A Happy New Year?

A good first week of the year to everyone!
I’m back in good old sweltering Naija and it feels good! The normally
insane Lagos traffic that I’ve grown so used to is back and so am I
with my incessant stream of expletives I hurl at slow coaches who are
better off driving in their sitting rooms! God, they make me wish I
had long arms to reach out and hurl them out of my way. They make me
hurl! But that was then, a looooong time ago, some place of blessed
memory, a faded dot in the past. Now, today, a week later, just a week
after the fuel ‘subsidy’ was completely removed by our eminent
president of the people, Goodluck Jonathan, I am now being cursed to
get out of the way by those slow coaches. If Betty had a manual/stick
gear shift, I’d engage the gears half the way, and coast the rest of
the half on neutral - I’d switch the engine off if it wasn’t so
dangerous. These days I mind the calories Betty burns; her food is
very precious to me. I share the concerns of over a hundred million
other people about our future over the hundred and twenty percent fuel
price hike.

The second week of the year, and these concerns are being voiced out today en masse in protests going on all over the country. A labour strike has called for this week and from
what I observe, it is being effected by everyone I know, including me,
well they didn’t say not to work from home. My question is, as I’m
sitting here, how the heck am I going to have to pay over a double of
what I used to pay for just a week ago, that is, doubling my budget
for the rest of the year with little increase on my revenue as at the
moment? That’s not talking about my brothers who have whole families,
have spent a lot over the Christmas to give their loved ones a
memorable holiday, are about sending them off to school and then boom!
Suddenly the money they judiciously put away has to be more than
doubled if their kids are going the same level of education they got a
month earlier. Or the ones who went to their respective home towns for
the festive season only to be told, commencing their journey home,
that fares have tripled. I even heard some commuters had to sell what
belonging they had so they could get home – and that’s not counting
the families.

Well, third week of the year, strike’s over
now and everyone’s back to work. Petrol prices have been reduced by a
smidgen and it’s suffering and smiling as usual for us. I’m in kind of
a daze though, because I’m sitting here wondering what all the fuss
was about, I’m asking what we have achieved with our indignation and
what the point was having all those people who perished in the cause
agitating against corruption. The hard stance and tough talking have
suddenly evaporated and I can’t help thinking about the grass left in
the aftermath of the elephants’ fight.

In summary, I think our world is getting
smaller and becoming more and more complicated as the days go by.
Greater territories than countries are being carved up and shared and
their inhabitants have little say in the matter. Suddenly affiliation
or patriotism towards ones country is like hoping to hold on to job
long enough to see your children through their education, retiring and
getting a good pension thereof - foolishness. Much like the borderless
worldwide web we have come to know and understand, our countries’
economic barriers and buffers are becoming more and more permeable by
the day. The law of governments become subservient to the law of
commerce. The route to survival? Self sufficiency. Every man should
seek some way of starting some enterprise, farming, weaving, some
business of some sort or earn a little on the side, save and invest.
That way one still maintains some sort of control over ones affairs in
spite of the raging madness that goes on around us. Let us begin
looking for the black goat while it’s still daylight. Have a great
week everybody!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone! Do I have to say good week everybody? Pish! I don’t care. All I know is that I am so excited about today mostly because I am sharing it with you my folks. I am going to be as irreverent as I want to be, I am going to write and probably break as many writing rules as I want to, because I don’t care! I have had the toughest and most depressing week. I have plenty of challenges still hounding me at my door but here’s the amazing thing. I have God! I have God who’s ALWAYS got my back, who never gives up on me no matter how stupid i get. He will flog me o, make no mistake, and it hurts when He does! But, with His other hand He wipes my tears and tells me it’s because He loves me and wants the very best for me; and i have always had the best, even when I’ve had little. I’m in a career i love so much, that feeds me. I haven’t done as many movies as my cotemporaries but the few I’ve done have given me a good name. I am not rich yet am very wealthy. I have a blog where I get to express myself and share with readers who love to read what I have to say. All this is a tip of the iceberg of what is to come. I have so much to look forward to I want to fly to the heavens. I couldn’t have asked for a better lesson to learn at this point in my life before I enter the incredible blessings that await me next year. In fact na una de celebrate Ekerisimesi (Christmas for the uninitiated). I don enter 2012 since yesterday! Make una dey dia!

First thing I’m going to do after getting rid of you guys is I’m going to pounce on a soundly sleeping Frieda. I love it when she wakes up startled – she likes sleeping on her tummy, hehehe- looks around confused, gives the lamest attempt at protesting – she’s the worst actress ever – settles in with a small smile and starts purring like a lazy cat as I start to intensify my administrations. Fly hands fly! Don’t worry folks, she did the same to me last night - I was asleep too! Fly hands fly!

After the expenditure I shall take a thirty minute nap, wake up, take a shower and begin to plot whose houses I’m going to raid. I will of course be putting the homes with the best of cooks at the top of my priority list. Only homes full of love and warmth but with not so adept culinary skills will top the former, however I will do my best to enjoin the latter to join forces with the former to make for a laudable success. And just so I don’t appear inconsiderate, I shall be armed with a bottle of wine for each household; a pretence of a fair exchange to mask the stealth predator that I am. I shall of course endeavour not to drive as i plan on being properly inebriated in the course of the night – safely ensconced among friends of course. Fly hands fl... oh heck!

Whoooo! That was fantastic! Sorry guys, couldn’t wait. Off now for my thirty minute slumber. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Have a great year everyone!

This Coming Christmas...

Bam bam biyam bam bam… Top of the week to everyone! Don’t mind me please, I have, for some reason been humming the old song by Rihanna all evening. Don’t bother asking me the name or the words of the song because I don’t know and probably never will. This is coming from the lips of someone who nursed a dream of becoming a rock star at the age of six. Thanks to my Igbo father, that dream only saw the four walls of almost every bathroom I took my shower in and was always left there. I did however, have the privilege of meeting someone who actually defied her conservative Nigerian parents’ expectations of what a good Nigerian girl should be; subservient, have a safe professional job, provide both families with a huge litter of kids and give her parents a grand funeral when they’ve passed on.

Faith plays my character’s other love interest in the movie being shot at the moment. She’s one of the most effervescent ladies I have met who affects one almost instantly with her bubbly nature upon meeting her. I mean how many Nigerian women travel widely around the world for reasons other than shopping or hustling – and by hustling I mean honest, legal enterprise which,contrary to negative opinion, is what most of our wonderful ladies do? Faith travels widely on excursions, professional gigs and even skiing trips. Talk about breaking the norm. she had the gumption to stand up to her parents and do what she always wanted to do – music of the rock genre, and is actually very good at it. Like a smart Naija babe too, she made sure she bagged a good university degree, started a business that currently runs itself before gallivanting the length and breadth of the globe in pursuit of her dream. Youth reading this, please take note and be smarter than me. I’m meeting up with her later this week over coffee and that I am looking forward to.

Christmas is almost upon us and from the way things are, it looks like I’ll be spending my Christmas here in the US. I can’t seem to get a flight to Lagos earlier than the 28th so I’m looking to make the rest of my stay here in the States as eventful as possible. Fortunately, I tracked down two friends I haven’t heard from in a while; one’s in New York and the other’s in Dallas. I’m opting for the one in Dallas because my cousin lives there as well and it’s the warmer of the two. Even if I do go there, I wonder what the difference will be apart from the routine stuffing of one’s belly with food and drink; the very reason I want to run away from this place where I am. One of the greatest crimes one can commit, as I learnt from Thanksgiving, is to refuse people’s generous offer of food, especially as it is often a gesture of love in our African culture. Perhaps if we lived in the Roman times when there were vomiting troughs for the relief of overstuffed bellies so their owners could return to their gluttony, it would be a different matter, but my ever slowing metabolism dictates the pace these days.

As I sit here in this gray winter in Minnesota I keep asking myself what one does for amusement in this weather that does not involve drinking, eating, clubbing or the cinema? Ice fishing? Hunting? I can’t even shoot a catapult let alone a - Wait a minute! That’s it! I can go learn how to shoot at a shooting range! And then next time I come, I can take up hunting! Thanks guys, I got it; I got my mojo back! Now I can go to bed. No, I’ll do that after watching two more episodes of Family Guy and Robot Chicken. Have a great week everyone!

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 Carnival 'Too'

Good week everybody. I’m sure everyone’s begun the year with that typical sombre look that always heralds the aftermath of an indulgent festive season. Most patriarchs or matriarchs of families bear that look of, “I shouldn’t have eaten that much! How in “$@#’s name am I going to lose this fat?” Or, “You’ve done it again, Father Christmas! Gone and given all your money away to grabbing relatives that would sooner pour wet concrete than throw in a rope were you to be stuck in a hole! How are you going to pay the children’s school fees now? God, shoot me dead if I ever, ever go to that village again for Christmas!” Fortunately, for now, I have no such worries; I’m still single but heck, who knows, might have enjoyed my last Christmas of irresponsibility and by God I did, hopefully, go out with a bang! So, where was I?

I sneaked out of the hotel in disguise and jumped straight into the waiting arms of my friends who were waiting for me in the parking lot. I made sure I dived into the car before the three sisters knew what hit them and before we began smothering one another with hugs and kisses. The reason for sneaking out? Well my reason for being in Calabar was supposed to be kept secret and to hide my identity, I was to remain in the confines of the hotel until the carnival was over. Try entrusting a tuber of yam in a goat’s care! The congregation of even the mildest hedonists, sorry, revelers would not have forgiven me if I’d stayed cooped up in that glorious tomb during such a festive haven. We went to the cultural centre first, I think it was because one of the girls had a stand there, to have a drink or two. I, for some reason, stuck to water for the duration of my time there. I tried some ram suya but abandoned it almost immediately on account of the meat being too tough. Why people love to punish themselves I’ll never understand. They might as well season it with salt and pepper and eat it raw; that way you know you are suffering for suffering’s sake. But, being in the company of such a bevy of beauties more than made up for the lacklustre stimulation provided by the beverage and I really hammed it up as they jostled one another for my attention. Hehehe, king of the hill! We went to one other bar, where I stuck to my water before being dropped off at the hotel at about 1am. There was a sticky moment on our way to the hotel though. A friend of theirs, who offered to drop me off at the hotel before dropping them off at home, while at the steering wheel, suddenly turned back to me and asked how I was. I said I was fine hesitantly, observing he had a knowing look in his eyes. “Do you remember me?”, he asked, a smile playing on his mouth. “I, I’m not sure…” I hesitated. “We met at Annie’s baby’s dedication”. And then it clicked! “Ah, yes I remember! How you dey now?” And then I sank my foot in it. “How’s Christie? She didn’t come with you?” I could kick myself in the shin ten times. What if he had a girlfriend among the five ladies that were with us? What trouble had I brought upon him? “She’s in Lagos .“ was all he answered, and smoothly too. I slept very fitfully that night because Christie happens to be like my baby sister; always extorting money for phone cards from me and gives me a lovely hug and a smile whenever I go to see her in the bank. But, that is a matter for another day.

The next day dragged in at about ten in the morning. I had a lazy breakfast with the ubiquitous twins, Uti and Ajibade, the two rascals shown in the pictures with me in The Carnival 1, before going off to the stadium for the dress and tech rehearsals in preparation for the night’s kings’ and queens’ competition. Our band leader, the senator, came with us and made sure we were comfortable with the size of the stage. The stage. I had been stumped by that phenomenon once before in university and I was not going to let it happen to me again. This time I drank in the vastness of the intimidating arena and also made sure I was well accustomed to its every corner. As if that wasn’t enough our leader came up to me with the theme music for my appearance and told me I would have to dance to the rhythm with the grace fitting for an obong (king)! Me, Kalu, that am famed for dancing with two left legs, dance to the rhythm? Well, I tried to do as she asked and got laughed at to derision for my troubles. I looked at the senator and saw the genuine fear in her eyes. “Aunty”, I said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid, I never go into anything and expect to lose. I will uphold my own end of the bargain. Don’t mind these faithless hooligans”. I know she didn’t believe me but hey, what else could I say?

The kings’ and queens’ competition that night? Well that will come, hopefully, at the same time next week. In the meantime, have a blessed week everybody!

The Carnival Won

Good celebration week everybody. I hope everyone’s week was just as colourful as mine – never mind that I haven’t slept for more than ten hours in the past five days. It has been a very interesting week for me; from experiencing things I haven’t experienced since my tramping days in secondary school – I walked for nine hours and still bore a grin all the way - to modelling clothes on the catwalk. I’m back in Lagos now and am fully rested. My main headache is trying to put my experience in Calabar on paper in the best narrative way.

I will not bore you with the details of my journey from Lagos to Calabar. The truth is, there really is little to write about it except to remind myself of the anger and irritation I felt at the flight delays that are synonymous with Christmas holidays in Lagos when people try to travel down south. The jostling, hurling of abuse - and getting sprayed in the face in the process - bribes and ... The hotel, when I finally did get to Calabar, was nice and comfy and I quickly settled in and reminded myself that there was still work to do. The sweaty nightmares I’d had in the weeks before of the heavy burden I’d be carrying on my shoulders and being forced to smile as I walked hundreds of kilometres to cheering crowds I wouldn’t dare drop dead from exhaustion in front of, were going to have their prophecy validated, or not, that night as I went to try out my costume. Oh, did I forget to mention that I was to be the king of the band I was representing, to be in direct competition with the kings of other bands in the carnival and this was to be taken oh so seriously? So seriously that I was squirreled into a secret room, sorry hall, in the basement of the hotel where there were about twenty different seamstresses hunched over their machines and spinning furiously away as though the devil himself bore down behind them with a curly hydra headed whip. There were heaps of coloured twisted nothings or should I say i-know-not-whats in the far corner of the hall as the senator, the leader of the band excitedly showed me my orb and sceptre I would be using on my throne. She also helped me decipher the different layers of the heap of leather, textile and wire by showing me what they were for; costume for the children’s band, the mermaid’s tail, drapes for the truck and so on. All this I looked at and listened to with just half an ear – all I wanted was to see what load I’d be hauling for the length of my time on the streets.

I met with Daniel, an amiable shirtless Trinidadian who had designed the throne I would be hauling about. Let me regress a little. The reason for my anxiety and trepidation was because I was told that I would be carrying my own throne that was designed in such a way that it would seem that I was sitting on it. The import of it meant that I would, while hauling that heavy contraption about for tens of miles, look like a true king, relaxed, smiling and waving at his subjects while concealing the strain and stress seething underneath the mask. I had enough reason to be worried – I take my work seriously when I am committed. If I had committed myself to being the king of the band, I was going to be a true king all the way – no short cuts or quick fixes! The first question I asked Daniel when we were introduced to one another was to be told how many kilograms I would be hauling about and he said to my utter relief, no more than ten. My heart grew even lighter when he told me that instead of carrying the weight, I would be pushing the throne while walking along. Crimson butterflylike wings spanning about twenty five feet from one end to the other were attached to both sides of the throne and I got into it and walked about in it, in the darkness of the hotel’s courtyard of course – too many spies about, testing the wind resistance of the wings.
It was a much happier and relieved man that went upstairs to have a shower, change and check out what the balmy Calabar night had to offer now that most the headache had gone away. A drink with friends, go clubbing or go seeking out local thatched out of town taverns to sample fresh palm wine and bush meat or fish were on the menu as I pulled my baseball cap over half my face as I sneaked out the hotel lobby thirty minutes later.

The rest of the story, are they not to be revealed in the weeks to come where I hope to exhaust the experiences and delights I had with different people in the wonderful city called Calabar. I also wish to, once again, apologise for the late entry of this post; I have been inundated with a backlog of work that has been waiting for me and I had to attend to them to free my brain to attend to you my good people. Welcome to a new decade and have a great week everyone!

**More pics to come! Just having problems uploading them to my laptop**