How to be a writer in Lagos. (;-P)

You must first be seen hobnobing with people in the writing community, never miss an opportunity to attend a book reading at arty fatsy places such as Glendora, Bogobiri, Jazzhole and Quintessence.

Be very vocal, so vocal, people could easily mistake you for a freedom rights activist. Your role and main goal is to be heard, not through your written words, but your voice. You must scream and you must argue with fanatical fervor.You mustn’t forget to dress the part. Please endeavour to appear dirty, dingy and dodgy. Dressing up nicely or “normally” will just not cut it here.You are a tortured soul, and therefore cannot be bothered by trivial things such as looks. You must wear dread locks or dada and preferably a pair of nerdy glasses, dirty jeans and smelly looking tee shirts. It would help if you could pretend to be gay or bisexual, you will come off as very worldly and open minded and liberal.

Think about it.

My brothers

See that woman over there, the one with the unassuming face and too sparkly jewellery?

The one straining her neck and staring far way into space as though expecting someone?

Well, She’s been sleeping with two brothers, my brothers.

You’d never have guessed if you hadn’t been told right?

She sleeps with one for pleasure, and the other for money.

I see her come and go at odd times. Both are addicted to her, unaware that they not only share the same blood, but the same woman.

What to do when in Love

When in love, fearlessly express your love in a variety of ways. Never worry about what others might say or think. Always speak the truth that lies in your heart.

When in love, gather all your courage with both hands, and feel free to beat up your man, or chase him around the village square as Ntsame Minlame did in Daniel Mengara’s Mema, at the end of the chase, you can always dramatically end the scene by using your machete on yourself, what better way to demonstrate the term ‘crazy in love’.

Continue to love selflessly a person who has demonstrated countless times, the inability to reciprocate your love, a person who does not in any way deserve your love or friendship, when in love, you are allowed major acts of stupidity and great foolishness, after all, it is only fools who love.

When in love, please remember to act irrational, you are after all high on the drug ‘love’. You cannot be blamed for your deeds. You follow only the dictates of your heart.

Where thou goes, there also shall I go, if you smoke weed, I’ll smoke some too, if you jump off the third mainland bridge, baby, I’ll be right behind you.

Being in love allows you quarrel with everyone you’ve known all your life for the sake of your boo. They don’t know how this person makes you feel, he’s the best, she’s the best! Bla bla, no one can understand you, because no one has ever loved like you.

The sun is obviously brighter, and the whole world is much more beautiful, even the debris in the gutter looks like art in your love struck eyes.

Love is a beautiful drug. It made you empty your bank account for your amore. It also made you fly away for a weekend getaway on a Tuesday, when you should have been tending to pressing matters at work and caused you to be fired on Monday morning.

Ah! Lest I forget, you must forget yourself and what you deserve, you must mould yourself and build your life around the one you love so deeply, passionately, foolishly. After all, love is all about giving selflessly.

Accept it when birthdays are forgotten, and  gifts turn out to be discarded things your lover could do without. There’s love in sharing. You on the other can spend hours poring over the perfect gift, someone has to teach by example, besides, its only been  7 years, he’ll learn next year.

 

My mother never

My Mother never told me about ever jumping off a moving train in hot pursuit of a thief.
Grandma Did you  know?
Ahn Ahn – did you not know?
Nooo! I did not know oh!
Mummy never said.
Your mother was a student at the time and was travelling to Yola from Kaduna. I told her to give me her school money to keep because they are many thieves on the train , she refused, and put it in her bag.

It was while we were arguing about it, that a thief snatched her bag.
Your mother wasted no time, she immediately took off after him. I ran after her screaming ‘thief thief’ Catch that thief! –
To avoid being caught, the thief jumped off the train as it slowed down,  but he had stolen from the wrong person, because your mother jumped off too, and so did I.

What! You too!
Ha, I was quite fit in those days my dear.

Your mother caught up with the thief and started fighting with him. I joined in, thinking that we could over power him, but he turned to me in the struggle and latched his teeth and bit so hard into my breast, causing it to bleed profusely.
That is how I got this scar.

And the man cried…

Slowly, as though in a dream, my vision at first blurred, focuses
on the wet red tomatoes across the roadside in front of me. I am fascinated by the
beads of water with tiny bits of sunlight glistening on them.  I stare at the woman screaming at passersby to
buy her tomatoes and ata rodo, she reminds me of a female Buddha, with her
slits for eyes and rotund figure.

I cannot remember how, and when I got here, I do not know
why I am seated here  on the pavement,
next to the gutter. My freshly starched white kaftan is smeared with mud, shit,
and all sorts of rubbish.

“Meeeeeriiiiiilllaaaand! Ojotajotajota”!

“Ojota –ketu-mile12”!

“Ikeja insideeeeee

It is rush hour and everywhere around me I see tired, angry
and anxious faces, impatient to get home.

Motorist blare their horns in competition, commuters stand
in endless queues waiting for buses.

I feel removed from the scene before me, I feel numb, I feel
nothing.

Nightfall slowly approaches, yet I’m still perched at the
roadside, inhaling the pungent smell emanating from inside the gutter , I
glance in at  the thick paste of
blackened sand and floating pure water wraps, entangled with pieces of broken
glass, sticks,  and all manner of debris and
a blackberry…

As I stare at the blackberry, recollection floods my mind.

I feel  hot and cold
all at once, my pulse begins to race, my heart pounds like a samba drum.

I start to sweat, even though  it’s a chilly evening.

I remember how my morning started, bright and happy, a warm
kiss from Nkem , a hug from Obi and a cup of coffee -black, just the way I
liked it.

We made plans to spend the day playing football at the park.

I remember Nkem’s
tearful phone call.

I listened as her voice trailed off and my mind retreated to
that  place where everything is dark and
warm,  where’s  there is no pain, feelings or thoughts.

We will never play at the park.

I will never see his eyes squinting at me, or hear his
mischievous laughter.

I will never watch Ben 10, Samurai jack or Dexter’s
laboratory.

I will never feel him crawl into our bed at night because he
had a bad dream or was frightened by the storm.

I will never hold the warm body of my obi in an embrace or
feel  his wet sloppy kisses on my cheeks.

My Mother…

Mother died two days ago. I stood there helplessly watching
her as her breathing gradually slowed down and her heart stopped beating.

A strange calmness came over me, everything seemed to be in slow motion, and I took stock of the scene before me. Everything around me was chaotic, everybody was suddenly playing a role in this bizarre nightmare that had suddenly become our reality. Mother was on the hospital bed, suddenly looking like a peaceful child who had fallen asleep, her hair woven to the back in the exact same hairstyle I had on, her wrapper tied loosely around her waist, she had no blouse on. On her right side sat my sister Agnes, pulling at my mother’s hands, crying hysterically and asking her, imploring, demanding of mother, all at once to wake up so we could go home. Mother’s older sister, Aunty Helen instantly became a shadow of herself; she jumped up and slammed her head hard on the marble floor, twice.

I remember thinking at the time that it would be very bad
indeed to lose both my mother and aunt on the same day.  I calmly walked to my mother and began to arrange her clothes. I felt it would be wrong to cross to the next world with her wrapper tied on her waist, without even a blouse. I reached out and picked her blouse from the bed and set about wearing it on her body.  I reached out to my sister and held her close to my bosom as she wept hot bitter tears.

2.

Its 5 am, we are all gathered outside at the Military Hospital Yaba.

We have come to take our Mother to the village to bury her.
Agnes and I as the first two are responsible for dressing our mother. Before we enter the Mortuary, the mortuary attendants ask that we wait while they go in to make sure “they” are ready for us. They knock three times and pause for some minutes before proceeding inside. We huddle together, cold and shivering as much from the morning air as well as the close proximity to the dead. After a short while, my sister and I are ushered in. We step into another world. All around us are people who have departed this world; many are naked, men, women and children of different shapes, colours and sizes. They are naked, their faces frozen forever in death. I am frightened, shaken to my core, but I know that being the Ada, I have to be brave and strong, even if inside me, I am shaking with fear and screaming for my mother to wake me up from the nightmare which I have found myself.

We approach the slab where her body lies, and I stare and stare. The person who lies here isn’t my mother. The body is hers, the hairstyle is hers, but her face is not my mother’s face. It has the same frozen frown, the look the dead wear. I touch her skin, and it feels icy cold, no longer soft and supple as I remember it to be, I try to lift her arm, but alas, it is terribly heavy. I am greatly disturbed. Up until this moment, the reality of her death hadn’t hit me. To calm myself down, so I can function, I start chatting with her, as though she can hear me. I believe in my heart, that she can. We finish dressing her up, I apply makeup on her face and by the time we were through, her face has a smile on it! In wonder, I turn to my sister and ask her “Is that a smile I see on mother’s face? Or am I imagining things?” To which she answers, “It is indeed a smile”

 

 

 

Him

I like a certain type of man. I like my man to be extremely intelligent.

I don’t particularly care if he’s stylish. I would appreciate his style though if he has one and it appealed to me.

It would be great if he allowed me dress him, it would mean he trusts my taste, it would also be fun.

I tend to like artistic types, eccentric, bearded, sometimes dread locked men.

Hell, I don’t mind hairy men, facial hair is sexy, just don’t bring a gorilla!

On the other hand, I love geeks too.

A praying man is key.

A man who’s got that little confusion thing going on, where he knows numbers and statistics and all sort of intelligent facts, but needs me to sort out his daily life. I like being needed. I like men who have a tough side too. Defend my honor.

Give me a smart Mandingo any day over a purrty boi. Manly man. That’s my man.

I don’t care for a man who looks like a wimp, someone I can walk all over. That would not do at all.

I don’t want my gay best friend as my template for my ideal man neither do I want a Johhny Bravo look alike in my quest to find a man’s man.

I do not want a man who imagines himself a warlock who has acquired me as part of his spoils of war, to do with me as he pleases.

Woe betides such a man…

He shall wake up withOUT his penis!

Give me a calm compassionate man who actually has a heart, red blood running in his veins and a head for numbers,  an ear for music and taste buds for food cooked with love and I will love him fiercely and be loyal to him.

Zoo

This is me at a Zoo, in Abuja, Nigeria.

I spent a very wonderful afternoon there in the company of humans I love.

I imagined what it would feel like to be an Animal locked up in a cage, not having the freedom to go and come as I  please. That would be unbearable.

Being in that Zoo brought happy memories of my siblings and I walking around with our Mother.

 

Link

Trailer of the movie Half of a yellow sun _ Directed by Biyi Bandele

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/festival/2013/halfofayellowsun

Brain thaw

I’m writing this with nothing particular in mind.

I am writing simply because I feel an urgent need to write, let words flow out of me.

Who says I must always make sense or write clever and witty posts?

Can I not simply open a blank page and type away to my hearts content?

I am experiencing a bad case of writers block.

I have so many words swimming around in my head, but I can’t seem to get them out in a coherent pattern.

I shall try this exercise everyday for the next seven days and see how much the block in my head will thaw.ck

New Year resolutions I shall not make!!

I made no new year resolutions last year, and I shall not make any this year.

I find that I never actually keep to those resolutions and I end up feeling like I’ve failed myself.

So I stopped. This year, I shall concentrate on just being a better me.

Rantings

It’s a couple of hours till the year 2012 ends.I’m seated here, in front of a borrowed computer, and the words that have eluded me for months, come pouring forth. I am thankful for life, thankful for good health, my family, everything really.

A couple of hours ago, I had an accident, it was nothing major, not too minor either, but it caused blood to flow out of my body, and gave me cause to pause and think… To think of the many thousand scenarios in which the accident I had just experienced could have either been fatal or totally been avoided.

I’m glad I survived it, glad I’m with family, glad I had pasta for dinner, and glad I mixed pink Champagne, water and Sprite.

2012 has been an eventful and eye opening year for me, I’ve learned and matured, and understand myself a bit better than I did last year. I’m at peace with the Universe, and I’m very thankful for the gift of love it sent my way.

Happy new year earthlings and aliens alike.May the new year be better than this.

I Want

I want commitment. I want love. I want mind blowing sex. I want laughter. I want passion. I want peacé