Sampling Tour

Good week everybody! Yes I’m okay and yes , I am still in the good ole US of A. I’m back to Minnesota. Ha ha ha! I’ve been stalling for time regarding what to write. This is actually exactly two hours since I wrote the second sentence of this post. I was contemplating whether to write about my trip, alongside some friends, to a strip club last week. Yep, the girls were lovely and yes, I did get a lap dance but that is a story for another day. I know my beloved brother Obasi and my darling sis-in-law Nkiru will probably read this and roll their eyes at this black sheep of the family – and I really am! I have done things that the rest of my family would keel over if they heard but an iota of what I’ve done - but hey, I am what I am.;I love adventure. Best part of it was that Frieda was right there beside me watching my leering grin as I ogled the bare necessities of the chocolate siren writhing all over me smelling so nice even though she wore little or no perfume… but, that’s a story for another day. Come to think of it, she has never really told me what she thought of my being entertained by such vivacious ladies apart from the curious amused wonder I caught in her eyes when I momentarily flashed a glance in her direction just in case a missile came hurtling my way from that angle. I feel I may have clinched a deal for a boys’ night out, but I fear it may just be wishful thinking yet.

The Damage premiere tour is finally over here in the US and it’s been such a relief that it has gone very well. It has been a nerve wracking three weeks for me especially since it has been one of the few projects I have truly believed in. I want to thank everyone for their support during this tour, especially Nkem, of course, Nollywoodreinvented, CHI_SOM and every one of my readers. You have been fantastic all you! Now I’m embarking on another one here which I am having to write and act in as well. It is about another social issue; dealing with betrayal and HIV. That is the most I will talk about the project for now until I see it talking shape in the direction I want it to go – make I no go fall my hand. What I will talk about is my newfound freedom; the freedom to jog where I please!

I now have the luxury to jog where I please; nice pavements on which I can jog without being knocked down by veering danfos (commercial mini buses) and snarling okadas (commercial motorcycles). I don’t get stopped by passersby who demand to know why I am being so mean to ‘Angela’. Can’t I just go and die somewhere in peace? Or why I have to act the role of a debauched reverend father and besmirch the image of the Catholic Church, do I want to go to hell? Or well meaning citizens who, never mind that that I’m jogging to burn fat, ask me to kindly tell them what happened in the sequel of a movie of mine they’d just watched. Here I jogged with free abandon, almost too free. Yesterday I happened to discover a jogging trail not too far from my hotel and enthusiastically went down to try it out. It is already deep autumn here, you in America prefer to call it fall, but the bite of winter is already setting in as is clearly evident in the trees already being stripped of their leaves giving the area a very somber look. I had not gone far down the slope I was jogging before I realized I was well alone on a lonely trail with desolate woods and brackish marshy ponds on either side of me. Images of the Crime & Investigation television network I love watching in Nigeria came flooding back to me. Glancing wildly around me, I half expected a hooded figure streaking out of the woods at me armed with a hatchet or a hammer, or a kindly middle aged man asking if I could assist him with his broken leg, and a kindly prick in the back of my neck, or some nutter taking a pot shot at me from the sanctity of the woods. Prejudiced or not, I quickly unlocked my usually secure phone, ready to dial 911 the second I noticed any funny movement around me and dashed furiously through the grove until I saw with much relief some buildings two minutes later. Suffice it to say I did not go back that way.

Well that is my tale for this week. Fill you up with more later. Have a great week ahead mes amis!