Berries of the Dark Kind

Guten week to everyone in the house. How is everyone? First, I want to wish my very dear friend Sara a very happy birthday today, and a belated birthday to my troublesome friend Nse whose birthday it was two days ago. I’m down with a cold – the hazards of walking about on cold floors with bare feet. I thought about (and did) complaining about it on facebook and then I remembered worse things people suffer from all over the world and I held my piece. On second thoughts though, I think I am allowed to whinge about it a little. After all, my people say that a little snake one sees alone in the bush becomes a python when he recounts his encounter with it to his neighbours when he sees them. So yes, I have a cold and it’s killed my appetite, one of the few places in my life I do not tolerate interference. It prevented me from going for the bush meat pepper soup I craved for last night as I am wont to every time I finish a project, especially the gruelling one I finished last week. No worries, the tick will fall off soon as it has drunk its fill.

The project, quite an interesting one; I played a character that spoke with a very heavy Igbo accent. The Igbos, of whom I am one, are an interesting people. We believe in getting our point across even if it means not giving much consideration to how we put it. That is not to say we are not poetic, quite the contrary if I may say. We like to pepper our words with proverbs to make our audience think, anticipate what we want to say, hide what we want to say or break terrible news gently. You may refer to my earlier proverb as an example. Anyway, enough talk. Now to more talk!
There is quite a lot to talk about but, being the blabber mouth that I am, I have been prevented from saying ninety percent of what is in my head to say by the mighty Nkem so I’ll just go with the ten percent. I feel like I’m the last to catch up with any kind of new technology – the latest to confront me being the ubiquitous blackberry which I am soon in the danger of acquiring. My friends, Yolanda and Uche Jombo, had already begun educating me on the virtues of this “wonderful” contraption – its phenomenal networking abilities, updates on twitter and facebook and its dexterity in gossip related matters – a fundamental asset to have in our “show” business. Like I said in previous posts, I’m still trying to get my head round this modern technology. One thing is for certain though; the world seems to have moved on from the traditional physical structures and property to the virtual kind – one that is based on perception, publicity and transient popularity. Pretty much like gold and money that was at the turn of the Victorian period, gold being the actual value and paper money, a ‘mere’ promissory note that has come to dominate the world economy for the past near two hundred years.

My worry now, apart from worrying about the mastery of those complex social networks, is how I’ll manage to type on those tiny buttons with my huge thumbs. Then again, every journey begins with a step. I’ll embark on this one today and wait for another accursed technology to raise its head from around the corner. I did not get to have my beloved pepper soup today but, as I’ve begun to hawk and spit, from the thickening of my phlegm, it shouldn’t be too far away. A few more lemon teas should speed up the progress. Awaiting your tips on what hidden treasures lie hidden in my new toy. Have a great week everyone.