There’s something smelly in the water

Ok, this heading  is just a twist to Brooke Fraser’s classic; Something In The Water(you should listen to it)

The thing in the water smells here though. I’m not love-struck.

On the 30^th of April, I went to Mega Plaza to look for something thoughtful to buy for my friend, Ify Babee(hehe). It was her birthday. It was supposed to be cheap too, I forgot to add that part. By cheap, I mean, N700 or less.  On my way, I had the brightest inspiration!...i would get her Peanut Butter. The girl consumes the thing like a gourmand. So I thought that would be perfect. I cat-walked into the mall, I had to, everyone there was cat-walking too;  In the land of the cat-walkers, the one walking straight seems crippled. I was no cripple. So, with my head high, i asked the sales girl where peanut butter was,  she gave me directions as she eyed me.….N600 was on my mind. Hahahaha. I saw a N1000 label and started looking around the shelf to see if that was an error. I bought it eventually, consoling myself with: ‘nothing is too much for Ifeoma’.

Have you noticed the rows of DSTV dishes on the windows of 1004 flats in V.I, Lagos? If that is normal to you then it means you don’t know it is possible to have huge dishes with many LNBs that can serve more than one flat. Of course it is more gainful for DSTV to sell one dish to one family.  We think the best available is a Dual-LNB dish, for the parlor and bedroom. (I won’t say Go-TV is a better option though J)

I don’t know the number of people dying because of the lack of standard airbags in our ‘tear-rubber’ vehicles. I mean, putting airbags in a car is a standard safety measure abroad! Well, most of the cars we import here don’t have the added ‘luxury’ o! (Do your research) It’s just cheaper to sell those cars to the scrambling buyers in developing countries.  So, next time you turn your ignition, check for the airbag light, if you see none, I advise you to pray before moving and drive like every other person is a madman.  Smelly

I don’t want to get started with MTN’s weak services.  Thank goodness we can port in minutes now J, that’s good for them *sticking out tongue* . On a serious note, why would you add a data cap to an ‘unlimited’ data-plan for BB users.  It says Unlimited on your website and then you text to 777 and they reply that it’s actually 200MB. Smelly

Well, I am not happy Mega plaza is owned by an Isreali, I don’t know if I’d be happier a Nigerian was ‘stealing’ N400 from me. Maybe. That Eko Hotel(EKO!..meaning Lagos, the heartbeat of Nigeria) is not owned by Nigerians. Not good…..uh hun….Smelly

 I have many grievances with the way my country is run. But, I must not overlook the resilient efforts of some of her patriotic citizens to better our lot. By patriotic citizens, I mean all Nigerians who do their work with diligence and finesse, who don’t wait for tips to complete the processes in their job descriptions, who consider Nigeria a great country and take the issues of our country 'P'.
To all of you who are just waiting for an opportunity sent from above to bail from Nigeria, 'anu yi n se mi' better don't go and add to the economic problems of other countries! Recently, all of the 'americana' Nigerians i have come across i  asked why they are back here. The answer is always directly linked to this adage: "East or West, Home is Best"

Nigeria has many heroes, We need more.

Across the street

I look outside my window and see a middle-aged white man in the compound across the street. There is something subtly odd about this view. I can’t quite put a finger on it.  He is walking around, perhaps just out to stretch, in shorts and a plain shirt. Or is it striped? I can’t see well.  I continue to stare, I know I am intruding his privacy a little. The height from which I see him is several feet above his head. He is in his little safe compound and someone is watching.

The 3-storey Egyptian embassy with tall coconut trees and a mature mango tree in its front yard is across the street, Kofo Abayomi street. Half of the mango tree is over the walls of the compound, generously providing shade for a woman sitting under. She has been there since the first day i looked out this window, selling credit cards. There is always a queue of cars on this street!...they remind me I am in the office, somehow.

Perhaps what makes me stare longer than I ordinarily would is because I am staring at a white man. I catch myself staring like one would when one saw something totally new and unusual. I wonder: ‘why is he this casually dressed in such a corporate environment?’. A trace of misdirected anger flows through me, penetrating the thick glass, far above the walls surrounding this gigantic four-storey building , the street, above his little grey gate, descending to him. Why should he dress so casually when everyone around him is working?...Every black person, every Nigerian.

I shift my attention lazily to the moving cars, my face is at right angles to my body, but I’m no more interested in the sluggish motion of the cars than I am in the unattractive young man across the office who has been staring at me. I ascend slowly into some form of limbo, my eyes are fully open, but I see nothing. They seem to have retreated deep into my mind where more active interrogations build up; ‘Why is he dressed so casually?’, ‘This is not his home… this woman outside his walls has nothing to do but spend her days selling, for a miserly income’.

My face starts to betray my thoughts as my brows furrow into a worried crease; “But, I can’t blame him just for being white…This is the Egyptian embassy, not American nau!” “Urgh..Please, white is white” “So what if he is white, don’t we have leaders?” “It is our leaders who have failed us, wicked bunch of leaders we have” “He is just a normal person, like you are, in a foreign country…a poverty-stricken one. Don’t blame him for your poverty, please don’t blame him for your poverty”. 

My head snaps back into place as I straighten my back and square my shoulders, Usman has just returned to his computer, across mine. I give him a dreary look, “Don’t dare judge me for looking out the window!”. My brows are still creased. I stare at my computer blankly. The conclusion which Usman delayed came crawling back as my eyes dim again: “By blaming him for your problems, you give him the power to solve them, to help you. In doing that, you become truly inferior”.

Hey, Brother!

This is a shout-out to the smartest guy i know, the most gentle, the kindest, the best brother one can have. Setemi, Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you soooo much!! You have added so much value to my life.
As you turn 2keoshjsoijg today, i pray you experience all the wonderful aspirations you have in mind.
God bless you!!

Your Darling Sister.

Room mates (1)

You have had a room mate, at one time or the other. Maybe, as a boarder in secondary school, in the University or even your brother/sister.
Room mates! Room mates!! They can be your closest buddy or the pain in your right armpit. You either feel like hugging them when you get to the room or sitting on their heads and smiling as you hear their muffled screams for help. Lol.
I have had a fair share of  'good' and 'bad' room mates in my short time on earth. I'd have to start my gist from the University because in Secondary school, the room mates were too many to count. It was like Fuji house of commotion there(urghh, i sigh as i remember the gross details). Well, my first room mates in the university were odd. It was a very odd combo; Mole, Frog, Cat and Ant. I was Ant...and yea i chose the animal names for some characteristics of each person. Ant and Cat were close...i guess we were close because we were both enemies of the rest of the floor members....awkward times when you feel close to someone because both of you share a common hatred. hahaha. that was it. The four of us didn't make up a bad association, not a good one either. Flat. Bland. The only taste was Cat, hehe(you know yourself).
My second year, i was with uhmm Bat and hahahahhakaha!, i have to stop this animal assigning, its making me laugh so hard, i cant continue writing.
In my second year in the university, life at Room E212,  Mary Hall was one of drama. I considered myself the protagonist,  and of course, i had a packed-full audience with individual inclinations. At the time, i thought my room was akin to goal. I never deeply considered the fact that the protagonist is the antagonist to the antagonist. Haha. So will i be right to say i was the protagonist in the drama? Maybe, maybe not.
Sometimes, what screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how things are supposed to be. We should prepare to get shocked by people. After all, no two people are the same.
I'd continue my story about room mates later on.
Cheers!

Do you eat like this?

Just saw this hilarious video and had to share it!

First meat

I launched this blog yesterday and i started to think of my first post. Well, i need not have bothered. For, one of those events that happen every once in a while, to teach you a life-lesson, happened yesterday.
I was coming back from my workplace(as an intern) in Victoria Island and waited for the occasional bus to Ajah, the bus arrived early(unlike other days when i would wait forever and engage in a running and pushing competition to enter. Well, most times, i give up. There's no pushing some 'able-bodied' men o! ah! for my bodily safety and don't let me get started on the aggressive women). Yes, the bus arrived as soon as i exited my Company's building and stopped right in front of me. This was going to be a good evening! We had spent about thirty minutes on the road before i heard terrified gasps from the back(i was in the front seat). One woman was screaming: "blood of Jesus!! blood of Jesus!!!". Others were trying to get out of the bus by all means.There was commotion. I thought it was a fire. The bus had just passed the toll gate and we parked next to the Police men who stationed there. As i turned to have a better look(while opening my door in case i needed to flee), i saw what the commotion was about; a young man, maybe in his late twenties was having a seizure. His head was backward in an awkward angle and his arms and legs were stretched out stiffly before him. He was shaking vigorously whilst foam and what looked like water sipped through his lips. I knew i had seen this before. Some passengers had given themselves and the bus a reasonable distance, i knew they thought it was contagious or maybe a spiritual problem they didn't want(Nigerians!). I was a bit surprised, i had not seen a seizure as close up as this, i had witnessed from afar, read about it, read about what to do to someone having a fit, but never this up-close...and graphic. I started telling the terrified women not to shout, they needed to calm down, really.
There was this man though, he was sited next to him as well but he was not shouting and trying to get away. He was helping the man. He laid him down on the bus' floor and started to blow him. I told him we had to bring him outside for fresh air.
Another man was asking for water to pour on him. They poured it( i don't know if it worked) but he seemed better. We lay him on the ground there, waiting for him to come around. Some soldiers came around to see what was happening. One, a senior one, was saying nobody should pour water on him, that he would come around. He specifically warned that we gave him space, not because he needed fresh air but so we would not contract the disease,i nodded my head sadly. I knew this disease was hereditary, it could not be contracted by touching the person.
Well, one thing that shocked me was the kindness i saw yesterday. Ah! people can be kind. I was happy nobody even suggested we leave him there and continue our journey. We all waited for him like he was a brother we were used to. Some people went to sit on the gutter's edge, the driver and conductor made funny remarks about the women who were screaming earlier. The mood was generally good. Everyone felt like a hero, we knew we were doing the right thing.
We waited and waited, thinking the young man knew what was happening and would stand up soon....he had stopped convulsing and looked ok. But he was sleeping, sat up and was nodding. I tried to ask him if he could enter the bus, he just looked at me with distant eyes. The conductor eventually came and said: 'bros, you don ready?'(something like that) 'may we dey go nau' and he said; 'to where?', 'Ajah, na Ajah we dey go'. I then understood what i had missed; he had no memory of the event. When we reminded him of his destination, he looked round and saw people staring at him. Realization shone on his face and he stood up, looking a little embarrassed.
The bus was back on the road again and in serious holdup just a few metres in front of the toll gate. I started giving glory to God in my heart, the statement; 'health is wealth' should not be understated. Immense gratitude flooded me as it sunk in that all my daily petty worries can't be compared with a life of ill health. What if this guy was in  a bus with unmerciful people? Is it not to dump him by the roadside after removing all the valuables from his pocket? What if he was frying yam? Would he have poured the hot oil all over his body? I thank God for good health.
I learnt gratitude yesterday, renewed gratitude that most of my worries are filled with 'petty'  things.
I learnt that we all can be good, and kind, and merciful to total strangers. We all can be.