell the softies from the tough no-nonsense ones. Well one fateful day, I’d had enough when he threw a chair at me. I started slapping and beating him and he managed to put in a good number of kicks before people came to my rescue.

-First Female Friend…
…will always be G’green (one of her nicknames in school). In such a mixedup world, she who findeth a true girlfriend findeth a good thing indeed. We attended the same Primary and Secondary school, and we talked about everything, till Uni. separated us, and it hasn’t been easy keeping in touch since then. But she always has a special place in my heart (I take a moment to hold my right hand to my heart… and my left to my phone) :- )

-First book my Dad bought me, titled Luka and the Television. Excerpts as follows:
There was a boy named Luka who loved to watch television. As soon as he came home from school, he would rush to the tv, switch it on and would watch it for hours, still in his school uniform. Sometimes he never even noticed that he had not eaten. His father was very disturbed by this, but regardless of all his threats, Luka remained engrossed with the tv. His results in school became increasingly terrible, and Luka himself was becoming a terror in school- he had developed a vicious temper which resulted in fights on an almost daily basis. One day his weary father called him aside and said to him, “Luka, you know that what you are doing is not good. All this television is causing you to misbehave. Why don’t you want to change?” Luka replied, “I don’t want to change. I want to be used by the devil to do his works.”
So Luka never changed, and soon he paid the price.
The End.

Never mind the (weird) story plot, esp. Luka’s where-did-that-come-from response; I was totally silent when I finished reading it many years ago. I was wondering, this story book was bought specially for me. ‘Did Daddy browse through the book before he bought it, or does he actually consider me as terrible as Luka?’ Yes I watched tv a lot, yes my results were not vey good, yes I was quite rude to my Aunt, but haba!
Though I have forgotten the exact phrasing of the story, and even the price Luka paid for his disobedience, I always remember that response he gave his Dad. And I still wonder.

This is related to my next ‘first’, titled Cider Eats a Big Slice of ‘Humble Pie’-

-First major lesson I have learnt this May:
I wrote a job aptitude test some weeks ago. My GMAT (job aptitude tutorial book) has 5 sections of mathematical skill tests, comprised of quantitative reasoning and comparison, data sufficiency, and graphical analysis tests. The probability of being asked to analyse graphs is therefore 1/5 (my thinking).
I had precious little time to study-thanks to my love for dvds-so I decided to really concentrate on the other parts and completely ignore those weird graphs. Besides, in the few tests I’ve written, I have never been asked graphical questions. Well, as good-for-you stories go, the only math questions we were asked were graphical- and not the simple graphs I’m used to.
Now you know you’re in for a rough time when you cannot give correct answers to examples the examiner is guiding you through. But things were only about to get worse. I’d never bothered to ask anyone about the type of questions they thought the company would ask. I just thought, ‘ok, make sure you practice so and so very well’. And I knew I should have practiced the secret-but-famous SHL questions, but time was gone man. At the test center, it seemed I was one of the very few people that didn’t know wassup. We were going to be asked over 40 hot thermodynamics questions.
For someone who claims to be good enough for cutting edge organisations, ‘careless’ doesn’t come close to describing my attitude at all. As my bro. in-law would joke, “You don’ fall your hand two times abi?” (Bcuz this is the second time I’ve botched a major job test). It’s somehow funny- people think I read like crazy. They always tell me to take it easy (Big LOL). Anyway, I am happy to say that the laziness that used to overpower me whenever I was about to read has been vanishing per day. No more self deception; I am seeing the light:

(Economic Situation in Nigeria) + (Current Economic Recession) + (Exceedingly Large Number of Job-Seekers) + (Tek Company) – (‘Connections/Long Leg’) = “Critical Assignment”

- First (trivial) news piece I found amusing this month:
Our Minister of Health promised to give each household in Nigeria 2 mosquito nets; nets that are “special and very efficacious in tracking down and killing mosquitoes” (Sunday Punch, 3rd May 2009). Talk about Madam Kwoskwos and Other Scary Tales. I hope I never see the net while it is doing its tracking and hunting down operation sha ;-) ;-)

June is here = 6/12 = half of the yr already. As you go all-out to achieve your goals for the year, don’t mind the setbacks; rejoice in the days the Lord has made (shebi I sound like a ‘Christian horoscope’? Lol, that’s d first oxymoron I’ve come up with). PS: I am fully utilizing MTN’s free dictionary, as I had to confirm what ‘oxymoron’ was – “conjoining contradictory terms, as in ‘deafening silence’” Yay! I was correct.
Cheers!

Some Nigerian Food Taboos

2009-05-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

By Mabel Segun, in her book Rhapsody- A Celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture.

In Yoruba culture every lineage has its food taboos which members must observe strictly. The penalties prescribed for breaking a taboo are sometimes deliberately drastic in order to frighten people into complying with the prohibitions. These penalties include sterility, a breast that will never produce milk, a child who will forever crawl, and- death. But in reality, many of the prohibitions are commonsense rules meant for the good of both the individual and the community.

She categorized the taboos, and I’ve picked only a few (I don’t really know if I’m breaking any copyright laws oh! (scratches head). But I won’t tell if you won’t). It’s informative, though:

1. Yams must not be kicked. (Yoruba)
Penalty- The culprit will become lame.
Real Reason- According to Yoruba legend, Yam was once a man, hence it should be respected. Yam was the most popular staple food in the country before the introduction of manioc. Kicking a yam tuber might break it and this would speed up deterioration. In any case, this is not a clean habit.

2. Salt must not be trodden underfoot.
Penalty- The soles of the offender’s feet will ooze water. (Yoruba)
Real Reason- In ancient times, salt was so scarce that it was exchanged for slaves and therefore should not be wasted through being spilt.

3. Women must not cook late at night. (Igbo)
Penalty- Evil spirits will put a spell on the food.
Real Reason- To prevent women from neglecting the welfare of their family by keeping them hungry.

4. A man may not eat in the home of his wife’s parents and they may not eat in his home. (Hausa)
Penalty- It will prevent the wife from bearing children.
Real Reason- Probably to avoid friction between the two families.

5. Yam must not be peeled inside the house. (Yoruba)
Penalty- The inmates will quarrel
Real Reason- Houses in ancient times were dark inside because they had no windows or had very tiny ones and someone coming from outside might slip on the yam peels and injure himself/herself (which, of course, could lead to a quarrel).

6. A wife must not allow her husband to see her eating. She must first cook his meal and serve it to him in the open courtyard and later retire into the house to eat with her daughters and young sons. (Hausa)
Penalty- Community censure
Real Reason- It is said that she might open her mouth too wide and so anger or disgust her husband.

7. A child must not eat a chicken’s gizzard. (Edo, Igbo, Yoruba)
Penalty- He will not grow.
Real Reason- The gizzard is reserved for the head of the family or household since it is considered a delicacy.

8. A child must not squat to eat. (Yoruba).
Penalty- The child will never be satiated.
Real Reason- Squatting encourages farting, and this would cause pollution at mealtimes.

9. A woman must not eat too many kolanuts (Igbo, Yoruba)
Penalty- She will have an ‘abiku’ (Yoruba) or ‘ogbanje’(Igbo) child, that is, a child who dies young and keeps on reincarnating and dying again, thus causing its mother great misery.
Real Reason- Traditional Nigerian societies did not know the cause of infant mortality but believed that a woman who ate too many kolanuts would not feel hungry and so would not be well nourished or healthy enough to bear strong children.

10. One must not put a live duck in an overturned pot.(Yoruba)
Penalty- It will turn into a snake.
Real Reason- To prevent it from suffocating. Since snails are kept in this manner or under an overturned mortar for a few days but do not die as they can hibernate, some people might be tempted to keep more delicate creatures in the same manner.

Mabel Segun is also the author of children’s book, My Father’s Daughter (which I haven’t come across yet but am sure will be a v. nice read) and books for adults such as Conflict and Other Poems. “She has a varied professional career that includes teaching, broadcasting, editing, public relations and a two-year diplomatic appointment as Nigeria’s Deputy Permanent Delegate to UNESCO.”
As an aside:
Is it that the people back then were too stubborn to handle the “real reasons” behind these rules or what?? If you’re curious about what people were like before-before, Ellen Thorp’s Ladder of Bones will come in handy. It gives the pre-colonial history of Nigeria, dating back to 1853.

Baibai!

"Good People, Great Nation"

2009-05-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

I just read this article on advertising the Nigerian brand. Though it is 3 years old, it really addresses the current feelings people are having about the rebranding issue-

"What we need to ask ourselves is simple: what is the current image perception of Nigeria? (How do people outside of our country see us – rightly or wrongly)? What problem has that created for us in economic and political terms? And finally, how do we solve the problem?The solution is not always a one minus one equals zero solution.If for instance Nigeria is noted for corruption, violent crimes, political turmoil and poor infrastructure, the advertising idea should not necessarily be around the inspector general of police announcing to the world that Nigeria is now a corruption-free, crime-free state. The better approach would be ignoring the negative and focusing on our strong points. In any case, whatever the IG says would be purely political and would never be credible in the international media. This means that having identified our current international image, we should determine our desired brand image. What do we want the rest of the world to believe about Nigeria?

What may be more pertinent to us economically may in fact be projecting ourselves as an accommodating people, open to foreigners, welcoming investors, friendly to the international community. A simple television commercial showing happy, friendly, and cultured men, women and children would do the job. If we flog this idea well enough, international perception of Nigeria as a friendly nation will overshadow any other negative image being peddled in the world media. Brands have their strengths. They have their unique selling points. When you say Ariel, you think of tough stains.When you say Maggi, you think of great taste. When you say Bagco, you think of super sack. Nations should have their selling points as well. When you say Brazil, what comes to your mind? Soccer. When you say Japan, what image crops up? Technology and cars. When you say Nigeria, what should come to mind?"

By Paul Ugoagwu

He went on to talk about how we must also do ourselves a favour by fixing our roads, improving our standard of living, and so on. If only the people on top would listen. On our part (individually) we are ready to "represent", shey? The full article can be read at http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/columnists/commercialbreak/commercial-august17-2006.htm

"Lie To Me"

2009-05-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

According to Will Smith’s character in the romantic comedy Hitch, statistics show that 65 percent of what we say doesn’t come out of our mouths. Our bodies do all that yakking, and this is the idea behind ‘Lie to Me’, one of the newer series created by Samuel Baum and the producers of the hit series 24.

The main character, Dr. Lightman, can tell if you’re lying by studying your body language and micro-expressions, and this helps him solve many criminal cases, because he believes that gestures of contempt, fear, anger, deceit, etc are universal. He buttresses his points with clips of Bill Clinton, Nixon, Condoleeza Rice, Barrack Obama, and other influential people in the news. Real, convicted serial killers’ expressions are also analysed. Of course, the cases covered are all fictional.
The series reminded me of an exercise Big Sis and I did a few years ago, on facial expressions. It has been said that “men can rotate 3-dimensional objects in their head and women are better at reading emotions of people in photographs”- Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott – so I uploaded some pics for you to test your facial expression intuition (lol).
PS: Sis is doing very, very well (God 14points; Satan 0). I thank you for all your prayers and kind wishes. May God give you peace that surprises understanding in every situation you face, amen.

My answers: disgust, sadness, surprise, and of course, sadness. Accurate answers can be gotten from http://www.wwnorton.com/college/psych/psychsci2/content/activities/ch10a.asp#test

Bits and Pieces of News Here

2009-04-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

- North Eastern Nigeria and parts of Plateau State have been without light due to electric cable vandalisation. (1. Thank God we were not affected 2. Those people need to be punished seriously... but they are still at large)

- Dbanj launches Kokolet Mansion reality show on HiTv (ok that's not new, but its news)

- Sis will be having surgery in a few days, so I’ll be away from here for a few wks. (Thanks for your anticipated prayers ;-)). I’ll be Super Nanny Cee to the rescue! (lol)

Initially, I was like, ‘she looks so strict. How effective can she be?' (mind you, she wasn't smiling like she's doing in the pic). But when I saw how wonderfully she handled so many troublesome kids, I was convinced. And she never used bullallah (koboko) on them. “Jo Frost, as Supernanny, can tame the wildest toddler, soothe the savage six-year-old and get the most difficult child to overcome problems with behavior, sleep, mealtime, potty training and other challenges that have vexed parents around the world for centuries. After just three episodes of the show aired in the U.K. in summer 2004, Jo Frost became Britain's hottest new TV star and a godsend to desperate parents who were dazzled by her amazing results with unruly children.” – http://abc.go.com/primetime/supernanny/index?pn=about). They don’t call her Super for nothing.

Also, happy new month and work-free May 1st in advance. For me and for MelonBoy there below though, it’s going to be business as usual ;- )

Here’s a reminder that there are some kinds of work God never intended for us to do.

“There are certain mountains only God can climb. Ascend them and you'll end up bruised and embarrassed. Stay away from them and you'll sidestep a lot of stress.

These mountains are described in the final phrase of the Lord's Prayer, "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." A trio of peaks mantled by the clouds. Admire them, applaud them, but don't climb them.

It's not that you aren't welcome to try, it's just that you aren't able. The pronoun is thine, not mine; thine is the kingdom, not mine is the kingdom. If the word Savior is in your job description, it's because you put it there. Your role is to help the world, not save it. Mount Messiah is one mountain you weren't made to climb.

Nor is Mount Self-Sufficient. You aren't able to run the world, nor are you able to sustain it. Some of you think you can. You are self-made. You don't bow your knees, you just roll up your sleeves and put in another twelve-hour day ... which may be enough when it comes to making a living or building a business. But when you face your own grave or your own guilt, your power will not do the trick.

You were not made to run a kingdom, nor are you expected to be all-powerful. And you certainly can't handle all the glory. Mount Applause is the most seductive of the three peaks. The higher you climb the more people applaud, but the thinner the air becomes. More than one person has stood at the top and shouted, "Mine is the glory!" only to lose their balance and fall.

"Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever."

What protection this final phrase affords. As you confess that God is in charge, you admit that you aren't. As you proclaim that God has power, you admit that you don't. And as you give God all the applause, there is none left to dizzy your brain.”

- Max Lucado, “Thine is the Kingdom…”

A Small Slice of Family Life

2009-04-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

Starring:
Baba
Mama
and
Aunty (resting now)

Co-starring:
Big&Beautiful Sis
Genius&Easygoing Sis
independent&Smart Bro
Fair&Lovely Sis
and
Petite&Baby Sis (aka “Shuweet” once upon a time)

Episode Title: Interesting things happen when impressionable Nigerian kids watch too much Western tv
We always had it at the back of our minds that “yeah right”, “damn it” and “Sheish!” were un-African slangs, and we always knew that Western tv was having a big influence over us, but we realized this most clearly in the Water Fight Between Independent Smart Bro and Big Beautiful Sis:

Shuweet (Baby Sis) and Fair&Lovely were staring at their two elder siblings wide-eyed, not paying any attention to Aunty, who was also staring at the two with undisguised anger. How could these children be arguing so loudly in the presence of mu’umeen (guests)?! They didn’t have any shame anymore. See spoilt children! Nobody would tolerate such nonsense back at home.
No matter how much she scolded, they kept arguing hotly. The two guests watched on in silence… kai, such shameful behaviour. She shook her head slowly. An’ya.

Meanwhile, Big&Beautiful Sis had stood up, filled with indignation at Independent&Smart Bro’s disrespect. Did he think they were mates? Well he obviously thought so. Or maybe he even thought she was less than his mate.

While she towered over him, he calmly continued eating his food, ignoring her. (This is called “kunnen Doki” or “Horse Ears”. Saying “whatever” hadn’t been thought-up yet).
She was so mad, she did the first thing she thought of- she threw her cup of water on him, like that woman Terry(?) did in Another Life a few days ago.
This created a different dimension entirely.

Everybody gasped, apart from I&S Bro, that is. He waited approximately five seconds before he took off his glasses and placed them on the deep freezer beside him.

GAN GAN! (Suspense music)

By now, B&B Sis must have been thinking ‘Now why did I do that, eh?’ but she kept staring him down.
I&S Bro slowly got up and reached for the big water jug beside him. B&B Sis was like ‘if you dare!’ and he dared.

Big Splasssh!

Fair&Lovely Sis and Shuweet began to hoot loudly like monkeys (this was Reality Tv Live!), glad to have dodged the splash. Unfortunately, the guests seated some distance behind BB Sis weren’t so dry. Aunty nearly collapsed with humiliation. They never uttered a condemning word; they just stood up and quietly left. Suna da labari, kam.
Fair&Lovely Sis and Shuweet also had a story to tell Genius&Easygoing Sis, who was at school at the time. And of course, Baba and Mama would hear from Aunty and deal with both parties effectively (shudders).

Another time, one of us was quite caught up with the idea of running away from home- on tv the reunion was always wonderful. In reality though . . .

These all happened several years ago, and I’m happy to say that we’re all well-adjusted citizens. (Somebody shout hallaluyah).

On a more serious note-

‘Empty-Nest Syndrome’ is a general problem, and ma Mere is going through it.
I thought that it was predominantly a Western thing, and since my folks (Mum especially) have not been as, erm, affected as we have been (courtesy tv and other influences), I had thought that they wouldn’t experience this. But this all-Nigerian couple is facing it, and they are not alone. One of her former co-workers said point-blank, “Madam, the worst is yet to come. When the big ‘R’ comes, you will know…” R for Retirement.

“Empty nest syndrome has become more prevalent in modern times, as the extended family is becoming less common than in past generations, and the elderly are left living by themselves.
In many cultures, such as those in Africa, India, the Middle East, and East Asia, one's elderly parents were held in very high esteem and it was considered almost a duty to care for and respect them. In contrast to most Western societies, extended families were common in those places. However, nowadays, even in these countries, as cities become more Westernized and industrialized, values are gradually changing. It is sometimes rather inconvenient or impractical to live with or care extensively for one's parents in a modern setting…” – courtesy: Wikipedia.

It is a disheartening thing to watch parents go from “Kai, these children should do and go now!” to “Oh, I miss them. The house is so empty. I feel somewhat empty too.”
It is easy to tell them to find other things to occupy themselves with (wait a minute, it’s not so easy). But what kinds of things can an old couple living in Nigeria really look forward to sans children??? I’m the last one, about to “fly the coop”, so I feel extra guilty. I found this tip useful though: “Arrange with her when you will phone her and stick to that. Please be fair about this and remember to call when she is expecting you to. An extra email or text message on top of that will probably help to cheer her up. But don't do so many that she comes to expect them. They should be a pleasant surprise for her - and a pleasure for you to do, not a duty.” - http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/womenshealth/features/ens.htm

Yes O, the Seasons of Life! (shakes head) Any advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

The Eights

2009-04-23T11:41:00.001-07:00

8 Things I did yesterday

1) Prepared Sweet and Sour chicken (my greatest accomplishment of the day. M and D sed it was goood).

2) Cleaned house, as usual

3) Watched news for longer than usual, and found out it was Earth Day yeserday. Learnt other stuff too, thank God

4) Texted a lot of ppl (finally)

5) Listened to Pastor Chuck Smith, The Word for Today

6) Started reading a good book: "Boundaries Face to Face:
How to Have That Difficult Conversation You've Been Avoiding"

7) How cud I forget this one: sorted out groundnuts with Mama (some were rotting bcuz water had gotten into them). We use groundnuts for everything -kunu, miya (soup), name it.

8) Slept

8 Things I wish to do (make that four for now, please)
1) Read my Gmat and Engg Math
2) Create some tek videoscripts
3) Participate in missions here in Jos
4) Eat

8 shows I watch (oh, I luv this one. Easy)
1) CSI (Las Vegas and NY)
2) Grey's Anatomy
3) Hell's Kitchen
4) Wetin Dey (it's been a wyl)
5) Star Trek (it's been long too)
6) Las Vegas
7) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
8) House

8 bloggers tagged(arrgh... everyone's been tagged already)
1) Walkwater
2) Ladi (pls pls do this)
3) Fareeda
4) IceQueen
5-8)...Sorry!

This was a long one sha. But it was cool. I didn't list the 8 things I look forward to bcuz time isn't on my side. Thanks Bibi, Saved Girl.

"Enjoy yourselves veeerrry well", as one of my ex-roommates would say.

"Trip on some Grace Juice, Baby"

2009-04-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

This is what Marsuvees Black, a weird character in Ted Dekker’s book Showdown drawled when he was about to do something strange. I’m not going to talk about the book (I cannot remember much about it- only that it was the first of his books I considered too weird for my liking).
I just needed a cool title for my post ;-)

We hear about it a lot. We know we need it, but its definition is still somehow vague(at least, to me) so I’m asking, “What do YOU think of grace?”
It’s a kind of tough question, esp. if you haven’t been thinking about it, so if you need a little assistance, here are a few perspectives on it courtesy Scandalous Grace, by Julie Ann Barnhill. The more you read, the more you understand, I hope!

“Grace happens to me when I feel a surge of honest joy that makes me glad to be alive in spite of valid reasons for feeling terrible. Grace happens when I accept my wife’s offer to begin again with me in love after I have hurt her. It happens when I feel powerfully free to follow my own conscience in spite of those who think I am either crazy or wicked. Grace is the gift of feeling sure that our future, even our dying, is going to turn out more splendidly than we dare imagine. Grace is the feeling of hope.” – Lewis B. Smedes

“Grace is uncontrollable, arbitrary to our senses, apparently unmerited. It’s utterly free, ferociously strong, about as mysterious a thing as you could imagine. First rule of grace: grace rules.” -Brian Doyle.

“God gives his gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.” – C. S. Lewis

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 3: 23- 24, NASB

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” – 2 Corinthians 8:9, NASB

“When we open our hearts to each other we allow grace to enter. It is as simple as that. And suffering – events that break open the heart- can become the refiner’s fire that leaves us fully open to the truth about love and compassion.”- Kathleen A. Brehony

“We are to be dispensers of grace, not dispensers of judgement.”- Dr. Ben Carson

“Grace overcomes shame, not by uncovering an overlooked cache of excellence in ourselves but simply by accepting us, the whole of us, with no regard to our beauty or our ugliness, our virtue or our vices. We are accepted wholesale. Accepted with no possibility of being rejected. Accepted once and accepted forever. Accepted at the ultimate depth of our being.”- Lewis B. Smedes.

And of course:

“Grace: it’s the name for a girl. It’s also a thought that [can] change the world” – U2, from their sloooow song Grace.

P.S: Actually I understand “grace” better when it’s an experience, rather than a definition. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any experiences at the moment :- (

Anyhow, "may the grace be with you."

Sycophant Business Can Be Slow

2009-04-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

“Ita zata shiga Aljanna, amma ke ki fadi cikin wuta! Ga kayan ki baki kamar zuciyar ki!”
“She will get into heaven, but you! Fall into hellfire! See your dress, as black as your heart!”

At most Northern weddings, you meet different kinds of people- a large crowd of old friends, colourful dancers, happy Bride’s maids, gaily-dressed Groom’s men, and, depending on the social class involved, sycophants.
From the moment the wedding service is over, they start singing loudly and beating their hand drums to VIPs.

“Ranka dade!/Live long!
“Everybody knows you; knows your good deeds!
You have the masses at heart!
Kai, may you live long…”

As long as you don’t put your hand into your crisp new garé (designed brocade) and bring out some cash, they will only sing louder. They don’t mind overshadowing the MC or the music playing. When you still refuse to ‘shake body’, they’ll stop and speak:
“After all our work, you are supposed to give us something. In all this heat fa! See how we are sweating.”

When the notables still ignore them, they add: “Toh we are not going if you don’t give us something. We even had to get high before we could do this. Haba, pity us!”
At this point, some people give them something, because they are causing a scene. As soon as that group goes off, another group comes. Country is very hard.

It was when one of such men continued harassing a notable’s wife, that the woman seated next to her said (not harshly), “Go now. Can’t you see you are disturbing her?” And he blasted her, saying her heart was as black as her suit. That the woman he was even asking was not complaining. She just looked past him and never replied. He kept coming back and showering black looks and new abuses on her. Of course, he never got anything from either of them.
Syco. business (and other more dangerous businesses) will continue being a nuisance as long as our money doesn’t get distributed fairly.

In unrelated news…

How to Manage Motion Sickness
I’ve tried eating well before traveling; I’ve tried not eating at all; I’ve tried taking liquids only, but I still get very car sick when the road is bad. I recently discovered that I get slightly air sick too. Baba tried to console me by saying I don’t have “baboon stomach” like the rest of them who don’t experience this (as per, baboons can swing from tree to tree without feeling sick). Harhar! Didn’t know you had a baboon belly did ya ;-) ;-)
At any rate, my “refined” stomach and I decided to look into the matter:
1. Motion sickness cannot be cured.
2. You can only limit its occurrence by employing some of these coping strategies-
a. Look straight ahead rather than at side windows
b. Get a lot fresh air
c. No reading, as “the movement your eyes detect can conflict with the movement your body is detecting, and result in motion sickness”
d. Take peppermints and ginger tea
e. Apply pressure to your upper wrist (acupressure treatment)

I have tried a – c without success, so I hope the last two will help. I got this info from http://www.googobits.com/articles/p2-2939-motion-sickness--understanding-coping-and-ten-ways-to-seek-relief.html

Tagg

2009-04-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hellow! I’ve been tagged by Spesh and NaijaGirl –thanks!- and here it is:The rules;*use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions.*they have to be real....nothing made up! if the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers.*you cannot use any word twice and you cant use your name for the boy/girl question.*dont google youranswers.*make it as interesting and fun as you can.
1. What is your name: Cider
2. A four letter word: Cozy
3. A boy's name: Chidozie (one of d guys I admired in Sec. School :- ))
4. A girl's name: Chinyelu (she made my day recently)
5. An occupation: Cook & Cleaner(limited to my home sha)
6. A color: Cream
7. Something you'll wear: Clear lipgloss
8. A food: Coated yam
9. Something found in the bathroom: Conditioner.
10. A place: “Crazy Place” (in my head, for >5 minutes everyday)
11. A reason for being late: Cooking disaster.
12. Something you'd shout: Chai!!
13. A movie title: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Johnny Depp
14. Something you'd drink:Chocolate-flavoured Viju Milk
15. A musical group: Coldplay
16. An animal: Cangaroo... jk… Cat
17. A street name: Challenge Street.
18. A type of car: Civic
19. The title of a song: Consume Me; dc Talk

This was a nice exercise! Nos 15 and 18 were hard, bcuz I don’t know much about cars (I nearly made one up: Chybrid for China Hybrid- they’re certainly innovative enuf)

I pass the luv to: Saved Girl, Walkwater, IceQueen, Cappuccine Baby and Adaeze.
Cheers!

2009-04-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

Did you know that 'Easter' means new dawn/beginning? It also marks the passover festival for Hebrews (Pesach). Most importantly, it is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. As I've neglected my spiritual life for a while now, this is a good time to start over. Thank God for His grace. Meanwhile here's word from Max Lucado. I'll be traveling to my hometown tomoro, so have a Good Friday and Easter in advance.

"God's greatest blessings often come costumed as disasters. Any doubters need to do nothing more than ascend the hill of Calvary. Jerusalem's collective opinion that Friday was this: Jesus is finished.

Such was the view of the disciples, the opinion of the friends, and the outlook of the enemies.The Master who sits behind the wheel thinks differently. God is not surprised. His plan is right on schedule. Even in--especially in--death, Christ is still the king, the king over his own crucifixion.Can't he do the same for you? Can't he turn your Friday into a Sunday?Some of you doubt it. How can God use cancer or death or divorce (or recession)? Simple.

He's smarter than we are. He is to you what I was to four-year-old Amy. I met her at a bookstore. She asked me if I would sign her children's book. When I asked her name, she watched as I began to write, "To Amy ..."She stopped me right there. With wide eyes and open mouth, she asked, "How did you know how to spell my name?"

She was awed. You aren't. You know the difference between the knowledge of a child and an adult. Can you imagine the difference between the wisdom of a human and the wisdom of God? What is impossible to us is like spelling "Amy" to him. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9).

-Max Lucado, Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

War Against Biting Hunger

2009-04-06T00:53:00.001-07:00

A bill is about to be approved by the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly regarding the sorry state of the Nigerian economy.

The Senate has decided to call it “A Bill For An Act To Provide For Responsibility By The Federal Government To Directly Intervene In Matters of Production, Provision, Importation, Supply, Sale and Equitable Distribution, Trade And Commerce In Certain Categories Of Goods Deemed Essential Commodities To Render Them Accessible And Affordable To Nigerians And For Matters Connected Thereto.”

Cramming and citing this long name may pose a problem to the hungry man that the bill is targeted towards, so feel free to call it ‘The Bread and Butter Bill’, or BBB when you are really hungry.

-fapped from The Saturday Sun

Traveling Light

2009-04-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

By Max Lucado

I fell asleep in the Louvre.
The most famous museum in the world. The best-known building in Paris. Tourists are oohing and aahing, and that's me, nodding and snoring. Seated on a bench. Back to the wall. Chin to my chest. Conked out.

The crown jewels are down the hall. Rembrandt is on the wall. Van Gogh is one floor up. The Venus de Milo is one floor down. I should have been star struck and wide eyed.
Denalyn was. You'd have thought she was at Foley's Red Apple sale. If there was a tour, she took it. If there was a button to push, she pushed it. If there was a brochure to read, she read it. She didn't even want to stop to eat.

But me? I gave the Mona Lisa five minutes.
Shameful, I know.

But it wasn't my fault. I like seventeenth-century art as much as the next guy … well, maybe not that much. But at least I can usually stay awake.
But not that day. Why did I fall asleep at the Louvre?

Blame it on the bags, baby; blame it on the bags. I was worn out from lugging the family luggage. We checked more suitcases than the road show of the Phantom of the Opera.

I can't fault my wife and daughters. They learned it from me. Remember, I'm the one who travels prepared for an underwater wedding and a bowling tournament. It's bad enough for one person to travel like that, but five? It'll wear you out.

You think I'll ever learn to travel light?

I tell you what. Let's make a pact. I'll reduce the leather bags, and we'll both reduce the emotional ones. After all, it's one thing to sleep through the Louvre but quite another to sleep through life.

We can, you know. Do we not dwell in the gallery of our God? Isn't the sky his canvas and humanity his magnum opus? Are we not encircled by artistry? Sunsets burning. Waves billowing.

And isn't the soul his studio? The birthing of love, the bequeathing of grace. All around us miracles pop like fireflies. Souls are touched, hearts are changed, and…

Yawn. We miss it. We sleep through it. We can't help it. It's hard work carrying yesterday's guilt around.

It's also enough to make you miss the magic of life.Then let's get rid of the bags! Once and for all, let's give our luggage to him. Let's take him at his word! "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28 NLT).

From Traveling LightCopyright (W Publishing Group, 2004) Max Lucado

Cider Schemes

2009-04-03T13:19:00.002-07:00

It is not good enough of me to associate going to my hometown (Mubi) with torture, but I do. It’s supposed to be five or so hours from here, but because of the horrible road, it is nine plus hours. There was a way someone described that stretch of road- that it has been lifted up and thrown aside, dragged off in chunks, twisted, squeezed… - I cannot remember how she said it. Last December I threw up violently four times, and all they said was sorry. I wish they added ‘next time you don’t have to come’.

It’s not just the journey that makes me miserable. When we finally get there, there will be so many people… so many things to do… unending kitchen work as troops of empty stomachs come and go… no one to rant to (all my sisters are married now)… weeks of gathered positive mental attitude will be decimated in the face of great resentment… my face will grow long and they will say I should smile because I look ugly when I bone, which will make me bone more, which will vex them more… and so on. It is bad enough that we must go every new yr, but now for Easter/weddings. That’s not fair.
But when Sgt. Baba says ‘yes’ nobody can say ‘no’.
Unless… I fall sick a few days before… he is a reasonable man, so that should save me. Now, I just need to conduct myself well/not behave suspicious. Then two days to go... bam!

A Series of Curious Events

2009-03-31T04:24:00.000-07:00

I invite you to take a trip with me down Blog Lane, C.Sweet Street (I fapped this idea from Ladi):

A young lady gets into a car with an elderly man, but six seconds later she jumps out, looking very mortified. Why? (It’s more comical than naughty)
http://cidersweet.blogspot.com/2007/06/can-i-help-you.html

Do you think this man is really mad, or is he just one of the many victims of our terrible economic condition?
http://cidersweet.blogspot.com/2007/05/mr-peter.html

They say “Once bitten, twice shy” but this girl is clearly not getting shy about this issue. Perhaps she has been bitten by something else?
http://cidersweet.blogspot.com/2008/02/body-betrayal.html

In the heat of an argument, fine English words are forgotten in A Lecturer’s Dilemma.
http://cidersweet.blogspot.com/2007/06/lecturers-arena.html

P.S: Blogging is becoming quite addictive. Should I be worried?
NO I shouldn’t:- It’s one of my best ways of getting perspective on a whole range of issues. Reading blogs is very enlightening, amusing, thought-provoking... My vocabulary has improved too.
YES I should:- It doesn’t leave me much time to do less interesting but essential things.

Sha sha...

Hey, don’t forget to tune in to the G-20 Summit proceedings. Being informed is the first step toward progress. Cheers!

Indomie, from plate to palate

2009-03-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Escape V

2009-03-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Escape velocity was one of the few Physics theories I was able to understand in Sec. School, and I like it more as I read The 8th Habit (this book is too much) by Stephen R. Covey (this man is too much):

Q: I find it’s almost impossible for me to change my habits. Is this realistic? Am I unique?

A: You are not alone. Let me explain why.
Where do you think the most power and energy is expended on [a] journey into space? Going a quarter of a million miles to the moon? Returning to earth? Orbiting the moon? Separating and redocking the lunar and command modules? Lifting off the moon?

No, not any of these. Not even in all of these together. It was lifting off from Earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of liftoff from Earth-in the first few miles of travel-than was used in half a million miles for several days.

The gravity pull of those first few miles was enormous. It took an internal thrust greater than both the pull of gravity and atmosphere resistance to finally break out into orbit. But once they did break out, it took almost no power to do all those other things. In fact, when one of the astronauts was asked how much power was expended when the lunar module separated from the command module to go down and survey the moon, he answered, “Less than the breath of a baby.”

This lunar voyage provides a powerful metaphor for describing what it takes to break out of old habits and create new ones… If you will simply start down the pathway of Finding Your Voice and Inspiring Others to Find Theirs and stick with it, you will develop the power of this new habit to grow and change in today’s world of tremendous challenge, complexity and opportunity.

Fire Fox - A True Story

2009-03-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

It all began when he met her.
He was handsome; she was beautiful. He liked what he saw; she liked what she heard. It had nothing to do with the foxes.

Mama and Baba were uncomfortable with his attraction to her. Weren’t there other burrful young women in town he could choose from? He shook his head, no. His intense eyes were for the Timnite girl only; she was diamond among graphite. In ba ita ba, sai rijiya.

His parents acquiesced, and they did the required introductions and got married. Seven days later, however, he stormed out of Timnah, leaving his Amarya behind after being tricked by some of her malicious people. What kind of woman would agree to deceive her new husband? Several weeks passed, but it was not like he had abandoned her for good. He just needed to clear his mind, resolve his anger, arrange himself, that kind of thing.

Only… her father didn’t know that. So he said.

“EH??!!! See, I KNOW you didn’t just say you GAVE. MY. WIFE. AWAY. to my BESTMAN! Ha!” he raved. “That’s just impossible. Error!”

But his (now ex-)Father-in-law didn’t reveal any hidden Candid Camera. He merely gestured as he said “I thought you didn’t love her anymore.” Done was done. Say bye bye to denial. The sooner the better, please.

And that’s when the foxes made their dramatic appearance.

“Now I will treat you people’s nonsense,” Samson raged, and treat it he did. The powerful man tied firebrands to 150 pairs of foxes he’d caught, “and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.” (Judges 15: 5).

As you can see, it had nothing to do with the foxes.

NOW…
If I was supposed to have had a choice in my life’s destiny, God would have sought my consent about the race, country, century, family, or blood type I would prefer to have. He would have involved me in the planning of my life. He would have waited for my go-ahead. It would have been a partners’ affair- God & Sati Unlimited.

But it’s not. Why? Because it has never been about me.

I’ve heard it so many times: “it’s not about you; it’s all about Him,” but it became sharper when a Man of God in Zamfara linked it to this Samson and Philistine event.

There was beef between Samson and the Philistines before the foxes came onto the scene. Likewise, the battle between God and Satan has been raging since the time ‘before-before’; before we had come into the picture (Ezekiel 28: 12 – 19). Satan did not only rebel against God, but he is also currently stealing and destroying what God values so much- His children. (Samson’s plight pales in comparison sha).

As at today, the Battle is almost over, and of course we already know who the Victor is. Right now He’s tying firebrands to as many ‘foxes’ that are willing; equipping His End-Time Army, to set peoples’ hearts on fire for Him.

I am one of His Fire Foxes(Trainee FireFox, to be honest), and I pray that you’ll aspire to be one too. In word and deed. Signed and sealed.

Thank you, Gideon Ekele, for being a ‘Fox’ that set us on fire to set others on fire.
The End-Time Army is growing, and maybe a couple of us will make a series on this and call it The 144,000 ;- ) ;- )

(Shey you get: The 4400 … which, come to think of it, is not so hilarious, esp. as it's a totally reverse message. Hmmm)

144,000 represents the very large number of people who will dwell in God’s Presence, having been saved by His Son Jesus Christ. Revelations 14.

Fox pic fapped from http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery

An'ya!

2009-03-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

That’s the exclamation my Aunt always used when she was regretting something. So what am I regretting? Failed job opportunities.

I wasn’t keen on working in a bank, so even though I submitted my CV/resume, I never sat for their tests. But people told me to stop being so specific; that I should cast my net wide, then throw out the fishies I don’t want. So I wrote a bank test. And failed. By two kparuf marks.

Then I was invited to write a test for this really tek company, which might have been the job of my dreams. An’ya! If only I had read my gmat more! That book is falling apart yet I’m not the one responsible for that. Other people have been seriously reading it for me. Gba, good for me. Sighs. If only I’d written like three other tests before this particular firm, I would have been more serious, determined. The questions were not even difficult. An’ya!

Anyway, it’s just two tests; the day is still young, and I’ve learnt my March Lesson: Job Market sucks when you don’t prepare adequately for tests. The lesson applies to other spheres of life too. Poor preparation and I-don’t-care mentality is going to bite you in the bum like a mad dog whose hair is falling off.

No Waka-Waka: Time Na Money

2009-03-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

I have an obsession for detail. I always like to cross my i's and dot my t's.

- Unidentified job-seeker during an interview.

Hi. How have you been lately?
Me? I’ve been happy with myself.
I’ve discovered that the Labour/Favour/Job Market has its advantages:

Ask me anything- I know it, or am about to know it. I am a Walkipedia; from Angela Merkel to the tragic death of the Zimbabwean PM's wife. Ask me about the 16th President of the USA, the number of Local Govts in Nigeria, the VP in IBB's regime, the latest in Gaza, the meaning of PPPRA, just ask me. I'll find out if I don't know it yet. Yesss, it's a good feeling!
You can improve your mental arithmetic skills. (Mental arithmetic and I have not been good friends, but nowadays...)
Your self-confidence increases as you practice what you are going to say to prospective employers. Your carriage improves, and your wardrobe also steps up; c'est time for "power dressing" - where is that can of starch spray again???

But you know, I don't want to stay in the Job Market for long, so lemme get back to my favorite books, papers and job sites. Time na money.

Keep taking care of you.

ZAMFARA UNVEILED... a little

2009-01-29T05:47:00.000-08:00

Headlines: C.Sweet Will Be “Removing Head-Dress” For Good in Two Weeks’ Time! (never mind that her fine cap flew out of a bus without her knowledge one fateful day. Sulks). The CD days, as well as Head Count days have come to an end. This here is a brief interview with her, about the ins and outs of serving in Zamfara State. (Loud applause pls)

{Coughs} Good day.
Like you know, most of us posted here wondered, along with our loved ones, about how we would cope in a State shrouded in so much (bad) mystery. A lot of shock, horror and disappointment was translated into fits of rage, victim complexes, disinterest in any news lacking ‘Shari’a’, ‘North-West’ or ‘Redeployment’ themes, occasional “zoning out”, excessive nail-biting, and so on.
But the story is different now.
We’ve tasted eleven months of the State’s tranquility, relatively friendly people, inexpensive living, grains n’ sugarcane fala-fala (good); the heat, mosquitoes and flies(ah! bad); and evil principals that want to deal with you ever so severely for five months(definitely ugly).
The past eleven months have been an experience, wallahi (15 seconds of silence).

Now let’s have a quick look at some of the things They told C.Sweet & Co. about ZM:

They told us: “That place is extremely hot and dry! You go black, you go suffer… in fact you go redeploy if you like yourself!”

And we’re telling you: Yes, it’s hot and it’s dry, and you need to see the dust storms! Ikon Allah! The heat from March to May is truly… and actually, you guys forgot to mention the flies that rule by day and mosquitoes by night. Gaskiya, I’m darker, BUT
I certainly did not suffer. Accomodation was free and spacious, food wasn’t expensive, the place was nice and quiet (the people serving in Gusau have a slightly different story sha).
While it is challenging for very active, hustling people to adapt to a place as laidback as Zamfara, it is unfair to label it ‘The Ultimate Punishment’.

They told us: Ladies to the left; Gents to the right.

And we’re telling you: Well… somewhat.
Shari’a is not strict here, probably because the present Gov. is not that interested in it. Or probably because truly enforcing it would be an expensive venture. Whatever the case, this is what we’ve seen:
-Men and women share the same taxis and buses, though women stay on one side and men stay on the other (ie. collection of like-terms). For example, if you have three women and three men, the three women must sit at the backseat (and oh! the poor man unfortunate enough to be the one seated next to the women!) while the other two sit in front.
-The men are the ones you’d find selling oranges, tomatoes, beans, etc in the market. It is rare to find female traders, and when you do, they’re either old or divorcees (so I’m told). Women come to the market to buy the goods though.
-Men are also responsible for fetching water, farming, etc while their wives are usually indoors with the children.

They told us: “Shaa, Corpers get kudi/allowi barkatai.”

And we’re telling you: No, we don’t.
Corpers were getting a fantastic N10,000 State allowance in the regime of the ’99 – ’03 Governor, His Ex. Ahmed Sani Yerima, but in the regime of the present Gov., His Excellency Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi (MAS), we’re getting seven thousand less.

Eyah, ‘The Difference Is Clear’.

Mm.
The 07/08 Batch were paid N2,000 till he raised it to N3,000 in our time. Maybe he’ll raise it by another one thousand this year… and maybe it’ll be N5,000 by 2010; N6,000 by 2011… and MORE if he gets re-elected, so let corpers join the Zamfara PR people in raising two fingers up and screaming “MAS Two Terms!” Madalla! (Note: Insider pun. MAS started campaigning for 2011 a year ago. No comment).

They told us: Mosques? Yes. Churches? Um...

And we’re telling you: In Gusau, the State Capital, you can attend First Baptist Church, Living Faith, Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Anglican Church, The Kingdom Hall/Family House (Jehovah Witness), and others. Some LGAs also have churches. (In Kotorkoshi, there are two churches- St. Mary’s Anglican Church and a new ECWA church).

They told us: “Girl, get your Ninja gear ready… haha, just joking. But seriously…Be. Very. Careful.”

And we’re telling you: Thank you very much for this advice.
We female corpers have learnt to be very careful around almajirai.
They are young boys, sent away from home to other States in order to learn how to fend for themselves, and they are usually full of hunger, mischief and an insatiable desire to grope the female body. Our Local Govt. Officers have often advised us to walk with guys because of this.

We have also discovered that tank tops and three-quarter trousers are allowed, but these are likely to attract lewd stares from the men and scalding ones from the women. Conservative clothes are better.

They told us: “Sha, God has a reason for sending you to ZM, so don’t grumble”

It would have been nicer to serve in That-Tek-Company-That-Pays-Well, or That-Secondary-School-With-Parents-You-Can-Get-A-Referral-From, rather than Frustration-Began-Here-Primary-School or No-English-Secondary-School. Yet… we learnt to handle self-pity like exposed 3-day old Viju Milk because:

- We value the power of friendship; ZM has people you can network with too. Seek and you shall find.

- We value the power of correct positive thinking:

“… you can think positively all you like, yet negative things will still happen to you. You will get caught in traffic, you will spill coffee on your new outfit, you will lose a sale, and you will get cheated or be disappointed from time to time…
Being positive is not about creating a positive expectancy through willpower. Rather it’s about taking personal power and raising self-esteem through controlling, not the outcome of an event, but the way you respond to that outcome… it’s about understanding that sometimes you’ll be given a lemon, and positive thinking begins and ends with your initiative in turning that lemon into lemonade.”
- Brian Sher, What Rich People Know & Desperately Want To Keep Secret

And so, in conclusion…

I’ve only had a glance at ZM, and though I will not miss Zamfara State, I will miss the people I met here. Those who offered their friendship from the first instant we met, as well as those who initially didn’t; those who taught me to say no to excessive Golden Morn and Nice biscuit :- ); those who gave me tomatoes, yams, dubino (dates) at giveaway prices just because I could speak Hausa; my fiery Ex-Princi who was dedicated to threatening my fellow bro. Matti and I (I will not miss you, but I stand my ground a lot more because of you. Thank you); my friendly, animated students; those who reminded me of the good sides of making mistakes (onstage and in life generally); the ones who taught me Yoruba, better Hausa, Ibo, a little Kwale; those who persistently blasted me about my shyness; those who made me laugh with a comical stare or silly comment… so many of them who have added value to my life this past year. Most of their reward is in heaven.

The days are numbered for phrases like
“Ajuwaya Babe”
“Banga banga!”
“Gym gym the body”
“Baggas! God punish your Local Govt. Chairman!”
“Eeevil Spirit!”
And of course:
“OTONDO!!”

And for our NCCF Ajuwaya Song:
Baba we thank You
For all you have done
We remove head-dress O
Ajuwaya, praise the Lord!

Youth, obey the clarion’s call
Let us lift our nation high
Under the sun or in the rain
With dedication and selflessness
Nigeria’s ours; Nigeria we serve

This reminds me: I learnt one song here. Zamfarans love this song so much; their students sing it most Sundays. It has a pleasant, catchy tune. The chorus:

Rayuwa tana faruwa
Wucewa take
Kamar ba’a yi ba

Life is happening/proceeding
Passing by
(like a river)
As though It never was

(A kind of depressing message but it’s a nice song, really).

Life continues indeed, and it is my time to say fare well to Kotorkoshi/Kwatarkwashi, Bungudu LGA, Zamfara State.

It’s been a good experience.

P.S: In Thousands of Words I’ll be posting some of my ZM pics. Thanks for reading.

NCCF Style!

2009-01-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

My ZM tales would never be complete if I didn’t include the wonderful experience of Rural Rugged.

NCCF, Nigerian Christian Corpers’ Fellowship, is a wonderful body of Christ.
I never thought I’d have anything to do with NCCF, because my pre-NYSC vibes about it were… unflattering.

Those vibes were incorrect, and made me miss out on one year of high-quality service to God, but I’ve been forgiven, and most importantly, I’ve learnt my lesson. (In fact, it is January’s Lesson for me).

What I have to say about NCCF is incapable of doing them justice, but I’ll still speak/write:
In the 40s, a man of God, Sir Elton, foretold a time when Nigerian youth would be paid to preach the Gospel of Christ in all parts of the country. In 1973, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was established, and in their different locations, Christian Corpers began to meet. Corpers serving in Lagos thought, ‘Ya kamata mu dinga saduwa don mu yabi Yesu, ko ba haka ba?’ and began to meet together as a fellowship. So did Corpers in Abia, Gongola, Bendel, Sokoto… but each chapter was unaware of the other until they began to swap NYSC tales with each other.
“Mm! Those people make us farm for them on CD days oh!”
“Oga oh! It’s not only you guys. And the weather there is so strange! See their scary forests!”
“Mm! But sha, our fellowship activities made us feel better about everything. We did a lot of community evangelism.”
“Wait! You mean you guys had a fellowship that did that too?! Amazing!”

And in 1984, NCCF, a fellowship made up of Christians of different denominations, was officially established.

What makes NCCF different from other Corps Member fellowships is Rural Rugged. And herein lies the Man of God’s prophecy:
Rural Rugged is an outreach/evangelism programme aimed at the communities in the corpers’ place of primary assignment. Every NCCF State chapter has at least two Ruggeds per Service Year.
The mode of operation differs with each State, but the aim is the same: To tell people about Jesus Christ. Last week, NCCF Zamfara had its first Rural Rugged for the year (or the last Rugged for Batch As though). The target area was Nasarawa Godel, a community in Birnin Magagi LGA. Two-and-a-half hours away from Gusau, the State capital, some say it is only N150 away from Niger Republic.

I thought that, being a Jos gal, my Otondo (NYSC khaki) jacket would suffice for the rumored cold weather there. I was extremely wrong. (Don’t take any chances next time, ‘Josite’).
Aside from the cold, it was a fantastic opportunity to SERVE.

We gave them clothes, bathed and brushed the children’s teeth (people who couldn’t stand the sight of blood vamoosed though), gave free meds to their people and livestock, did two dramas -which the children liked- and on the last night, we took the bull by the horns and showed them the Jesus film in Hausa. The Aduras (Prayer Coordinators) who had been serious at work throughout the programme were even more so during the filmshow. I think all of us prayed fervently in our hearts too. Everyone was fully aware of the fact that anything could spark a religious riot in The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, ZM. Thank God for His supervision and protection.
As ZM is a Muslim State, we didn’t do an “alter call” per se. We just asked if anyone had any “questions”. Some did, ranging from “why is Isa (Jesus) different in your own account (Bible)?” to “why do you call Isa God as well as Son of God?” But the question that had the counselors on red alert was “why did you people show us this Jesus film?” BOING BOING BOING!

Yes, Rural Rugged was great.

The community was wary of us at first, but became comfortable after a while and even gave us seven goats and a lot of sugar cane.
In our estimation, we’ve prepared the way for more Good News to the people of Nasarawa Godel, Zamfara State. And wasn’t this the best way to convey God’s message?

“Unselfish service is still acknowledged as a very powerful moral good in our societies. People in the street will listen to those whom they perceive to be unselfish, humble, genuine and caring.
Service is most effective when it comes before proclamation. Jesus served before He preached. He continued to serve after He preached. Service was the ongoing focus of His ministry and mission. All people are touched by unselfish service.”
– Adventist World, Feb. 2007

Those totally committed to NCCF will reveal to you that even NYSC’s regular Community Development Service(CDS) is their chance to let their host community know about The One True God (John 17:3).

"I slept and dreamed that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted, and behold, service was joy."
- Rabindranath Tagore

NYSC’s motto is Service and Humility.
To God. To country.

The "Late News" With C.Sweet

2009-01-13T04:16:00.000-08:00

-“MAS 2 Terms!”
Traffic in Zamfara State was heavier than normal on Thursday, the 8th of January 2009. Vehicles from several parts of the country were driving in, but it was the convoy consisting of thirty-plus cars that interested C.Sweet the most.
It is true that they blew a good amount of dust into her eyes, but she did not mind too much, because in one of those cars sat the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, His Excellency Umaru Musa Yaradu’a. In an interview with C.Sweet, she discloses: “Not to brag, but… I’m the only corper from Kotorkoshi that came closest to President U.M.Y.! Forget the fact that I was a trekking onlooker with hands full of stuff from the Tudun Wada market and didn’t actually see him but sha I was the closest. Nmeeee!” :- )

He and thirty(?) of the Nigeria’s State Governors paid a visit to Zamfara State to in order to officially welcome the current Governor, His Excellency Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi (MAS), to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). He was formerly in the All Nigeria Peoples’ Party (ANPP), but switched parties due to some events C.Sweet is yet to verify.

-The Winner of the Batch ‘A’ 2008/2009 Personal Community Develpoment Project, Zamfara State

This particular news is not late; In fact it is ‘prophetic’:

The person that will take the 1st place in the Batch ‘A’ 2008/2009 Personal CD Project will be a lady, and her name is Hajiya Mariya M. Aliyu.

How do I know?

She has been one busy lady corper indeed, commissioning one project after the other, and her most impressive has been HAMMASEI, an education-focused project aimed at the less privileged males and females, “complementing the good intents and efforts of the State Government to uplift the educational standard in Zamfara.” (Zamfara Cofa, Nov. 2008).

And here’s something that makes her stand out even more:
She is the wife of the current Governor of Zamfara State, His Excellency, Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi. Mm-hm. (Imagine! I’m just discovering that she’s in my batch and stream (A2). The Late News, readers).

A graduate of Accounting from the University of Abuja, Hajiya Mariya M.A.S. is serving in the Government House, Gusau (naturally) and will be passing out this February.
HAMMASEI stands for Hajiya Mariya Mahmud Aliyu Shikafi Education Initiative, and its inspirational motto reads:

“Education is leading out the inborn potentialities of the individuals. It is reforming the uninformed mind by informing it. Reforming the human mind is reforming the society. Informing the human society is transforming the society.”

For more information on HAMMASEI please visit http://mariyamasinitiatives.com/

I think you now agree with me that this lady is our winner.

This has been The Late News with C.Sweet.
PS: In two weeks’ time I’ll be rounding up my ZM jist in “Zamfara Unveiled… a little”
Godbless!

Progress Is Inevitable

2009-01-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Zamfara for the last time tomorrow. It's official now: I'm counting down to P.O.P.

One month to go.

Minty-Clean

2009-01-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

I’m not advertising toothpaste; I want to pray for you {clears throat}:

My prayer for you is that you appreciate that what didn’t kill you in 2008 has only made you stronger for 2009. It is easier to remember what you have lost, but from today, you will have strength enough be thankful for what you still have (and are still to have). You will achieve so much this year, (so keep moving).
Amen.
xxx

I said no to New Year resolutions in 2001. There was no point making a ‘top 10’ list only to break them after a few hours. I wasn't the better for this decision, so this new year is about making sure I learn the lessons life has for me. To show you (and Life) how serious I am about this, lemme kick things off with the first lesson I learnt a few days to 2009:

Tot-ful Observations
Meet Baby, my 4-year old niece.
She’s very cute, calm, smart, and generally pleasant to be around (though her mother calls her Winnie because she can whine sometimes… I think she likes Winnie the Pooh, too).

The following is a conversation she had with one of her father’s friends:
[Characters: Baby, Uncle Henry and I.
Uncle Henry is pouring petrol into the generator, while I hold the funnel for him. Baby is giving us moral support. Alors soudain…]

Baby: [With her characteristic calm, sweet voice] “Uncle Henry.”

Uncle Henry: “Yes?”

Baby: “Is it true that you turn into a spirit in the night?”

Uncle Henry: [Still pouring fuel] “Hm?”

Baby: “Daddy said that you used to turn into a spirit in the night”

Uncle Henry: “M-m!” [He’s now probably thinking, is that so?]

Me: [Thinking to self] M-m, is that so?

We lapse into silence as I wonder what he’s thinking. And it’s probably the Nollywood movies and co. I’ve been paying attention to, because I’m fast becoming suspicious of him: No wonder I didn’t really like him the first time I saw him… It is very possible he does iska runs… but how did her Dad know? Hmm. Unsolved mysteries. My mind begins to wander to other topics, then Baby pipes up again.

Baby: “Uncle Henry, do you know what Achi said?”
[Achi is her 9-year old sis, and I’m thinking, I know that I should butt in and distract her before she says something embarrassing, but I’m just… too… curious]

Uncle Henry: “What did she say?”

[Too late for distractions now]
Baby: “She said your teeth look like a vampire’s”

Me: [Foolishly bursting into laughter but still attempting to do damage control] “Ha!! Ba-by! You eh! Why don’t you just go back into the house?”

[But of course, Baby doesn’t budge]

Uncle Henry: [Still pouring fuel and not looking up, he calmly replies] “Tell her I will beat her”

Baby: “Noo, don’t beat her. Just turn into a spirit and bite her.”

Chei! Baby has done it again!

The question is, did her Daddy really say that? And did Achi really say that his teeth looked like a vampire’s? (And besides, do his teeth really look like a vampire's? I was too shy to see for myself).
The answer to both questions, is yes.
So why did her Daddy say so?
Because a few nights ago, Achi had told him that Uncle H’s teeth looked like a vampire’s. Her Dad, (who loves to tease her), was so amused he decided to scare her by saying he’d turn into a spirit in the night in order to catch her. Obviously, Baby took this to heart and decided to find out from the ‘spirit’ himself.
Oh!
Lesson: I’m going to watch what I say around kids from now on.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2009-01-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

What Is A Gift?

2008-12-24T02:36:00.000-08:00

"Jesus is here to invest in a relationship with you...

... so don't let Him be a stranger in the manger."
- Jonathan McKee, pp.

O Truly Nigerian Connie, Where Are You??

2008-12-22T02:23:00.000-08:00

It's too bad I can't find any soft copies of Connie's life, (a comic strip in Adesuwa Oyenokwe's interesting TW (Totally Whole) magazine). Oh well... I find Dilbert amusing atimes:

Professor Bullallah

2008-10-31T05:35:00.000-07:00

Teaching is an amazing profession.

As most fresh graduates lamented over the fact that they’d be posted to schools to teach for the Service year, I was delighted because I’d always wished for an opportunity to teach. An opportunity to impart knowledge in fresh, exciting ways. No need for cramming, people; just come into class with your unfilled heads and I’ll fill them up with easy-to-understand knowledge… (Picture Smiegle of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ saying the ‘easy-to-understand knowledge’ part and you’ll get how crazy I am about uncomplicated knowledge… my precioussss).
I had always imagined my students listening to me, absolutely captivated, as I gently opened up their minds to new ideas; as I carefully laid block upon block on a solid foundation… In my mind’s eye, I was the perfect, enjoyable teacher- ready with a key joke or analogy that would not only make the students laugh, but serve as a link between The Everyday and The Abstract.

This is what I experienced instead:

"When an acid and a base react, they form salt and water only. Kun gane ko?"
"Ee!"
"Ok, that’s good. So if I have an acid like HCl reacting with a base like NaOH, what products am I going to get?"

Silence.

"What two products will I get?"

Silence.

"I’ll get a salt and…."

Silence."A salt and water naaa! Weren’t you girls listening? When an acid and a base react, you get salt and water"

"Aunty, ee!"

"Ok, what if I have an acid like H2SO4 reacting with a base like NaOH?"

Silence.

"Acid and base equals salt and water. Zainab, what did I just say?"

Silence, then: "Aunty, ban ji ba"/"Aunty I didn’t hear"

Hm. Is it that I’m talking too fast? Not using enough examples? Too boring? What???

BUILT-ON-SAND VERSUS BUILT-ON-ROCK

Most students will be excited and relatively well-behaved in the presence of a new Malam or Malama, but novelty can only take you as far as two weeks, tops. After that, you’re on your own. It’s now time to think of creative ways to motivate the students to pay attention and learn. Teaching tactics are now employed, like using everyday examples to introduce new concepts, (because learning is really just a process of building on a foundation that has already been laid); like giving assignments and quizzes to make the students serious; like injecting educational games to lighten the atmosphere a bit; like rewarding good performance, and many other tactics.

But WHAT IF the foundation that has been laid is horribly flawed?

After a short while I began to experience what the older Corpers had often complained about: very low morale.
I wasn’t transferring much knowledge… and was it my imagination that Hussaina, Shamsiyya, Jamila and Aisha were always falling asleep (or falling ill) the moment I walked into their class??
I complained about this to the HOD so he followed me to class one morning. He pointed out that I sometimes explained while the students were busy writing, which is wrong. I took correction, but didn’t get much better results, so I was back to my initial questions- what was I doing wrong? Abi these young ladies were really hopeless?
Another teacher shed more light on the issue: He said most of the students in the school are suffering from Ba Turanci Syndrome(that is, No English Syndrome). Why? Because they never attended Primary School! They were admitted into Secondary School straight from Islamic School or even from home (and in Islamic School, they are taught in Hausa). The result is what you see in class:

-they cannot speak English, or just manage to string words together. To get through to them, you need to speak Hausa to them (the new students coming in are improving though)

-they mostly show interest in Hausa, Arabic, etc. (Not surprising. I only liked the subjects that "made sense")

-they hate reading and doing assignments (No excuse for this one; it really vexes me)

- they are permitted to dubb during tests and exams, but the strangest thing is that with all that 'xeroxing' they still fail (WAEC and NECO are the worst; they write the answers on the board for them to copy)-they doze in class. Tell them to sit up, stand up, kneel down… posh’ti ka fan! (heehee, that’s my language for they don’t hear)

Good and fine. While this was vexing news to me, I knew it didn’t apply to my case, because most of my students often impressed me with their good command of English. So in which area lay the problem, Mr. Holmes?

CAUTION: Northern Mentality in Progress!

Auren Soyayya!

In the extreme North, there must be three allotropes of oxygen- normal oxygen, ozone and marriage oxygen. So how do you expect a core Northern girl to withstand the great pressure to marry early when she’s been breathing m-oxygen since birth? Or more importantly, why should she withstand it? Isn’t marriage a beautiful thing? Who is to say that being married to that elderly Alhaji is not the very purpose for which she was born? Who says all this boring, abstract education thing is really necessary for a good future? Besides, even the Mallams are checking her out during free periods (some don’t even go to class to teach because they are waiting for her). Wallahi, it’s not easy to be hot cake. So please, all that matters is the Alhaji- he likes her enough to want her to be his latest amarya. Aiyiriiiiiiiii!

And couldn’t the POOR EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES have something to do with it?

This week, I enjoyed my classes very much. Why? Because the girls were moved out of their ‘containers’ and into impressive new classrooms. Let us now wave bye-bye to the following bad rubbish:
Bye bye excessive heat! Hello spacious, learning-friendly rooms! We even have fans! 11:10 to 1:45pm lessons may not be sooo bad afterall!

Bye bye tables with ‘collapsible’ tops and chairs that we fall off when one of us stands up too fast. We have solid desks now, and our chairs dey kampe!

Bye bye dim containers; hello well-lit rooms. Maybe I’ll pay more attention to what’s on the board afterall. Teacher, you’ve got an extra ten minutes to "bring it" before I tune out, okay?

The students in the school I’m serving are fortunate enough to have such classrooms. They are fortunate to have a Princi that is concerned and connected enough to upgrade their facilities. Imagine what other students are going through. The Government school in Tsafe Local Govt., (which also serves as the temporary NYSC Orientation Camp) is a perfect example of what bad facilities can do to the human psyche. Those students are something else: ruffians, thieves, and…. I lack words to describe them in fact. Now when a human being starts to behave like an animal, you must either help get him back on the road to humanity or…

…Send in Bullallah (Ph.D)

Students who refuse to behave are flogged regularly. It seems to be the only thing the students will respect. A dozing student threatened with being sent to the Mallam specially employed for lashing gives immediate results. I’m not against lashing (it showed me the light when I was unserious) but the manner, rate and purpose of lashing matters. We were going for CD one day, and met an ex-student in a taxi. He complained about the lashings he received in his school. He said there was this boy who was given 100 lashes, straight up. No way I can confirm that story, so let’s just leave it as "them-say".

I wonder whether we are trying to correct negative behaviour, or (unconsciously) trying to encourage the animal within the students to grow... it's not really a mystery, anywayz.

So, you’ve read my little bit on the educational system in ZM. I’ll conclude by saying there’s certainly room for improvement. I know that I sat tall on my high horse a few times, and I apologise for that. Thanks for reading!

Safety First

2008-10-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

Case One: Labai, Let’s Go Bowlin’!

The Driver sighted the man in his well-known brown Road Safety gear from afar and cursed. He swore even more violently as the man began to flag down his car:

“Ga wancan shegen banza *$#@#@! Zan nuna mishi wani abu, wallahi!”

“See that bastard * * *! I’ll show him something, wallahi!”

Having said this, the man put his foot down hard on the accelerator and smiled a wicked smile.

Impact Time = 10 seconds.

The passengers watched; some with rising excitement, others with trepidation. What was about to happen very fast was a joke, shebi? As in, the Driver had good brakes ko? And the Road Safety official. He had quick reflexes… ko?

Impact time = 5 seconds.

The official began to understand the crazy driver’s intent.

Impact Time = 3 seconds

Joke or not, the official didn’t wait to find out. Twas a case of “safety first”, as his instructors had drilled deeply into his head. He flew off the road at the same instant the Driver swerved violently to the left to dodge hitting him.

“Hahahaha! Shegen b*#@*&! kawai” he whooped happily as he sped away. The “shege” had been taught a lesson. Some of the passengers congratulated him, laughing with him over this accomplishment. All looked back to catch glimpses of the dazed Road Safety official gathering his wits about him. Allah ya isa! God it is enough! The hazards of this job are too much he was probably thinking crossly. Well, at least he lived to tell the story. A true story.

Case Two: Wrestling Match In Front Seat

You know how Police/NURTW/VI officers sometimes stop drivers who park wrongly (or overload the vehicle) and insist on taking the driver to the station to pay a fine? Well this was a similar case, but dealing with this guy was going to be more difficult than anyone assumed.

The officer had succeeded in stopping the driver and seating himself in the front seat with a friend of mine. He told the driver to start driving. The driver obeyed. Good. The driver and official then began to argue hotly, (my friend understands Hausa small-small, so he didn’t know what the argument was about). Finally, the officer had had enough. He grabbed the gear stick roughly and the car swerved to the side as the driver glared at him. He too grabbed the gear and the wrestling began.

My friend was stunned at the turn of events, but he recovered sharply as he noticed the car swerving dangerously to the left and right. Ha! On a busy Federal road?! Babu babu! No time for staring; time for action. He grabbed the wheel and began to control the car while the two men struggled and the other passengers screamed and begged. Seconds later, he was in control of the car while the two Who Is More Thoughtless? contestants slowly came to their senses.
Fortunately no one was injured, but unfortunately, it is yet another true story.

[I apologise for being MIA for so long. I have been having a few issues lately. I’m back to tell you about the peaceful State that is called Zamfara. Today’s post is about ZM drivers’ attitudes, and it doesn’t flatter the State at all.]

Most ZM drivers do not respect road laws, and they know how to speed… recklessly. E don’ pass “be careful” stage, as my ex-roomate would say.

As the Commander-in-Charge of the Federal Road Safety Corporation (FRSC) said during our last Community Development mtg, “it seems like the drivers wake up everyday and ask themselves, 'how many people am I going to injure today?'” It is disturbing. Most do not have a clue about road laws (neither do I but that’s why I joined the FRSC :-)) - they overtake carelessly and kill so many people as a result. But don’t take my word for it; it has been said that ZM has the highest car accident mortality rates in Nigeria. (I'll do some research on it soonest).

Because of this poor understanding of road safety, instead of passengers telling the drivers to slow down, they encourage them (by their silence – “shuru ma amsa”) to keep it up. While I’m on this topic, I might as well add that I have also noticed a Boot-Riding thing here: you can find up to three passengers riding happily in the boots of taxis or buses. No wonder Northerners are often referred to as animals.

There is plenty room for improvement, that’s the summary. FRSC, NURTW, VIO, Cofas... we all need to work together to change these trends. Address/re-educate the drivers, pedestrians (and even NURTW and Road Safety workers) regularly, make road signs, speed bumps, enforce strict laws… and so on. It’s just that Nigeria is so corrupt. (Not a pretty way to end a post, so lemme sing the Nigeria Go Better song: “Nigeria will survive; my people will survive. Nigeria go survive O, Nigeria go better!” It starts… with YOU :-)

PS: Next week I’ll be talking about ZM’s educational system in Professor Bullallah. Till then, have v. good days!

Muna Lahiya Lau

2008-10-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

Kudi

This bit about ZM falls in the “trivial” category. However, I’m yet to experiment with this in places other than Kotorkoshi, so you can take this one with a grain of salt:

The ZM populace willingly accept Nigerian notes regardless of the state of the notes. As in, they can accept a torn, squeezed and generally maltreated naira note very willingly. Me ya same shi? they’ll ask in puzzlement when you ask them if they’ll accept your brown, tired, super-delicate, tissue paper-soft N50. HOW-EVER, THIS BENEVOLENCE DOES NOT EXTEND TO THE N20! It’s almost an insult to offer them a partly torn N20. A-a! Bazan karbi wancan ba/No! I won’t accept that they will tell you strongly. After that they’ll most likely face the other side and mutter/sulk. End of story. Hmm…

Weather Status
The much-talked about harmattan is finally upon us, and indeed our lips are testifying to this! Moisturizers, Vaseline and Chapet have come out of their hiding place. Our jackets, sweaters, and mufflers are about to find and fulfill the central purpose of their ‘lives’ (that’s the title of a deep book by Os Guinness sha). We have heard that the cold here is intense, but I secretly doubt that it’s colder than Jos. If it is indeed colder, it’ll probably be because of the desert-like characteristics ZM has. In any case, I’m about to find out for sure. Yay!

… and a little bit on dressing:

You can always tell a Corper (and most non-indigenes of ZM) by their dress:

- Of course there’s the obvious green khaki, jungle boots and other abunga, but that counts only on CD/PCD days or when you want to collect a query from the NYSC Secretariat :-)

- Indigenes wear hijabs of varying lengths. (Most) Corpers love no such thing.

- Indigenes can wear trousers, but only as long as it’s accompanied by classy kaftans. Corpers can wear such a fashionable piece, but mostly they prefer to wear trousers with t-shirts, tame body hugs, etc.

- Male indigenes hardly wear jeans. Corpers wear jeans fala-fala.

- You can never see an indigene exposing her hair in public (a-ah, babu babu). Corpers? Well, there’s the spiky weave-on, million braids, feather braids, Anita Baker cut… take your pick, or better still, come up with something more chic.

Welcome to Zamfara State: Farming Is Our Pride

2008-09-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Oh Lord! Time’s up for me again.
My two-week sick leave from ZM has sadly come to an end (and I didn’t even get the chance to put on some weight :-( ) I’ll be going back on Sunday, and 5 days later I’m going to win the battle over tears as I wave my roommates g’bye. (Heck, maybe I’ll remember all the not-so-nice things they said/did and then scream “good riddance” as I push them out… fat chance). Another 5 days from then, I shall wave my new flat mates hello. Ahhh… I wonder what they’ll be like. Will they gel with us the way we did with the outgoing batch? Will they like singing (like some two flatmates I know)? And wait till they see our huge and famous Kotorkoshi rock.

In any case, they are very welcome.

pic.fromhttp://human.cc.hirosakiu.ac.jp/philips/gallery.htm

I realise that I haven’t described Zamfara State in this blog at all, which is very bad of me. Regardless of how the State tries to make people see that it’s a peaceful, live-able place, eyes and mouths still pop wide open before me as I tell them I'm serving there (involuntary movement, I think they call it in Biology). It therefore makes sense that I should take some time out of my {cough} busy schedule to describe the place to you... but the problem is, I live the famous “triangular life”- class to lodge to church. Sight-seeing for me is a trip to the capital, Gusau, when I want to buy food, make my hair, browse, etc. I wish I could say that this very interesting lifestyle of mine is going to change as soon as I get back but kai, no need. I’ll be sure to ferret out the useful, trivial, “insider” information about ZM, though. For instance, under the “trivial” category, I bet you didn’t know that Zamfara State takes its slogan, Farming Is Our Pride, to heart by planting okro as well as millet on the median (I mean that middle strip of road where the street lamps are situated) of some roads. Mm-hm. And I’ll probably be fapping information from zamfarastate.net too.

Well I have to go now. It’ll probably be a while before my next post. Discovering new blogs has been fun. Keep living, laughing, learning and loving.

Kurungus!

Wonderful Women

2008-09-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Being sick has an upside: you get to lie back and do nothing while the medication does its work. In other words, time to loaf. Well I’ve been having enough loafing time lately. Mostly I just lie back and think of all the series I’ve enjoyed so much (like Grey’s Anatomy, Wetin Dey, That 70s Show, Hell’s Kitchen, The X-Files, Star Trek, CSI, Las Vegas… ) but today I got to thinking about the women I admire. It is necessary to have people to look up to, people to think about. It keeps us focused on what we really want in life- If she was in my position, how would she handle this/react?/Would she do this? etc. You are spared a lot of heartache and indecision as a result. So here are a few of the amazing women I thought of. (I know the list will keep growing with time)-

Since I was thinking of series, I started with Melina Kanakaredes, whose composure I really trip for in CSI:NY.(And she is beautiful- I always rave about her curly hair and Greek features).

Then I proceeded to Ruth Benamaisia, who used to anchor NTA Newsline. Once upon a time, any kind of News used to bore me to tears; even the spicy, tales-of-the-unexpected Newsline. (I’d prefer to watch Buffy but nooo, the parents would not hear it- they said the country would be on fire and we wouldn’t know it- which was a valid point, but still…) Well, Ruth’s very correct English and intriguing mix of confidence and warmth always kept me quite attentive and always smiling happily. Yah, I’m smiling as I remember her, in fact.

Thinking about Ruth naturally led me to Kehinde Young-Harry, (who has been absent from Newsline for some time, I’m sad to discover), with her easy personality and equally fab. way of talking. She strikes me as someone that’s easy to talk with, (that’s what I mean when I say ‘easy personality’). Usually, when I think of her I think of Ruth too; both are classy, respectable women with a cool sense of humour.

My next stop was New Dawn’s trendy, “funky” presenter, Funmi Iyanda. I need not mention how great she looks and dresses. These two killer combinations would have made watching New Dawn a bit painful had it not been for her wonderful down-to-earth, refreshingly honest, expressive, intellectual, humorous nature (Chai, I’m beginning to sound like a sycophant, so enough said).

Adesuwa of Today’s Woman is yet another inspiring woman. She’s focused, obviously hard working, and tackles issues so deftly. Wow. Yah, she’s level-headed too.

When I realised that most of the women I admire are tv personalities, I decided to come closer to home: Anne Abok, director/producer, editor, script-writer of Media Village(YWAM), Bassa LGA., Plateau State. Oh mehn… how do I start? How do I do her justice? I can’t. She is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Very passionate about her work, and about people in general. Her lovely laugh, warm soul and amazing creativity is really awesome. (On more than one occasion, while she was giving us the basics of video production, the guy sitting next to me would whisper, “Shey she’s very beautiful?” “Mm-hm, definitely” )

Soon to be added to the roll is Sebari Diete-Spiff, director of Wetin Dey, Sitanda and other productions. (I say ‘soon to be added’ because I don’t know much about her yet- only precious little from a brief interview in True Love mag BUT! Like the feeling you get when you hear the beginning of a song for the very first time and are absolutely sure you’re going to love it, I just know that she’s going to be in my ‘hall of fame’).

Of course I will never forget Aunt Regina, of the Navigators Minna, Nigeria. Oh my! Warmth personified! Always willing to give you a warm hug, rub your back, sit down and chat with you… She is a devoted follower of Christ, wife, mother, friend… name it. Insightful and witty (you should hear some of the conversations she has with her daughters), she is also a fun, creative cook (I saw butternuts for the first time in my life in her kitchen).

And you know there’s Mama… the woman that permitted this young lady to live, the one who taught (er… is teaching) her daughter to be as true, hard working and independent as she is (When I remember Destiny’s Child’s… Destiny Child’s… Destiny Child… (what-ever) When I remember their cool Independent Woman song, I no longer think strictly of a classy chic riding a black SLK/Merc/Jeep/? with a fantastic condo and killer wardrobe. I think of Mama- self-sacrificing, seriously multi-tasking (on a bad day she calls herself jaki -donkey- but I think SuperWoman sounds better :-))

So…this is the list for now.No way my life is going to be mediocre with such wonderful women to think about. Yah… they are my Women of Substance.

.

2008-08-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

This is a picture I like very much.
Lagbaja looks unruffled; the baby on the mortar, reaching for the music manuscript is endearing; the people discussing in the corner are very Naija.
The tie-and-dye labullé (curtain) and the (somehow) unsettling wood carvings… mmm… very, very cool.
The pc, the book collection, the stereo, tv… correct!

Bits and pieces of two different cultures blended together to give a warm, deliciously down-to-earth representation of today’s Nigeria.

NB: I think the picture would also make for a great Spot-The-Difference game, don’t you agree? :-)

"Je je je they dey go-o!!"

2008-08-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Athletic and Natural.
She plays football with the guys, is a great volley ball player and loves to ride bicycles. Her hair is long and brown and suits her fair complexion.

Oh yes... she also loves to laugh.

Her favorite(and I mean favorite) phrase before erupting in happy laughter is "okereleee!"
This Imo State girl who has a tomboy exterior has a soft side too, of course. When she talks about the love of her life, her eyes (and entire countenance, actually) light up. (Sometimes you're even tempted to blush by her very candid display of emotion). If I'm to choose the one thing I'll miss her dearly for, it's her laughter. NYSC, you did good in making our paths cross, but it's time to say goodbye (sighs sadly). Well, when I think of her I can always yell:

"Okereleeee!"

Super Cook, Super Mama!
This Rivers State lady can cook (as the subtitle implies, duh). She can transform a regular, everyday meal into a delightful, more-that-Maggi-Family-Menu meal. Wow. Time will not permit me to elaborate (I'm extremely hungry too, truth be told. We just finished this month's clearance, and thinking about food isn't helping my shaking hands).

Her favorite words, right before she eats is "I'm going to enjoyyy myself veeeery well." She says this so calmly I cannot help but giggle and join her. Aside from being a great cook, she's an encourager, very practical and you can always count on her to be "Mama".

Kai, I'll miss you O!

Lively, life, alive, exuberant!!
"OGHENE BI KO OOOOO!"
Chai, the lodge is going to be so empty and so, so quiet without this Edo lady! Ha! There's the popular saying, "never a dull moment with you" and she embodies it. Mehn she's so much fun. Her voice is loud, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to get her laughing. It's lovely being in her company, playing Whot, eating, jisting about.. well, lots of stuff :-)
I will miss her loud, lively, lovely self. I will miss these three amazing sistas who have helped me gather my wits about me. For making me laugh, for advicing me, and yes... for teasing me.

My lovely roommates, you dey go-oooo! Come September 11 2008, you'll head back to Lag, PH, Edo State... chai! I must savour every moment that I can. I must live, laugh and love like you three.

Je je je we dey go-o,

Ajuwaya praise the Lord O,

We remove head-dress O,

Ajuwaya, praise the Lord!

"What Did She Say?"

2008-06-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday felt like a real, useful/meaningful, fun NYSC day for me.

We went deep into the interiors of Kotorkoshi, to a village called Chediya, in order to teach the women (young and old) to become more independent. In other words, my fellow Corper girls and I went on a Women Empowerment mission. We taught them the fine art of making buns, puffpuff, pancakes, cakes... Twas fun. My role as English-to-Hausa interpreter was scary but cool. I loved looking into their eyes and seeing them sparkle. I just pray that they take their time to really learn and become self-reliant (like me ;-))

Next week we'll be teaching them how to make soap and vaseline. Wow! I can hardly wait.

I Dey!!

2008-06-20T02:36:00.000-07:00

Governement Girls' Unity Secondary School, a large, spacious school with very friendly girls who love to rush the National Anthem no matter how many times you blast them or tell them to sing it again. GGUSS, the Corpers' favorite school in Kotorkoshi, Bungudu LGA.

The dust has settled between my Ex-Princi's last visit. It has settled very, very well. My life is taking on an easy, slow-paced beat (which I swore I'd prevent, tsk tsk) but the conclusion is this: I am happy. Swinging from one mood to the other as the dust storm blows, but happy. Focusing on good and bad things almost simultaneously, but happy.

It's good for me to stop here, as I have nothing further to add apart from this: God really dey, so I dey kampe! :-)

PS-
Howz YOUR own morale??

Good Afternoon, Malama!

2008-06-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

The second day of teaching for me was scary.

Not only was I unprepared for the lesson that day, I was also very very unsettled by a visit from someone I never expected to see ( at least not for a long time, if I stayed undercover for long enough). This very hot-tempered man had practically sworn to make my life in Zamfara a living nightmare.

Am I being melodramatic? Erm... just a little.

Rewind to two weeks ago:

On seeing my place of primary assignment, I was devastated. I was thinking, 'So this is the place God had in mind for me? A far, remote, rural, terrible place? Now I KNOW I have offended Him. This one is a confirmation. What is left now is this: I am not going to serve again. I'm sure I'm just overreacting, because Daddy and Mummy will eat me alive if they see me coming home with my box, telling them I'm not interested in NYSC again, but right now... I'm-

Before I could finish the irrational thought, I was introduced to the principal of the school. I greeted him politely, and went over the conversation I was to have in my head:

Excuse me Sir, I was hoping you would, em... reject me. Please Sir

I considered this request from different angles, but every time I knew he was never going to agree to reject me. He had too many students and too few teachers. Female teachers all the more desirable. Connclusion: Acceptance.

I and an older corper begged hard for days. The man was still refusing to reject me. What made matters worse was that he had learnt that the other female that was posted there was trying to redeploy. (And there was one guy too, who was doing 'underground' runs to change his posting, but none of us were aware of this new wahala at that point).

So the LGOs came to my rescue. They agreed to repost me to another school, still within that local govt., and I was at peace because this new school was amazing. But there was one little problem: the acceptance letter from the principal of the school I was posted to. I had to retrieve it from him, and to cut the story short, he refused to give it to me, until I presented an official letter requesting for it. (Never mind the phone call the LGO had made to him). Fine, I thought. These office matters deal with paperwork, so he does have a point.

I got the letter, photocopied one for myself (to be safe), and showed him. I'm sure you can guess what happened, but I'll tell ya: He found another loophole. I was frustra-ted! I will now fast-forward to the day before I left ZM for my less than 2 week break:

"If they succeed in removing you from this school, I tell you I will reject all the corpers sent here. And I will report you and the LGOs to the State Coordinator, and you-will-see..."

Those were the parting words the princi gave me, and trust me, I was adequately scared. The State Coord. is known to be a.... em... how do I put it? let's go with no nonsense. He is a no-nonsense man that can repost an individual to a place worse off if he feels like, and Gummi (another local govt. in ZM which is FOUR hours away from the state capital and rumored to have camels as the dominant mode of transport, didn't sound too good to me). While I quaked, everyone assured me that the princi was just riding on hot air. He was jus' talking. Fashi him jare! So I cooled down and registered under the new school. I was adviced to keep a very low profile "till the wahala blows over", simple and short.

Well hahaha, surprise surprise. Not so simple and not so short.

I jammed him in the new school yesterday, and as our eyes jammed, his body was filled (filled to the brim) with r-a-g-e.

"You! You!! So you have resumed eh?! You!"

Jesus is my saviour. I was speechless. Other corpers around me advised me to come back and sit down (I didn't know when I had stood up and walked towards the man). They told me the man was just talking and all, and that I should cool down naaa, etc. This was 10 mins to my second class (my first class, the day before was quite cool, by the way. If you take away the initial fear I experienced when I realised that in 10mins I was through with what I had prepared for a 75 min lesson, it was cool. The girls are fun).

So, back to the issue at hand: He sent two 'delegates' from his school to the princi of my new school, and I am about to see something called trouble. But I'm not alone. The LGO is behind me. And maybe God, too.

Of course it's 'Burning Hot!'

2008-05-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

Scenes from Wetin Dey (fapped from a bbc page I cannot recall at the moment)
The show is indeed "Burnin' Hot!"

Her name is Sebari Diete Spiff, and she’s one of the people behind the magic of Wetin Dey. She is the series producer, and I’m growing increasingly curious about her. She pays attention to the little details that make Wetin Dey an amazing watching experience.

I am yet to see anyone that doesn’t love either the lighting, editing, or scripting of this programme.

AIDS is a depressing reality, but the way it is treated in Wetin Dey is remarkable. (By the way, I just realized that “remarkable” really means remark able/remark worthy/notable. English...) The humour is respectfully injected to calm you down when you see sad things happening to 'Peju, Bilkisu, Yetunde or dear Chris.

Why this sudden excitement over Wetin Dey? Simple. After many weeks, I was opportuned to watch it last Sunday, and boy...

Immediately I heard the opening music on Sunday evening, I flew out of my room, extremely excited (okay, that’s not so true… I was in the middle of composing a text, so I hurriedly finished and told him to “tune to NTA… please please hurry!”)

All the amazing characters were having flashbacks, and I got so thrilled when Chris, (my favorite character, in case you haven't noticed) was talking about his mistakes, what he learnt… I was touched by their stories. I was impressed with their story-telling/acting. I was, bottom line, flooded with hope, because I was staring at brilliant, hard working Nigerians giving their best and loving every moment of it.
Nigeria is working. To God be the glory!

PS: I just wanted to share my happiness over Wetin Dey with you, esp. as I’ll be heading back to ZM in a few days. If only I could pack this burrful, calm, amazing Jos weather along with the rest of my stuff… I truly wish (sighs)…

Hey! "How Is Your Morale?"

2008-05-23T03:50:00.001-07:00

High, I hope.

I want to believe this post meets you well. What you’ve been up to, who you’ve been connecting with, and how you’ve been generally has been so worthwhile, I trust. Thank you for coming. A bear hug to you, and if that doesn’t do, how about two hugs and a tall glass of chilled Blackcurrant Viju Milk? Mmm.

I’ve been good. The 3+ weeks I spent at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Orientation Camp, Zamfara State have taught a lot of us (and me, especially) stuff…

1. We are many that initially believed: ‘God is punishing me, that’s why I’ve been posted to Zamfara’ (A 2007/2008 Corper observed that all of us walked through the camp gates with very, very long faces. I didn’t notice cuz I must have been attending my very own pity party at the time). I can believe it sha, and it would explain the ease with which we all bonded. QED: Misery loves company…

2. We can stand almost perfectly still under the baking-hot sun while flies happily kiss us every other second, (and we can stand in dust storms too)…

3. At night we can bathe outside while we shout on the naughty guys who want to "see their Mamas"…

4. We can drink satchet upon satchet of pure water and still pee only once a day…

5. We can do shot put/bush attack/shit-in-a-bag quite well (indeed the very fact that I can mention this undignified abunga can tell you something about my state of mind)…

6. We can eat food that has been offered up to the Tsafekuda god (aw-wite I was just kidding about that one.

Tsafe is a local Govt. in ZM (By the way, ZM has to be the State with the coolest abbreviation. Plateau PL, Rivers RV- good and fine, but ZM… totally cool- and I’m not consoling myself, you ma you know)…

7. I can fervently wish to be rejected by a potential employer…

8. I can cry and flail my arms about non-stop for an hour plus if I think it’s going to help my case…

9. I can fly off a bike and land face-first in the coarse sand; stand up, dust myself and calmly tell the biker, "mu ci gaba" ("Let’s continue") within forty five seconds…

And of course:

10. I now understand why Corpers often look so cross.
Having people say "Shun!" or "Cofa!" (Corper, in a Hausa accent) when you’re trying to navigate around a strange town whose employers refuse to accept or reject or house you is thoroughly irritating. Teasing me in this foreign land, are you? Well, like the Soja Men taught us to say, ‘Baggas! God punish your Local Govt. Chairman!’

But enough about what I’ve seen, tasted, experienced and discovered. Lemme ask a serious question for once:

How do you persuade a young, teenage girl whose major obsession is marriage to learn about the Kinetic Theory of Gases? Or about Malthus’ principle? Or about… (aw shucks! Physics & I were like shark&bloody human, so I can’t/don’t want to remember anything from that side).

How do you encourage her to be serious about her education?
And then, how do you persuade a class-full of such young women?

If it helps that I am a fellow female who has made it through the system, it doesn’t help that I am consistently losing faith in the country’s educational system. So, how?

How?

"SANTI"

2008-04-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

Santi is the Hausa word for… arrgh! I don’t quite know how to put it… enjoyment of something… like something is really shakking you.
[Examples: "Kina santin abin ko? (You are relishing the thing ba?”) Usually stated by my sis when she sees me getting extra chirpy or excited while eating some things.]

I googled the word for a better explanation, but guess what? They had a hard time defining it as well:

“Santi is a Hausa cultural concept which is hard to define precisely. It always involves making some kind of remark during eating. This will typically be a complimentary comment about the food itself or about some pleasant thought that comes to the mind of the speaker, for example a comment about nice clothes or about how fat one's livestock are.”
www.humnet.ucla.edu

So 5/10 for me. [Clap. Clap. (Clap)x3 Clap!]
Anyhoo,

Ina santin Viju Milk Drink, wallahi! (I don’t really like the way I sound saying that, so I’m reverting back to English, thank you): I’m really enjoying Viju Milk Drink, I’m telling you!

I thought about switching to another milky product, as I was finally getting tired of Viju (I like the apple and strawberry flavours, but hardly ever find the strawberry flavour, and therefore stick to apple only :-( ).
Then yesterday I discovered their blackcurrant & apple, as well as pineapple & apple flavours.

De-lightful! So, so delightful!

I just drank them this morning, as I had to patiently wait for PHCN to bestow us with light to cool the fridges. I especially love the Blackcurrant flavour). Creamier, more delicious. Oh my goodness, Viju is making me dance! It’s one-fifth the price of Fristi (another of my santi-able something-somethings), so I’m even happier.
Viju Company, you have an ardent consumer! (Maybe I should write them… or maybe not). When they see their delightful, creamy products disappearing from shelves, they’ll know…

… that we, the great society of Viju-lovers, are absolutely appreciative!

P.S: I wanted to blog about the uselessness of worry, (with case-scenarios of situations being even worse than you were worried about), but Viju Milk swept me away.
I also wanted to blog about my upcoming trip to Benin City, but… Viju Milk swept me away!
I’m trying to listen intently to what my big sis is telling me, but guess what? I’m writing about Viju milk. Aren’t I-

1. So filled with santi?
2. A good Viju PR person?

2008-04-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

At Media Village- On location for PLWHIV/AIDS

"A Little 'Something-Something'"

2008-04-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

Friday was my most eventful day, but lemme run through the week first:

Sunday- Haka Rayuwa

On Friday (the 28th), my father received disturbing, unclear news from a friend’s brother. He said something like his brother (my father’s friend) was dead. The network was bad, so he wasn’t sure he’d heard right, so he proceeded to call this friend. Service unavailable. He then called as many people as possible. Their reactions varied from “No-o, I just spoke with him this morning! He was fine!” to “Kaaai, ban sani ba (Mehnn, I don’t know)” My mother was agitated. Fifteen minutes later I overheard him talking with someone, sounding tired.
“Haka rayuwa (that’s how life is)” he said. It was true; the man had just died. Just like that. At the mosque, hale and hearty by 2pm. Dead by 4pm. No accident, just death… like that. The words repeated themselves in my head. Haka rayuwa. So sad. There’s something about languages other than English- they make things seem more real- clearer and sometimes sadder. They traveled on Sunday to condole with his family.
I was home alone for the most part, as the two people staying with us were out for most of the day. No light, so I made a good do with Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Man Died’. Very interesting book. Its main catchphrase is, “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” So unfortunately, most of us are dying.

Monday to Wednesday- Répété
I was staring into one pot or the other, making red stew and imitation-edi kang ikong (I say ‘imitation’ because it didn’t have all those exotic meats- periwinkles, snails, rabbits, goats… Ok, moving on!) My parents had come back on Tuesday, but I was still very much alone with my thoughts for most of the day (and that’s not usually a good thing). Then I exploded on Wednesday afternoon- a hot shower of tears. (It’s in your best interest that I spare you the nyama-nyama details; I was just overwhelmed by the ratio of all the things I was not doing to the things I was doing). I didn’t have a headache, but in a minute, I overdosed on my headache tabs- in a stupid bid to “see what would happen”.

Nothing, obviously… apart from the fact that I now know I’m a drug abuser :( [Peoples’ something-somethings range from igbo to goskolo, and their last words will probably be “Guy, it’s all good. But no do bad thing” (or something more ironic). But at least they’ve had their ‘fun’ seeing people walking upside down and all that. What’s the fun in lying helplessly after OD-ing on tasteless tabs?? May God forbid bad thing.]

Thursday- Menene Haka?
Why was everyone giving me so much space? Was it because I looked so defeated? Or was it because of my dehydrated answers to all questions? I just didn’t want to do anything productive.

Friday- What a Day!
I thought that going to the studio would make me feel better, and it did.

Initially the heat was getting to me. I changed location twice. I was forcing myself to write a script on the need for a local zeolite production plant (one of my more serious script ideas). I was interrupted by someone who wanted to see a VIP who’d just graced the studio.

This VIP was impressive. He had “presence,” and we were awed. An entertainer who did tours in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and other African countries, and who dined with presidents. He sounded good, and he talked about a lot of things- movie making, being true to your African self, and lots more. I needed to hear this.
He looked about, then asked one of the guys seated in the office what he was waiting for.

“Oh, I sing. I’m waiting for the sound engineer.”
“Really? Sing a song for me.” He said, waiting patiently.
The guy stood and began to sing, but was quickly interrupted.
“Go higher”
He obeyed.
“Higher”
He sang higher.
“Higher”
His voice broke. We all chuckled.

“You have a good… no, average voice… let me not deceive you” he said thoughtfully. “But I think you can make it. Do you smoke?”
“No,” the guy quickly said, wondering why he asked.
“Do you like women?”
“No-o!”
“Why not?! Are you normal? I like women. I tour the continent with up to fifty of them”
General laughter then.
“I understand, but I don’t like women,” the guy asserted. “Not that I don’t like them, but I don’t like them.”
“Okay. I’m just asking ‘cuz I don’t want you to be a problem to my girls. They are really beautiful, so you might get confused. Do you drink?”
“No Sir”
“Good, ‘cuz a first-class performer is like an athlete. You need to be in your best condition. Who can vouch for you?”
“Uhm… my church. I play the keyboard there”
“Excuse me, you only play there. I’m looking for someone who knows you. And, by the way, do you have an international passport?”
“No Sir” (The level of awe in the room increased very noticeably).
“Start working on one. This may be the day of grace for you,” he said feelingly to the the guy.

“Erm, excuse me Sir,” another guy in dark shades who has been sitting quietly throughout pipes up. He leans forward. “I think I can be a good entertainer too”
“Really?”
“Yes Sir”
“Let’s hear you then”
He began a slow R&B number, but was sharply interrupted.
“Stand up, my friend” the man ordered coolly. “I’m not your equal. Remove those glasses. Nigerians! That’s your problem. You want to be treated like stars when you’ve not made it. And sing an African song. Sing like a ‘bushman’! Nobody will respect you when you imitate the Westerners-”

[Okay, so I’m not about to transcribe the entire 30-something minute conversation. I’d love to, but I’m a bit preoccupied. You’ll find out why later on]

He taught them six beautiful African songs from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, other countries I cannot recall at the moment. His voice was so deep and impressive. He even taught them to sing like an 80-year old African. It was really cool.
“Here’s my card,” he said, fishing two out from an impressive cardholder. “Meet me at my studio by 2pm tomorrow. I love your voices. Today may be your day of grace.”
The guys were so happy. I wished I could sing too. (He had asked at some point if I sang or danced. I said no.
“I write scripts”
“Mm?” he said, interested.
“Em, I mean I’m learning,” I amended. He laughed heartily.
“I would have told you to write me a script and I’d pay you tomorrow.”
Yeah well, I’m just learning. There’s no point lying about it. Kurungus.

The interesting audition was over, and as he walked out with the two nouveau-entertainers, I was hoping he’d talk to me. I waited with bated breath.
He turned to me and said, “You look like the serious type…” [Come on! Why am I always looking like the serious type?! I’m certain it’s not the glasses because I don’t wear glasses. I don’t frown unless I’m really concentrating on a task, so what is it? Maybe I have to braid my hair in multi colours, and clap my hands as I giggle ever so often. Maybe…]

“Tell me, where are you schooling?”
I told him I was a pocket graduate (you know, like a Pocket Hercules - small, but mighty? Good), and he invited me to join in his upcoming awareness programme. I wasn’t really thrilled by that, but I was about to become even more un-thrilled.

When he left, the ‘olda boys’ began to laugh. (I call them ‘olda boys’ because they have more experience than most of us. They believe they are the street-smart ones. I dunno about that, as I’m still new).
“That guy will start paying for these his so-called auditions O!”
“The guy is just messing with those guys’ heads!” Another said.

The summary of it: The man, popular indeed, uses people till their eyes start to shine with anger. His pay is crappy, and why is it that his so-called entertainers aren’t popular? The man goes from studio to studio doing the same thing, because he’s always looking for new, gullible people. Like many talkatives and name-droppers, he talks, but does not deliver. Chai.

I was still thinking about him when the clouds became darker. I needed to get some things from the market (and besides I wasn’t doing anything at the studio anymore), so I excused myself and went shopping.

And now, onto an unexpected turn of events…

[I texted a condensed version of the next events to a new friend who has a big, sympathetic heart, and in no time we were conversing about unrelated, fun issues. Thank you!]

SANDWICH

The second rain in Jos. Praise God, the heat is over.
I’m so glad I live in Jos. I love the weather. And I love my home- there are always people around, even if the siblings aren’t.
God is good.

The second rain in Jos. Two words: VERY HEAVY.
I’m stuck in a busy place called Rwang Pam Street. I’ve taken shelter at different spots- under a Mai Sha’i (Tea) shed, a utilities shop, and a cd shop.
I’m cold and wet, thinking about my two new gorgeous pairs of shoes, a hot bath, food, blogger, which of my few stylish clothes to wear to a wedding tomorrow, my new shoes encore.
Long minutes crawl. The rain subsides only to increase again and again. Finally, I ‘bone’ and hail a bike. I can’t wait to be home sweet home. My eyes are stinging with the rainwater. I’m tired of telling the biker not to rush. My head is pounding now.
At last, home!
I let myself in, glance at my muddy shoes and decide to go through the backdoor. I’m walking to the back when a familiar, relieved voice says “No, no. Come this way… Allah yana kawo ku da da-daya” (God is bringing you people one-by-one). I wonder why Mama says this, but not for long. My eyes behold a most unwelcome sight.
“What happened?” I ask, getting annoyed pointlessly.
“What does it look like?” she replies amusedly. It’s a ‘snappy answer to a stupid question,’ and I don’t find it amusing. I don't stare at the scene before me for very long. It is unbearable. A scene I have never seen before. She and the two people staying with us are looking at me curiously as I take everything in. How is Miss Volatile doing? Not very good.

Mops. Brooms. Buckets. Pails. DISORDER!
The ground floor has been completely flooded. Com-pletely. Buckets of water distributed everywhere. Ohoho no.

The second rain in Jos. Praise God, the scarcity of water is over. People will not have to look beyond their roofs and wells for water.
I’m so happy; rainy season at last! Inconvenient sometimes, but a blessing always. Blessings ranging from maize and large vegetables, to coolness and good conversation.

You know,
I could have been greeted by a crowd standing around a burned-down house, but I wasn’t
I could have come home to see my mother slumped, motionless on the floor
(after all, haka rayuwa), but I didn’t
Instead I came home to a flooded house. Me kuma? Yes, the carpet is messed up, some appliances are condemned, the house will smell like a rat soaked in Grignard reagent*

But yes,
God is good…
…God is very good!

*I dunno what that smells like. It just sounded appropriate.

2008-03-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

2008-03-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly fapped from boldsfold.co.uk... neat comics.
(ALL THIS IS MY BID TO MAKE MY BLOG LOOK ACTIVE :-) )

IT IS I...

2008-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

...working on the Personal Saviour series, really-really.

The problem is the first slice (titled DOUBLE X)- it is sounding very horrible, so I'm still brainstorming.

The problem is the time- I am no longer an unmotivated girl (that's the Spirit), but I'm doing a lot of video scripting these days, and I go to the studio to learn the fine, amazing art of video editing. (The customers usually think I'm a receptionist though, since they always meet me furiously, FURIOUSLY writing :-))

I'm through with the excuse game!

The Call

2008-02-21T04:07:00.000-08:00

I posted earlier on (today), but I'll be absent from blogger for another long while. This time, my Sis’ fast-approaching wedding (March 1st) is the happy reason. I thought I might as well blog about what’s on my mind while I have the chance, therefore.

Two weeks ago, I was at a video production workshop hosted by Media Village, the video production wing of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and it-was-amazing!!

"Using the media as a tool for nation-building," was the slogan. And I'll say it again: it was amazing.

I was so inspired by the twenty plus super-creative Christians who attended. The trainers/facilitators were so good. We learned the basics of pre-production (script-writing, target audience determination, structure, creative hooks, lighting, sound...) At the week's end, we were to produce a 3-minute video on anything we fancied. My group did a video on having HIV and still living a successful life; I was surprised and shamed to discover that I didn't think HIV+ people really had that chance. "What the media projects is what the people see," one of my teammates said. That is so true. Other groups worked on food (Indomie Vegetale), Pre-Marital Sex, and the dangers of Goskolo (aka. Ogogoro, or Monkey Tail, I think. It's sha a corrrosive drink that people get drunk with).I felt like I was flying when our beautiful, amazing director told me I belonged in the field. (Halla-luyah! This girl is Useful at last!) But with all the joy welling up within me, there was CONFUSION (and a lot of fear, if I'm to document all the emotions I experienced).

Why? Because...

There I was, fresh out of the department of Chem. Eng., FUT Minna, hoping to learn more about it, and eventually fall in love with, and practice it (“like it, love it, don’t leave it” as dc Talk would say) and then video production came along… and Iswept me off my feet one time! The creativity flying in the air. The people. The work that seems so unlike work... the promise of an exciting life after all. I felt so happy. I belonged! (triumphant music still plays in my head as I reollect the events of that week).

I began to think, “What duz this mean? That my 5 plus years in Uni. is a waste?? Or that I shouldn't have studied so hard to get the grades?? Or that I was being tempted/side-tracked by an impossible thing? A dream that was just not meant for me?? That I was about to risk my parents' disapproval?? ("So because you spent just one week in a glamorous field you are ready to throw away your hard work?")

So I asked the professionals and got different answers. Some said I could practice the two, but only for a time, as both are big, time-loving fields (and when husband and children would come along...); others said lai-lai I could only do one (thou shalt not serve two masters), and others said I really could do the two always, but I needed to be hard-working and smart about it. Hard wroking? No problem. Smart? Hmmm. But one thing every side was unanimous about was my need for prayer.

So has the answer come?

I think so. When I travelled to Minna to do my clearance, I stayed with the warmest, kindest family ever (Navigators who train University students to "know Christ and make Him known;" to "add value to someone's life". Their Bible Studies, retreats, picnics, meals were so meticulously thought-out and they really had us thinking, What kind of people are these? How can they be SO nice to us?! I have met amazing people in this life O!). They have an admirable collection of booooks! I could never be bored in their house. Anywayz, in one of my chatty/non-timid moods, one of the trainees, (a Friend-For-Life candidate, I once wrote in my journal) and I were going through the books. He then recommended Os Guinness' book.

"The Call of Guinness?" IU asked, looking at him suspiciously. "You want me to read a book on beer?!"

"No, " he said, laughing. "The Call... by Os Guinness. Not of"

"Oh"

"It's very intellectual," he said

"Ah! No thank you" I laughed. "I'm interested in books on interpersonal relationships... like books on effective witnessing."

We bantered along those lines, and I eventually took 2 books off the shelf- one on witnessing and the intellectual one: The Call. (Later on I added one more book -on marriage- and proceeded to speed-read them). I loved The Call most. If you're experiencing a similar conflict, please get that book! I could paraphrase the section in which he dealt with the Work vs. Calling issue, but he said it so well:

“…There was no advertised job that was perfect for Paul’s calling: ‘Apostle to the Gentiles: $50,000 per annum.’ So Paul, not wishing to depend on wealthy Corinthian patrons, earned money by making tents. Doubtless he made his tents well because they too were made to the glory of God. But tentmaking was never the heart of Paul’s calling, it was only a part, as all of life is… [Work is something] that frees us to get that which is central. By contrast, whatever is the heart of our calling is work that fulfils us because it employs our deepest gifts."

"The difference is impossible to mistake. Goerge Foreman, flamboyant heavyweight champion of the world and a Baptist preacher (odd…) says, ‘Preaching is my calling. Boxing for me is only moonlighting in the same way Paul made tents.’”
“THE CALL: Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life”

Os Guinness

I think I get the message. God, please help me.

BODY BETRAYAL

2008-02-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

“Our bodies are always, necessarily down to earth. They and their comportment are not completely under our control. We try to present them with appropriate dignity, but we cannot be human and always be graceful… On such occasions we do best to cultivate an affectionate sense of humour, of the sort signaled in St. Francis’ playful address of his body as “Brother Ass”. I do not know if angels have (or need) the capacity to laugh at themselves, but holy people must…”
An except from Rodney Clapp’s ‘Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels’

I read this book (with its strange title) a few months ago, and since I'm the type of person that always finds herself in one embarrassing situation or the other, I found it very refreshing. Nowadays I tend to laugh over such experiences with people, esp. when they are having a bad day, so if today's your bad day, relax and read about one of my recurring 'body betrayals': The Public Battle With Sleeeeep.

I came to the conclusion that night-reading and any other night-time activity was not for me a long, long time ago. This did not stop me from trying, though. In the end, I think it was the collective experiences I had that showed me the light. These are a few that I can remember off the cuff, I think they say:

JS2: In the Classroom-
Prefect walks into class all good and angry, warning the naughty JS2 students about the hazards of gossiping, making noise in class, and generally being unserious:

“In fact, wake anybody that is sleeping!”

The terrified students whisper to their sleeping mates loudly, ‘Wake up! Senior Nat. said you should wake up!’ The loud whispers rouse all from slumber, except one. The girl sitting in front of the sleeping girl whispers louder. Nothing. She whispers louder still. Ahaps! You might as well be speaking pidgin to a stone.

Students seated next to her begin to whisper to the sleeping girl too- they don’t want to be punished for one girl’s misbehaviour- the prefect might be thinking that the girl is being rude. This equates to an even angrier prefect, which is equal to general punishment. Soon, the whole class is calling the girl’s name loudly. Nothing still. A-ah! Is there such a thing as the Spirit of Sleep? The girl in front now bangs on the girl’s table hard several times before Sleeping Junior puts up her head and attempts to hide the fact that she has been dozing by adopting the irritated I-was-praying attitude. The general class laughter INCLUDING the Prefect’s tells her that that trick is useless. Oh well, at least she tried.

JS2 still: In the Chapel-
“Whaaat?! Sleeping in the Chapel? You have no respect for God!”
“I was not sleeping!”
“Keep quiet! People saw you!”
Yes, people did. It would have been surprising otherwise, as I had slumped on the pew I was sitting on, resting my head on the back support. Funny thing was I didn’t think I was really asleep. I was hearing one or two things the Revivalist was saying. Didn’t that mean something? Obviously not. Sleeping ranked a little lower than making noise in Chapel, so I missed my classes the following day. I got a large portion of rubber grass to cut instead.

JS3: And the Place Went Silent…
“Pavement” in the girls’ dormitory was the No.1 reading spot. It was free from rats, and the cool Jos breeze kept one awake longer. When that didn’t help, a steady supply of gogo worked wonders. (Gogo = Gossip). It was JSC Examination time, and Intro. Tech was fast approaching, so we all gathered our buckets and pillows and assembled on Pavement, about 6 feet from the ground on one side, 3 feet on the other. I was facing the 6 ft. side, and this alone should have scared me, but I was drunk with sleep. I decided to give myself a 10 minute doze-break right there. Big, stupid mistake… I will forever have the scar on my upper lip.

I landed on the concrete with a big 80kg thud, and the strange thing was that I was still asleep (according to people). The girls were so stunned; some began to laugh… until I stood up.

“Jeeesus!!”

When they began to jump down so fast I was surprised. What? I was vaguely conscious of the distinct taste and smell of blood… kind of magnetic, numb. Odd.

“Heiii! See her mouth!” one of them wailed.
What’s wrong with my mouth?!
Something, definitely. Some said they could see my teeth through the deep slit; some said the amount of blood was horrifying. Call me morbid, but I wanted to see for myself. They didn’t permit me to look at the mirror; I was sent to bed instead. Needless to say, I would be the topic of the gogo that night.

I was taken to the school nurse, she gave me injections. My mouth was so swollen I resembled a lasar rat. I got funny stares everytime. “Stop looking at my mouth!” I was always joking. I stopped eating in the dining hall. I was always asked what happened by staff and student alike. It was two weeks of drooling while sleeping and eating with the tiniest of spoons. (But all of the events that happened to the Queen of Embarrassing, are they not written in the Book of Replessness?)

SS3: You Would Have Thought…
I had just smiled at my longtime Crush. He smiled back, and I was so satisfied. I proceeded to wave to my other classmates as we parted ways that satisfying Wednesday evening. Life was good.
We had gathered for the weekly prayer meeting, and the speaker was one of my favorites, a tough, extremely talented Technical Drawing teacher. He was sure his students had water in their brains, but he was still a decent matter-of-fact man. He always went straight to the point – “I wonder whether we think the Gospel is too simple for us, that we have to add our own rules…” I still remember him saying.

As my Crush and I went in opposite directions, he to the boys’ side and I to the girls’ as the Chapel seating arrangement dictated, I felt that the prayer meeting was going to be inspiring. I noted that a good number of junior boys were seated on the last two rows of our side. (This was only tolerated because there was no space on the boys’ side). I and three of my fellow prefect girls decided to join them. They created space for us with so much reverence. I like that, Dictator Me thought. Time elapsed. TD teacher was still expounding. I got “sleepier and sleepier”. I put my head on my lap and snoozed. A sterling example of prefectship indeed. I must have gone into REM sleep, cuz the next thing I knew was I was sliding off the pew in terribly slow motion- I couldn’t help it. My head connected to the floor, kwos. Imagine a Muslim prayer stance- head on the ground, rear-end up.

Not again.

My fellow prefect girls gasped. Humiliation filled me fast. The junior boys giggled, then broke into full-blown laughter. Girls in front wondered what was wrong. They turned. Story was broadcast terribly fast. Boys - on the other side of the aisle – turned. My fellow prefect boys came over to see what the commotion was all about. Commotion in God’s House. They too, heard. My Crush. He too heard. He came over.

The humiliation was complete.

“What happened?” a pref. boy asked, concerned.
“I don’t know…” I managed. The little dignity I had left forbade me to run out of the Chapel. I turned to the boys and told them not to laugh mock-seriously. I then shrugged in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner.
During the closing worship song, one of my mates sitting many rows ahead came to me and whispered in my ear, “shey you know you have burnt your rep?” Yes, I know. Reputation was everything, and I mine was burnt to a crisp.

The next day, one of my teachers called me aside and asked me, “Were you so tired?” “How did you know?” I asked, horrified.
“I always know,” he replied, eyes twinkling. He walked away, leaving me glued to the spot. A repless prefect. Who would have thought?

University: 200 Level- NOT Eye Candy
“Wake up, let’s go and read now,” my friend and room mate pleaded. We had planned to read in the Lecture Hall that evening, as there was no light in our room. I decided to get some sound sleep before then (I was tired of the jolt of fear that coursed through me whenever I felt my head had bobbed off dolo-style in the Hall).

I groggily put on my clothes and we were off. We walked to the hall in silence. She was looking around for any available space when she noticed that the guys sitting by the door- about five of them- had stopped talking and had started staring at me… strangely. And more people were turning to stare. I was unaware, being somewhat irritable still. I was just standing at the door, waiting.

Well she turned to look too, and it was at this point that she understood. She gracefully walked back to me and whispered in my ear with the trace of laughter in her voice, “I want to tell you something. Outside.”
I humbly followed her out without a word.
“Oh I’m so sorry,” she began, erupting in kind laughter now.
“What?” I asked.
“You wore your shirt inside out”
“Oh,” I said. Is that all? It wasn’t a big deal.
Only that I was comic-relief to people in the hall that evening, standing morosely, with a shirt that had shoulder pads sticking out oddly, and hair that needed some combing. It just wansn’t... gangsta. Yes. I did it again.

So here I am, undisputed winner in the Most Embarrassing award category.
Signing out for now.

Long Time...

2008-02-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

I'm currently at school, doing my clearance.
The past two weeks has been a-ma-zing! I think I can say with confidence that my life has FINALLy begun!
Happy details in a few days.

Cramming

2008-01-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

For lack of concrete ideas for my Personal Saviour series, I regret to announce that I’ll be blogging about the benefits of cramming (reading and memorizing without understanding a thing) instead. (When one of my friends confided that she never shared her ideas with anyone until they were successful, and about how she ate up a piece of paper containing a plan immediately her sister read it, I thought out loud: “A-ah! That’s strange animal behaviour!” Well I wish I kept my mouth (or my fingers, in this case) to myself about this Personal Saviour series. I feel like all talk and no action).
Yes. I wish I exhibited strange animal behaviour rather than tail-between-the-legs animal behaviour. Ah well.

I fell sick a few days to my final exams. Malaria.
Naturally, I felt horrible because I felt weak and nauseous all of the time, and I considered all the precious time ticking away - I also had two projects to finish (actually the second one, a group design project, was contracted out-shame on us- but I still needed to understand it). And then there was one more test: Process Control.

The course was a prayer point for most of us, and here I was, the day before the test, lying on my bed and doing my best to sob quietly as my classmates were doing TDB (Till Day Break). The last time I felt so hopeless was in my SSI, before a Biology exam. I had passed the exam with flying colours, but would the miracle repeat itself? With Control?? There were new topics the lecturer covered, of which I was clueless. And it was Control. The test was to be in objective (OMR) format, and I liked OMR… but it was Control.

I hadn’t started taking any medication because I wanted to read, and felt that the drugs would hinder my brain from understanding the difference between a set-point change and a… erm… load change? I can’t remember. (I think this is a good time to mention that I crammed a little, so it’s in order that I cannot recall something I read barely two months ago, shebi?)

I struggled, and in the end, I didn’t read much for this dreaded 4 unit course. Test day came, and my friends and I slowly walked to the hall under the hot sun. The lecturer, a venerable Prof., was late, which was all the better for us. As people whipped out past questions, an exhausted me put my heavy head on the table and slept off. Some ten minutes before the man arrived. My friend woke me to look at the previous year’s past OMR question paper. As we looked through it, another girl joined us. And another.

“How do you solve this one?”
I managed to explain it, since it was a topic I was familiar with. This gave me a surge of confidence…
…till she asked about the next one.

“Ah, why are you guys stressing yourself?!” the first girl complained. The answer is B.
My mental mouth fell open. You mean people were cramming the options too? How unwise.
As if to confirm my thoughts, she proceeded, pointing:

“This one is A. This one is A also. This one is C…”
I stole a glance at the others. They were stunned too. Then we all laughed, and guess what happened next:
My friend said she knew the next question’s answer, but not necessarily the alphabet. Hmmm…
I now thought, “lemme give it a try too. They might change the option/type, but if I cram the answers…” and so we changed tactics. We devoted our remaining time to cramming the answers, period. Let the worst not happen.

He repeated the questions.
He didn’t even bother changing the option/type. Even the errors in the previous question papers were there. I believe my friend saved my academic life. There was no chance I could have solved all those questions in the time given. Cramming saved me. And I know… it’s not a thing to be proud of, but I’m glad I crammed nonetheless! This is the state of education in Nigeria, and FUT Minna is truly Nigerian in this respect. (Most of us operate this way:

Input = Output. (NO ACCUMULATION)).

Kurungus!

C. SWEET SAYS:

2008-01-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

I haven’t updated this blog for a while now, and for good reasons, like being quite busy with:

- keeping fit as I pound yam, sweep, cook…

- being confused about what to write (‘…should I write about my latest cooking disaster, or about how my sis discovered too late that she had packed a bagful of bambara nuts instead of the groundnuts she had fervently planned for? (That was so funny, by the way. I’m sure I’ll work it into one of my stories). I could even get more mundane by blogging about our new cat- it has four limbs and uses them well…’)

- all those dvds!

But then gradually I got a new idea for this blog; a fictional series titled ‘Personal Saviour’ which is about the three characters I introduced a while back- Sarah, Larai and Yetty. What’s new about them is their sharp focus on eternal issues like their relationship with Jesus Christ, and how He affects every detail of their lives - witnessing/evangelism, dealing with diverse people, staying sane, money matters… all of it.

I picked this idea for two main reasons. One: living with eternity in mind is what I’ve decided on, (special thanks to the Minna Navigators), and I think that experiencing it through my characters is going to help me:

focus- “THIS is what my life is about. It’s now in perspective.”

build confidence- “It’s not the end of my life if I don’t say the right things. What matters is learning from my mistakes and asking for forgiveness and direction. Bounce back like Yetty.”

have a sense of urgency.

I also expect that writing about this will be beneficial to people having similar challenges (two of my friends come to mind). Reason two: It gives my blog a sense of direction at last, and I can only get better. (Thank you again, Paul. I think it was Mark Twain that said he could live on compliments for weeks. I definitely get that).

So this is my update. I’m currently working on the first slice of PS, thinking about my characters as I write. I have a few weeks till my sister’s wedding, and (hopefully) NYSC, so it’s work and little play for me. Which reminds me, I was reading some short stories written by Mercedes Lackey, a popular science fiction writer, and in her introduction/prologue she said a good writer must write. A lot. In her words:

“…every minute that I wasn’t working [as a computer programmer] I was writing. I gave up hobbies, I stopped going to movies, I didn’t watch television; I wrote. Not less than five hours everyday, all day on Saturday and Sunday… [To become a writer,] You write. You write a great deal. You give up everything else so that you can concentrate on writing.”

Conclusion: I am not so speechless that I cannot say "wanda-ful” with awe!

WANTED:"Chill Pill"

2007-12-05T03:08:00.000-08:00

It's mostly old people, pregnant people, working people, accomplished people, I-can't-remember-the-other-categories people that say "I can't remember the last time I smiled, relaxed, had fun" and so forth.

I guess I should put myself in the 'accomplished ppl' category then, because I really cannot remember the last time I smiled genuinely. (I smile the famous "gallows humour" often, especially when a photocopier tells me that he has misplaced a vital flowsheet from my project that's due for submission, or when the binder scratches his head confusedly when I ask him where ny project is. (The project I've toiled and speeeent on for a whole year. Ha! PS: actually he only misplaced the cover, not the entire project))

... But it's good for me to be thankful, so here we go:

I am thankful that I am alive and healthy. (This is the right place to start)

My supervisor was a blessing to me, which is a small miracle when I consider the hell some coursemates ARE experiencing.

I'm 97 % through with this school!!

...Emm... more thanks come later, in my mind :)

JUST A FEW MORE DAYS...

2007-11-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

JUST A FEW MORE DAYS... JUST A FEW MORE DAYS...JUST A FEW MORE DAYS... NO MORE HEADACHES, NO WORRIES ABOUT THE PROJECTS AND DEFENCE... JUST FOOD AND REST AND ME...

JUST A FEW

MORE

DAYS.

Chai!

2007-09-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

It's about four weeks to exams, and my project is still misbehaving. I might even have to modify the topic because of equipment wahala. Sigh... I had assumed that having just two courses would make the semester an easy one.

An incorrect assumption.

I'm not complaining or being moody about it, though. (Big miracle) On the bright side, I've been developing the non-academic aspects of my life, halelluyah! I guess it's all about seeing things -the good and the bad- in perspective then.

The Dentist's Next Patient

2007-09-18T05:09:00.002-07:00

“Next please,” the middle-aged dentist spoke, poking his head out and taking in the number of patients he still had to work on. Plen-ty.

More than fifteen, he thought with mild distaste. On the other hand, the pay is going to be good today.

He closed the door and waited. The next patient was here to get his/her teeth filled. (He often couldn’t distinguish between male and female Middle-Belt names).

He had just dried the hands he’d washed. That the last patient had bleeding gums was an understatement; he’d told her to rinse her mouth with salt-water eight times. At the moment he was tired – of everything. People just didn’t care about their teeth enough. He often wondered what they stared at in the mirror for so long… it certainly wasn’t their teeth.

There was a timid knock on the door.

“Come in,”

The patient turned out to be a female. Probably in her late teens. And she looks familiar, he thought to himself.

“Em… good morning Sir,” she began timidly, managing to smile a tight smile.

“Yes, good morning. Please sit down,” he wanted to get it over with sharp-sharp.

She slid onto the chair without hesitation. Her eyes registered a healthy amount of fear as she watched him pick up the equipment from the nearby sink.

“I’ve sterilized them,” he reassured her.

“Ok”

As he approached her, he observed that the fear in her eyes was intensifying. It seemed like she had just considered bolting away but had thought better of it. She closed her eyes tight.

It’s better like that sef.

“Open your mouth please”

She opened. Three holes stared back at him. He hissed mentally. Hadn’t she noticed them before? He was about to inject the lower gum that held the premolar with the largest hole when she opened her eyes wide and held onto his hand. Or more like latched on.

Ha-ah! See me see trouble O!

“Release my hand now,” he nearly shouted. He was beginning to recollect small-small now.

“Please Sir…” she begged.

“Please what? I’m trying to relieve you of your pain. What are you thinking?”

“I know Sir, but please…”

He-e! Wonders, they say...

“Look, remove your hand. The sooner it’s done the better. After the injection you won’t feel too much pain,” he managed to force his irritation back. I still have plenty patients to attend to. I won’t tolerate this much longer.

Sensing his anger, the girl apologized, her eyes sad and scared. It melted a small part of his heart.

He lowered the injection once more. He made contact with soft gum… well, just barely. Before he could say "energise", her body jerked hard, and once more his hand was gripped by small hands. Surprising how strong an individual could get under duress…

“See…!” he began, thoroughly annoyed. “I have a lot of patients to attend to-” Tears streaming down her face vexed him some more, but also touched him. He remembered now:

Young Miss Weeping had been here before – twice, in fact. Once when she was barely three feet tall, and the other time was… three years ago? People never learned. To be fair though, the latter visit was no fault of hers. She had been ‘gifted’ with enough extra teeth, making her dentition scary-looking at best. Her mother accompanied her that day, and he adviced her (the Mum) to give her some medication, since she was “the hysterical type”. It looked like things hadn’t changed much.

As he watched her try to compose herself, he calmed down.

“I think you need some time,” he said, his calmness surprising him.

She looked up, sniffing. Grateful. “Thank you Sir,” she replied with all the gratitude in the world. It warmed him. He made a note to be more patient with his patients next time.

“That’s okay. I understand.” He smiled reassuringly, not feeling so tired and stressed after all.

Imagine!

2007-08-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

One word keeps repeating itself in my head:

"Olodo"

A Chemistry lecturer called me that yesterday afternoon, by 2:56 pm to be precise (Actually, I'm not sure about the time).

Olodo.

Me? What did I do to deserve that?

It is simple:

One of the projects I'm working on has a chapter called three (you see, I'm psychologically scarred by that olodo word; I'm beginning to believe it and therefore SPEAK like one). Anyway.

My chapter three has to do with experimental analysis, and unfortunately, my department's lab doesn't have all the equipment I need, so I need to use the Chemistry lab, which does.
Now I'd heard that Chemistry lectureres weren't fond of Chem. Eng students, and the man did nothing to dispel that rumour. He started by asking me what I wanted in this irritated fashion lecturers in general are so fond of. I calmly stated my purpose.

"Go and get your procedures, then I can tell you whether we can help you," he replied cooly.

Me sef. Why didn't I think of that? I thought. Well, I did just that and went back to his office. There was another lecturer in the office this time, a woman. I greeted her politely.

"Chemical ba?" The man asked, clearly annoyed.

"Yes Sir."

"So... what do you have?"

"I got the procedures and I have written down the equipment I need"

"Okay," he answered, browsing through it.

"'Graduated cylinder... with lid'" he read aloud, not understanding it. He proceeded to read it again: "Graduated cylinder... with lid. A-ah! That is a measuring cylinder now"

"Yes," the woman confirmed.

"Yes," I parroted.

"Okay, we have that. 2ml eye-dropper with 0.5 ml graduations"
I winced visibly, I think.

"A-ah!" They both wondered. "Isn't that a pipette?" the woman helped.

Okay... it's true. "I think so, Ma"

"Flat bed press... for drying fabric"

I winced again; at the time I wrote the 'for drying fabric' part , it made technical sense.

"This girl is writing these things in her own words," he grumbled.

"Or she's using an old text book," the woman said.

"No Sir, I ... got it from the internet," I said.

He proceeded. "Oven"

"For burning the dried fabric and collecting the ashes and volatile matter," I said.

"That one is a fur-"

"Furnace, " I finished, eager to save my below-red rep.

That's when he said that thing. That I seem to be an olodo.

He didn't put it that way, to be sure. He said, under his breath but loud enough for the woman (and myself, of course) to hear: "[Ngbati gbati gbati] olodo". He said it in Yoruba. I just hate it when that happens, sigh.

"Ah!" The woman said, excited for the first time. "That's how those Engineering students are. And that is what they are releasing into the society (Releasing... like a plague or virus. Ok).

She buttressed her point with the case of a guy, also in my department, who didn't know how to carry out a "simple distillation of ethanol and water!"

They both said some other things, but I was still on 'olodo' sha. When they finished he told me to write a letter, asking for permission to use their lab. I said "thank you very much" to which they replied, "You're very welcome"

Olodo.

I guess it pains because I know.

I know that it's not necessarily "beef" that is making the Chemistry lecturers talk so.

I know that I don't know HALF of what a Chemical Engineer at my level should know.

I know that all those times our lecturers gave us 'areas of concentration' for exams and ignored the rest of the syllabus we were only cheating ourselves.

I know that the lecturers are not the only ones at fault.

I know that I could have studied harder, to make up for the inadequate education I was receiving.

I know that I should stop here. I have two projects, two courses, and two skit scripts to work on (actually, three).

2007-07-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

Someone sent this to my box two weeks ago, describing it as follows:

Toyota Hilux Double cab for sale =N=900,000:00 negotiable ·

Still in very good condition

· Only 20 000km traveled

· Full service history

· Five Cylinders

· Airbags double

· Leather seats

· One proud owner

· Immobilizer; Power steering

· Climate controlled Air-conditioning

· Central door locks with remote control

2007-07-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

BIG SIGH!

Our universities have resumed, after a 3-month strike. This means blogging will cease for the time being. (My heart has been beating faster as my exams approach. It will be over soon, thank God).

I've liked blogging quite much. I aim to improve, shake off my fears and be more original, etc. Browsing through fellow Nigerians' blogs has made me more proud of being Nigerian. It's time to embrace (Celtel music cums in): Nigeria!

Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate it.

My book awaits, so...

Godbless you all!

NIGERIAN MEN

2007-06-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that I've been trying hard to come up with a v.good short story that'll launch me to Chimamanda-type stardom (I certainly wish!) I therefore asked a friend for some help. I needed to find out the problems fellow Nigerians (males, in particular) face. Alas! I'm no closer to having a story idea, but his expose is really something...

Nigerian men would rather not be seen as ordinary men, maybe the next best clan in ego that we can compare with that of the Nigerians would be the Jews…this would be how I'd prefer to open this expose on the intrigues (which is a better title when compared to the problems faced by Nigerian men).

Have you ever wondered why, that of all countries in the world, Nigerians were said to be the happiest people on earth? What makes us so apt in ourselves that to a large degree, we offer more than we get? How come our film industry pumps out more movies than the whole European market put together? Or why every car manufacturer in the world has a major dealership contract within this country? Or why every conceivable expensive car that exists on this planet can be found in Nigeria?...

It's only in this country that the inspector-general of police would swear to “protect and serve” amidst a crew of highly corrupt police officers and a day after retirement would be caught with 21million looted funds for his very own police officers…Or why in Nigeria, there are fewer registry weddings than in any part of the world because it is a standard national tradition to celebrate your marriage? Big people wont you say?

Isn’t it amusing that while other countries battle with war and other natural disasters, including a number of society-influenced disasters, here in Nigeria, a lot still acts as normal? (The extremes we've experienced in a large while would be precisely religious clashes and bomb or pipeline blasts).

Even if that on the surface isn’t all true, we as Nigerians do have a habit of appearing above our problems when being viewed on the international scene…so I’m poised to ask, firstly:

Are you sure Israel is God's chosen people or us?

And then, what kind of people are we? (Remember that horrendous CNN reporter that marred the country black some time back? I heard he’s been sacked over trying to do the same thing with south Africa, seems the guy forgot that so many decades of apartheid hasn’t changed much to the way the black south view white people).

Breaking the populace by the guidelines of census conduct, we would have males, females and children, but to a large extent, the majority would lie on the count of men, being the larger active workforce and mostly, the legislative dictators, with this in mind, I'd focus this strictly on men Nigerian men (as I had been told to)

(Nice preamble)

Firstly, where are Nigerian men found? You’d be surprised that there’s hardly any part of this world they can’t be found, reason? They find it hard to stay put in one place…there’s a lot that can be found outside the shores of home and its in the spirit of every Nigerian male to spread and search out those areas most men haven’t found…no matter how far that would take them.

To put a finger on what exactly makes them that way would be to asses the character that constitutes the Nigerian male…the majority of the lot that is. How much mind intrusion have you experienced lately? How often have you been asked in the same conversation by the same person how you feel? To a large extent, there's a great deal of concern that can be found in Nigerian men about there immediate environment, this would be attested for by the style and type of questions they ask…for one, its of more importance to a Nigerian man if the power bill has been paid than if a canary has freckled or spiked feathers. (Makes sense, tho)

This trait, though said to be possessed by a lot of critical thinkers, is also said to be sparing among the happier of the lot (sanguine) but in the case of Nigerian men, there's a joy in worry that cant be explained but is ever present, I guess that’s why its not too hard for them to conceal their troubles.

But then, would it be right to say that their temptations and challenges are far too little to be thought over as critical as George Bushes policy on the war in Iraq? Lets take a footstool and lay them down…starting with the married folk.

The average working Nigerian family man earns on the average about 50-90 thousand a month, lives in a three room apartment and has on the average three kids and a wife. This too some people are inadequate to be called an average because it sidelines the traditionalist Nigerians who incorporate polygamy as a standard practice. So we are left with about five kids to two wives and a husband as the typical Nigerian family…right? So now my point…Split the income by the dependents on that income, on the average, one of the wives wouldn’t be working class, so you have 50,000 to three pair of school fees, transportation and feeding, the house rent and other utility bills and of recent, the cell phone bill. The economics is very clear and simple, it just can’t go round, and yet, that’s the average scenario that most families face.

So how do they cope? In most Nigerian homes, the idea of a single job earner seems rather archaic because of the enormous responsibilities that are ever present. if it wasn’t enough to add, most families have a few relatives more often than not permanently stationed and living with them to add an extra mouth to the already insufficient income. of recent, it is rare to hear of a civil servant, which in most cases would be referred to as the average job, depending solely on his salary for survival. This had led most Nigerian men to think double and work twice as much to meet their responsibilities…would you say physical strain to a certain degree might be inflicted? I'd disagree, when putting this piece together and trying to asses the Nigerian mans pride, it adds up that this strain is ever rewarding in the family it inflicts, this I would explain.

Have you ever wondered how it feels like to hold a new born baby of your own blood within your arms? Or to take him to the school graduation ceremony and watch him dedicate his one and only award to you? Or finish school with a first class degree and be offered work at a reputable firm, or about how gorgeous your wife looks cladded in that material you bought her that makes all the men at the party turn as she passes, or how beautiful she appears thanks to your pampering her with comfort and expensive make-up, (needless I mention the hairdo?), or how the most eloquent of fashion and society magazines dot your snapshots all over their pages to the admiration of the numerous readers? Or how at the Sunday golf club, your other male friends revel at the sight of your posh whip? Or talk about how good the engine on your new Mercedes is? Or why you seem to have the foresight to predict stock rises and benefit from them? Or hoe together your family looks? I could go on forever, but then that would kill the essence of the reasoning right?

So then, as much as the Christian folk would dwell on a lot of these (which they apparently indulge in) as vanity, they still make the larger call of success for a Nigerian man.

It’s not always about the success trek in the case of the married men. Trying hard not to put a notch on the fact that sexual temptation may be one of the other factors, I'd say to a large extent exposure could play a distinct role in the intrigues faced by Nigerian men.

Most men here are good at the plot-making art. Every naira spent is a calculated move to procure two more,(this rule doesn’t apply for the alcohol consuming sector of these men though). Imagine what it would be like if there was no wife at your neck tagging you off for feeding money, or no child crying because he’s hungry or no electric man trying to cut-off someones power supply…I guess a lot Nigerians would be dead by then (Really??).

A lady I spoke to a while ago said openly among the rest fo us listening to her that Nigerian men are a stingy bunch, I kinda wondered if she was referring to Nigerian men that are married or Nigerian single men, riding on the back of my uncle, I'd put it that the single Nigerian men aren’t as stingy as the married ones. Why don’t we blame the women a little huh? They ask too much…even if they don’t say, as crafty as the serpent was, they would find a way to express it…and believe me, you would definitely get the message.

But are Nigerian men plagued with greed so much that they find it hard to give? Should I say yes?

A recent fund-raising at an ECWA branch I went to had this deputy governor that was also sole owner of a chain of pharmaceutical stores in attendance. The target sum was about 20 million I think, (I'm not too sure about the exact amount), everyone had this eager ear to hear how much he was going to offer since it was with pride that the master of ceremony churned out the numbers for all to hear of the amounts that people were making. Let me put you in perspective, there were on-the-spot cash donations, some cheques and a lot of pledges. After about four hours of donation, ,(I must say, the way the service went, I was of the opinion that they weren’t going to close until they made their target so I was ready to be there another four hours on top, I really can't say what made me go there). Oh yeah, the dep. Gov. didn’t drop a dime till four hours later, and when he did, it was a raticious 50 grand to the call in pledge!

The uproar that followed wasn’t at all anything to put in words, you could hear the hisses like they were over and into the PA system, and everyone went sordid. Besides, was this not the church that boasted that all its members that voted at the election that saw him into office voted for him? ("Ya-wa!" my Aunt would have said: Good for you!) Wow! It was at that point that I and my accomplice left the scene, there was nothing more to witness besides the gradual stir of anger by the youth wing of the church. I ask myself why?

That would bring me to the next major problem I'm smugged over with concerning Nigerian men; they think too much about the voice of without to trust the voice within. Later on, the dep. Gov did add to his donation in private and his reason for not giving his elaborate sum in church was that his political opponents would nail him on the point that he was donating state money to the church…but couldn’t that be true? So here we are, with men conscious about what is being spoken of them, scared to put their women in control, scared of loosing control over situations, stingy to a degree because of being stringent, harrased by their richer pairs and their wives, living above their means, trying hard to keep up appearances, harrased visually and mentally by the opposite sex, further harassed by their income, even more harrased by other men, and yet form part of the people the world calls the happiest!?! But don’t these problems apply to women also? (I guess...).So I'd plod down family lane:

Jay's mum wants four grand kids, Jay can only AFFORD two?

Sharma's dad says Sharma can't get married to a Bachama lady but Sharma is madly in love with one?

Being the only male child, Tammi wants to be an engineer but his dad wants him to take over the mini-mega companies he’s built over the years. Tammi hates business?

Chris hates flying but his wife demands he come to see her in Ukraine?

Bulus loves being allowed to explain himself, but people think he talks too much?

Josh cant stand having sex every night but his wife seems to be “ever-ready”?

Musa worries over his wifes’ numerous male friends but is scared confronting her would mean their split?

Abel loves Tani but Tani has this high end attitude that would never allow Abel get close?

Solo wishes his parents would’ve let him read maths instead of the crappy geography he’s studying at present?

Barka loves the movements but his wife hates politics. So, I guess from that, there's always an ever inflicting difference in interest between men, their parents, fiancés, wives, children…..blah blah blah…more male problem right? Little wonder these days they love staying single without any limp of getting married, oh yeah, forgot to add, this is just for a fraction of all the men.I’m tired of typing.

(Well... that was refreshing! How do people manage to be so smart, eh? Kai!)

LECTURER'S ARENA

2007-06-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

“Time up! Submit your papers!”

Mr. Stressful practically screams. It’s a calculation course. The time is really not enough, but most of the 300 level Chemical Engineering students hurry to comply, nonetheless. Half-bread is better than none, they say, and it really applies in this case.

To keep writing while Mr. Stressful screams and takes your concentration and biro-chewing energy away is guaranteed to make him mad, tear up your paper, and sometimes, fail you a couple of times.

Despite this though, students will always be students. You’d notice people forming clusters, checking out their answers-

“A-ah! How did you get a bottom product of 625lbs?!”

“Abegs, turn the paper now!!”

This naturally prompts Mr. Stressful to say something like “Apart from these people here-” He gestures “- the rest of you should not submit!”

Really?

Well this makes the commotion intensify –everybody starts pushing to submit their test scripts, and as two hundred students are telling each other to move or get trampled, Mr. Stressful points and bellows:

“You chooked me!!”

A sharp, high pitched and very ticked off retort goes “Excuse Sir, I did not chook you!”

“Keep quiet! I said you chooked me! I saw you!!”

“I said I did not chook you! I did not chook you!” she replies, flailing her arms in anger.

He looks her up and down, and then you realize that this chic is towering over him. Hmm… The man is clearly unimpressed by this. In his anger, he forgets what he said earlier on about not collecting some scripts and collects them all as he launches into an interesting speech:

“You think I don’t know you?! I know you! See the pencil in your hand too! Hm! You will see! Very rude girl…I’ve been observing you… you will see!”

Suddenly, the reality that this particular lecturer can make her or break her dawns on her. She immediately gets on her knees and proceeds,

“Excuse Sir!! I-said-I-did-not-chook-you-and-I-did-not-chook-you!!”

(Uh-oh! Is that a hiss that just escaped her lips?! And is she really folding her hands across her chest in this I’m-ready-to-fight way? That… doesn’t really go with the kneeling pose). But she’s past caring anyway; of all the one hundred and ninety nine students, he picks on her.

Lai-lai, today is today! The man makes a good show of ignoring her, though he might probably be feeling better now that he’s a bit taller than her.

Papers in hand, he walks out of the lecture hall imperiously, and she promptly stands up and follows him, pouting mouth leading the way.

[N.B:- Help me fill the blank: “Ye, you _______ me!” a) chooked b) chuked c) chukked d) none of these]

.

2007-06-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

"Can I Help You?"

2007-06-09T03:42:00.001-07:00

I’ve been trying to write my final year project, read for my 1st Semester exams (8 courses), come up with a really good short story to submit to The Okigbo Review, keep a patch of Nigeria clean, and I have come to the following conclusions:
* Multi-tasking is not as interesting as some people make it sound
* Multi-tasking is not for me.

More Proof:

My mother and I thought it would be a good idea to get some snacks at J & G (a nice fast-food and African-dish place) after church one Sunday. I also needed to get a packet of biscuits for my Sis. (I ate the one she’d bought the day before, only to realize that she wanted to offer it to a friend of hers the next day- Sunday).

My mother parked in front of the place and I promptly got out, got the snacks, crossed the street, walked some distance, found an open store, purchased the said item and sighed happily. So far, so good.

I began the brisk walk back to the car, all the while watching for a safe opportunity to cross the road. I noticed 3 or 4 newspaper boys eagerly trying to sell newspapers to my mother. They has effectively blocked her window.

Ah! Thank God, I thought, cuz you see, my mother keeps telling me to be careful when I cross the road. She even holds my hand, and when there’s the constraint of distance, she watches me like a hawk and sometimes freely shouts advice at me. (In a bid to encourage me to learn the fine art of road-crossing, she once told me about an Okada (Biker) man that “broke one girl’s legs completely”. Hm).

She says and does all this because she firmly believes that I cannot cross the road, and indeed it has a great element of truth. (Unfortunately, too, one day she witnessed this inadequacy as we were out shopping. I was nearly hit by a biker and car at the same time). Enough said.

While I kept watching out for a safe opportunity to cross the street, I kept glancing at the car to make sure the newspaper boys were still blocking her view, all the while thinking, Since when did she start buying newspapers? Hm. Walk faster, sha. These shoes make me walk funny. Or lemme just cross the road now-now…Thank God I got the biscuit. What are we going to cook when we get home? Can’t I cross now…

To cut the story short, I crossed the road and was just too glad to ponder over the fact that as I approached the car, the windows started sliding up.

Oh… I didn’t know her car could do that automatic window thing, I thought not-very-brightly. (This is a car she has had for 5 years now).
I got in, happy as ever, and then I heard a strange, bass voice say in a very unfriendly tone:

“CAN I HELP YOU?”

My heart must have stopped, skipped a beat, frozen or what-ever they usually say. I’m not sure I replied at all, and I was out of the car as fast as a bullet.

WHAT?!

The newspaper boys were laughing hard, as is expected, and the few people present were watching me in amazement as I stood there, dazed. I remember putting my hand on my mouth – the classic Western expression of lady-like horror (thank God for ‘secondary reflexes’).

A similar white Benz parked in the exact spot my mother had parked. What a terrible coincidence. So where was she???

Confusion set in, but I managed to look composed (I believe) as I searched for her car.

Ah! Look at her there! Relief!
The car was parked far ahead, directly opposite the store I’d just left, and my mother was seriously waving her hands to get my attention... ever since I left the store, she told me later.

She’d wanted to spare me the walk back to the car, but I guess I needed the lesson on the pitfalls of doing/thinking too many things at the same time.
But then again, I don’t seem to have learnt the lesson at the moment…Tsk tsk.

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

"Marriage. So?!"

2007-06-09T03:24:00.000-07:00

Everybody is talking about marriage these days. I guess everybody has always talked about marriage, but I’m only just tuning in (what can I say? I’m now “of age”J ).
For Sarah, there are certain topics in marriage that she finds unfair: joint accounts, housework division, who takes care of the children, etc. Everyone else, though, seems to be okay with these issues, so I’m curious about how her friends and roommates (as well as their friends) will take this oddness of hers... and remember: it’s marriage we’re talking about here!

Sarah’s room was very full and noisy one Wednesday morning. An ‘interesting’ kind of noise, though. (Not the kind that irritated because you were desperately trying to read, sleep or meditate on the Word). Everyone was just lively. Yemisi, one of Sarah’s nine roommates, (you can read it again; bolder this time: NINE) was particularly excited. She had just been given a souvenir from one of her classmate’s weddings, and was enthusiastically narrating the wedding’s sights and sounds.

“And because we were serving the people, we weren’t able to get our souvenirs. We told her husband, sha.”

“But we didn’t expect to be given anything again,” her friend Gladys finished, equally bright-eyed. She had also gotten a souvenir.

“Ba?! Then this morning, Elizabeth came in with these tek cups!” Yemisi said, displaying the pretty cups proudly.

“And they’re expensive too,” Gladys declared. “One two each!”
The roommates and friends were impressed and said so.

“Well, that’s why they say weddings are expensive,” Sarah said indifferently as she ate Indomie out of the pot.

“Shey?!” There was more talk about the wedding, but Sarah tuned out. So romantic, so beautiful, so… ihhh! What’s all the hype about marriage, anyway? Before you know it, the man –

“I wonder what kind of dreams people have that make them want to eat Indomie so early in the morning,” That was Yetty. She had just come in with Larai, and they were giggling seriously.

“That’s very funny,” Sarah grumbled.

“What’s wrong, the Indomie got cold too fast?” Larai asked, half-joking.
“I don’t get why people are so crazy about marriage!” She blurted out. (Incidentally, she had just finished eating, so she threw the pot down drama-queen like).

“Na wa O, thass serious my dear,” one of the roommates, Ezinne, said. The rest of them paused, waiting.

Thinking fast, Sarah plodded on.
“I’m not looking for someone that’ll agree with me even if I’m talking trash, and I know that you girls” - she motioned to the room-full of girls – “will help me out.”

Touched, most of the girls gave a chorus of ‘what’s the matter’?s Yetty and Larai sat down beside her, ears open.
“It’s this thing about being female! It’s so terrible, especially when you’re a married female… ok, that’s a wrong way to start… is it just me or… oh!

“You’re wondering why we are so happy about marriage even when we’ve heard terrible stories,” Gladys helped.

“Yes! And I myself have observed something about married women that I find disturbing on a good day, and very annoying on a lousy, I’m-so-irritated-with-everything day.

This made the girls chuckle briefly.

“It’s like once you’re labeled as a man, you have the right to be demanding, inconsiderate, insensitive, in-… in- everything! I’m sure you get what I’m saying.” She glanced about the entire room. They were all in agreement, so she continued.

“Here are a few things men get away with,” using her fingers to count, “one: my mum tells me, ‘my dear girl, don’t be in a hurry to get annoyed. When your husband finds out that you easily get annoyed, he will frustrate you! Sit down, let me tell you what my mother told me. She said that a man (your husband in particular,) will call you all manner of things that you aren’t- he will call you karuwa, prostitute, and a fool, and what do you do? If you blow up, he may blow you. Be quiet; rub it on your arm and move on. It’s us women that keep the marriage going’
Haba! As if to say women are BDIs!”

“Beady eyes?” Yemisi asked, confused.

“No, B – D – I: Brain-Dead Idiot. You know, brain-dead…”

“Ok. But these your insults aren’t easy O!”

“But Sarah, see -”
“Tolu please let her finish,” Ezinne interrupted.

“Two: Let’s say your husband is the type that very rarely eats supper, but one day, he decides that he’s hungry. Of course he wasn’t included in the meal, and then he proceeds to shout on you for not preparing his supper. You then say ‘Sorry, but you know you hardly eat supper,’ Ho! That just makes the man shout, ‘and so what?!’

And that reminds me, when your mums are complaining about headaches or tummy aches or whatever, do their husbands say anything? Yes they do. They say, ‘It’s ok. Hurry up and give me food. I’m hungry.’ Which brings me to three -”

By this time the girls could not control themselves. They had been trying hard to contain their laughter, because they sensed that Sarah was being really serious. They simply couldn’t hold it in any more.

“ –three,” she continued when they had managed to stop laughing, “after treating you like trash, he wants to get physical with you, so he becomes all nice and spice… and then treats you like trash after… or maybe even -

“- hey, keep it clean! If you have a mind like mine, you won’t be happy with yourself two days later!” Ezinne cautioned.
The girls were like, ‘eh?’ but she pointedly ignored them.
“As you were saying, my dear,” she said.

“Ok, four: older women tell us to make sure we buy property… like land, before we get married. That once we get married, sorry!”

“It’s that what happened to your mum?” someone Sarah wasn’t at all fond of teased.
“No, but it could happen to you,” she replied evenly.
“See eh, there’s a lot more, but I think you’ve gotten the picture.”

They nodded soberly.

“So why are you guys so crazy about marriage when you know all this?!” she asked, incredulous.

“But Sarah, marriage is not by force, shey you know?” said Ezinne.
She sighed before responding, “I know…” She had a faraway look just then.

Larai, who had been silent all through, finally said, “You look down girls who are eager to get married. You think they are chicken brains, as Stanley once stated smugly. But deep down, you also want to get married, and you wonder why you want to get married – knowing all that you know.”
“Chei! Sarah, only you?!” Gladys joked.
“I told you my friend reminds me of the Holy Spirit, “Sarah replied calmly. “She, like Him, tells it like it is.” She idly picked up her dirty pot and studied it.
“It’s true… Larai is right. And I like the gentle way she said it.” Ezinne said, studying Larai.
“Please, I prefer ‘tender’ to ‘gentle’”

It was Yetty that said next, “Girls, I think the hot, big, necessary question now is not ‘what, why or who needs this rubbish?’ Sarah, we’ve established that you’d rather not be single, so the question is, ‘how am I going to prevent such things from happening to me?’

“Yes!” they all agreed enthusiastically.

“Let us all establish that we do not want to get cynical about this marriage issue. God designs great things - He made clothes that lasted 40 years -”

“-what’s the secret, Victoria? That’s right, you wouldn’t know,” Larai joked, glancing at Sarah, hoping to see her smile. She had dropped the pot and was staring at the floor.

“You showed me a passage in Exodus where He created a spicy, exciting fragrance; oil-based too. He created you. He also created marriage, so it’s great shebi?” Yetty continued.
“And of course we all know that it’s not what it was meant to be, but just as God rescued us from our death sentence, He can rescue us from trash.”

“So let us kill BabyCynic! Die! Now-now!” Sarah joked, still staring at the floor.

“I want to get married, because I have seen the good sides of it. A man in the hand is worth two in the bush. Seriously though, the security, the companionship…”

“Thass’ true talk, Yetty!” Larai and the others enthused.

“My mother made me realize that what I start early in the marriage should be what I can finish- if I serve him breakfast in bed at the start I had better be able to continue, if I permit him to punch me every now and then, ridicule me once a week, bring his extended family over for long stretches at the start, I should get used to it,” Sarah added, smiling prettily. Her head was finally up.

“And Sarah, prefer to think positive thoughts generally. It’s not something that comes easily to me, but I like to try at least. Thinking angry, resentful thoughts only make me bitter,” Ezinne said.

“Angry, hateful thoughts also drive me toward sin. For example, I once I start to say to myself, ‘Since even ‘holy’women are being dealt with in this marriage game, I’d rather kangare, that is, start sleeping around,’ a messed-up me emerges. Just keep killing BabyCynic with God’s help.”

“To add to what Larai said, another thing that helps is dating with your eyes wide open,” Gladys added.

“Mm…” they all agreed, thoughtful.

Sarah, saturated and mostly satisfied, stood up. She assumed a pious posture as she said mock-seriously,

“Well I’m grateful, girls, for everything. For our closing hymn we shall sing Years I Spent in Vanity and Pride, or Gettin’ Back on My Feet Again* by Atomic Kitten if you prefer. Its contents are gospel and inspiring, trust me!” She finished, dodging pillows efficiently.

“Don’t forget that we ladies have our own faults too! Talking too much-”

As her roommates and friends kept talking and laughing, she realized that she really felt good. I like my roommates, she decided. Not all the time, but I like them…and I am sorry for assuming that I’m better than others when I’m not…and I commit my future husband - ha ha! Come on, let me get serious…Em… ok, I pray we understand each other, respect each other…

* The actual track name is Everything Goes Around, Track 6 of their Ladies’ Night cd.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2007-05-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

"I Want to Hear More!"

2007-05-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

“We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for”
Maria Ebner-Eschenbach

Judgemental. Critical of others. Considers Self better than others just because.
Why is it so easy for us to feel this way, especially when we claim to “know that we are not perfect”, to “know we are not without sin”? Could it be that we do not necessarily believe what we say so piously…
…Or could it be something even more sinister??? (Horror music ensues).

“Hallo, I’m back!” Sarah announced, heading straight to Larai’s bed.
“Are you just waking up?” She inquired, after noting Larai’s dull expression. She certainly looked like she had been out-of-this-atmosphere for at least two hours. She sat up slowly. Sarah joined her shortly, still studying her closely.

They had become good friends two weeks after their registration. (Gory details have been kindly omitted).
“Yeah, kind of…” she answered, fanning herself tiredly. The heat was something else.
“Kind of?” Sarah pressed, slightly perplexed. Her face cleared as she said, “You’ve had another headache again, shebi? Aya… sorry!”

Larai had been having recurring headaches for the past three months but was totally against going to the school clinic. (It's like I'm not interested in getting an illness free of charge, she had once responded).

“Mm,” was the vague response. She shrugged, but in a livelier tone, announced that she had cooked their favorite: beans and yam! Sarah broke out laughing.

“Honestly Larai, we are the only two chics I know that love beans so much!!”
“Well… I’m not sure about that. My roommates can eat beans zallah 24/6 – on the seventh day they rest.” She giggled for the first time that evening.
“Okay, granted, your roommates and most Yoruba girls love beans, but there’s a big difference between them and us. They’d never admit their love for beans, while we, the repless sistas do!”

Larai looked skeptical.

“Are you sure? You’ve never been there when guys are asking them if they eat beans.”
“No I haven’t,” she agreed, “but how else can you explain the fact that guys are always embarrassed for us when we tell them we like beans? And how do you explain their next statement: ‘But girls don’t like beans now,’ mm?”
“It’s true sha, but I’m still not sure that the girls pretend to hate something they really, desperately like.”
“Not everyone’s like you, shey you know? In fact, you’ll be amazed at some girls. Which reminds me…” As she warmed to a new topic, Larai dished out the lovely grub from their special “Beans-Pot”, (dearly loved because of its generous dimensions).

“I was just talking with Agbe – he said to say hi, by the way- and he was like, ‘why are chics so gullible?’ I dismissed his question as one of those guy-feeling-superior comments, but it’s really a reasonable question. As in, why do girls just meeelt when guys flatter them, lie to them… and all that?”

Larai thought it was a rhetorical question until she looked up from her plate to find her friend staring at her intently.
“Well, maybe they’re insecure.”

This answer was unsatisfactory to both, but there didn’t seem to be any other reasonable answer, so they ate on in silence, with Sarah thinking, I know I’m not Wonder Woman, but I don’t think I’m easily lied to. I’m no chicken brain.

After a long moment, Larai asked, “The question is, how does a girl know when she’s being flattered or lied to? Flattered, especially?”
“Ha-ah! You’ll know now!” Sarah quickly replied. “You’ll know when a guy is sweet-talking you. You can’t tell me that you won’t know. Haba!”
“You’ll be surprised sha,” Larai said.

"SURPRISE!!"

“Ghgvjfhfhgjhggjhghghjfgkhfkgfk,” was all Sarah was hearing that evening, and it wasn’t that she had become a partially deaf young woman.

She had become quite adept at tuning out, especially when she was cornered by a guy she was just not that into; one who wasn’t getting the hint. He just kept talking and talking. At a point she couldn’t even smile anymore. As she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, she remembered a funny conversation she once had with one of her roommates:

‘Sarah, I’m so tired! Some guys just never grab that you’re not in the mood! And to crown it all, their jist is dry! Kai, God forbid!’

The girl had been talking to a guy for about 30 minutes, with a five-minute interval. Actually, she’d have chatted with him for just 10 minutes had she not uttered a fatal word…
He had come over to say hi, and as his 10 minute hi came to an end, he said something like, ‘Tomi, it’s been nice talking to you but I have to give this Material Science photocopy to one of my friends, so I’ll come back LATER.”
She then said ‘Okay’. Tsk tsk.
Five minutes LATER he was back, and the rest is history. An honest mistake on her part, no doubt.
‘But why didn’t you tell him that you needed to sleep or something? It’d have been more honest that way,’ Sarah had asked.

She couldn’t remember the answer she had given, and she was just asking herself why she couldn’t tell this guy she needed to get into the hostel now-now when she heard something sweet:

“I’ve noticed your level-headedness. You’re always so composed.”
Ermm, say again?
He probably noticed that she was looking in his direction for the first time, for he really began to put a lot of life into it.
“What do you mean, ‘composed’?” She smiled very warmly.
“I study girls that come into Uni. Some are determined to be popular, and they know they can achieve this goal. They have the money and looks, and nobody will rest until their desires have been satisfied. Then there are the plain, not-rich girls who know they can’t be in that kind of clique, and for a while you see them walking past you limply with hunched shoulders, till they focus their energy in the church, where they can finally shine…
Her mouth fell open. What?! You mean people think like this? It… makes sense sha, but still…harsh men!

“…but you, you’re different – you’re in neither category. You’re confident on your own…”

By the time he was through though, she was gone - as in, she had fallen hard.

I never noticed this… okay part of him. I guess he’s really a deep person. He gets me. People hardly get me, so that’s – but wait first - is that really me he’s describing? I know I’m not so level-headed… or am I?

“Are you busy tomorrow?” the Deep Guy asked.
“Em… no. Not really,” she smiled self-consciously.
“Then I can check on you?”
“Okay.”
“Good night.”

And that was how it began.

As she lay in her bed that night, she found herself recalling the conversation she’d had with Larai two days earlier. One statement, in particular, was swirling through her head continuously: ‘How does a girl know when she’s being flattered or lied to? Flattered, especially?’

Surely it’s not so bad to believe a compliment, after all, there’s no definite line between being complimented and being flattered. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little flattery if it doesn’t get to your head. Or heart. Or liver, as Moroccans say. ‘Oh sweetheart, you’ve stolen my liver!’ Ha-ha!!

In all, it took one week exactly for her to discover the truth about Deep Guy...

"I'LL HAVE TWO HUMBLE-PIES, PLEASE"

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(Erm... this is the thing: I dunno what happens next!!

I was just itching to post something new, you know... but I WILL get it finished before you read your Bible from cover-to-cover :-)

Seriously though, what do you think about the story so far??

Better yet, how d'you think she should learn her lesson?

WRITE IN AND MAKE MY DAY!!)

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MR. PETER

2007-05-19T15:05:00.001-07:00

This here is one of the posts where I get to 'feature myself' (By this I mean, write about a real experience I had).

It's an odd one, sha (but I'll leave you to be the judge of that)

It was a Wednesday afternoon and we had arrived at our destination, dusty and a bit hungry. I was in … a mood (I wasn’t depressed or weepy, I was just sad in this sluggish way… or maybe I was depressed…)

There was nothing that’d make me smile -not even food- but I got out of the car, and alongside my mother and Big sis, we headed for the modest eatery, where I was to laugh uncontrollably for many minutes… and even now, as I recall the incident.

We surveyed the place. Not too bad, I thought. Definitely better than the place we went to the last time we came here. Memories of smelly tables and what-nots glided through my sad-at-the-moment mind.

I noticed a shabby looking man by the entrance of the eatery as I was getting seated, but I didn’t observe him like Sherlock Holmes would have. The man glanced about and left, bored with what he had seen (so you see, there really wasn’t much to observe).

Images of Shabby Man were discarded as the meal was brought. Not too bad, I thought, idly remembering a neat-freak woman from a film who took out a wad of tissue paper from her designer purse in a classy restaurant to sterilize her cutlery.

I ate slowly (not necessarily because I was sad; I eat slowly, I’m told). My big sis was doing her regular ‘efficient’ eating – cutting good bits and eating rapidly. (I tried to emulate her style of eating once but I got tired after a while). Mama was eating at a casual pace, so naturally, Big sis finished first, followed by Mama, and then me. (Once again, not because I was slow; the meat was the tough issue. It’d have been easier to pick it up with a fork, and not with the spoon I’d been given, but I was too tired to ask for that, so I kept at it).

Suddenly, Shabby Man came back and stared at us hard. I was too dull to be worried. Then with three long strides he made it to our table and just grabbed the meat that Mama left untouched. One, two, he swallowed it and was gone. The funny thing was that Mama didn’t even bat an eye. I was stunned, and Big sis just kept staring at the now-meatless plate in shock, irritation, a bit of horror, humour, and… something else I couldn’t pick. The rest of the clientele saw the exchange from plate to palate but didn’t say one word. This struck me as odd. I began to laugh as my mind played over the scene.

“Kai!! Peter! Ka dena wannan hali mana!!” (“Peter, stop this habit now!”) the ladies in charge of the eatery yelled almost immediately. Hm... so obviously, Peter, the Mad Man, was an odd sort of regular.

I was still trying to whip up a composed face when Peter showed up again. This time I knew where he was headed… my plate. I had long since yafe’d my meat as lost cause; I really didn’t need the stress.

He came along and snatched the meat and gobbled it up before the ladies could say "Peter!" My Big sis (could-her-eyes-get-any-bigger) was stunned part two, and I suddenly couldn’t see the humour again. (Ooh! I was just getting happy!)

I looked around self-consciously, as though I was ashamed of the part I played in having a plate in front of me. What I observed made me laugh. The customers were silently chewing their food, glancing at the man, and glancing at us with this Ya labai, ka gani abin da na gani kuwa? (Bros, did you see what I just saw?) expression.

“Amma you had finished your meal, ko?” Mama asked, to which I said yes.
“Then let’s go” she said, still looking unfazed and all. Big sis? Well her eyes were still saucer-like, but she was recovering.

Me? I’m still cracking.