Photo highlights of our Nigeria trip.

Hello everyone,

We were in Nigeria for three weeks and two days and boy do I have a lot to tell you. It was Tot’s first time and my first time in six years, so it was really special. I enjoyed seeing the world through Tot’s eyes, his delight and lizards and geckos the dusty, dusty roads in Awka (Willie was working!). The rest of Anambra’s roads were like glass so I am inclined to believe the slogan.

Here are some highlights from our trip.  Will update the blog with more stories and photos soon. As soon as I get my speech for SOAS’ Igbo Conference out of the way. (Oy. I am trembling. I have 40 minutes to speak. FORTY MINUTES!! Why me, lord?)

Pretending to have a beard with his travel pillow. En route to Awka from Abuja by car. A whopping 7-hour drive!

Playing shadows at his grandma’s house in Lagos. It was not even noon yet.

 

This used to be the site for Polo Park when I was growing up. It’s one big mall right now which broke my heart but the park had been run-down for years with no support so…Oh look. They kept one ride.

Campaign posters were EVE-RY-WHERE in Awka (and Nigeria in general)! A visual riot. And so much littering. I took the photo because of the guy in the barrister garb opening his eyes. His slogan was ‘Shine your eyes’. LOL!

One of my mother’s ‘customers’ in Nnewi. Her hair is made from strands of rubber thread. Highly flammable but also very exquisite. I saw so many differently styled isi-owu’s made with the same shiny rubber thread. Much more intricate styling to when I lived there.

She was kind enough to turn and let me take a back view. I took both with her permission.

 

Macjew table water! MACJEW! HAHAHAHOHOHOHEHEHE! *Dead* My people will not kill me. Taken en route to Awka from Abuja. #Theheightofsophistication #Scottish #Jewish

 

 

 

Things you’re not supposed to do around Christmas

It’s that time again

Summertime. Coconut oil and scooters Cocktails, barbecues, The air thick with accents And Igbo drop-tops line the streets.

Happy New Day…etcetera.

If there is one day guaranteed to make me feel a bit squiffy, it’s New Year’s eve.

I don’t know why. Partying doesn’t seem to help; the sight of revellers snogging in all their party finery only makes me even squiffier, sadder maybe. It’s like looking at piles of dust and old bones. And church, well, joyous old bones, yes, but bones and dust nonetheless.

I suppose that’s morbidity for you. I have always held a fascination for the morbid.

But, that’s not really it, I don’t think. It goes beyond my daily morbid fascinations. It surpasses all those introspections, the navel-gazing in which one is supposed to indulge today. I just feel really odd. It is as if I do not deserve my life somehow – and yet, I am not ever satisfied with my life. Not really. They is always something I could be doing better. Ha, more like I could be doing the WHOLE thing better if there was only enough time and you know, if I was a better person. Which I am not. So, of course, I am stuck in squiff like an ant in thick custard.

No, it’s not that either.

You know, I am not sure what it is, because if you think about it, technically, it’s just another day. In the course of my existence as a mostly nocturnal writer, I have crossed the midnight threshold more times than I care to count; oftentimes, two letters in the same word are written on two different days. I hardly notice. But New Year’s eve just imbues things with a lot more meaning than it should and this is annoying. I hate that it takes one day to make people sit up and take notice. I hate that on the day, a year’s worth of experiences for me, seems distilled into a drop, an essence. This is a careless way of viewing the world surely – the human mind and humanity is so fickle – how can you trust what you feel on one particular day and why should it govern, as it seems to, your resolutions about the coming year?

Eugh. I digress again. I am not certain that this is what I meant to say either. Sorry. I told you I was feeling squiffy.

Maybe I don’t really feel this way any more. This year wasn’t a bad year for me. I had you guys and I didn’t hate myself so much and I actually made some progress in my writing because I stopped dreaming and started doing. I am well in myself, my family is alright and I do have much to be thankful for.

Maybe all this contrariness  in feeling is just my mind remembering that it is supposed to feel that way. A habit, rather than a fact.

But my point is, do I have to be uber thankful with everyone? Surely, it’s like showing love only on Valentine’s day when ideally it should be spread out throughout the year. Do I have to go through the vortex of other people’s emotions and gratitude and reverence and debauchery today? Do I have to be swept along in the murkiness and muckiness of humanity?

Can I not just slink once more past midnight without all the bells and whistles?

So, I have decided.

I shall throw away all man-made constructs like time and years. I will throw off the weight of forced gaiety and  reflection. I will try not to think about the fact that with every breath, I am farther away from innocence and no nearer to the amount  of wisdom I desire. I am going to avoid looking through the drop of last year’s essence because I know that it will magnify areas which I should most likely forget. I am going to put on some music and dance.

Tomorrow, I will wake up and be grateful for a new day.

And I will try as usual, not to mess it up.

Happy New Day everyone!

Enfield

My Nigeria trip has been postponed so I did the next best thing – I went to Enfield in North London (actually Middlesex) for the weekend.

Enfield from the front door.

Ah! Enfield. I spent two years after my MA living and working here and came to the conclusion that: 1)This has got to be the biggest Igbo community in London and 2) My God, are they Igbo.

This is the place that gave me Liyonard after all.

The minute I got off the bus, I could feel my steps become decidedly ijele-ish, swaying in that heavy-bottomed way that tells the story of offspring, much in the same way the male of the species pisses over territory.  I didn’t mean to, it just happened. I thought I had escaped ‘the pullover’ as I got to my destination but within a few minutes of introductions, someone had called me ‘Nwa Baby’ and they weren’t Flavour N’abania.

Even Tot is in heaven, turning his head this way and that like an nkakwu discovering new nuts as accents fly at him from every direction.

In true Igbo fashion I’ve been co-opted to cook a meal for my cousin’s thing, so I have to go now. I hope I haven’t been too ‘rambly’ and I pray something blogworthy happens at that event today.

Don’t you?