Safety

Everything about me these days is so safety related. Good week everybody. Yes my friends, I have just finished an advanced course on safety and it’s amazing how quickly it has already begun to entrench itself in my life. It is truly amazing and all encompassing! It’s all about assessing, identifying and managing risk and containing potential hazards and is even relevant in business. I won’t bore you with the details and though on a normal day I’d be tempted to brag about my new found knowledge to you guys, a strange willingness to share encapsulates me and I feel compelled to do the Divine’s bidding. Here goes…

Scenario one. I went to do a job in Abuja and was checked into a really nice hotel somewhere in the Jabi district. The staff was all smiley and welcoming, especially Idara, a very pretty dark complexioned lady from Akwa Ibom state, whose smile outshone the blinding sun outside. I was shown to my room which was on the first floor upstairs and was taken through a maze of corridors, so much so that I wondered if I was ever going to find my way out again. While it was all very well lit, there was an austereness about it – its source I couldn’t quite put my finger to. It was when I got to my room that I saw why I was so uneasy. My room though compact and nice, had no windows and the window in the bathroom opened up to the corridor. I immediately began to feel very entombed. If a fire were to break out I would have a clouded fiery maze to have to blindly find my out through and, who knows, I might even make it. My ‘safety’ instincts and ‘risk management’ skills kicked into place. I quickly called one of the staff and immediately asked for the nearest exit and was shown one facing my door from further down the corridor. Never mind that it opened up to a balcony on the first floor of the hotel, it was good enough for me. At least I would be able to break my fall with the aid of the parked cars below me.

Scenario two. I finished that job in Abuja and boarded a rather crowded plane bound for Lagos. It was so full I could hardly find a place to stuff my bag. I noticed a stewardess at the rear end of the plane gesticulating towards me. Supposing her arm movements to mean I should stow my luggage in any available space, I stashed it in a compartment that contained some oxygenlike tanks and went and sat down. Not long after the plane began to taxi up the runway, and to my surprise, the gesticulating hostess came up to my side. With her face set in icy fury, she hissed that she had been asking me to bring my bag to the rear where she would stow it away safely but instead, I chose to put it in an unsafe place. She then turned around and yanked my bag from the cubby hole I’d put it and dumped it unceremoniously on the ground telling me I would have to get up and look for a safer place to put it and she was not obliged to stow it away for me. I just stared at her balefully, silently daring her to do her worst because there was no way I was going to get up while the seat belt signs were on with the plane still taxiing up the runway. Luckily another steward came to the rescue and stowed my bag under the seat in front of me, quickly diffusing the tense moment. When I simmered down a few moments later, I took time to think why she acted the way she did to me and realised that she may have thought I had understood that she wanted me to come put my bag away at the rear but rather chose not to on account of arrogance while I, on my part, was seething with anger because of her perceived vindictiveness and power drunkenness. How often differing perceptions and subjective thought lead us to many a tussle?

It would be fair to say that safety and management of risk are beginning to form an integral part of my life. It is also amazing how much saving we make regarding cost to lives and property when we make safety, and the anticipation that everything in life is a risk, a priority in our lives. It’s been almost a month I haven’t put anything on this board and I have missed you. For my absence i apologise. Believe me when I say I feel the pinch when I'm away cut off from you lot as well. I also feel rejuvenated anytime I come back here to share with you my experiences. I will most likely be going to Calabar again for the carnival although I will not be operating in the same capacity as I did last year. That said, I am going to make sure I have a fun filled time there. I would, if it’s not too much to ask, like to know what my favourite people will be up to this Christmas and New Year season. I’m already lining up the pawpaw and watermelon I’ll be using to detoxify my system after the season’s bending binge. Have a wonderful Christmas everybody!

The Visitor

Keeping secrets is such a terrible thing, just as telling lies is; I know because I’m keeping one and I’m burning to tell you all about it. It’s a wonder I haven’t blown up yet because this infant I’m harbouring is well past its gestation period. If what they say about good things coming to those who wait is something to go by then this had better be worth it because I’m having to plug my ears so they don’t leak out of there as well. Good week everyone and a very hearty Barka de Sallah to my Muslim brothers and sisters. How’s everyone this week? Me? I’m not sure how I’m feeling. Oh darn it! I am sure how I’m feeling! I am in a very lousy mood right now. A day I should have spent hopping from one Muslim friend’s house to another filling the gaps between my teeth and sorting them out with tooth picks or floss afterwards has just been loused up by Frieda for no reason I can lay my hands on whatsoever. My crime that I can barely make out from all the gibberish she’s uttered so far? Empathy. Empathy! Just to say, “I don’t exactly know how you’re feeling but I’ll share it with you”. That’s all!

What happened? It all began yesterday, no, the day before yesterday when Frieda was in distress for the best part of two days, nay, she still is in pain now as we speak but to a much lesser degree. She was on her period during the stated time and she was in extraordinary pain, worse than any I’d ever known her to have. Matter of fact the pain was excruciating. I could tell because she couldn’t even stand up let alone walk straight. She was on her period, the, like I’d said earlier, the most painful I’d ever experienced her to be in. Frieda is the sweetest thing ever and even in that pain she was still a trooper; she still asked me how I was, trying to ignore her own discomfiture and I, on my part (bearing in mind I’d never seen her nor any other person in this kind of distress before), resolved to do all I could in my power to be as supportive as possible. That was a time I was especially glad I was created a man. Imagine being scared --itless of wearing white trousers to a party or feeling a wetness that has little to do with arousal. At the same time I remembered the wise words of an elderly friend; “When your woman is being irrationally and illogically annoying, don’t fight her, be patient and calm. When she’s going through a very rough time, stay with her. When she’s going through trials, stand by her. She’ll forgive you almost anything when you start to misbehave because she’ll never forget what you do for her.” Unfortunately for me, sleep was at its sweetest during this time.

I didn’t stand by her. I was made to wait upon her, stand by her and my circulation cut off by her claws! Even when I tottered on my feet, completely at a loss of what to do – say sorry, hold her hand, rub her back and wonder how all this was going to assuage the agony she was going through. Would it not be better if she just went to the doctor’s for some prescription? I tried urging her to go the gym to do some exercise so it’d flow better. No. It was me she wanted. I did not sleep for three days and even when I tried to harden my heart, watching her suffer was too much for me to ignore. Is this what I’d see in marriage? No way man! I’d sooner plant twins in there so the aperture (not the one that really matters of course) would open up a little bit more, let it run free and save me from the cyclic lunar madness . Periods? Damned when they come, damned when they don’t. Still, that is not what I’ve called you all here to complain about.

What I have called the community to complain about is about what happened afterwards. Would you believe that – okay what happened was this. Frieda was feeling rather low the next day and feeling a little depressed – we all get that way sometimes – and I tried encouraging her, telling her what a trooper she was, and telling the tons of things she’s accomplished in such a short space of time. We talked for over an hour and true to myself, I was as patient and supportive as ever. She calmed down, seemed to lighten up and I left it at that. She came back again, revisiting the same subject we’d just dealt with. Calmly, and still true to my nature, I considered that it might be prudent to try another approach and deftly tried to swing the mood to a more upbeat one. I talked about the funny incidents that had brightened my day, in the hope that it would cheer her up a little. Ah! Obirin! What I got for my trouble was a serious tongue lashing about how insensitive I was to her plight and that I only thought of myself! I was accused of being uncomfortable in unfamiliar territory and would use humour and jokes to get out of it. Me, Kalu, run away? I was so angry! Who was it that spent three whole sleepless nights caring for her during her time of need? Who was it that kept talking until he had nothing else to say? Who was it that… In short, I’m not going to provoke myself. I will be the bigger man. I will ignore the fact that you, Frieda, completely soured my day and made me cancel all my Sallah ram meat appointments, kept me holed up in my flat seething with anger and my lost appetite. But, I’ll be the bigger man. I will forgive. I hold no grudge against you. I only ask that you, my people judge this matter and tell me what I have done wrong. Have a great week everyone, and to you too my dearest Frieda!

PS. This post was actually written last week and the said day happened to be on her birthday which is what made the experience all the more strange. Hm, I wonder…

School Ghost

Good week everyone! For some reason I am on a high this morning and I don’t know what it is I am so excited about, which is nothing. Maybe the reason I have so much adrenalin pumping through me is because I am biting my nails in trepidation regarding what I have to do today. Today I go to enrol in a three day course in a field that was responsible for my chronic truancy during my secondary school days – science. Ah, those were the days, the most horrible days of my entire life, and I refused to bow to the enemy – Physics, Chemistry and boarding school! Escape route? Truancy! Man, I was such a pro I had a radar in my head that went off anytime a potential threat – any adult with a questioning look in his or her mind as to why I was not where I was supposed to be, or why I was where I was not supposed to be – lurked behind me. I was so good at truancy that I was nicknamed The School Ghost. I remember my greatest feat; circumventing classes for a full year, and paying the price – I repeated the class. The good thing about my truancy, when I wasn’t roaming the length and breath of the country armed with my school fees and that of my younger brother’s, was that most of it was spent in the library, public or school. I loved to lose myself in the literatures and histories of different countries and times and sometimes hid among the shelves when the library was being locked up for the day only to creep out, switch on a discreet light bulb and continue my devouring of the delicious volumes of fact and fantasy. I learned back then that there is always a heaven in every hell on this side of the world. Now science, my past, has come back to haunt me – and I am ready.

I think I gained my confidence in tackling this monster when I prepared and sat for my GRE exams some years ago. I bought a preparatory book on geometry and algebra, and I think trigonometry, squeezed my eyes shut, prayed and opened it. It was amazing! I was led through a step by step ‘how to do it’ on all the mathematical problems and most importantly why and where it was all going! Suddenly I could see what all this was for. I saw myself, in my mind’s eye, writing calculations that would make the internet go faster, or designing the very perfectly symmetrical cars I loved so much. In short, the reason for poring over the complex figures became increasingly realistic and not abstract like my stupid and visionless teachers in secondary school made me believe.

I think we should be very careful with the way we guide our young ones as we guide them on the arduous path to becoming adults. Education means nothing if it is not going to be applied to some aspect of life in my opinion. Anyway I have a date with science tomorrow at seven and they’d better show me a road map of where what I’ll be learning for the next few days is going or I will take someone’s head off. Early morning tomorrow so early night tonight. Have a great week everyone and do please spare a thought for me. Tara!

Prelude To Crossing Over

Good week everyone. It’s been like ages since I hooked up with you guys here at our meeting place. I’m asking myself if there’s any gossip about myself I should shed and lay bare before you all but, I fear you may not be quite able to handle the truth. Okay, so I hopped on an okada two weeks ago when my car refused to start in the morning on my way to work. I had to hop on one and I don’t know which one scared me the more, the thought of falling off the bike, being hit by a car or being seen by the public or worse still the gossip press – oh shoot, I just gave them the ammo!- on an okada. My mother who always scolded me about my slouching habit as a child would certainly have beheaded me on that day. My chin was buried somewhere in my chest and my back was so hunched that I probably looked like I was carrying a baby on my back. I squinted my eyes to protect them from the smarting wind rushing at them and at the same time surreptitiously glanced at passers by in the frantic hope that none would recognise me but, that is a story for another day; now to the present.

I am having a hard time trying to write this post because one of my very good friends, Femi, is here on a visit for a few days and that, my friends, is a few days too many because the idiot is a pest. No sooner had he entered my house (flat) than he began to demand that I go to cook up something for him to eat. I told him I had a carton of instant noodles and eggs for him to test his skills on. The bloody nerve! A well meaning considerate friend would have asked his wife to cook two huge pots of good soup since he was going to stay at his bachelor friend’s for a few days. Oh well, I guess we’ll just sit here looking at each other, go out to work, eat whatever is available on set and at the end of the day come back and go out for a drink and goat meat peppersoup. I have my multi vitamins and fruit to keep me buoyed so little worries about scurvy. We are having fun catching up with the latest gist, not gossip like girls do, but manly talk; work, business, maybe dirty jokes and what have you. His wife just called to know how her husband is doing and asked to speak with me ‘to know how I’m doing’. We both know she just wants to know he is where he says he is and I do feel sort of honoured that she trusts me to keep her husband in a good place. I think before I finally get married I’ll have my bride sign a pre-nup allowing me a weekend’s getaway once in a while to catch my breath and smell freedom for just a few days before jumping back into the swirling pool. I am not being selfish, I’m just working hard to prevent the inevitable midlife crisis that plagues many a home when the man begins to feel he has lost out on the best life has to offer. But then that’s just me and my many theories.

We just opened another bottle and we’re starting get to get philosophical on matters ranging from how best to get rid of our corrupt leaders to who benefits the most from sex; men or women, and why we have to be the ones to spend a fortune just to get some. The rest are not topics for polite conversation so I’ll spare you those and pen off here before my hand loosens like my tongue already is. I’m very possessive of my ‘squeaky clean’ image so while I’m still on this side of the divide, have a great week everyone!

Stuck in the Mud

Good week to everyone. How’s everyone been? I hope much better than I have been, and still am. I have a writer’s block. I don’t know what to write let alone how to write whatever it is should I have an inkling of what I’m writing. I don’t easily admit my lapses, failures or weaknesses. It is not that I have a problem admitting them but that I hardly recognise them. You see, we, my siblings and I, were raised to be strong and not show any weakness whatsoever. It was so bad that I didn’t even know when I was angry until I erupted and wondered a little while afterwards where that came from. I haven’t cried since my dad passed on – for this I envy my mother and my sisters, and the tail of the family, Iyke – but I almost beat someone up in a road rage incident in London after he kept taunting me. This happened two days after I learnt of his death. It was months after the incident that I realised why I had erupted in a manner quite unlike myself. I think that it is partly for this reason that I decided, on the advice of Frieda and Nkem, to start my blog. There is something about the written word that gives a name and a face and a starkness to the murky and somehow inaccessible feelings that constantly swirl around me. When I write them out I exclaim and say, “Oh, so that’s what it is?”. And it all suddenly doesn’t seem so shameful or sissyish or some insurmountable problem anymore.

I have, for the past two weeks been running away from my laptop because of the fear of not knowing what to write on my blog or if I eventually put something down, will be a load of crap – and I am a proud man. So the option? Run! That is until Frieda came in and asked what was wrong with me. She is sometimes like a needle picking a splinter out of a wound. She blows gently at it while relentlessly and deftly prising the surrounding flesh until she gets to the offending splinter. I sometimes lash at her just to ward her off so I can keep those little demons where they belong – trapped. But, when I talk about it with her, I come away with a feeling of being closer to the human race. Enough of this sentiment. So I began to talk. I wasn’t happy with my life in general. Every time I went to work, and even after rehearsing at home, I would perform at a measly forty to fifty percent of what I envisaged – I usually score myself on my work and performances. Then I watched myself on Tinsel, the drama series I do for Mnet, for the first time last week and got so depressed with my performance and now I was too miserable to write anything. She calmly said, “Then write about it!” “Write about what? Are you mad?” I retorted. “I don’t even know what’s wrong with me and you’re telling me to show people my vulnerable side!” “Yes” she said. “People want to know everything about you good or bad, plus it will help you sort out your thoughts and feelings. Just make sure I read what you’ve written before you post it because I know you. When you dive, you dive in head first; you don’t bother testing the waters.” “Well,” I replied. “Haven’t you heard that saying a boy who is sent by his father to burgle a house always kicks the front door down?”

So here I am, with nothing to write for this week and shamefacedly admitting it. Oh, did I also add that I have a dripping nose to add to my woes as well. I know it’s short notice but is there a way I can get rid of this nasal twang to my voice in two hours before I go on set this afternoon? I think I’ll post it on facebook for an even quicker solution. Have a great week everyone. Apologies for the depressing nature of my post.

Needless Needles!

I hate needles! Good week everyone. This may look like I’m stating the obvious but I know what my pain comes from. I’ve only just had the courage to admit to myself that I have a problem that I find I must deal with decisively. I seem to be having a string of epiphanies of late – oh please forgive me everyone for digressing, but I am seated in the most wonderful chair ever and typing my post out. I’m in a hotel waiting for them to come get me so we can go out and do some work. I was typing my stuff on the bed before the producers called to tell me they were coming to my room to apprise me on what is going on. So I would look like I busy myself all the time, I quickly jumped up, grabbed my laptop, plonked and plugged it at the desk in my room. They came and we talked and they left. I sat down at the desk to work, and leaned back. That was where the magic began! The chair leaned back with me – in a very weird way! The soft back and the leather bound arms (very comfy) moved back with me but the seat on which my bottom sat stayed where it was. Kind of like tilting back without tilting back, and it swivels! I’m stealing this chair! It’s a joke o! But seriously though, I now understand the phrase “That’s my daddy’s favourite chair; he’ll kill anyone who sits in it!” Frieda, better warn the kids, before I render you childless – to be! Anyway, where was I? Needles!

I had some symptoms of malaria, high fever and headache, and had gone to see a doctor for a quick solution to the irritating malady. After observing me for a little while he asked me to go to the laboratory and give them a stool, urine and blood sample. I cringed at the mention of the last sample. I asked him if it was really necessary that I give my blood since the first two should be conclusive enough. He smiled at me very understandingly and said yes. I gulped and shuffled out of the room. I went down the hall to the lab and was met by a very amiable and friendly lab technician who introduced himself to me as Kizito – I wondered if that was the name his mama gave him or a nickname he’d adopted. Anyway I gave him the sheet of paper the doctor had scribbled their usual hieroglyphics on, which he read and then asked me to sit on a nearby stool so he could take my blood sample first. At that moment two very pretty young ladies walked into the room, greeted me and sat down. I looked at them and then at him. I must have had an inquiring look about there being some Hippocratic law regarding a patient’s privacy because he immediately introduced them to me as university medical lab students on their year’s internship from school. Worse still, they recognised me and squealed with delight on doing so. They began asking a barrage of questions about some movies of mine they had watched and questions on whether I had any relationships with any of the actresses I’d kissed on screen. And then the dreaded moment came when I had to extend my arm to be stabbed.

I stared in horror as Kizito tore the syringe and the needle from their wrapping and then the latter from its sheath to attach to the former. I was already up from my seat by the time he advanced towards me with the spirit soaked cotton wool to clean the torture spot on my forearm. This time I was not going to listen to any promises of sweets or chocolates after being killed; I wasn’t that young and foolish anymore! The girls looked at me in wonder – and I didn’t care! I was trembling all over. The thought of the cold impersonal clinical disinfecting attendant smell of the hospital, any hospital, the cold feel of the menthylated spirit and the cold excruciatingly painful piercing stab of the almost blunt steel tearing into my flesh was too much for me to bear. That image defied all reason and logic. It was like an impending death coming to me in the worst possible way – and it was supposed to help me get better! The girls tittered among themselves at this funny sight but when they saw how traumatised I was, sobered up and joined their boss in trying to calm me down. Their soothing words must have had the desired effect on me because I gingerly settled back on the stool, extended my arm, looked the other way, squeezed my eyes shut, further buttressed the closure by clamping my hand over them and begged him not to let me know when the needle was coming. I began stamping my foot on the floor repeatedly to further distract me from the impending pain and when it came, I took it like a man. It was mercifully quick. I looked up from my ordeal and felt like I had just climbed, and come down the Everest. For the first time that afternoon I broke into a smile. I’m sure it must have looked relieved and embarrassed because the girls were still looking at me in amused wonder. I swore them to secrecy and left after promising to bring the other two samples the next day. I hoped I wouldn’t see the girls ever again.

It still baffles me that in the past one hundred and fifty years of modern medicine no advancement has been made towards moving away from the barbaric practice of plunging needles into living bodies. It is as if a powerful and deciding secret council in the medical world is stubbornly holding unto the adage of “no excruciating pain no gain” and making sure it remains enforced on hapless beings like us. I refuse to be ashamed of my hatred for needles. I think it remains the singular reason for my abhorrence of the hospital environment and why, as much as is possible, I try to live as healthily as possible. I mean, look at common leeches. I hear even they are not painful at all when they suck blood from their prey, which sometimes are human. Why can’t these sadists adopt the simple creatures’ method of extraction instead of subjecting us to needless needle trauma? Oti su mi o! The mad man says he has no business with the man who is persistently following him about with a sharpened machete until he begins to look for his head. I refuse to be that mad man so if no one will speak against this anomaly, I will! Have a great week everyone! Once again, away with needles!

Love for the Art

Top of the week to all and sundry. I’m on set at the moment with my mind filled with better places I would rather be than at work. I don’t know why I have a sudden urge to go on a holiday. The strange thing about it is, much of our work actually does seem to outsiders like one big holiday; we work far into the night when others are sleeping, sleep and lounge when most others are working. What most people don’t know is that for every scene that lasts for, say a minute or a minute and a half, an approximate three to five hours’ work goes into making that scene possible depending on how many people there are in the scene.

Usually, when people badger me about wanting to act I smile and ask them why they want to go into it – the fame or the love for it. I think someday, when I become a producer, if anyone accosts me and inundates me with pleas to induct him or her into the world of acting, I will make sure their first scene is a party scene where the main characters meet and have some sort of conversation or specific action to take. Those of my colleagues in the business who read this bit will probably snigger at my sadism, and with good reason too because we all know how full of drudgery “party scenes” are.

The worst part of a party scene isn’t the fact that it takes at least four hours to record a scene (I for one, have once begun one at 9pm and did not finish recording till 4am the next morning), but that one would have to nurse the very same half filled glass of wine or beer, with a strained grimace and faking a conversation with a member of the opposite sex who is supposed to be your significant other in the movie, whom you have silently vowed to never give the opportunity to take “the relationship” further than the confines of the set – you kinda get the clues regarding their intentions when they still keep leaning onto you even after the director shouts cut, and you politely have to remind them that the take is over.

Or maybe a plate of food you are supposed to be carrying but are not allowed to eat for “continuity” purposes. God help you if it’s actually a really lovely dish and the producer emphatically urges you not to waste the “props” as he is on a tight budget, or the miserly props manager – they always are – sidles up to you and begs you with a whisper in your ear to take it easy on the grub. I usually scoff the lot if I’m hungry and dare them to “disgrace” their production by not refilling my character’s plate. You watch that hot sizzling food slowly turn to a congealed mass of dulled brown slabs of meat and sodden vegetables atop icicles of yellowed rice fast stuck in a frozen lake of brown grease. Now imagine going through this routine coupled with the tedious movements, dances (again, heaven forbid that you should forget your sports deodorant at home), all the while trying to look like you’re having an absolutely fabulous time for at least fifteen to twenty times. Finish this gruelling routine, expectantly wait for the movie to come out in six to eight months ,sit down to watch and wait for that scene you laboured in for ten hours straight disappear in two minutes flat with your loved ones about you grumble about the scene dragging on for an unnecessarily long time. Yes I do believe it would make for a fitting welcome to the acting community!

Darn it! I’ve gone and got carried away with my distaste for crowd, especially party, scenes and my desire to inflict them on naïve aspirants and forgotten about the holiday I really wanted to talk about. Well let’s hope I remain focused next time and not get distracted by my innate sadistic desires. Have a great week everyone!

PS: Kudos to two of my fave people, Formerly Stealth Reader and Rosa Winkler for getting the quote on my last post correct. We shall sit at a round table with our lawyers and iron out the modalities of reward. Cheerio!