Enkay's

Nigeria At 50 - Day 13 "Complicated. But....."

2010-10-13T07:30:00.000+01:00

Nigeria at 50 - day 12 Flygirl www.flygirlbidiish.blogspot.com

I have always known that my country's issues, challenges and problems are multi-faceted but nothing brought it home to me like my experience at the FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corps) office at Ojodu, Lagos, recently.

The first time I got my drivers' license, it was through my instructor at the driving school I was attending at the time. He told me how much it would cost, I gave him the money and in less than three days, I had my drivers' license. No stress, no hassles.

On my birthday this year, my license expired and I proceeded to go get a renewal.
I had envisaged that the process was probably going to be a very tedious one and I was prepared to go through the rigour. However, the officers I met seemed to have other plans. From the gate, the first officer (Let's call him Officer-1) was quite friendly and he pointed me in the general direction of the license office. He said I needed to check for my name in their database first and if it was not found then I needed to begin the process of requesting for a fresh license since my old one was not the 'original'.

I approached the building I believed 'Officer-1' had directed me to and just to be sure, I approached Officer-2 who sent me right back in the direction from which I had come.
"No, no, no, go to that green building first" he says.
I squint and follow the direction of his outstretched arm and even though I could not see any 'green' building, I set off in that direction. I got to the front of a small building, the green paint on it now almost white and since there was a crowd there, I approached Officer-3,

"Please I would like to renew my license but no body has been able to give me clear directions".

"Oh, okay, follow me" she says and we walk right back towards the direction Officer-1 had initially pointed out only we stopped halfway to stand under a shed where car safety accessories were sold.

Officer-3 punches some numbers on her phone and barks into it,

"Meet me under the shed. Hurry up, a customer is waiting!". In less than five minutes a young man approaches us and Officer-3 says, "Madam please follow him. He will help you". And that was it. Officer-3 walks away and I follow Agent-1 who leads me to a spacious reception office and asks me to relax.

To cut a long story short, Agent-1 does everything for me, after I had paid his quoted amount and hands me a photocopy of my filled-out application form with instructions to return the next day around 1pm to have my photograph taken.

Here's where it begins to get interesting.

I returned the next day and Agent-1 led me to the license office. There was a queue that extended a few yards from the entrance and Agent-1 asked me to stand behind the last person on it. A few minutes later, Boss-1 comes out barking at those of us on the queue.

"What are you people doing here?! Eh?! Where is your tally? What is your number?!"

I quickly deduced that ALL of us on the queue were there illegally. I quietly left the queue so that I would not be embarassed.

"If one of those small boys told you to stand on this queue, you are wasting your time o! They have no power to influence things here! None at all. So please leave this place!".
Boss-1 was still barking even as I walked away in search of Agent-1.

Agent-1 assured me that there was absolutely no problem and asked me to wait some distance away. He did not tell me how long I was to wait but he promised that it would work out. I began to feel uneasy when I realized that Boss-1 was trying to ensure that things were done properly and orderly. From my vantage position, I watched as licensees were herded from a conference room in a building several yards away to the license office. They all had tally numbers. Apparently, a good number of them had been there as early as 7am and most of them said they'd been waiting for their photographing appointment for several months!

While I sat on a bench pondering my presence there without an appointment, the person sitting next to me tapped my shoulder "Madam, dem dey call you". Agent-1 nodded me towards an officer at the entrance who asked me to hurry inside, along with about eight others, and take a seat. We were the 'shunters'. Boss-1 had gone into his office probably patting himself on the back for being very efficient. Boss-2 was in the lobby 'continuing' with what Boss-1 had started, only this time, Boss-2 was allowing some 'special' licensees to go straight inside to have their photographs taken while the rest of us sat on rows of benches awaiting our turn. But who was I to complain? I was shunting as well!

After about two hours, Boss-1 appears again and since the people on the last row could not produce their tallies, he sent them out and called for a younger officer (Officer-4) to go bring in the last set of licensees from the conference room.
"The last set should be numbers 420 to 445 right?" Boss-1 asks Officer-4. Shaking his head and poring over sheets of papers spread out on a counter at one corner of the room, Officer-4 replies
"Sir, we are still at number 289 sir."
There was an incredulous look on Boss-1's face. "But we were at 275 before I went into my office 2 hours ago!". Officer-4 was staring at his shoes as though he was clueless.
Boss-1 skimmed the faces seated on the benches as though he could somehow point out the shunters. You could see just how frustrated and exasperated he was.
Boss-2 barked "Next!" and then it was my turn to go inside. The time was 5pm.

That day at the FRSC office painted for me a clear picture of just how complicated Nigeria's issues are . Even though someone at the head feels like it is his responsibility to make things work and is indeed doing his best, there are other seemingly inconsequential elements foiling his attempts!
It showed me that even though it takes one man to make a difference, it will take the rest of us to sustain that difference and make it a way of life.
I could have insisted on getting an appointment and refusing to shunt but I didn't and that makes me culpable too. I could stand and point accusing fingers but I must first look inwards and be the change I want to see.

Okay, so it is complicated BUT, it is not all bad.

I got a taste of how efficient and effective the Nigerian Police Force could be and it sparked some hope in me.

I was on my way to work one morning around 5.30am. I needed to pick up a colleague of mine at Estate bus-stop just under the pedestrian bridge. There were many danfo buses struggling to find a place to park so they could 'shadow' passengers and I knew well enough to drive some meters ahead of them to park. Everything seemed clear and so I turned into a space just after the bridge where BRT buses would normally exit the bus-stop. Just as I was clearing off the road there was a huge "Gboa!". A danfo bus had rammed into my side towards the rear on the passenger's side, taking my tail lights with it as it sped off. Everything happened so suddenly that I didn't know just how to react. I came out of the car and several by-standers yelled at me "Madam! You no go pursue am?!"
Pursue who? To where?
The damage was bad and when I saw that my tail lights were gone, I just started crying. I felt helpless. Not only were my tail lights expensive, it was the third time I was being bashed in the last 6months!

Suddenly bright lights flooded the area and sirens came on. It was the RRS team parked a short distance away. "Madam, please clear well." one of the officers said to me as they jumped into their vehicle.
They had seen the whole thing and apparently, the danfo driver was trying to run away after being accosted by one of the officers for double parking. I just happened to be turning in at precisely that same time.

About 40minutes later, the RRS team returned and one of the officers brought the danfo driver to me holding him by the collar. I almost laughed in relief. The officer advised me to take the case to the nearest police station if I felt we could not come to a suitable agreement. They handed me the documents for the danfo which they had collected from the driver just in case he was planning to run away.
I was amazed at how professional the police men were acting. I was still trying to calculate how much 'egunje' I would have to part with but they simply nodded when I thanked them for their help, turned around, got into their vehicle and drove away. Maybe to go help another citizen.

I felt so pleased that I was lenient with the crazy driver making him pay for the body work of the car while I took care of the tail lights.
That was the first time I got the chance to see the NPF in another light - better light and I kept thinking, there is still HOPE!
It is possible for things to change in Naija. Not all the apples in this basket are rotten!

To view the next in these series please visit -

Nigeria at 50 - day 14 LamikayTy www.lamikayty.com

"The Golden Age"

2010-09-29T12:14:00.001+01:00

'Tis been 50years and the road has been quite long, join us as we celebrate Nigeria's Golden Age at oluSimeon www.simeoneomobaba.blogspot.com on 1st October, 2010.

My Little Nene

2010-03-04T08:01:00.004+01:00

"When I look at you all I see is hands and legs!"

Those are the words with which I often teased Nene.

Nene towers at a whooping 5'10" and since her slim, lanky frame and young body hardly had any flesh on it, anyone seeing her for the first time was bound to notice her hands and legs first. She turned sixteen last October and I have missed her angelic face and innocent demeanour since I moved out of my former neighbourhood two years ago.

Nene is dark skinned and unusually tall for her age but she carries her frame well. She's rather laid back and not quite as talkative as most girls of her peergroup.

Abigail, Nene's aunty is a friend of mine from church. She has lived with Nene's parents since her secondary school days until recently when she had to go away to University. They live in the same neighbourhood as my parents and that was how I came to meet and know Nene. The two of them often took evening strolls together and since our house was in their path, they often stopped by for a chat. Nene would stand at a respectful distance away from the two of us while we chatted but I often drew her into our conversations. She was shy at first but in the course of time she loosened up and became freer with me. Free enough indeed that she often came to visit with me all by herself.

It did not matter that I was older than her by almost 14 years, I quickly found that Nene and I could spend a long time talking about almost anything. Nevermind that I was answering her questions half the time. She had an inquisitive mind that girl and I found it rather refreshing to have a sweet thing like herself ask me questions and listen earnestly while I answered as though I was one of the ancients possessing an inexorable store of wisdom.

The way she carried herself often made people think she was older than she really was but her naivety and innocence often gave away the fact that she was still a child. A child that was in the process of becoming a woman.

Nene became a woman all too quickly. Her innocence has been tainted and I dare say lost, for only a few months ago I got news that Nene was expecting a baby. Yes, Nene who herself had barely left her childhood behind is about to become a mother. Before the end of next month, her baby would have arrived.**
By the time this sad news reached me, Nene was already six months pregnant. I was also told that her mother only found out when she was five months gone.

What kind of a mother is that? I am sure you would wonder. But after hearing from Abigail, who is Nene's mother's sister, my questions fell silent on my lips.

Nene had passed her JAMB exams and there was just one more hurdle to cross before she could gain entrance into the Abia State University. She had done all that was necessary to register for her post-JAMB screening test and now all she had to do was study in preparation for it. She often went to the library at the community school nearby to study but most of the time she stayed at home.

Nene is the first of five children and according to her mother, Nene was the kind of daughter every mother prayed for. She had a strong sense of responsibility and she looked after her younger ones well. She hardly ever put a foot wrong but even if she did, it didn't take much to place her on the right path again.

Mama Nene has a shop where she sells staple food items at the community market a few streets from the house so it was easy for her to quickly come home to cook the meals and receive the kids as they returned home from school. Since Nene left secondary school however, this became unnecessary because Nene always had food ready for her siblings when they came home and she generally had the home front under control.

She hardly kept any friends so when Nene informed her mother that she would like to join the youth fellowship of their church she readily agreed. Her parents felt that it was healthy for her to mix up with young people of the same age in a morally sound atmosphere as would be expected from a church.

It was in church that Nene met Pascal. They became good friends and since he was also getting ready to take JAMB, they often studied together. Mama Nene had seen them together twice and on both occassions, Pascal was seeing Nene home from church. Nothing seemed to be amiss so no questions were asked.

The date for her post-JAMB screening exam came and Nene went to write the exam. Her parents suggested that she should go to the village to stay for a while with her grandma who needed some company. Nene stayed with grandma for three and a half months before returning to Lagos.
The Nene that returned from Abia state seemed visibly changed. Her face shone unusually and she had added a considerable amount of weight. She laughed whenever anyone pointed out this obvious fact saying that her grandma pumped her with too much food.

Mama Nene was rather pleased that her daughter had put on some flesh something she had been trying to do for her for a long time. The slight bulge of Nene's abdomen went unnoticed.

Upon her return, Nene threw herself into church activities more than ever before. She often left the house early in the morning and returned when it was quite dark. Mama Nene began to complain because Nene began to leave undone her house chores and her siblings without a proper meal.

Abigail failed to tell me exactly how it all went down but at five months surely it was becoming increasingly difficult for Nene to hide her bump.Her parents found out and cries of woe could be heard from their apartment that morning.Nene confirmed that Pascal was responsible and immediately Papa Nene, his fury very evident, dashed out of the house with a matchete, he was headed straight for Pascal's parents house, Nene and Mama Nene in tow.

Pascal denied ever having anything to do with Nene but Nene insisted that he was responsible. Nene and her parents returned to their apartment determined to hide their shame. That same night, Pascal and his parents came to see Papa Nene full of apologies. Their son had confessed saying he denied Nene out of fear. Pascal had also just turned sixteen. They were both evidently children and Papa Pascal wanted to know what Papa Nene wanted them to do.

It was that same night that Nene opened up to her mother. Her father didn't even want to look at her face let alone hear her voice.

Pascal had often come to the house so that they could both study. Nene swore that it was only once that they had sex. When Abigail said this, I told her that I believed Nene. She said her mother did too.
It happened two weeks before she left for Abia for her exam.
She started suspecting that she was pregnant when it seemed that her period was taking too long in coming. She usually did not take note of the dates but when she was half way through the second month, she was sure that she was pregnant. She often violently threw up most of what she ate and her grandma took her to a nearby chemist to procure malaria drugs.

She called Pascal to inform him of her status and after blubbering at first that they were in trouble he promised to send her some money so she could terminate it. How he came by the money, Nene did not know but in less than five days, Pascal had sent her fifteen thousand naira.

Scared and alone, Nene went into the city to look for clinics where she could have an abortion. All three of them said the same thing. "It is too late. If you abort the baby now, you might die."
She cried and cried her heart out and was scared to return to Lagos. But she did and used church as a cover to hide the pregnancy.She had neither spoken to or seen Pascal until that morning when he denied her before both their families. Nene had told Pascal that morning that she never wanted to see him again.

By the time her narrative was over, Nene and her mother were in tears.

Mama Nene looked at her baby and felt so sorry that she had gone through all that alone. She felt ashamed that she hadn't been more observant.She saw as if for the first time how her daughter had changed. Not physically, even though that was obvious but she saw that Nene had somehow grown up in the space of a few months. There was a maturity about her, an invisble halo of strength, the kind that could only have come from carrying such a heavy burden alone. From private suffering.

Mama Nene also felt sorry for herself. That at barely forty years of age, she would be a grandmother. If the circumstances had been different, she might have even felt some pride. How was she going to tell her neighbours and her fellow market women when the baby arrived, that the baby she was caring for belonged to her young unwed daughter?

The crying was over and both women began to make plans for the baby. Nene had gone too long without ante-natal care and that was a good place to start. The doctor said that mother and child were fine but Nene did not understand why her mother suddenly burst out in tears in the middle of one of the classes. The head nurse had to politely ask her to leave. She did the same thing for three consecutive classes and Nene had to ask her mother not to bother accompanying her anymore.

Mama Nene became a shadow of herself and Papa Nene grew increasingly furious everytime he laid his eyes on his daughter. He slapped her once when she served his food. He said the plates were not properly aligned in the food tray. Nene had never taken notice of the plate alignment all her years of serving her father until then.

Soon arrangements were made and Nene was to go stay with her dad's sister, Pamela on the other side of town. They could not risk the entire neighbourhood finding out about their secret. Tongues had already started wagging but they were mere rumours. No need giving them any more substantiating evidence.

As Mama Nene turned to say her good-byes after dropping Nene off at Auntie Pamela's place, Nene held her mother's hands and with tears brimming in her eyes, she said...

"Mummy, I know I have disappointed you and daddy. I am ashamed of myself. I see the way you have become so sad and depressed because of me. Mummy please do not worry yourself sick, if you died of stress or hypertension, what will I do?
Even though I am paying the price for my mistake now, I promise you ma that I will still be the woman I was born to be. If you will just help me in taking care of this child, I will go to school and pick up the thread of my life from where I left it. I will still make you and daddy proud. God has forgiven me. Mummy please forgive me too and give me your blessings".

They held each other and cried while Nene's auntie looked on with sympathy. Mama Nene told Abigail later that night while she narrated the story that she was touched by her daughter's speech.So touched indeed that for the first time she felt that the situation was not that hopeless. That there was a huge possibility thats something good could come out of all of this.

My vision was blurred with the tears that filled my eyes as Abigail concluded her narrative. I was touched with the feeling of Nene's heavy burden. I cried also because I wondered if there was nothing I could have said to her during all those hours we spent talking that would have turned her away from the path she eventually took. I felt I had not been emphatic enough to warn her about little games young people play that could change their lives for ever. It angered me that the boy in question could conveniently stand apart from it all while Nene took the entire brunt of their mistake. My pillow was wet with my tears that night. Sleep eluded me.

My Nene, my little Nene has been forced to grow up in this manner because of a few minutes of indiscretion.Somehow, I too felt that all hope was not lost for her.If I had had the chance to see her before she was shipped off,I would have told her the very same words she said to her mother. That the story of her life need not end here but out of all this shame, she could rise again and become the woman she was born to be.

I guess I would just wait and see how it all plays out. Please join me in saying a prayer for Nene.

** -- I started working on this post last month.

PS: I just confirmed that Nene had her beautiful baby girl a few days ago.
Pascal's family took care of all the hospital bills and they're paying a stipend monthly for the upkeep of the baby.
Mama Nene has insisted on caring for the child herself.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T08:00:00.000+01:00

This is just a short note to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's day!

Let's make the extra effort to put a smile on someone's face today and spread the joy all around.

Let your love show and let everyone know that love is one of the few things that we get more of by giving it away.

Happy Valentine!

Lost in America III

2010-01-15T08:00:00.001+01:00

My feet were beginning to hurt and the cold was biting the tips of my fingers and toes. I was getting hungry and I badly needed to drink some water.
One by one, the true inhabitants of Downtown Houston started coming out. Several homeless people were setting up their cardboard homes for the night.

I saw a group of young boys laughing raucously and passing a lit cigarette (might have been weed or crack) around. They were mostly black. I'm not sure why but for the first time that night, I became really afraid.

I thought of calling Steve but I felt that he already had his hands full with Isabel's illness.Even if I did get to find a telephone, I had no idea what his number was! There was no way to contact him or anyone else for that matter. I had left my little diary in my other handbag.

I knew for a fact that I was lost and alone. That's when the tears came.

There I was, a full grown woman, thousands of miles away from home, hopelessly lost in America. I cried quietly to myself, occasionally letting out a groan when there was no one else close by. I cried because I was angry with myself. I cried because I was afraid. I cried because I felt so stupid and silly at the same time.

Most of the shops and eateries were beginning to close further reducing my chances of getting help.
Up ahead, I saw a concrete bench and beside it a lone lamp post. I judged it safe enough so I went over and sat down. My teeth were beginning to chatter. My jacket was proving to be no match for the cold. There was a numbness in my toes and I wished I'd worn more comfortable shoes. I held my head in my hands marveling at my mind for being so blank at a time like that.

I do not remember now what it was exactly that caught my attention.

Across the street from me, there was this huge woman. She was talking to a smallish man but they were the least of my problems at the time otherwise, I'd have spared them 2 minutes wondering at their relationship and shaking my head at the vast difference between their sizes.

At that particular point in time, the woman started laughing. I looked up and at the same time I saw an old lady walking her dog. The lady was passing in front of the 'mis-matched' couple at just the point when the huge woman doubled over and let out a loud laugh."Buhahahaha!"
The smallish man must have been saying something funny because the woman just kept on letting out loud deep bellied laughs. She spooked the dog which took off suddenly jerking her owner after her.

It was funny to watch the old lady being nearly dragged by her dog. Funny enough to make the smallish man join the huge woman as their bodies were wracked with great feats of laughter. The huge woman was laughing so hard that she nearly lost her balance and had to support herself by holding on to a sign post.

I caught myself smiling and somehow that reminded me that I hadn't yet sent up a prayer for help. I looked up and said a really short prayer. It was short because I had barely completed my sentence when my eyes caught something.

It was the sign post. The same one that the huge woman was holding on to for support. How come I hadn't seen it before?
My brows furrowed as I squinted, looking intently at the words on the sign post. And then I started smiling as I mentally slapped my forehead, as if to say, "You stupid girl!".
Without thinking, I got up from where I'd perched on the concrete bench and crossed the street. The huge woman was trying to catch her breath but I judged she would live. I looked up at the street sign, it was pointing to a street that turned off the street I was standing on and sure enough, it said "Congress St."

Hah! Congress street! Thank you Jesus! I'd been so intent on finding 'Fannin Street' that I'd completely forgotten all about Congress Street. The Metro lady had said my 008 bus would pick me up at the corner of Fannin & Congress

but I one-sidedly stuck to the word 'Fannin'. I had been walking several streets parallel to Fannin all along!

The bus driver wasn't wrong in the general direction to which he had pointed. It would have helped if he had specifically asked me to go two streets further. Sure enough, as I walked along Congress, I got to a stop sign and there was the METROrail train approaching. I was too tired to mentally slap my forehead again. After the train passed, I crossed the street and there was Fannin staring me right in the face!

It had been nearly two hours since I had braced my self and taken that first step. Two hours of being lost, tortured by the cold. As I sat on one of the benches provided at the bust-stop, I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.
It wasn't long before my 008 bus arrived. It was a huge relief to find it warm and inviting. My body needed some thawing out.

I walked home from the bus-stop, slowly counting my steps. My mind was blank again, this time I guessed it was blank from relief.

I heard my name. I looked up and there was a man running towards me. There was no fear. I knew it was Steve. I didn't run towards him but I increased my pace. I had never been so glad to see anyone in my life. I let him hold me for a few minutes before I pulled away and we walked home in silence.

At the front door, I pulled out a hanky from my jacket pocket and handed it to Steve. It was still damp from wiping the tears from my face.
I said "Hold it".
He had a question on his face but he held it anyway.
"Feel the dampness?" I continued.
He nodded.
"Those are the tears I cried tonight"
There was a look of concern on his face which quickly gave way to a smile.That one sided smile of his. I smiled back and then we both started laughing. It was laughter born of sweet relief. It sure felt nice to be home again!

PS: - Steve had gone to look for me at the bus stop 4 times already. That was his fifth time after which he'd planned to call the police.

- Isabel had food poisoning, according to the doctors. They were not sure if it was the Ice Cream or something else.
She was allowed to come home three days later but she didn't return to work until after one week.

- I threw my Ice Cream away. Thanks but No, Thanks!

Lost in America II

2010-01-12T15:18:00.005+01:00

I had ordered some stuff on-line and just as I was about to check out, I was given two options of either having my stuff shipped to me or going to pick them
up at the nearest store.

Selecting the shipping option meant that I had to wait for at least 2 days to get them. "Why wait?" I thought to myself, "When I can get them today from the store?"

That was how the decision was made. Emboldened by the fact that I had found my way to work that morning all by myself with almost no hassles at all, I set out early from the office.

Little did I know that the problems I had encountered whilst trying to find the store was small compared to what I was about to face afterwards.

At the store,the attendant was a nice, young, bespectacled lady but she wasn't the person I had hoped would attend to me.

You see, I had called earlier before leaving the office, to confirm that I was headed to the right store and that they indeed had my package ready.

It was an interesting conversation.

A chirpy voice was at the other end of the line.

"Good morning, My Stuff Stores, how may I help you?"

I told her what my call was about and gave her details of my online transaction so she could confirm it.

She politely asked me to hold and after a few seconds she told me everything was in order and that I could come in anytime to pick up my stuff.

I thanked her and was about to end the call when she said

"Er, madam, may I ask a personal question?"

Out of sheer curiousity and with only a second's pause, I said "Go ahead"

She continued a bit tentatively "What part of Nigeria are you from?"

Her question caught me off guard. It was not so much the personal nature but the specificity of it. I mean, Americans would usually ask you, "What country do you come from?". And in an attempt to buttress their meaning they'll go on "....is it Jamaica, Africa, the Bahamas....?". As far as they are concerned, Africa is just one large piece of land and regardless of its size, it is classified in their minds as a single country rather than the awesome continent that it is.

With a quizzical look on my face, my reply was more question than statement "Imo State?"

To my astonishment, the breezy American accent quickly changed into a flawless Nigerian one.

"Ah! What part of Imo state?"

I told her and she exclaimed in Igbo "Nwannem Nwanyi!" - My sister!.
She said she could tell by my name, that I was Igbo. It turned out that our respective villages shared boundaries. There was an excited ring to her voice as she continued speaking, her sentences punctuated with Igbo words. We spent all of 3minutes talking as if we were long lost friends.

In that short time, I learned that she'd come to America 2 years before to study but her parents could no longer send her money so she had to get a job.
She said I shouldn't mind her American accent, that she had to take special lessons to perfect it otherwise she would never have got that job. The store didn't want to have their customers chased away by a Nigerian-sounding customer care agent.

Suddenly, she was all professional again, the accent was back and she apologized that her shift ended in 30minutes otherwise she would have loved to meet me.
And that was it,the call ended. No numbers were exchanged, there were no promises of future contact and there was definitely no talk of a meet up somewhere or anywhere for that matter.
As I gingerly placed the phone back into its cradle, I couldn't help but wonder if I had just dreamed the entire conversation up!

The store attendant handed me my package and I was tempted to ask her about a Nigerian lady that worked at the store but whose shift ended at one O'clock.
I didn't, instead I asked if I could use their phone to call the Metro and get directions for my way home. She obliged.

The call was a short one and the directions sounded reasonably easy to follow. I was to take the 66 from the nearest bustop to Downtown Transit Station, from there I was to take the METROrail that would stop me at the corner of Fannin and Congress at that stop, I'd take the 008 home! I wrote down the directions dutifully, thanked the attendant cheerily and I was on my way!

It wasn't long before the 66 came and I hopped on it. We had driven for a while before it occurred to me that I didn't check to see whether the bus was headed TO Downtown or FROM Downtown. The buses often had a sign saying 'South Bound' or 'North Bound' but I never was one who understood bearings so I often asked if the bus was headed towards a particular area or away from it. I spent a few more minutes arguing with myself if it was best to ask a fellow
passenger or the driver himself. Finally, I worked up courage and went to the driver.

He stopped me at the next stop with a sorry look on his face. I had been on the wrong bus! I was supposed to be heading the other way. He was nice though as he explained that I needed to cross over to the other side of the road and I was not to worry, the next bus would arrive in 10minutes. I thanked him and watched as the bus turned the corner and disappeared.

I wanted to slap myself! I stood at that bus- stop for another 20minutes before the real 66 arrived. This time, I was sure to ask the driver "Down Town?".
I waited to see him nod before I slid my ticket into the machine and boarded. I watched as the nightfall quickly descended but I wasn't worried,I knew that getting to DownTown was half-way home.

The Transit Station was the last stop so everyone disembarked, I made sure I was last in line so I could talk to the driver. I asked him where I could board METROrail and he pointed to an arbitrary location towards his left hand side. I followed the motion of his hand squinting as I did just to make sure I saw what I should see. There was no sign of a train so I looked at him with a question in my eyes and he kept pointing in that direction mumbling to himself as he did.

I thanked him and disembarked.

Perhaps I needed to walk over there to see exactly what he was pointing at. I crossed the street thinking to myself that the road was exceptionally wide but for the life of me I couldn't find any tracks let alone the train! I looked back at where the bus had been but it was no longer there and eerily there were no longer any buses parked at the station.

I looked up the road to my left hand side and down the road to my right hand side but it was all smoothly paved, no train track in sight!
I looked at my wristwatch, it was already a few minutes past 7pm. It was January and the weather was quite chilly. It was dark and the streets were quickly emptying. The working population were finding their way home, boarding park-and-ride buses.

And then I had a great idea. It seemed like a great one at the time anyway. I was simply going to walk! Afterall, the Downtown METROrail only served certain streets within the downtown area. Surely the street I sought could not be that far.

I pulled my head warmer down over my ears, raised the collar of my jacket, stuck my hands in the jacket pocket and I took the first step. My confidence level was at an all time high.

"I can do this!"

Everytime I got to a junction, I stopped to read the street name on the sign post before continuing. I had passed about four streets when I thought it wise to ask someone.
I did and he said, "oh, Fannin's just 5 or 6 blocks from here".
I smiled at him, grateful that I was actually headed in the right direction. Eight streets after, I began to question my understanding of the term 'block'. Didn't the distance between 2 streets represent one block?

I was pondering this thought when a man appeared, from no where it seemed, and lunged at me. I shrieked and jumped; my heart in my mouth. My shriek scared him too and he quickly backed away.
He turned out to be a homeless man who was trying to ask me for a few cents. I'd heard of America's homeless people and I was meeting my first one. He wore dirty clothes and his hair which stuck out in clumps from under the hood of his jacket looked like it had been smeared with mud. I pulled my bag closer to my chest, increased my strides and kept walking.

I walked and walked and walked and walked. I still hadn't found a sign that said Fannin. By then it began to occur to me that I'd made a very big mistake.

My confidence faltered.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2010-01-01T13:50:00.001+01:00

This is just a short note to wish Blogville a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2009 was a truly beautiful year for me and you guys helped make my time here both exciting and worthwhile.

The future is already here, and those things we thought we would accomplish in the 'future', we can actually begin to accomplish right now! It's the beginning of another decade. Let's make it count for something.

I pray that 2010 will be for all of us a year of greater fulfilment and accomplishments. Amen!

Once again,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Lost in America

2009-12-15T15:22:00.003+01:00

The day started rather normally. No fireworks. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I was running late, as usual and found myself tapping my right foot impatiently while the bus conductor 'shadowed' his passengers, cracking silly jokes at the expense of other passers-by.
The bus was taking too long to get filled and I could already see that traffic was beginning to build. It took a full 45 minutes before the bus finally pulled out of the motor park.

A woman with her fussy baby sat next to me on one side and a young man on the other who didn't have the decency of wearing a full shirt. He was wearing a sleeveless vest exposing his hairy arm-pits from which wafted a not so pleasant smell. Two weeks' worth of unwashed sweat I imagined. I looked down at his feet, they were tucked into a pair of well worn rubber slippers, dusty and smudged with a black greasy substance, might have been used engine oil. A cursory glance at his pants told a similar story. I concluded that the guy was a roadside mechanic off to work for the day.
I remember thinking, "Why in heaven's name would someone leave their house without taking a bath?"

I scooted as close as possible to the woman with the fussy and bawling child. The crying child and seemingly helpless mother were a better option compared to breathing in the dirtiness of the mechanic.

The bus was rickety, no surprise there but to add insult to injury, the fumes from the exhaust filled the entire bus! It wasn't so thick that it would kill us all but I just knew that I would get off that bus smelling of gasoline and carbon monoxide. Darn! I was beginning to get into a foul mood. Crappy danfo buses!

Halfway through the one hour trip to Lagos Island my phone rang. I usually didn't take calls while riding in a danfo bus. The passengers were usually so tightly packed that attempting to rummage through my bag to find my phone was not worth the effort. Also, since the danfo buses were so old and rickety, the engine as it labored along made so much noise that anyone who wanted to take a call would have to raise their voice. The entire conversation would the shared
by all the passengers, willing participants or not.

At the fifth ring, I knew it was probably a call I had to take.

After I pressed the 'end' button on my mobile phone, I could have hugged the mechanic, dirty or not! I was so excited! My smile was very wide and I just wanted to nudge the baby mama with a wink, like you would your best friend and ask mischieviously "guess what news I just got?". I didn't mind the fumes anymore, heck the exhaust pipe could have been re-routed into the bus for all I cared! I had just been nominated as part of the team of engineers that were to travel to America to work on a project! Whoopie!! Enkay was coming to America!

That flight in December several years ago was the longest flight I'd ever been on in my entire life. And that's no exaggeration! I slept through out the first leg of the flight to Paris and by the time we landed at Charles de Gaulle, it was to a beautiful crisp morning. We waited 6 hours to catch the connecting flight to Houston and we were in the air for 10 long hours! The funny thing is that the sun refused to go down. I couldn't sleep and my body was confused. By the time we
landed at the George Bush IAH, it was 5pm there but my wristwatch said it was 12 midnight! That was the first of many adjustments I had to learn to make.

I shall dedicate a separate post to my impressions of America.

Being the only lady on the team meant that I had to spend twice as much as the other guys on accommodation. They paired up and split their costs in two.
At the end of the first month, I had spent close to a thousand dollars staying in an extended stay hotel and I really needed to find something else a lot cheaper.

Help came in the form of a colleague at the office - Isabel.

Isabel* and her husband Steve** worked at the same company (the same one at which I went to work) but in different capacities and on different projects. Isabel had come to Nigeria a few months earlier to help the Nigerian team straighten out a few issues. That was the first time we met and we'd become quite good friends. She had offered me a room in their home when we first arrived but I had politely turned it down not wanting to seem too eager to take advantage of
a nice American lady. After the first month however, when she made the offer again, I jumped at it!

That was how I came to live with this awesome couple who helped give me a much more interesting and rounded view of that part of America.

One day, Isabel took me to a chocolate & ice cream shop where every single thing was home made. Everything displayed in the shop was edible and I'd never before seen such a large collection of chocolates and ice cream. Chocolates were formed into all manner of shapes and stuff. Chocolate dolls and toy men, pens, doll houses, cups, hearts....just about anything!

We tasted a few of the stuff they had and decided to buy some of the rarer flavors of their ice cream. I don't quite remember why but I didn't eat my Ice cream that evening.
I kept it in the fridge with the intention of probably taking it to the office the next day. Isabel dug into hers however as she settled in to watch some late night show. I remember her waving her reply to me with that spoon in her hand as I bade her goodnight on my way to my room.

Around 2.30am, I heard a knock on my door. I remember the time because the alarm clock was positioned in such a way that once I opened my eyes, I would see it and the luminous digits meant I could tell the time even in the dark.

It was Steve. The look on his face was so somber as he leaned into the room while holding on to the door jamb that I immediately knew something was up.

"Enkay, sorry to bother you. Isabel has been really sick all night, her blood pressure is dangerously low"

I had already climbed down from the bed and I was using my feet to search for my slippers without taking my eyes off Steve as he continued to speak.

"I've called 911 and there's an ambulance on the way. I just wanted to let you know so that you wouldn't be alarmed if you saw the lights flashing outside the house."

He didn't want me to be alarmed? I was already alarmed! Isabel had been sick? I had already found my slippers and slipped my feet into them. I was at the door even before Steve completed his statement. I had to go be with Isabel.

To my utter amazement, I hadn't been with Isabel but three minutes before the the ambulance arrived, blue and red lights flashing everywhere. So it was true what we watched in movies? Call 911 and they'll be there in a jiffy? I hardly had time to digest this as the paramedics came in and went to work on Isabel straight away. She was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away to the hospital. Steve went with them.

For the first time I was all alone in the house and I had no idea how I was going to get to work that morning.

Another testimony to a system that worked, I called the Metro and got clear directions on what bus to take and what bus-stops to get off at and miraculously, I made it to the office all on my own!

I guess I felt rather confident of my abilities to navigate my way around town so I ordered for some stuff online (again, I was amazed at how easy it was to buy stuff and spend your money at the click of a button!) and applied to go pick it up at the nearest store.
How was I to know that the nearest store was several bus rides away and in a part of town I knew absolutely nothing about?

That was the beginning of my problems that day. I should have just 'jejely' gone back home to await news about Isabel's status. Uh-uh, I had to go on this 'exciting' adventure!

I got the directions from Metro as usual and even left the office a bit early to give myself a head start. What I didn't count on was the bus rides taking so long and I had to change buses twice! At the last bus stop I was supposed to simply walk to the store but from where I stood there wasn't a single store in sight. I started off in one direction walking a long distance only to discover, after asking three people, that I was headed the wrong way. I did a U-turn and headed the other way, walking twice the initial distance I'd walked earlier and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I saw the sign belonging to the store I was looking for. Phew! Thank God, now all I needed to do was walk in, collect my stuff and go home. Right? Wrong! Getting to the store and picking up the stuff was the easy part finding my way home? That was when the adventure started. I'll tell you about it in my next post.

Isabel* and Steve** - Not their real names.

2 years and counting!

2009-12-01T08:40:00.005+01:00

Maybe that should read 6 years and counting huh?

Well simply because it was around this time 6years ago that I first laid eyes on you. At first I had thought it was a gathering of a few corpers from my school who were trying to connect with each other at the NYSC camp until an argument broke out on which school was better, our own University of Technology or your own Ife. You did quite a good job defending the "Great Ife" even though you were easily outnumbered. I didn't really believe you attended Ife 'cos you were just too soft-spoken. Ife guys were Aluta guys! ASUU strikes originated from there for pete's sake! They didn't talk quietly, uh-uh *shaking my head*
Funny thing, but that was all the memory I had of you as we left the place that day -"The Great Ife guy with the quiet voice"

Amazingly, our lines crossed and re-crossed until we found each other working on the same team! I found it so easy to talk to you and you were such a good listener that sometimes I stopped mid-sentence to ask "am I talking too much?" Your answer was pretty much the same every time, "Nah, go ahead. I enjoy listening to you". I would smile and plunge right back into whatever it was I was saying.

We built this friendship of ours for 2 years before we decided to take it a step further. We agreed to turn our friendship into a 'real' relationship. One with prospects for the future. We became committed to each other. I still think you had it a bit too easy , hahaha! I should have let you give me an outright chase. You know, I should have acted coy, and pretended that I didn't know what you were talking about...I'm sure you get. I didn't have the 'liver' I guess. I was so in love! I'd never felt the way I felt with you and I knew in my heart that I wasn't just being infatuated. There was just something about us. It wasn't anything fiery or passionate....I'm trying to gather my words to explain it. There was a steadiness about us. A solidness. Yeah there was passion in our eyes when we looked at each other but we weren't all about passion. There was a fulness. A well-roundedness. Am I getting verbose now? Hehehe!

With you, suddenly, my future was clear and much more defined. And as we talked each one of the dreams we had for our individual futures, it was as though each one was speaking the other's heart! I had always wondered when I was younger if marriage would somehow reduce me and place me behind a man in such a way that I was only allowed to walk in his shadow. I had such an independent mind that I had heard comments like "Enkay, take it easy o! No man wants to feel like his wife is a challenge". I couldn't understand it. So did it mean that i could never rise to my highest height in life just because I was married?
You managed to dispel my fears with your words and I trusted you. Even though they seemed like mere words at first, I knew you were a man who was true to his words.

Exactly 2 years ago today, we walked down the aisle to say our vows. Everything happened so fast and suddenly the minister declared us "Man and Wife!". I remember that day like it was yesterday, the specifics are a bit blurry but these words reverberated in my subconscious....."I believe this is forever"

I kept saying to myself, "Enkay, you are married and this is forever!". I wasn't saying it out of fear but I guess i was trying to impress it upon my self on every level. "This is forever! A life of pure bliss!"

I could tell anyone just how beautiful our lives have been since then and indeed it has. Entwined in that beauty have been challenges. Real challenges that have often stretched us and in the process caused us to grow. Baby, sometimes I looked and I thought,
"how are we going to get over this one now?"
Not once did I see you waver and you weren't just trying to be strong for me. Your faith in God, in yourself and in us has amazed me again and again. To tell the truth, it sometimes irked me. Hahaha! How is it that you are not reacting to this piece of news like I am? How can you stay so strong? Those were my thoughts.
I remember those times too when it seemed like you'd had it and you knew it was okay to be vulnerable sometimes.

Remember those words with which you dispelled my fears about being myself and stretching myself as far as I could even after marriage? You have stayed true to them still. You have been the extra wind beneath my wings constantly urging me to soar and soar even higher. Not once have I felt hedged in. If anything, you expressed concern over my seeming lack of inspiration sometimes.

Today, I celebrate you. I celebrate us. Our challenges and our victories. Our lives and the fullness of it all. There is nothing we cannot accomplish together. This is to our future, so bright, so beautiful.The mere though of it makes me giggle with anticipation, almost like a little girl.

You know what? I can truly and honestly say that today, I love you even more than I did in the beginning.

Happy Anniversary my love!

Pissy-Pissy! (II)

2009-11-11T08:03:00.003+01:00

Night had never seemed so long to me. I watched from the edge of my empty bunk as one by one everyone snuggled under their blankets, getting comfortable in preparation for the 7 to 8 hours of sleep they were going to get.

Sleep! Oh, precious sleep! My feet were beginning to hurt from standing so long so I stooped to my haunches. Some seniors at the far end of the room were talking and chuckling intermittently in hushed tones. That was about the only sound that could be heard in the apartment, that is, of course with the exception of the occasional snore or creak of a bunk under the weight of someone shifting into a more comfortable position.

Tired of stooping, I gradually lowered my butt to the floor and stretched out my legs in front of me. It must have been mid-night, everywhere was quiet. I wasn't sure why but I just couldn't get myself to fall asleep. I don't remember what I did to fill in the time but one thing I do remember clearly is that I wasn't the least bit afraid.

I listened to the sounds of the night outside silently amazed at how loudly the crickets seemed to be chirping. Some toads were croaking off in the distance and I imagined that they were all part of a large toad-y choir all lined up in front of a nice looking toad who was the choir master expertly coordinating their croaky singing. At a point, the loud croaking would cease abruptly for all of two minutes and then suddenly as though in response to the choir master's signal, some tiny insignificant toad would cue everyone in again by making a lone loud croak. The chorus starts all over again.
I wondered briefly what it must feel like to be a toad and sing in the choir but that thought was promptly squelched when it occurred to me that being a toad would mean that I would be outside in some stale pond shivering to death!

And then I felt it. That urgency you feel in the region of your groin that indicates that you've been holding on to your pee a long time. But I hadn't been holding in pee. I felt the urge to pee and already I felt really pressed? The urine was threatening to spill out of my bladder unaided so I pressed my outstretched legs together. I looked at the door then down at the region of my errant bladder and back at the door trying to mentally calculate how many seconds it would take me to dash to the door, throw the latch open and fly to the bathroom to pee.

I barely made it outside before the flood gates were thrown open. Trying to get to the bathroom would be a waste of effort, the pee was coming and it won't be stopped. I simply jumped onto the front lawn all the while struggling to tug down my panties. I bent down and let go. Peeing never felt so relieving. Ha! With my panties still hanging within the region of my knees,I resisted the strong urge to let out a loud "woo-hoo!". Instead, I placed my hands on my waist and threw my head back. With my eyes looking straight up into the star-filled skies and my lips broadened in a wide smile, I whispered a heart-felt "Thank You!". I pulled my panties back on and pranced happily back into the room.

I felt truly accomplished as I discovered for the first time the mechanics behind my peeing in bed at night. I had no doubt that had I been sleeping at the time I felt 'pressed' to pee, I'd have done it in bed without even making an effort! Somehow, I felt that the reason for staying awake that night had been accomplished. Of course I still didn't have a mattress but I suddenly knew what to do. It was the best option under the circumstance. I took my blanket and folded it two to give it some extra thickness and laid it on the floor. I laid on it bedsheet after bedsheet all folded in like manner and it wasn't long before i had me a make-shift mattress, a slim one though it was. Curled up in my favorite sleep position, I pulled my cover-cloth over my head and promptly fell asleep. I woke up early just before the wake-up call. I didn't want anyone to catch me on the floor with my make-shift mattress. Surprisingly, I felt as refreshed as though I had had a full 8-hour sleep instead of just 4. And the best part? My bedding was dry!

That was how my new sleep routine began. I stayed up till very late and ensured that I pee-d my 'midnight' pee. Then I went about setting up my make-shift mattress, going to sleep and getting up early. My results were consistent. Not once did I slip. Until the night I got caught.

Seyi was in form two. We didn't really talk much to each other except for the occasional "good-morning" which I mumbled to her whenever our paths crossed in the apartment as we all hurriedly tried to get dressed and get to our morning duty posts. Form one students didn't really owe form two students any ounce of respect because in truth, we were all in the same category of 'junior girl'. I didn't see any harm in showing a little bit of respect to Seyi anyway, besides, I greeted almost every one by default. Mommy taught me well!

There I was, enjoying my sweet solitude, sitting on the floor by my empty bunk, legs outstretched as usual waiting for the pressing urge to pee when suddenly my eyes were drawn to the the bunk diagonally opposite mine and there was Seyi peering down at me wide eyed from the top of her bunk.
For the first time since I started my new sleep routine I was startled and I could feel fear creeping up my spine. I held Seyi's eyes willing her to go back to sleep. For the first time too, I felt rather odd and ashamed. Like I was doing something really wrong, even diabolical. Seyi held my gaze and then I tilted my head at her questioningly. That was when she sat up on her bed and with an incredulous look on her face she whispered rather loudly "What are you doing there?"
I put my forefinger against my lips and shushed her as quietly as I could "Ssshhhh!".
She took surreptitious glances at both ends of the room as though to assure herself that no one had been disturbed and then she proceeded to come down from her bunk.
I waved both arms frantically at her "No, no, no no!"
She paused, looked at me and whispered , loudly still, "Tell me what you are doing on the floor!" The girl obviously lacked proper whispering skills.
She was surely going to get us both into trouble. I quickly pushed myself up, off the ground and in three long strides, I was by her bunk.

"You know I no longer have a mattress abi?" I began by way of explanation.
I quickly filled her in on my ordeal the past few weeks where I've had to sleep on the floor and the fear of embarrassment being the reason I had to wait until everyone was asleep before laying my 'bed'. By the time I was through, the look on her face said "You poor thing!".
Seyi turned to go back to sleep and I was satisfied, at least she would leave me alone now.
I made to return to my place when I felt her hand on my shoulder. She patted the space beside her and said, "You can share my bed Enkay".
There was an earnest look in her face and I knew she wasn't just pitying me. I was really touched by her kindness so I accepted.

The bed was so soft and warm that I fell asleep immediately. By morning I was alarmed at the wetness I felt on my night clothes. "Oh no!"
Seyi was no longer beside me. I knew I was done for. I'd taken the girl's kindness and peed all over it. I felt so bad!
Then the strangest thing happened. I took off my soiled night clothes but found that my panties were not wet. How was that possible? I was pondering on the mystery when I heard someone whisper my name. I turned and there was Seyi.
"Enkay, I'm really sorry about last night" she pleaded.
I was still trying to make head and tail of her statement when she raised her hands in which she held the night clothes she'd just changed out of.

It turned out that Seyi had wet her bed the night before! By the time that morning was over, Seyi and I had become fast friends. We were both pissy-pissies!
She wasn't half as chronic a bed-wetter as I was but she was one all the same. It was only then I explained to her exactly what I was doing on the floor the night and my newest discovery for preventing nightly episodes.
She was excited! We both tried it out and it worked!

She didn't have to follow a strict regimen like me because Seyi wet her bed only about once in 2 or 3 weeks but she was kind enough to keep me company.
By the end of my third term in JS1, I had become a brand new Enkay! I had a brand new mattress and not once did I wet my bed again. Amazingly, I no longer needed to stay awake at night. Even in the deepest part of my sleep, whenever I felt the urge,I simply got up and went to the bathroom. I was sure it was a miracle!

Needless to say, the name Pissy-Pissy no longer applied to me. Everyone just called me Enkay!

Pissy-Pissy!

2009-09-10T15:59:00.003+01:00

Did you read the title right?

Yeah you did. It says "pissy-pissy!". At one point in my life, that was my nick name.

For the few of you who have no idea what pissy-pissy means, that's what you call a chronic bed-wetter.

There was nothing my parents didn't do to deal with this "issue" of their daughter's.

At one time, they said, no drinking of water after 6pm. They were strict about it and if I so much as looked at a glass longingly, I was in trouble.
It didn't work.

At another time, my mom made herself my personal 'peeing-guard'. She'd come to my room and wake me up at least 3 times every night.

It worked a bit but by the third day, I'd have already wet the bed before she got there to take me to the bathroom. And I'd be standing there all drenched in my own urine while my mom dutifully took off my soiled night clothes and changed them. She'd then change the soiled beddings to clean dry ones. Chances are that by morning I'd have soiled those too! Till date, I'm amazed at her patience!

The next thing was my aunties' threatening to go traaditional with me. They told me that back in the village, little boys and girls who wet their beds at
night had snakes and lizards tied around their waists. They swore that it worked wonders and that those children never again wet their beds. I took them seriously and out of fear, I think I actually did not wet the bed for at least a week at a stretch!

But that was as long as it lasted.

Finally, after being "pissy-pissy" for the first 7 years of my life, my parents took me to see a doctor.They were convinced I had a weak bladder. Yet the test results came in and pronounced my 'equipment' in perfect working condition. They put it down to psychological issues.
They asked me all sorts of questions -

Do you always dream that you're pissing in your dream? No.
Do you always feel pressed while you're asleep? No.
All my answers didn't bring them any closer to solving my bed-wetting puzzle. The truth is that I'm not even aware of pissing in bed until I wake up and find my clothes wet. The doctor decided to study my 'pissing'patterns. My parents were to fill in a chart of what I ate each day and to state whether or not I wet the bed each night. I still don't know what became of that study.
Needless to say, I remained pissy-pissy till I was eleven.

While I was busy being excited at the prospect of traveling more than 700km to start boarding school somewhere in the northern part of Nigeria, my mother was worrying herself sick about my 'pissing' issues.
My parents went on a shopping spree and bought us all kinds of stuff to go to school with (my sister and I were admitted the same year into different schools), needless to say that half of the stuff were termed 'contraband' at the school gate and taken away for 'safe-keeping'. But that story is for another day.

The night before I was to leave, my mother pulled me aside and explained to me the exact manner in which I was to make my bed in order to minimize bladder 'accidents'. She'd packed into my box this linoleum spread that we generally referred to as 'mackintosh' way back then.
The way she looked at me with a plea in her eyes almost made me feel sorry for myself. And maybe I did, for about five seconds or so.
I threw my arms around her neck and gave her a huge hug, assuring her that she had nothing to worry about. And I had reason to feel somewhat confident. The frequency of my peeing had gone from three times each night to once every night to once every other night. If you were in my shoes, you'd see that as enough reason to be quite smug.

That trip was one of my most memorable trips. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of just how large and beautiful this great country was. My entire young life up until that point had been confined to the streets and avenues of FESTAC town and a few other parts of Lagos. All the other states of Nigeria were mere pictures of lines and dots on a map.

I arrived the school in that awestruck mood, ready for whatever my new life held in store for me. In a few hours after arriving, I was shown my bed space and locker. I had never had the 'luxury' of sleeping on a metal bunk and I felt quite accomplished after several failed
attempts at climbing onto the top bunk finally yielded success. It was a spectacle to behold. Every conceivable part of my body was involved in the climbing exercise - arms, feet, chin, chest, abdomen...I'm sure you get the picture. As they say, practice makes perfect. By the time it was nightfall, I'd mastered the climbing art quite some. And I fell asleep with a smile on my face. It was my first night in boarding school.

I wish I could explain to you the shock with which I landed on the floor from that height. All my 'de-bunking' skills promptly forgotten, I must have flown off the bed. I was confused. Several voices were barking at me all at the same time and hands were pulling me here and there. I couldn't for the life of me fathom where I was. And all these faces....I panicked! My first thought was to find the nearest exit out of the place or better still, wake up from this really bad dream. And then suddenly, it hit me! Oh! This was school! It all started coming back to me slowly....moving my stuff into the room; placing my toiletories and provisions in my locker; making my bed; practicing climbing onto and climbing down from my top bunk... Twai! A slap across my face hastened the recollection process. I held my left cheek in my left hand and locked eyes with senior Kanayo. Suddenly, I knew exactly what had happened.

I had wet the bed and it had dripped all over her from my bed to hers on the bottom bunk. In all my excitement, I had forgotten to spread the mackintosh beneath my bedsheets.

Several seniors had gathered to commiserate with senior Kanayo and after some deliberation, they all decided that I was to be pardoned seeing as I was a new student and they 'understood' that sleeping in a strange bed could do 'strange' things to anyone.
After several weeks however, it became clear that my pissing in bed wasn't so strange after all as it had become a nightly event. Even though I never again rained piss on senior Kanayo, the stench of fermented adult piss that emanated from my bed could not be mistaken. The name "pissy-pissy" was becoming synonymous with the name Enkay.

By the time we were half way through the first term, my mackintosh was in tatters from being spread in the sun hours on end. My regular bedsheets were gradually becoming thread bare from being washed every other day and my mattress was slowly becoming non-existent. Let me explain that part about becoming non-existent.

My smelly mattress was not allowed to stay in the room - for obvious reasons of course. Every morning, before I left for class, I had to spread it on the front lawn. I was only allowed to bring it in after supper, just before bed time. One of those days, while I struggled to take my mattress into the room, it got caught in shards of glass from broken louvers in a window. That was the first of several tears that had my mattress-cover ripped to shreds exposing only the foam underneath.

It wasn't really a problem at first until I returned to the hostel one day to find a fist-sized chunk of my mattress missing. A fist-sized chunk didn't matter especially when it was at the bottom but it started to matter when the missing chunks increased in size and frequency.
You see, the floors of the apartments in the hostels had to be mopped every morning and the 'mops' were usually chunks of foam and guess where those foams came from? Unsuspecting exposed mattresses such as mine!

Soon, my mattress became the 'mop' target. Every single day, a piece went away to become a mop and my mattress steadily dwindled. By mid-term, the length of my mattress was just a little longer than an average pillow. It no longer qualified to be called a mattress.

One day, just before I left for class I took out my 'mattress', dropped it on the front lawn and silently said good bye to it. It was as though I knew I would never see it again 'cos that afternoon, it rained and my mattress was flooded. There was no hope of recovery.
When night fell, I stood by my empty bunk and watched as everyone snuggled under their blankets and settled in for the night. I was probably going to stand all night.

I had to overcome my 'pissing' problem. You'll see how in my next post!

SHOE STORY

2009-06-29T10:21:00.003+01:00

To tell the truth, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Everyone knows that Fridays are dress-down days. You’re allowed to showcase a milder version of your traditional outfits. Ankara, Tie and Dye, Dry Lace, Java, Woodin, Akosombo…the list is endless. I already knew what I was going to wear the next day – my cute, yet-to-be-worn Java Gold skirt and blouse. It was stylish yet not too dressy at the same time.

I am one of those who pick out all the clothes to be worn for the week every Sunday evening. I have it all set out to the littlest detail. When they’ve been ironed, they’d be hung in the wardrobe in the exact order in which they are to be worn. It made life easier and a lot less complicated. Besides, seeing as I hate ironing so much, it made sense to restrict ironing to one day each week.

You can therefore imagine the extent to which my eyebrows were arched when my friend and colleague Zeb suggested that we dressed differently for the next day, Friday. Instead of the usual traditional look, why don’t we dress in sporty outfits? T-shirt, jeans and a pair of trainers.
“Let’s do something different for a change!” He exclaimed when he saw the disapproving look on my face.
“Okay” He continued, “do this for me just once and if you don’t like it, I swear, I’ll never suggest anything like this again”.
I sighed and walked past him and then with a backward glance I told him to give me till the end of the day. He’d know my answer then and not a second before.

At least that kept him off my back for the rest of the day. Zeb was such a nice guy that it’s really difficult to turn him down. It’s not that he was incapable of doing his own thing; he just felt that life was a lot better when shared. Why enjoy the ‘different’ look alone when we could both do it together? Yeah right.

The thing though on my mind was the fact that I didn’t have any respectable pair of trainers to my name. That was going to be my strongest point when I turned Zeb down at the close of work…What? Do you want me to come to work tomorrow in a pair of trainers that look like they’ve seen better days...?
That argument remained intact in my mind until it was 15minutes to closing time. I don’t know what triggered that memory. I don’t know what brought it forward from my subconscious but suddenly, I was bubbling with excitement. My Sexy Grey Trainers! But of course!!
I couldn’t wait to get home. It’d been so long since I saw them trainers that I was nearly afraid someone had thrown them away. It had to be under the bed somewhere, it just had to be!
My answer to Zeb was brief and clear. I’ll go along with this little scheme of yours if and only IF I find MSGT. I don’t care if you know what that stands for, just pray I find them!

Less than an hour after I got home, the entire room which I shared with two other sisters of mine was in complete disarray. The mattresses had come off and I was struggling with the wooden bottom frames of the bed which supported the mattresses. Shoes were strewn everywhere, most of them old and covered in dust. My Sexy trainers had to be here somewhere! I was beginning to panic.
It was another thirty minutes before I found them wrapped in a fancy colored polythene bag. Aha! I remembered that bag. And the shoes were in pristine condition just like they were when I’d wrapped them up 2 years before, or so I thought. My Sexy Grey Trainers at last!

They were my companion when I’d gone to Camp 2 years before. Someone had advised that I went with a pair of personal trainers because sometimes the white canvas given to corpers by the NYSC was usually oversize. True to form, when I got to camp, mine were like a pair of canoes on my feet. My trainers served me well. After camp I found not much use for them so I wrapped them up the bag, placed them under my bed and promptly forgot about them. Now they were going to serve me well again tomorrow when I and Zeb showed up at work dressed ‘differently’.

Friday dawned bright and clear. I kept walking to and fro Zeb’s cubicle all morning. I couldn’t believe he was late! Like a little girl, I wanted to show off my ‘dress’ and tell him how many approving looks I’d already received from the other guys just that morning alone.

Finally I could hear his voice several cubicles from my own. I wasn’t going to wait for him to get to mine; I was going to meet him there.
I got up a little too quickly and dropped my pen. I bent to pick it up and that’s when I noticed for the first time dark circles of grey dust on the tiled floor. I bent lower to get a closer look. Did I pick something up on my way to work? No time for this now. I’ll sort it out later. Zeb was already on his way to my desk and I wanted to be ready, striking the right pose when he got there. And I did just in time! He even made me do the twirl as though I was showing off a ball gown instead of a pair of Jeans and a T-shirt. It was clear he liked what he saw.

He didn’t look bad himself and I told him so.
“I see you found MSGT?” He said.
“Yes! How did you know what it was?!”
“I don’t. You said you’ll go along with my scheme only if you found it”
“Oh” I had on a sheepish grin as I raised my right foot while supporting myself against my desk “These are MSGT – My Sexy Grey Trainers!” I was laughing now.
He just shook his head at me and was turning to leave when his eyes caught something on the floor next to my feet. I knew at once by the look on his face that he wasn’t trying to get an up-close view of my trainers.
I looked down and to my horror there was more of the grey dust smeared all over the area where I’d done the twirl. From his bending position Zeb looked up at me.
“Raise your feet again” he said.
I did and he caught hold of my left foot and bent it in such a way as to get a view of the soles of my trainers.
“What?!” I exclaimed questioningly as he shook his head at me.
I withdrew my foot from his hand and grabbed a hold of my shin so that I could raise my foot backwards and view it for myself.
My eyes widened as I saw that there were several holes on the soles of the trainers from where the grey dust flaked off.
I raised the other foot and it was even worse. Some of the holes in this one had no more grey dust in them, they were empty. Empty holes!
I quietly sat back down on my chair. The mirth of the last few minutes already forgotten.

This was not good. Not good at all.
Zeb knew enough to just leave me alone. I was sure I could make it to the end of the day without incident if I just sat at my desk.
But I couldn’t very well just sit at my desk all day. I had to get lunch.
Okay, if I walked gently and slowly, the holes should hold.
Zeb was being nice but I was suspicious. We were half way to the cafeteria and I’d been doing so well with my slow walk when suddenly “Plaat!” The sole at the tip of my right trainer split open!

“Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Zeb!” I yelped.

He stopped short and I stood still, pointing at my right foot. And you won’t believe what happened next.
Zeb burst out laughing!
He was laughing so hard that there were tears in his eyes when he finally got a hold of himself.

“Enkay, I’m sorry....
hahahaha!.....I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you…hahahaha!...I swear, I’m just laughing at the trainers….I swear…hahaha!.”

Msheeeeew! I just turned around and went back to my office. I’d reached my desk before I realized that I’d left quite a chunk of my right trainer sole in the elevator.
And suddenly it all seemed really hilarious to me and I started laughing all by myself.
My trainers were serving well me indeed! So much for my ‘different’ look.

The worst was yet to come.

On our way home, Zeb and I had to walk down the road to the bus stop to catch the bus.
Every few steps had me leaving small chunks of my trainers behind.
Whenever the bit came off, I’d say “Oops! There goes another sexy piece!” And we’d both burst out laughing.
By the time we boarded the bus, the right shoe was in tatters. Several chunks were missing from the center but the overall external frame was still somewhat intact and then there was that ugly split in front. A whole chic like me! “Ewu!”

We were just a few passengers left in the bus. Zeb and I occupied the seat at the back with one other woman. Somehow I caught the lady’s eyes on me and smiled at her. She was probably embarrassed at being caught staring so she dipped her head and that’s when she did THE double take. (You know how someone glances at something momentarily and in looking away, something catches their eyes and they take another, quick, usually more surprised look? That’s a double take.)
She was looking at my trainers!
I followed her gaze and there on the floor was one whole edge of my right trainer sole. It was still attached to the shoe but it was hanging at an impossible angle and any movement would yank it off!
The lady couldn’t contain herself and she looked like she was about to say something. I didn’t give her a chance as I straightened up and looked straight ahead as though nothing happened.
Ha! My bus-stop at last! I hurriedly got off the bus and I could have sworn that the woman was going to throw my chunk of sole out after me.

The bus-stop was a good five minute’s walk from my house. I braced my self and took the plunge. Yet nothing prepared me for what happened next.

Most of the day, all the ‘incidents’ were with the right foot of my trainers. The left one had behaved itself mostly. Apart from the initial flaking, there had been no major mishap.
Just as I passed by Dee Sam’s shop hoping he wasn’t there to shout out his customary greeting “You don return from work?” my left shoe gave out on me.
The entire sole came off! No, not tiny chunks, but the entire thing! And this happened right in front of Dee Sam. He had seen me approach and was undoubtedly preparing his greeting but it froze on his lips as he saw my shoe drama. It was an awkward moment.
We were both sure we knew what had just happened but neither of us was willing to acknowledge it.

He smiled at me “You don return from work?”
And I smiled back “Yes. How Business today…?” and I walked on, leaving my soles behind. It definitely could not get any worse than that. I practically jogged the rest of the way home and stood at the door waiting for any sibling to come see me in all my embarrassment.
The first one at the door opened it and stared at me wondering why I was standing outside. I looked down at my feet and she followed my gaze. It took her a few seconds to realize what she was seeing and she burst out laughing. I joined her and laughed so hard that tears came to my eyes.

We left the trainers at the door ready to give the story in detail to anyone who asked. My Sexy Grey Trainers….How are the mighty fallen! Hahahaha!

PS: The moral of this story?
When next anyone called Zeb asks you to dress differently for Friday. Tell him Capital N-O. No!!!

Arranged.....well ahead of time.

2009-06-01T12:55:00.001+01:00

The day was turning out to be one of those bad days. The clouds were darkening, gathering enough momentum for a heavy down pour.
Why won't any car stop for me? I'd been standing at that junction for close to 20 minutes - seemed more like one hour - and my furious flagging had yet to catch the attention of any benevolent driver.

I had hardly caught a shut eye while riding in that rickety coaster bus all the way from Lagos to Abuja the night before.
The bus was cramped and I was sandwiched between two chunky guys each one attempting to strike a conversation with me. They weren't succeeding and worse still they couldn't take a hint and shush it!

That road trip qualifies as the worst I've ever had. Somewhere around Kogi state at about 4am there were shouts of "Armed robbers! Armed robbers!!" Our driver did a quick U-turn and we were heading right back the way we came from. I was so scared!
Eventually, we made it to Abuja in one piece. I barely caught my friend on her way out and she gave me just enough time to drop my stuff and take a quick shower before we had to leave again.

I was headed back to Kogi state. Ajaokuta Steel Company to be precise. I had a 9 o'clock appointment with one Mr Saheed there and it was already 7am. I was already late. The trip to Lokoja was going to take 3 hours and I had just 2hrs to spare. Things were already beginning to look bad.

I made it safely to Ajaokuta town but my challenge at that time was how to get from the junction of the main gate to the office complex. Taxis and okadas were stopped at the gate. You could only get to the office complex by the "city train" - the company staff bus or by private vehicle. The city train only worked at specific hours owing to the fact that staff of the steel complex worked several shifts.
I had just about given up when an okada stopped to ask if I wanted to get to the complex. I paused only long enough to verify that he was actually a private okada owner and I hurriedly got on it before someone else beat me to it.
I was so relieved to finally be on my way that it was a rude shock to feel a drop of rain on my arm. "Aw no! Not now!" I looked up pleading with the rain clouds to just go away, I almost sang that rain song we used to sing as children "...Rain, rain go away, come again another day...".
It didn't work.
The heavens opened up in defiance of my plea. I and the okada rider were drenched. It couldn't be helped as there was no shelter between the main gate and the security outpost at the complex.
I got off the okada and tried to squeeze out the edges of my skirt. It didn't make any difference. The security men pitied me and asked me to come into their office to wait out the rain and probably dry off a bit.
I was grateful but that didn't take the scowl off my face.
Today of all days!!

The rain slowed to a drizzle and I made my way into the main building all the while conscious of my wet dress. No one seemed to mind though. The rain was enough excuse for anyone to come into the building soaking wet if they wanted to.
I was relieved to find Mr. Saheed in his office. It turned out that he didn't remember the exact time we'd fixed for the appointment and he even apologized that I was beaten by the rain.
Strangely, that made feel better.
Better that is, until he broke the news to me.
"I'm sorry Enkay, but we cannot confirm your placement here until you prove to us that you have a place to stay"

"But I was of the impression that the company provided accomodation..."

"Yes that was several years ago. We stopped when we discovered that most of the industrial training students treated our facilities poorly and even destroyed some of our property..."

No amount of pleading could prove to Mr. Saheed that I was an Industrial attachment student with a difference.
I picked up my bag and walked out of his office. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes but I fought them back. Eventually, I just let them pour.

So my trip was just a waste of precious time? I had taken that night bus the previous day because I had felt that that was the fastest way to get here before the deadline.
I made my way back to the security outpost. I was a familiar face and the security men did not bother me as I pulled out a chair. The rain had started again. I was in no particular hurry anyway, so I decided to wait it out.

I held the letter in my hand. The letter that offered me a place in the steel complex as an industrial attache. If I had been accepted, I wouldn't have been holding that letter.

My mind went back to how I even came to have that letter in the first place. I'd found out that one of my professors in school was on the board of Directors of the Steel Company. I'd gone to his office feeling really small as I asked him if there was anything he could do to help me get a placement at the company. He told me he was due to go on his sabbatical in a few weeks and that he wasn't sure he'd be having anything to do with the company for the period he'd be out of the country. He ended by saying he'd see what he could do. That didn't offer me much hope.

He left and I didn't hear anything about the issue until four months later when my HOD informed me that I had a letter to pick up at the Department office. The professor had done more than he promised. He'd delivered my IT placement to me on a platter of gold.

What was I to do now? Go back home and wait? Wait for what?
My thoughts were interrupted by a ruckus outside. I looked up and there were teenagers everywhere. Even though they weren't wearing any school uniforms, I got the impression they were students from a nearby school. I ignored them because frankly, a bunch of noisy kids was the least of my problems.

At that time, a bald headed guy walked into the room. I gave him a cursory glance and returned my gaze to the letter in my hands.

"Ahn, ahn, why the sad look? Was today's paper tough?"

I looked up with a question mark on my face.

"Are you talking to me?"
"Yes now. Was the paper tough?"
"Paper? Tough?"
He laughed and the expression on his face was like "Duh?"
"Are you not one the GCE students?"
"Me? GCE?"
This guy was obviously not a serious person. I silently hissed and turned to look out the window willing the 'gorimapa' guy to just disappear from my side. I had no time for such nonsense.

"Ah! Sorry o! I thought you were one of those students." The guy was far from disappearing.

"Really. So I look like a GCE candidate to you abi?"

He only smiled. That smile accentuated a scar on his face that I hadn't noticed before. I was curious but I wasn't going to ask.

"My name is Segun and I work here" He offered me his hand.
I could have ignored him but it struck me that this guy just might be able to help me. I took his hand and shook it slightly and introduced myself.

"Enkay. I'm an IT student. Well not really. I came to confirm my placement here..." I handed him the letter and continued. "...but the guy said he could not confirm me until I had proof of an accommodation."

He handed me back the letter with a look on his face as though he were about to reprimand me for some wrong doing.

"So that's why you were crying?" I didn't think that my face still bore traces of the tears I'd cried earlier. He continued, "Don't you know that when you get to a place where you know nobody, you should first ask for the corpers?"

I was about to scoff at his statement when he grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the chair.
"Oya go upstairs now and tell Mr Saheed that you would come with proof of accommodation tomorrow morning. Drop your letter with him and tell him you would be back by 8am sharp"

I looked into his face to see if he was actually serious but I didn't have the time to ask him. He was already ushering me outside. "Hurry up! I'll be waiting for you when you get back".
I couldn't smile. It was all happening so fast. I hurried up to the lobby and I looked back one more time at the security outpost just to be sure. Sure enough, Segun was still at the door waving me in from that distance.

I found Mr. Saheed who agreed to take the letter from me but warned that it would not be signed until I returned with my proof. I agreed and rushed back downstairs somehow harboring fears that Segun might have disappeared.

He was still there. I couldn't help but smile at him in relief. He smiled back. There was that scar again.
I walked out of the complex with him and he handed me a note to one Fatima. He put me in a taxi and gave the driver directions.
He said he'd see me later that evening but that I shouldn't worry. Fatima would take good care of me.

The taxi dropped me off and I walked down a well-worn path to an area occupied by several portakabins. There must have been like twenty of them arranged in no particular order. There was still a slight drizzle and not a soul was in sight.

I pondered my predicament. Were all the portakabins occupied? Was I to go knocking on every door asking for Fatima? If so, where do I start?
I was still standing at the spot where I'd stopped to think when a lady came out of one of the cabins towards my immediate left. It was obvious she hadn't seen me as I was not in her line of vision. She had a bucket with her from which she threw out some water onto the front lawn.

I knew that if I didn't make my move then, she'd go back inside and I'd have to go knocking.

"Excuse me!" I called as I hurried towards her.
She had a startled look on her face which disappeared when she saw it was just me. No danger here.
She held the bucket by the handle and let it hang by her side and turned to face me as she watched me approach.

"Please I'm here to see Fatima" I noticed that the lady had a pleasant face which gave nothing away when she replied.

"Who's looking for her?"

"Er..Segun asked me to give her a note" I said as I fumbled with my handbag to produce the said note.
She reached out her free hand to collect the note from me and I hesitated for a fraction of a second before handing it to her.
She read the note and without a word motioned for me to follow her inside.

I thought that was strange but I followed her anyway.

Her room was cosy and I was glad to finally be able to sit down and relax. Fatima didn't say much but she was a wonderful hostess. She filled my tummy and and offered me a space on her bed to catch some sleep.

Later that evening, Segun arrived with another guy and a signed letter authorizing me to stay in one of the portacabins in the back and he brought me the keys to prove it too!

My heart was so full. I had no words to express my gratitude.

Everything happened real quick after that. I had more than enough proof for Mr. Saheed the next day and my letter was signed. I returned to Abuja to get my stuff and moved into my own room.
From then on, I became a part of this community of Youth Corpers. They included me in almost all of their activities and I soon began to see myself as one of them.

I found out later that the room I was given belonged to one of them who had an uncle working at the complex. He preferred to live with his uncle hence the free space. No one asked me for a dime. It was all free!

When I fell ill, they all rallied round me and the doctor corpers got me free treatment at the hospital. Fatima cooked for me and made me feel comfortable all through. She even made me stay in her room throughout the ordeal. When I got better, she told me I could stay on if I wanted. I wanted, so I did! We became fast friends.

Segun told me that all the corpers did PP (Private Practice) and if I wanted, he could get me a part-time job. He came through once again and I found myself earning some extra bucks effortlessly!

When it was time for the NCCF Rural Rugged, I volunteered my services. The expedition was to go to a village not too far from Ajaokuta but it was accross a river, and we were to take the gospel to the people as well as render humanitarian services. Those 3 days among the villagers were simply awesome. We brought smiles on their faces and the trip was well worth it, mosquitoes and all.

6 months passed by so fast. Where did all the time go?
Unbeknownst to me, the corpers organized a surprise send off party for me. I was so thrilled that I cried. The tears just kept coming and I didn't bother wiping them off. I hugged all my friends one after the other knowing that I may never see them again. I had a basketful of gifts!

It was on the ride back home that it occurred to me that those six months didn't happen by chance.
I counted off on my fingers one experience after the other. At every impossible turn, there was a solution.
Getting the letter, meeting Segun, the free room, the free medical care, the extra bucks (I wasn't getting a dime from the company the whole time), my new found friends, the opportunity to volunteer and even the opportunity to work at the complex!(I was the only one in my entire class to get a first hand experience of the workings of the steel complex).

No, none of these happened by chance. it was all arranged just for me, well ahead of time.

Up till now, those six months stand out as one of the most memorable periods of my life.
Every time I face a tough period, I remember those six months and I'm comforted, knowing that I'm simply part of the bigger picture. A work in progress while my heavenly Father puts all the pieces together.

I am not a child of Chance. I am a child of Destiny. Divine Destiny!

PS: I never got to ask Segun about that scar. I'm still curious! lol!

Thankful Post -The 'E' Edition

2009-05-26T09:09:00.004+01:00

Seems like everyone's getting their various Thankful Editions out. Thanks to Aloted, I finally get to do my 'E' Thankful post.

There's the comfort of knowing that my whole life is Encapsulated by God's love. His presence in my life gives me the feeling of being wrapped around by a warm blanket on a really cold night.

With His word, I find my self Established daily in my walk of faith. I realize that this is not a once-and-for-all thing but a daily decision to submit to His will.

Sometimes I wish I were more 'perfect' than I currently am and I'm working on it but I'm still grateful for the joy of the Lord in my heart. To put it simply, it Enlivens me!
That joy makes me feel like I have been Entrusted with a very special gift. Hmmm, what can I compare this to? Okay, it's like a lamp that's been lit in my heart and it's my responsibility to ensure it never goes out. The joy in my spirit is the fuel that keeps that lamp burning. It's not always easy as tough times threaten to put out that light. I am grateful for the grace I have received time and time again to Endure.

Endurance over time has helped to strengthen my character and sense of self-worth. It has given me the Enablement to persevere and come out stronger on the other side. It's amazing the beauty that shines out of our lives after we have been well polished by adversity.

,There's an even greater beauty when we share our lives with that special someone. I have been blessed with a man who has me Enamored with his love. To put it like Adaeze has, there's no sugarcoating this. Sometimes our lives are reduced to mere routines yet in the midst of it, we are able to find time to pause and ask "hey babe, how are you?". In the midst of the routine that is sometimes life, we are able to take pleasure in hearing each other's voice or simply Enjoy each other's company.

For all these and more, I am Eternally grateful!!

PS: Phew! That wasn't so bad was it? lol!!

Ten Things Tuesday (05)

2009-05-12T14:00:00.003+01:00

I've not forgotten to be thankful. I have just been too lazy to blog about them. I think thanksgiving is not just the act of listing out all the things that we are thankful for. I'm beginning to recognize it as a state of heart. I said heart and not mind because they are two different things entirely.

Our mind is where we have our thoughts and emotions and they are constantly being battered by external circumstances. Circumstances that make us feel there's not much to be grateful for.
Our hearts however are deeper. It's that part of us, our spirits, that's in touch with our heavenly Father. That part that still trusts him. That part that knows beyond all doubt that everything's going to be okay even in the midst of turbulent waters.

Can I get a witness?! Yeah!

So I'm thankful...

For the life that I have been given. I have been favored beyond measure.

For the successful hosting of our in-laws, friends and family at my sister's traditional wedding.
For the prompt intervention of medical personnel when my little sister found she had difficulty in breathing.
For the peaceful resolution of issues I had with my insurance company. Even though I'm paying more than I initially thought was due, they've helped me structure it in such a way that it's not too much of a burden.
For the safe delivery of my best friend's baby. It was swift and a lot easier than she'd anticipated!
For my new healthy eating and daily exercise habit. I intend to keep it up!
For P. who developed a really bad cough recently but who is getting better.
For God's word, it lights up my path in life and gives me hope when I can't seem to see the horizon.
For a new friend I just made on blogville. Thanks for the privilege!
For my mom. She's the greatest ever!!

What are you thankful for?

Friendships Lost 2

2009-04-29T11:02:00.007+01:00

Q's disappearance didn't mean much at first. I thought she was playing a rude prank on me and I was going to let her stew. I didn't have her time anyway, exams were approaching and even though I didn't care that much for my books, I had to show some sign of seriousness.

By the third day of her disappearance, I started getting worried. How is it that I hadn't run into Q. at the tap or in class or even at the dining hall for that matter in the past 3 days? Was she ill and at the clinic on admission? I checked and the nurse hadn't seen her all term. By that weekend, there was a red alert all over school. Q was missing!

I found myself being called to the staff room every few hours. It was dawning on me ever so slowly that I was being held responsible for Q's disappearance. Some prefects were assigned to me and I was to lead them to all our hide -outs searching for her.

Somehow, they were sure she was still within the premises at least most of the time. The teachers kept hearing reports of how they saw her at the borehole at the staff quarters or at the tuckshop gate late one night. There were all sorts of reports but no proof.

"Enkay, you are hiding Q. somewhere, you better produce her or risk being suspended!"

That was our form teacher. She was frustrated and frankly so was I!

That night during night prep, I poured my frustrations into my little diary. I accused Q. of being selfish and mean for playing such a prank and leaving me to stew in her mess. I told her I regretted having her as a friend if friendship with her meant the kind of suffering I'd had to go through for the past few days. I said I didn't understand her and her weird ways at all and that if she ever got back, I'd give her a piece of my mind.

That pretty much sums up what I wrote in that book. I'd really had it up to here and my small 10 year old mind just couldn't take any more.

The next day, we were walking back to class from the old home economics lab (The same one we went to steal water from earlier) and we had to pass by our uncompleted dining hall building. The thing had been abandoned to rot and you usually won't find students in it. Suddenly a class mate screamed "Q!". We all turned to see what the noise was all about. The girl was pointing frantically at a broken window "I just saw Q. in there!". We all stared at her blankly as the window she was pointing at obviously had no Q. in it. She insisted and started walking towards the building. the window in question happened to belong to one of the 12 toilets that lined that side of the building. Since the window was quite high, one of us dragged towards it a broken chair so she could at least get a peek.

She jumped down after a few minutes shaking her head "all I could see were cobwebs broken toilets and dry shit"

I left them there and walked towards the entrance of the building. The rest didn't know it but Q. and I hung out at that uncompleted building sometimes. There were rooms in there I was sure no other person even knew existed. Suddenly, I knew where to look. Sure enough, there she was huddled in a corner of the room. There was dried up feaces everywhere (evidence that some others knew the place better than I'd thought). She just sat there and stared at me with a look that dared me to judge her. Her hair was brown and obviously hadn't been combed in all the 2 weeks she'd been missing. Her uniform was dirty. Really dirty. It was obvious she hadn't had a bath the whole time. Did she sleep out there those two weeks? All by herself and in the cold?
Something about the way she sat there staring at me defiantly made me realize this was no prank. This was more serious than I'd thought.

"Leave the entrance all of you! Clear the way!"

It was our house mistress. I turned to look at her and that's when I realized that the rest of the class had gathered at the door way. I hadn't heard them approach. I did as I was told and stepped aside. I don't know what words were spoken but in a few minutes, Q. was being led to the staff quarters. She was to stay with one of the female teachers.

I was asked to get her clean clothes and fresh underwear. I went to her locker but couldn't seem to find any. They'd probably been thrown out by some overzealous senior. Instead, I got out my own uniforms for her and a set of my newest underwear.

By the time I went back the next day, I could see that the teacher had done quite a good job. Q's hair had been nicely trimmed, even though the unhealthy colour was still there. She looked clean and my uniform though a bit large on her somehow sat right. She wouldn't look at me though. I wondered why. I just sat there in awkward silence. I had so many questions to ask but she returned barlely one day ago and it didn't seem fair to bombard her like that.

She was at the teacher's place for another 2 weeks. Her parents had been notified and they were asked to come get her in person at the close of the term. Stories traveling through the grapevine had it that Q. said she was frustrated and wanted to kill herself. What?! What did a 10year old know about frustration and suicide for goodness' sake?!

Even when she returned to the hostel, Q. still wasn't speaking to me. She avoided me like the plague and treated me like a stranger. What have I done now?

We wrote the exams and got ready to go home. Two nights before we left, Q. walked up to me...
"Thank you very much Enkay. I heard what you wrote about me in your little black book. I thought we were friends. Now I know better."

She just turned and walked away. I was shocked to say the least!
First of all, who told Q. about the stuff I wrote? Secondly, is this how I get paid for the stress she put me through?

The next day when I asked her, she had no explanation but to say "It was B that told me what you wrote!"

She and B had become fast friends in those last few days. I should have known.

I wanted to apologise but Q. didn't give me half a chance.
Her mom came to pick her at the close of the term.

I don't know what the principal told her but Q. never returned to our school the next term. She'd been transferred to another school closer to her hometown.

I never got the chance to say my own side of the story. I never got to apologise. I'd lost Q. forever and with her, a great friendship.

Nearly 20 years later, I run into Q. again. I wish I had something really pleasant to say about that re-union (If you'd call it that). We met again on FB.

"Hi! is this the same Q. that went to XXX school? Do you remember me, Enkay?"
"Yes it me. Nice to see you again. Keep in touch"

And that was it. Nothing more.

From her frofile I could see she'd grown into a pretty, self-assured young woman currently doing post graduate studies somewhere in the UK. I was glad for her. That stint with Enkay many years ago probably forever wiped off her memory.

Still, I'm glad we were ever friends at all. That our paths crossed. For even up till now, I am yet to meet anyone like my dear, dear Q!

The Big Three-Oh!

2009-04-11T04:58:00.005+01:00

I can’t even remember that day clearly but according to my journal entry –which by the way cannot lie – the date says 8^th December 2002 and the title says “Thirty things I would love to do in all of my life time!”

And then I proceeded to make this list of mine but somehow, I only stopped at number 26. I wonder why? Okay, lemme just give you guys a sneak peek into my dream list…. The words in parenthesis are my thoughts on the issues now.

Learn to drive. (Imagine? How come that was number 1? I must have really thought driving was a BIG deal huh? ‘kay that one’s accomplished already, been driving for more than a year now!)

Learn AutoCAD (Wow AutoCAD was THE software then! Everyone was raving about it. If you wanted to be a relevant engineer, then the AutoCAD way was the way! That’s also accomplished too and even more. In my 5 year career as an engineer, I’ve learnt to use five other more advanced engineering software!)

Go to MIT (Now that’s one dream that’s still sitting on my list untouched. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Back then, I wouldn’t hear of any other school! And not that I didn’t try. I wrote my GRE and scored 1200, Wrote my TOEFL, applied to the school blah, blah, I got rejected and I promptly dropped the idea. Fickle of me I know. But I’ll get round to it again. Soon I hope!)

Get married to the most wonderful man in the world! ( ) (Yeah, I left the parenthesis like that in my list ‘cos I didn’t know who it was going to be. Sure enough, approximately 1 year after I made that list, I met him! Of course I didn’t know it was ‘him’ then. We got married 4 yeas after. Mwuaah! Kisses P.! He’s absolutely the most wonderful man in all the earth! My special gift from God! I love you loads dear!)

Acquire my first piece of land before I’m 35. (hehehe! Did that when I was 26. And I’m in the process of purchasing another!)

Write at least 10 books. (Hmmm, me and books! I’ve started writing at least 3books but I’ve never finished any of them! I don’t even think any of them will be part of the ones I’ll eventually write. Hehehe! If I could just settle down….)

Raise godly children. I’d like to have 3. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I married a man who wanted 3 kids too! Right now, I’m thinking I’d like to have had all of them by the time I’m 36 that means I should have the first one in my 30^th year. Amen to that!)

Own a jeep of my own in addition to 2 other cars. (I bought my first car last year and guess what kind it was? Yeah! My very own SUV! I had already driven it for 6months before I ran into this list again. I had completely forgotten I’d ever written anything like that down!)

My list contained lots of other stuff about traveling the world, getting involved in missionary work, learning music, learning to cook all sorts etc. A lot of stuff on that list has already been accomplished and there are many more waiting to be. I’ll complete the list to 30 and I’ll start another!

Okay why I’m showing you guys my list? Well just in case the title of the post doesn’t say it loudly enough, it’s my 30^th birthday today!! I am thirty years old!! THIRTY! I have lived thirty years on this earth? My, my! But I don’t feel thirty! Should I feel thirty? Is there any feeling attached to thirty? Lol!

I wrote that list of mine approximately 7 years ago. I was 23 then and see how full my life has been since then! It sure didn’t seem that way while the years passed…I had my heart broken a few months after that list, I gathered myself together and moved on, My dad became sick, his company crumbled like a pack of cards, my dad died, I served my nation for one year, matured a bit, watched momc try her hands at business, I met this great guy, I searched and searched for a job, I got a phone call inviting me for a test, I got another inviting me for an interview, I waited and waited, I got another call congratulating me on my appointment!, I learned the ropes of the job, I got my very first chance to leave the shores of this nation, matured some more, P. proposed to me, I changed jobs, got promotions, got more proficient in my skills, learned the ropes of investment, lost a good deal of my money, matured some more, got married….my life has been full!

My birthdays usually fell/falls around the Easter period so I never really got to celebrate them in school. Once in primary school though, I got the chance when my mother had the bright idea of having my birthday celebrated along with my younger sister’s during a school term. I was sooo excited; I couldn’t sleep the night before. There were cartons of biscuits and vip all over just waiting to be loaded onto the school bus the next day. My new dress was hanging in momc’s room. I didn’t have to wear my school uniform like all the other ‘ordinary’ kids. I felt so special and relished the furtive and sometimes outright questioning looks I got from the other kids. I wanted to scream for everyone to hear – “it’s my birthday!!!” I was treated specially throughout that day. Frankly that was the first time I got any special treatment from anyone other than my parents. I felt so important! My heart was almost bursting with new emotions I could barely contain let alone describe! I floated on a cloud all day.

I still had some of that cloud under my shoes when I got to school the next day but they quickly disappeared when my teacher looked right through me as I entered the class and other kids treated me normally. I was disappointed but I quickly adjusted and tucked the memory of the previous day somewhere in my heart under the file name –“Birthday special feelings”

The next time I got the chance to celebrate my birthday was my final year in secondary school. As usual, I only got the chance because all form 6 girls were in school for extension classes in preparation for SSC Exams.

The rules were simple. Spread the word that your birthday was coming soon. Arrange with one of the house mistresses to cook your rice at her house. On the D-day, dress your bed with a really nice bed sheet – preferably one we’ve never seen before and wait for the gifts to arrive! There was one kink however, be prepared to live with the ‘shame’ of not getting any gifts after dressing your bed and waiting all day. So don’t start if you’re not up to it!

A little digression here if you please.

Your popularity and value in school then was usually judged by the number of beds that were required to contain your gifts on your birthday! You would usually have a ‘committee of friends who watched out for junior gals bearing gifts in the general direction of your hostel apartment. They’d rush to the girl and ask who the gift was from. And then depending on the size or perceived value of the gift, they’ll start screaming and announcing the approaching gift! All the hype! Lol!

And then there were those who weren’t so popular. They didn’t dress their beds with the special bed sheet until they’d received at least a few cards and a few gifts. That way, they saved their face in case things didn’t ‘go very well’.

At the very bottom were the most pathetic of the lot. These ones usually bought themselves several gifts and several cards and arranged for them to be brought to them by junior gals in the name of other seniors. Some wouldn’t even go that far, they’d just dress their beds and proceed to bring out their ‘gifts’ from their lockers in full view of everyone! Hahaha! Na wa o!

Okay back to my narration. I followed the rules. I announced to everyone my birthday was approaching. Thankfully, everyone was aware of the fact that I’d never before celebrated my birthday in school the previous 5 years. So there was a level of excitement there. Thank God! If there was going to be any ‘shame’ it’d be a small one. The rice was cooked but I just didn’t have the nerve to dress my bed till the first few gifts met me on my undressed bed! I quickly dressed it and put on my birthday smile. Would you believe it? By the end of that day, I had two beds dressed and filled with gifts and cards! I was overwhelmed! Again I reached into the recesses of my heart and found that special birthday feeling. I relived it and added this one to it. I had no idea I had that many friends! I felt so blessed! What a way to bow out of secondary school! That was my 16^th birthday.

Two years later, I had left school and JAMB was dealing with me. I enrolled in this jamb lesson and what do you know, my birthday came around again! I’d attended the lesson for about 7months and I’d made some new friends – note that most of my friends from secondary school were from all over the country. Some of them I’ve never met again since and even those in Lagos, I was yet to locate. It was my 18^th birthday. My coming of age birthday. The age at which I could finally perm my hair! (Yup, my popc was mean! I could only braid my hair. My afro kinky hair was with me till I turned 18!) I’d announced to everyone it was my birthday. Everything was set. The rice, popcorn, juice, cake, prawn crackers etc. My 18^th birthday was going to be the bomb! I’d gone to lesson earlier to remind everyone and I rushed back home to get it all ready. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come until after 2pm when lesson would have been over. By 4pm, I took a chair out to the gate just to see if anyone had lost their way. I was there till 6pm. Still no one showed up. The rice was getting cold, the popcorn and prawn crackers stale, the drinks warm. By 7pm, I took my chair inside, turned on the music and commanded the party to begin! I had the party alright. My able siblings, all 8 of them were in attendance. We ate and drank and danced. We had fun! When I went to bed that night, my pillow was wet with my tears. Tears of disappointment and rejection like I’d never known before. That night, I reached into that folder of ‘special birthday feelings’ and I deleted all the files there. Something not so nice replaced it.

The next day at the lessons, everyone was full of apologies and they brought me gifts up to one week after the fact. I smiled and told them it was okay. None of them knew that none of the others showed up and I preferred to leave it that way. I took the gifts, but they meant nothing to me. I don’t even remember now what they were. Sigh!

Since that 18^th birthday, up until now, I have NEVER called anyone to my birthday. I had no idea it affected me so badly but I just don’t do parties! The closest I came to organizing one was my wedding and it was a relief to see so many people there! Funny right? That relief was real still.

What I have done since and this only after I started working, was to order a nice cake and drinks. Cut the cake without much ado. Maybe a few pictures. I’d share the cake and drinks with my colleagues at the office and that’s it. Pretty convenient if you ask me. That way, I take the ‘party’ to them and I don’t give anyone the chance to ‘disappoint’ me.

Maybe I need therapy. No?

I’ll throw a party. I will! Maybe when I’m forty. But before then, I have this secret dream I hope will come true sooner than later.

In my dream, my birthday approaches just like it always does every year. Nothing special is attached to it. A friend (could be anyone at all), somehow manages to get me out of the house. Or better still, lures me out for an innocuous meeting at some restaurant. Something. Anything that doesn’t seem suspicious. As I approach the rendezvous point however, I see these live billboards (you know those types that show motion pictures) with my face on it. I do a double take as my eyes slowly become saucers and my mouth is finding it difficult to stay closed.

Picture after picture pops up and the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENKAY!” splash across the screen. I’m overwhelmed, my heart is beating really fast but I keep walking towards the entrance.

Two well dressed gentlemen approach me just as I reach the entrance.

“Enkay?”

I’m surprised and I nod “yes?”

“Please come with us”

Now my curiosity is piqued. I’m looking around to see if I can find any familiar face. There is none.

The men lead me to an entrance by the side of the building.

The ambience instantly relaxes me and I only walk a few steps before I realize they are playing one of my favorite songs!

I’m looking into the faces of the young men then for some explanation but they wear blank expressions.

They point to a door and then ask me to go inside. There is a lady there I am sure I’ve never met before but she goes ‘Enkay! You are welcome.”

I smile and start to ask a question but she smoothly brushes that aside. Strangely I feel relaxed. She proceeds to bring out from the closet the most gorgeous dress I have ever seen. I knew instantly it was for me!

Under one hour, she has done a complete makeover on me. She worked expertly on my hair, face, nails etc. I feel like Miss World!

When I open the door, I can see the shock on the faces of the two men. Apparently, they’d stood outside the door the whole time. Keeping guard? Maybe. They lead me through a narrow passage way into what seems like a really large room. It is so badly lit that I can only see a few feet in front of me. Suddenly they are no longer by my side. I reach out and call out “Hello!” No one answers. There’s no sound in the room but I can almost swear I’m not a lone in there.

Suddenly, the lights come on and I am momentarily blinded because they are so bright. And that’s when they all scream – HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Oh! My God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The whole place is filled with everyone I have ever known all my life! It is a surprise banquet held in my honour complete with a live band! I start crying. They are tears of joy. It’s unbelievable. All this, just for me?.............

The dream hasn’t ended o! But y’all catch my drift right?

Now see how long this post has become!!

I’d just like to thank my Father in heaven for these wonderful fulfilling years he has given me. They have been 30years of beauty that only He could have given me.

Thank you Father!

I love you so much!

Blogville, please dance with me will you? It’s my special dance. My jubilee dance. My dance of thanksgiving. My dance of gratitude.

I look ahead with hope and great expectations. The years ahead are definitely going to be greater than the ones I have seen. This, after all, is the true meaning of my name – NKIRUKA.

Ten Things Tuesday (04)

2009-03-17T08:09:00.002+01:00

You know how it is when you wake up one morning and all you can see are the things that are yet to be?
You look and think, where has all the time gone? And why does it look like I'm still standing where I've been standing for a long time?
I've been on this project for years, why doesn't it look as if it's about to be completed? I thought that by now, this and this should have come through so why does it look like I'm still waiting for them to happen? On and on.
That was how I felt this morning.
Usually it starts with one thought and then another and another....suddenly it takes over your mind and it changes your mood. Your face becomes sullen and downcast....woah! Woah! Wait a minute! This isn't right! I'm letting the wrong thoughts take over. No way am I going to let myself have a bad day today. As a matter of fact, I'm deliberately going to do my Thankful post today. If only to remind myself the good things I have in my life right now. I'm a work in progress and just because it looks as if things are still it don't mean nuthing's happening!

So I snapped out of the mood that threatened to swallow me whole and I began to Worship God. I sang and I prayed until those dark clouds rolled away. I have so much to be grateful for!

I am grateful for P. who just returned to his base. We were together for a total of 3months at a stretch! We grew together in leaps in those 3 months and we crossed major milestones on our relationship learning curve.
I learned in those 3 months the 'magic' of deferring to my husband and reaping a bountiful harvest. Oh no! I didn't learn it the easy way. Talk about disagreeing to agree. I'm grateful for the opportunities I get to learn more how to be the kind of Wife God wants me to be.
Another expectant mother from my list has given birth! Grateful to God for the safe delivery. Mother and child are doing well!
My younger sister has just been added to that list. Gave Momc enough reason to sigh in relief. I'm ecstatic!
Another younger sista'll be getting married soon. The introductions took place a few weeks ago and it all went well.
I'd been suffering from severe pain in the pelvic area for a while with cramps that drugs couldn't fix. I attended a healing meeting and now I'm completely healed. Praise God! It's great to have a healthy body. I'm truly grateful.
I'm thankful for God's provision for P and I. I sure could use a bit more money right now but amazingly God still supplies our needs! He is Jehovah Jireh!
I am grateful for the Rhema I received a few days ago. I've been rolling it around in my head and analyzing it but I'm glad I stopped that. If God says this is this then I'm not going to question it. Just like Mary, I shout at the top of my lungs "Be it unto me according to your Word oh, Lord! I receive the fulfillment of Your Word to me!
I'm thankful for my cell group in church. My world is being expanded to include other people and I think it's really beautiful. I'm being blessed every week!
Regardless of how many challenges I face, I'm still grateful to be alive! My future is bright and all I need to get there has been made available already!

Do you have anything to be grateful for?

6 months and under eh?

2009-03-10T18:19:00.004+01:00

I honestly did not feel I'd be among those 'campaigning' for the NBA until I saw the recent post on "Newbie bloggers" and I was like woah! Hold it right there! By Newbie you mean what? Anyone who's been blogging for 6 months and under? Well that's moi!

I definitely am no veteran blogger (on my way there though!), seeing as I can not in anyway be compared to bloggers like Vera, LG, Writefreak, Aloted, Solomonsydelle.......the list is endless! Don't fret if I didn't mention your name, you know yourselves if you fall into the category I'm talking about. I just rattled off the first few names that came to my head.

What I'm trying to say is this. Even though I haven't been on blogville long, the organisers of The Naija Bloggers Award have been so gracious as to include a slot for us newbies! So I thought, why not campaign? That's what I'm doing right now just in case you didn't know - I'M CAMPAIGNING O!

Be nice to this newbie and vote her! You can't miss the slot. It's at the very bottom of the list!

If you haven't voted for your Category A nominees, click the green button at the top of this post and vote. Also for those who have not yet voted in the Category B nominations, the same button takes you there. The links you are looking for are at the top right hand side of the page.

Okay people! Do this newbie proud!

Friendships Lost.

2009-03-06T18:11:00.004+01:00

If she had snuck out of school by probably crawling under the barbed wires, we may have been a bit relieved. At least it would have looked like a bonafide crime.

Somehow, we were sure she didn’t sneak out. She was somewhere within the school but for 2 weeks, no one could tell where my friend Q. was. There were several sightings, you know like one would sight UFOs, without proof.

“I swear I saw Q. by the borehole last night”

“2 days ago, just before sports, I saw Q. walking towards the staff quarters”

There were several claims. But did any one of you stop her and talk to her face to face? No.

She was always too far away they said, but they were sure it was her because of her waddle. It was impossible to miss Q’s waddle. We often laughed at the way she walked. It always reminded me of a duck! Mean of me I know but even as I write this, a smile cracks up my face.

It’s been 18 years. Wow! As I quote that figure, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that I’m growing ~~old~~ older. 18 years is really a long time if you consider I’m just going to be thirty in a few weeks. Yup! The big three-oh!

‘Nyways, back to Q.

Every average girl loves girlish things right? I mean that’s a given – at least it should be. Well Q. didn’t! She was fearless and nothing irritated her. Nothing ever made her say “yuck!” Nothing that is, except a mass of black ants. I always thought that strange.

Most girls I know would scream if a big grasshopper hopped onto their bodies and if they ever saw a cockroach crawl past, they’re never going past that path again. Q. loved to torment us and she enjoyed watching us shriek and scream when she got hold of a really huge grasshopper and threatened to put it in our blouses. We would beg as though for our lives but Q. would just wave the monstrous thing at us and laugh.

She loved it when it rained ‘cause after the rain, the soil was moist enough for the earthworms to come out and play. Yup, for Q. earthworms were cute playthings. She held them between her thumb and forefinger and watched them wiggle and squirm. When she got tired of the play, she’d gently put them down and watch them crawl away.

Most people thought Q. was weird but I just loved her! Nope, I couldn’t stand grasshoppers or earthworms. They scared me shitless! But Q. was always ready for an adventure. It was always as though we were thinking the same thing. Even though we were barely in JS 1 (3^rd Term) at the time, we’d explored all the unexplored corners of the school.

The school compound was so large that there weren’t any clear boundaries all around. There was a front gate of course and a wall that seemed to stretch for miles. Q. and I discovered however that if you walked long enough away from the hostels towards the back, you’d find yourself in the nearby village. No wall got to that part of the school, neither were there any barbed wires. We spent hours and hours exploring the ‘jungle’ behind our school and even hoped we’d see live monkeys!

I’m sure by now you’re wondering what we’re doing wandering in the ‘jungle’ when we should be reading! To tell the truth, I had no time for my books. I didn’t even really know I was in school to read! Classes seemed an uncomfortable interruption of my real life. Real life being serving seniors, or running away from the hostel to prevent you from being the ‘available junior girl’ and being sent on errands to death! Real life for me was surviving the intrigues of being in Js1 and the door mat of every senior girl. I was learning to beat the system and I was learning fast!

Classes were irrelevant as far as I was concerned. It was the dream-life where you pretended you’re in another world. Yet when the school bell rang for class dismissal, you were jarred to reality where it was dog-eat-dog!

My adventures where my escape mechanism and Q. was my worthy companion. We climbed trees and pretended we were members of the von Trapp family doing our thing.

It was Q. that showed me the difference between a toad and a frog. Of all things! I don’t know how she knew those things. We were barely 10 years old!

One night we left prep class and took a long walk towards the kitchen area. The doors were not normally locked and since huge logs of timber were used as stoves, the fire never really went out. It was always left smoldering even till the next day.

We walked around the kitchen and Q. pushed open the door. We snuck in under the cover of darkness and found some oil used to fry fish earlier. We also found some corn soaked in a huge basin. We poured the oil in a tureen and managed to balance it on one of the huge smoldering logs then we fetched several handfuls of the corn and poured it into the already hot oil. I guess we thought we could make some popcorn. We ended up burning the corn but we enjoyed eating our burnt corn outside.

“hey you two! What are you doing there?!”

We were startled and the first instinct was to run away. We were done for!

It was the night guard on his rounds. He shone his torch on our sorry faces and was surprised to see us 'little' rats by the kitchen at that time of the night.

From our faces, he shone the torch down at our half eaten burnt corn and you could see the incredulity in his eyes.

I really wasn't afraid of the guard. I was afraid he'd hand us over to our prep prefect or worse still to the head girl. But he was nice. He didn't ask for an explanation but pointed to our hostel and commanded us to be gone before he opened his eyes.

We fled! thanking our stars it wasn't worse. Once we got near the hostel, we just burst out laughing.

It was exhilarating knowing that we really could do whatever we wanted and never really get caught. I can't even begin to write it all down.

'Nyways, just before we started exams, Q. disappeared.

To be continued...

Enkay Spills!

2009-02-19T13:41:00.007+01:00

I’m really doing my best to keep up with blogville these days o! Of course my blog rounds are becoming much more regular and it’s gradually becoming a full-time job! Not that I’m complaining…. :)

I deliberately left my 2 truths and 1 lie meme unanswered till now ‘cause answering them meant expatiating - (I always thought the word was spelt ‘expantiate’. Isn’t that how it’s normally pronounced?) - On each of them. I guess I’m ready now so here goes!

I’ll start by congratulating the two people who got it right!

Olufunke and
Adaeze

You guys have done well! And I should congratulate myself on successfully throwing the rest of you off! Lol!

You guys thought #1 was the lie

Stand Tall – The activist
Poeticallytinted
Afrobabe
Asangansi UE
Miz-cynic

And you guys thought #3 was the lie

Afronuts
Scarlet
Saved girl
Geebee

Olamild only said something about climbing the tank but she didn’t say if that was the lie or not!

# 2 (I have read more than 900 books from my adolescent days up till now) is the lie. Truth is, it’s not so far from the truth either! If I added all the books I read before my adolescent days, I’ll be counting in my thousands!

By the time I was 9, I had read every single book in my father’s library, including encyclopedias and business books! I read every single thing in sight. It’s not like I have counted every book I’ve read since I turned 12 but I have a calculated estimate of about 750. I read all the Enid Blyton series available at the time – Famous Five, Secret Seven, Malory Towers, Saint Clare’s, the Faraway Tree Collection etc and then I graduated to the Agatha Christie books before moving on to the famous Mills and Boons, Temptations, Harlequin….. I read these ones till SS1. No book ever crossed my path that I didn’t read and I never stood in line to read a book.

My typical snatching style upon sighting a book with some one -

Me: “Who is reading after you?”

Book holder: “Cynthia. And Katherine is reading after her and…”

Me: (I cut in) “when are you giving it to Cynthia?”

Book holder: “Afternoon prep tomorrow”

Me: See eh, (I lower my voice to make it sound like I’m about to share a secret) “just give it to me before prep and I’ll return it just before dinner I promise.”

Book holder: (rolls her eyes, while she pretends to think about it) Ok, I’ll give it to you but I will collect it outside the dining hall whether or not you’ve finished reading it o!

Me: No problem.

The deal was sealed.

There were barely 3 hours between afternoon prep and dinner yet as sure as my promise was, the book was completed and returned right on time. That was how my reputation grew. No one argued with me once I asked to read a book, ‘cause they knew I’d return it in a few hours!

I think my book reading peak was in secondary school. You never saw me without a book in any one day. Never. I found I could read a book and do other things at the same time. For instance, I could be reading and copying the notes being dictated by the class prefect (I wouldn’t dare do that with a teacher! The books were never mine so I wouldn’t run the risk of having it seized!) Or I could be in the dinning hall eating and reading at the same time!

In SS2, I got saved and one of the ‘signs’ of being saved was doing away with the Mills and Boons, Temptations and Harlequins. I had bought some for my self and I clearly remember that day - I solemnly carried my ‘precious’ books and dumped them in the ‘sulo’ pit. I couldn’t bear to watch them burn so I promptly turned around and walked away from them.

My love for books dwindled after that period because most of the books in circulation in school then were books I could no longer read. This didn’t last for long though, I left school and discovered a whole new world of books. There were more Christian fiction books than I’d earlier imagined and even more secular thrillers! My book feast began again although I was no longer as voracious as I once was!

#1 (I had my first real kiss when I was 25) is true!

Someone asked what my definition of a real kiss was – well anything that is more than a peck on the lips or cheeks or forehead is a real kiss in my book! lol! And I didn’t get this till I was 25!

Nope, I didn’t grow up a loner or a boy-hater and I wasn’t priggish or prudish either! Even though I went to an only-girls’ school, I was in no way hampered in my relationship with guys. Somehow though, my relationship with them never really progressed beyond mere friendship even though I did get my fair share of pecks! As a matter of fact, I feel a bit more comfortable around guys than girls. I was the only girl in a class of about 80 boys in the university and my line of work is dominated by guys!

I got into my first real relationship in my 3^rd year at the university and it was as ‘holy’ as it gets! And then he kissed me for the first time 4years after! It’s only in hindsight now I see that I’d mostly lived a sheltered life. Not that there weren’t opportunities to mess around (I’m not saying being kissed is equivalent to messing around o!) but I was surrounded by friends and family who helped me maintain my balance.

As a matter of fact that first kiss left a bitter taste in my mouth. There are only 2 periods in my life that I consider as being dark. I’ve done a post on one of them here and here. The period after that first kiss was the second one. Maybe I’ll do a post on it sometime but suffice it to say that the guy swept me off my feet with that first kiss and promptly hung me out by my ears to dry!

#3 (I once climbed to the top of a building in order to reach an overhead tank and steal water from It.) is true too!

Yes I did! It was no mean feat either! lol! I was in JS 2 at the time and there was severe water scarcity in the school and surrounding villages. A tanker brought water every morning but I never got there early enough to get water. Besides, one tanker of water was hardly enough for all the students and most of it ended up on the ground from all the pushing and shoving that accompanied the exercise.

Everyday, I’d go around with my bucket begging for “one sponge-case of water please…just one…okay half….please give me half and I’ll be ok…”

I did this every morning just to scrape together less than a quarter of a bucket of water to bathe with. At least I was a little bit better than those who got by with the ‘rub-and-shine’ technique! (Not that I wasn’t forced to do that too from time to time!)

One evening, one of my naughty friends came to tell me that she saw some senior girls carrying buckets of water and that they were coming from the general direction of the old home economics lab. Guess why she came to me? Because I was the only one ‘crazy’ enough to ‘investigate’ this new development! And investigate we did. We went with two buckets each. What? Who wanted to take the chance of wasting precious time, returning to take buckets when we weren’t even sure how much water there was if there was any at all?

We waited till it was very dark and snuck out of our night prep class. We got to the lab but it was locked. Duh! So where was the water? Behind the lab, there was this abandoned overhead tank – so we thought. The thing had been dry for like forever but as we approached it and flashed our plastic torches on the ground around it, we found there were tiny puddles of water. Yippee! Question number two – how do we get to the water in the tank that towered several feet above the building?

The tank sat atop a scaffold-like structure so it wasn’t too difficult getting to the top. The challenge was reaching into the tank to get the water and then passing the bucket of water down to my friend.

To cut the long story short, we accomplished our purpose that night but we also lost our well kept secret too! By the next day, it became common knowledge that there was water in the tank at the old economics lab and the ‘fittest’ students did justice to it. The tank was emptied the next day!

Happy Birthday Olufunke!

2009-02-17T09:54:00.002+01:00

It's Olufunke's Birthday today. Let's all stop by her blog and celebrate with her. She definitely has a lot to be grateful for!

Dearie, it's another phase of your life you've just entered. A phase of constant growth and increase. A phase of growing in you faith and experiencing more and more of God's love. A phase of watching your dreams come true one by one. Can I get a witness in da house?! Yeah!

Happy birthday!

Ten Things Tuesday (03)

2009-02-11T16:08:00.004+01:00

I missed my TTT post for last week not because I had nothing to be thankful for but for pure laziness’ sake! God truly has been gracious and I’m thankful for these things:

P’s back in town and I get to have him to myself for 4 whole weeks! This year is definitely a great one!

I had some issues with my tummy coupled with symptoms of malaria this past weekend but I’m well now. Good health is such a huge blessing!

All the 8 expectant mothers on my list are doing great! One of them really does look like she’s about to burst so it won’t be long till we celebrate!

P. is such a patient and considerate man. It’s a wonder how he puts up with ALL of my antics! I am thankful too for him.

My younger sister who’s had to miss several months of school due to a dreadful drug reaction was favored by having most requirements waived for her!

I’m grateful for my safe trips to and fro my examination center. I expect the best!

I’m excited about blogville and all the new friends I’ve met here. I’m grateful for this the opportunity it affords me to be creative and share my faith in the process.

My brother-in-law has been wanting for the past 2years to go do his Masters abroad and it’s been one issue after another but finally it’s all worked out and he leaves next week!

In addition to that, he bought my sister a new car! It’s indeed a pleasant surprise and an unexpected blessing!

Finally, like I always say, I’m truly grateful to be alive!

So tell us, what is that thing that gladdens your heart and for which you are grateful?

Just Like a Doctor....

2009-02-11T15:00:00.005+01:00

Ok, so I have never owned a stethoscope - not even sure I have ever handled one before! I don’t go around in white coveralls. I have never taken any medical classes and the sight of blood makes me feel sick to my stomach. Okay no need to get all gory but my point is I am not a doctor – not even in my dreams!

The past few days have however begun to make me think I am becoming a doctor of sorts. Reason? I’ve been doing what I’ve heard them call ‘Blog Rounds’!

I mean it’s a completely different world out there called ‘blogville’. I have heard terms like ‘blogosphere’; ‘blogaria’ ; ‘blogiverse’ and all sorts but from my observation, ‘blogville’ seems to be the world of Naija-linked bloggers. As in, they are Nigerians either living here or abroad; or even non-Nigerians with a Nigerian connection of some sort.

For some of us, I know it’s no big deal but for me it is. The first time I ever heard the word ‘Blog’ was in 2006. It appeared on a friend’s Yahoo! 360° profile and since there was no link attached I could go no further in my exploration. I remember thinking though what a funny word it was - Blog. Sounds the way I think a pancake mix would when someone just took a handful and let it drop in some other gooey mixture – (“plop”). It makes me think of the way a really large frog would gradually blink its bulgy eyes (“blug-blug”) as it targets its unfortunate prey. Even worse still, it makes me think of a bog! You know that terribly thick muddy body of water that swallows anyone whole who mistakenly fell into it. It even sounds like a perfect word for an insult an old time soldier would probably throw at some fiend – “get away from hia you ‘blogger’ rascal” Hehehe, silly.

Several months after my first ‘encounter’ with the word I finally understood that it was a site where anyone could write stuff and publish them. Even then I still hadn’t seen anyone’s blog. Not until I got a mail late last year with a link to Olufunke’s blog. I got there and read her posts (she was also only just starting) and I was impressed! I promptly signed up and started my very own blog that day!

I had published 2 posts before I found a few other bloggers through Olufunke’s blog. Most of the first few comments I had on my first few posts (not that I’ve done that much anyway) were from non-bloggers but then I did another post and got comments from bloggers I’d never seen (heard of or read from) before and that’s how the linking started. I clicked link after link and my amazement just kept growing. What?! You mean there are this many bloggers out here?! Where have I been all these years?! I visited so many blogs that I generally lost track. I left comments on some of them all the while announcing “first time here!” I felt like a little girl who just got permission from mommy to swing on the hitherto forbidden ‘janglova’ (is that how it’s spelt?)

It’s different from facebook and other social networking sites in the sense that here it’s just you doing your own thing, expressing yourself and simply being creative.

Just today, my Blog Round took me to the Blogville Idol 2008 site and I was like - “Is this for real?” I know it’s old news now but it’s ‘new’ news for me. Suffice it to say I was impressed!

I have this feeling that there’s more to Blogville than meets the eye. I don’t know why, I’m just excited, like something really good is about to happen.

I really should do my “Ten Things Tuesday” post and I will. I just need to get my act together just a bit.

Being a doctor definitely isn’t easy I’m beginning to get woozy from the long Blog Rounds. It’s a good woozy feeling though. I really could get used to this!

2 Truths, 1 lie Meme

2009-02-03T15:03:00.001+01:00

Hmmm, I guess I've stalled long enough on this 2 truths, one lie meme. I'd been tagged earlier by Olufunke. I really wanted to make it difficult for you guys but.....lemme just have mercy. lol!

Let's see how many of you'll get this right.

I had my first real kiss when I was 25

I have read more than 900 books from my adolescent days up till now.

I once climbed to the top of a building in order to reach an overhead tank and steal water from it.

The Tagging rules are:

1. You have to tell us 3 things about you, 2 truths and 1 lie

2. Link the person who tagged you.

3. Mention the rules in your blog.

4. Leave a comment on the blogs of those you have tagged

5. Tag 6 following bloggers, link them.

I know I should tag 6 other people but I've only been around blogsville a few months so you'll all have to forgive me if I am unable to produce 6 'taggees'. Besides most of the other bloggers I've met have been tagged already!

I hereby tag the following

Moses

Charry

GEEBEE

And any other blogger who's yet to be tagged!

Ten Things Tuesday (02)

2009-01-27T11:36:00.007+01:00

It’s another beautiful week! I’m glad for yet another opportunity to give thanks. You can find my last thankful post here.

Below are some of the things I’m thankful for!

P. had to return to his base last week and I’m grateful for the safe trip.

Late last year P. applied for post graduate studies at a university close to his base. He did it at the last possible minute just when the admissions were going to close. He called me last week and announced excitedly that his name was on the admission list! Halleluiah!

I have a personal list and on it I have the names of the expectant mothers known to me – friends, colleagues, friend’s friends, relatives, relative’s friends etc. If I heard you were pregnant, I’d put your name on the list and pray for you everyday. (hmm...hmm...(clearing my throat) em... no, much as I would love to sound like I’m sooo benevolent, I haven’t always done this, In fact I only just started this 2 weeks ago! lol!) Anyways, I started with 7 names and last week, one of them gave birth successfully without any complications. Mother and baby are doing great! Awesome!

I’m grateful that just a few days ago; I have added 2 more names to that list!

On Sunday, I went out and parked at a place that says “No Parking”. It’s funny that I didn’t see the sign and I just left the car and walked away. I was in a shop when some ladies started talking about cars being towed away – cars that were parked on the street where I parked! I bolted out of the place much to the surprise of everyone, with a prayer on my lips and ran straight to where I’d parked and my car was still there!! I’m thankful that my car was spared. I’ll definitely be more observant and careful next time!

I mentioned last week that I was to take an exam. Well that exam is to take place in an entirely different city from where I stay and somehow, with the help of a friend, provision has been made for me to be accommodated comfortably. Thank God!

For the past year or so I’ve been telling myself to join a cell group in church. You see, after we got married, I had to start attending P’s branch of the church. It’s a lot larger than where I was used to and somehow I found myself lost in the crowd. But I knew I had to get more involved in church. That was one of my resolutions this year and this past Sunday, I finally did!

Two things happened yesterday for which I am grateful. I was to get a ride home in a colleague’s car and he intended to just stop by a filling station to top up his fuel in anticipation of the traffic ahead. The filling stations around were either packed full – obstructing traffic, or not even selling at all! We drove all over the place looking for fuel (no thanks to independent marketers who didn’t want to sell at the stipulated =N=65/litre). Anyways, we left Victoria Island and our search took us to Lagos Island. It was getting late and the story was the same there too! Cars were all lined up at the pumps but no one was selling! Should we risk heading to the 3^rd mainland bridge with what little fuel we had? What if there was traffic and we got stranded? We parked the car somewhere and set out on foot to find fuel. A Good Samaritan offered to give us 4-litres from his car but the hose wouldn’t just get into the tank! Humph! We thanked the guy and left in search of a filling station that would sell us 4-litres at any price. We really had to be on our way. Thankfully, not too far away, we found one and after a little scuffle at the pump, we got fuel!! It was such a relief and we were finally able to set for home 2 hrs after we originally started the journey. Thank God!

After we poured in the fuel, my colleague whose car it was had to check something under the hood of the car. He’d already lifted the bonnet when the car started rolling backwards!! I yelped and screamed for the other colleague in the front seat to slam on the brakes. He did just in time to avoid collision with an oncoming car behind us. Phew! That was a close one and I’m grateful nothing happened! I got home that night and went straight to bed! Lol!

Today, just like always, I’m grateful to be alive!!

So tell me, what are you thankful for?

Perspective: A Man Valued at $9.2 Billion Commits Suicide

2009-01-26T08:57:00.005+01:00

I got this on one of my yahoogroups mails and I thought I should share it with us.

There's so much going on; with the world's financial system crumbling and little hope anywhere in the horizon but I ask myself, is any problem so bad that we have to take our own lives?

The pointers towards the end of the post ring true. If we find things to be grateful for even in the midst of seemingly insurmountable problems, then we are able to stay in perspective.

Distraught over massive financial losses incurred during the past year, Adolf Merckle scrawled a suicide note to his family and wandered out the door into a dark, wintry night. He made his way for the railway where he stood by the tracks and waited in the cold. Spotting the headlight of an oncoming railcar, he threw himself under the train and took leave of this world.

As tragic as the suicide was, it would not have received worldwide press apart from one shocking fact: Adolf Merckle was valued at 9.2 billion dollars, ranking 94th on Forbes 2008 list of the world’s richest persons.

It can be hard to fathom the extent of Mr. Merckle’s wealth, a billion dollars being such a staggering sum. Think of it this way, 9,000 people could each win a million dollars in the lottery, pool their money together, and still have less money than Mr. Merckle was worth. Or, the entire nation of Haiti (8.5 million people) could work for two and a half years without accumulating income equal to Mr. Merckle’s portfolio.

A family statement, issued after Mr. Merckle’s untimely death, read as follows: "The desperate situation of his companies, caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, broke the passionate family entrepreneur and he took his own life." Surely Mr. Merckle’s financial missteps and poor investment decisions must have been painful to stomach. Watching his business empire suffer had to have been difficult for a man of his status. Even so, Mr. Merckle had billions of dollars to his name. It’s astonishing to consider the monumental loss of perspective that led the German billionaire to take his own life.

As evidenced by the tragic case of Adolf Merckle, even the most prosperous individual is not immune to a descent into despair. With corporations cutting payrolls and the stock market on the downswing, many leaders face worrisome bottom lines, dwindling investment portfolios, or even unemployment. Many find themselves in the fight of their lives, struggling daily to gain a healthy perspective.

Two Pointers to Keep Perspective When Problems Persist

1) Gratitude

Leaders enter dangerous territory when they neglect to be grateful for what they have, and instead begin to fear losing what they’ve accumulated. The blessings of life surround everyone, but the person is rare who allows its simple benefits of life to fill his or her soul. Yet, the choice presents itself to anyone: accentuate the positives or dwell on the negatives.

Choosing to be grateful earns the greatest return in times of trouble. It’s virtually impossible to be overtaken by worry when a person has a heart of gratitude. For this reason, it pays to log a gratitude journal - each day, list three things in life for which you’re thankful. Don’t just jot them down; roll them over in your mind. Let them sink into your spirit. Chances are, the exercise will dramatically improve your perspective.

2) Selective Hearing

For leaders, denial isn’t an option. Bad news is preferable to no news in that information conveys important knowledge about the current reality. The wise stay apprised of the economic outlook and make decisions based upon incoming data. At times those decisions can be painful such as instituting a spending freeze or terminating the employment of a devoted worker. Nonetheless, leaders shoulder the load and do what must be done to move forward.

While leaders refuse to put their heads in the sand, they do have the wherewithal to unplug from negativity. At a certain point, a glut of the same dreary news damages the psyche. Leaders confront reality, but they stop short of wallowing in worry and despondence. They avoid doomsdayers and naysayers, preferring to fill their minds with hope and opportunity.

By Justin Pinkermah

Ten Things Tuesday (01)

2009-01-21T07:57:00.004+01:00

I boarded the “Ten Things Tuesday” train with not a little help from aloted. She directed me back to the originator , Jill Brownstone and I have tried to follow her guidelines as much as possible.

I had already decided that this year I would be more thankful and what better way than to deliberately find 10 things to be grateful for each week?

NB: I know it’s Wednesday but I started writing this yesterday (Tuesday) but couldn’t post it.

Here goes..!

1 – Since P. and I got married, we’ve lived and worked in different cities and the longest amount of time we’ve ever stayed together in the same city is 2weeks at a time. However throughout the holidays up until now, we’ve spent 6weeks straight together! It’s been glorious and I am truly thankful for this.

2. I returned to work this year to find that my job description had changed. The head of my discipline had been moved to a management position and I was moved up to take his place as lead. Even though this promotion is yet to translate to increased benefits, I’m grateful to God for the opportunity it provides. Promotion does come only from God!

3. P.’s phone got stolen 2 days ago. An annoying and inconveniencing development but I’m grateful that even though his wallet was in the same pocket as his phone, it wasn’t taken. His wallet contains much more valuable stuff (apart from money) than the phone. Thank God.

4. I got a call from a close friend of mine yesterday. She and her husband have been trying to have a baby for quite a while now and she broke the good news to me – they’re expecting a baby! God is great!

5. This year for P. is supposed to be one of upgrading himself in his career by becoming a certified project management professional. Part of the process includes attending lectures and seminars which cost huge sums of money. He has got the opportunity to have most of this training done at no cost to him. Awesome!

6. This month’s daily devotion has been an exposé on faith and I am deeply thankful to God for His Word. How could I even live without it? Thank you!

7. Two days ago we were at my brother-in-law’s place and there was talk about a family that had just been thrown out of their house. Very touching and humbling but it made me even more grateful that we live in our own place. It’s still under construction but at least we have a roof over our heads and we never have to pay rent.

8. Just this morning I saw my name short listed to take a scholarship application exam. I am glad I made it through the first hurdle!

9. P. got paid yesterday for a job he’d done almost 5 months ago! It was an unexpected blessing. Thank you Lord!

10. I'm thankful that I am alive today!

So what are you thankful for?

I have been tagged by olufunke in the 2 truths, 1 lie meme. I'm still thinking it through. i should start on that soon enough!

The Day I cried .....(4)

2009-01-13T10:13:00.006+01:00

The funeral went well and some people said we should have had a thanksgiving service. For what? That my daddy died or that we successfully put him in the ground in the company of worms and all manner of creepy crawlies? Well it wasn’t my call, but if it was, there’d be no such thing as a thanksgiving service! There!

I’d become cold and unfeeling. I got angry easily and snapped at people a lot. If I ever caught my self laughing, I would chide myself. The worst part was that I lied to myself everyday. I lied that I didn’t need God. I could make it the rest of the way without His help. I lied that I didn’t miss our times of sweet fellowship, me and the Holy Spirit or the reassurance of knowing that I was loved by the Almighty. I lied that there was no longer anything to laugh about or any much of a reason to live. I lied that I enjoyed being hard and cold, that I didn’t miss the warmth of a joy-filled heart. I lied that I didn’t miss the celebrations of the triumph of faith; that God probably no longer care about me, so what’s the use? I lied to myself but secretly, I desperately hoped for a change.
There was a time I felt I’d gone too far and may never be able to return to the Saviour of my soul. I was afraid. The future looked dark. There was no hope. No light at the end of the tunnel. I mean I had actually accused God, the Almighty God, of killing my father! Who was I to accuse God of murder? I had definitely taken it too far!

6months later, I got the call-up letter for my NYSC posting to Sokoto. Sokoto was just perfect as it was as far away as I wanted to be from all that was familiar. Camp was great as I immersed myself into most of the activities. I met corpers who would do anything to get posted to the city and I wondered what the hassle was all about. I didn’t care where I was posted to. I was even ready to go the villages that shared boundaries with Niger Republic.

I guess God was being nice to me. I was sent to the state polytechnic where I was to lecture a few basic courses in Engineering. I was assigned to a room at the staff quarters and my room mate turned out to be a colleague from school. She was a batch ahead of me so the place was already set up nicely. I guess you could say I had it all easy – everything was in place to make my service year relatively comfortable. Could God have been working in the background? But I didn’t want Him to be nice to me! I needed a reason to stay angry with Him!

For the first few weeks, our room housed about 8 other corpers who were still either looking for proper placement or simply a place to sleep. The room was really large so it didn’t seem too crowded. One by one, our guests left as they got themselves settled. One evening, I returned to find our room empty. The last guest had left that morning. My original room mate was out of town and so for the first time since I moved in, I had the room all to myself. Not good.

Suddenly, a picture came to me as I sat in the quietness of the room.

I had just received a letter from a multinational oil servicing company congratulating me on my success in the first stage of their recruitment process and inviting me for an interview. Excitedly I ran to show it to daddy as he sat watching TV in the living room. His face lit up with a wide smile as he finished reading it and he promptly pulled me down onto his lap and gave me a huge hug! “That’s my Engineer! You haven’t even served yet and already they are calling for you!” I could see the pride on his face and my heart swelled with joy that I was the source of my father’s pride.

That was the first picture. Many others came to me in quick succession. Pictures of my father as he gave me a thumbs-up sign; taught me to change a flat tire; placed his hand on my forehead to pray for me when I was ill; drove me to campus on my first day and even hung around while I tried to be a ‘big girl’ and handle my registration myself…….on and on they came.

I tried real hard to stop them – the tears. But they wouldn’t be stopped. They gathered and blurred my vision. I refused to blink so as to prevent them from sliding down my cheeks but they didn’t need my help, they came pouring.

It was a quiet sob at first, even respectable. Just tears pouring from my eyes. I barely made a sound. But as I thought of the enormity of my loss those past 6months, I could no longer hold it in. I bawled unashamedly, like a lost child crying for his mommy. I slid to the floor from the chair I’d been sitting on. I wailed and rolled all over the floor. Secretly glad that no one was there to try to make me stop. I bawled. I wailed. I sobbed. I wept. I cried. I didn’t want to be comforted. I wanted to keep crying for ever and never stop.

I was never going to see my daddy again. He didn’t live to see me truly become the engineer he’d dreamed about. You see, I was the only daughter to follow in his professional footsteps. He was my hero. My mentor. My Pastor. My teacher. Never has a father had so great an influence on his child. I always wanted to be like daddy when I grew up. He was confident, fearless. I wanted to be like that too. He loved God with a passion. You could see it in his eyes, his lifestyle. He didn’t have the philosophy that older children would in turn help to raise their younger ones. He told us every day how all nine of us were his celebration and pride; It was a privilege to raise us and he was personally responsible for every one of us till we’d come of age. Because of him, I saw first hand how a man should treat his wife – with respect and honour. He showed us that as far as family hierarchy goes, mommy comes first and thereafter, the kids. That was never compromised for any child. I don’t know how they did it but even amongst us all, you couldn’t point at any one child and say that’s mommy’s favorite or daddy’s favorite. We were all treated equally and if anyone got any special treatment for any reason, then an explanation was given.

I have no idea how much time passed and much as I hated it, I couldn’t cry anymore. My head throbbed and I could feel that my entire face was swollen – as though it belonged to someone else. The room was dark. Night had fallen. I didn’t bother to get up. I just lay there and then I had the strangest sensation come over me. It was as though someone else was in the room with me but I was sure I was by myself. I felt warm inside, like someone had covered me with an invisible blanket. I quickly scrambled up to my feet and felt my way to the bed, flopped down on it and wrapped my arms around myself as though to ward off some chill. And there was that sensation again but this time, in addition to the feeling of having an invisible blanket wrapped around me, I felt there was another set of arms wrapped around mine.

I’m not one to often have ethereal experiences but if anything counted for one, this was definitely it! I could and still can not explain the feeling; it was both unsettling and comforting all at once. After a while, I stopped fighting it and lay on the bed curled up in a fetal position. As I slowly fell asleep, whether in my dream or in real life, I thought I heard the sound of some sweet melody.

I woke up the next day feeling very thirsty. I guess my throat was parched from all the howling the day before. Strangely too, I felt rather light. I sat up and scooted backwards till I was leaning against the wall. I raised my legs till I could place my chin on my knees while wrapping my arms around them. The tears came again but these weren’t borne of grief but of repentance. I was awash with God’s love for me afresh. He was telling me he still loved me; he never stopped even for one day. For the first time in 6months I prayed. I asked God to heal my heart and to help me make sense of it all. And he did. No, I did not have an epiphany that explained why my daddy had to die. I still don’t have those answers but God healed my heart and brought me back home again. I learned to trust Him again. I learned to build my faith again. I opened my heart again to the gift of life and found again that there was so much to live for. Daddy lived a good life and left a legacy now it’s left to us who are still here to make even much more of a difference in our world.

It’s been six years now and God has been faithful. Six years since “The day I cried” and I know I will never again cry like that.

A few months after, I ran into this poem that ‘ministered’ to me

I am standing upon the sea shore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
And starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and and strength.
I stand and watch until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud
Just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says “There, she’s gone!”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
As she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight

to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says
“There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
And other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying.

HENRY VAN-DYKE

I dedicate these series to all who have ever lost anyone dear to them. The light of our loved ones lost will ever keep burning in our hearts!

The day I cried....(3)

2009-01-09T14:33:00.006+01:00

It was really important to me that I not be late for work that afternoon. The madam whose children I tutored after school hours was quite particular about my time of arrival. It seemed as though she was always looking for a reason to cut my pay. She never did anyway but I didn’t want to dare her.

I was all dressed up and if I could just grab a bite to eat, I’d be out of the house in a few minutes. Just then the living room door opened and in came my mom looking all drained and exhausted. I felt so sorry for her ‘cause it was clear that daddy’s prolonged illness was beginning to take its toll on her. I took a few steps towards her but stopped when I saw the entourage of uncles and in-laws coming in behind her. This wasn’t right. Momsie always came home after a few days at the hospital to rest and take a change of clothes. Since when did she need these people to do that?

With her eyes downcast, mom passed by me without saying a word and into the children’s sitting room. Suddenly there was an air of foreboding gradually creeping around the entire house. She sat down and held her head in her hands while facing the floor. No one said anything but gradually the kids who were at home came out one by one. We knew something was up and it wasn’t good news!

“Hmm, hmm” one of the uncles started by clearing his throat. “We all know that when some things happen, we should never question God and...”

“Why are you going round in circles?” Momsie cut him off mid-sentence “Our daddy is dead!” She spat it out just like that. A scream escaped my sister’s lips, my brother bowed his head, I laughed derisively and my uncle continued to ramble. I didn’t hear what he was saying and frankly, I didn’t care.

I wish I could say I was shocked or that I was sad or that I wailed. I wasn’t and I didn’t. In fact, I was numb. I didn’t feel anything! Was this a joke or something?

The previous day, we were at the hospital to see daddy. It was a Sunday and I took an auntie there who didn’t know where the hospital was. Daddy looked terrible. He was so thin that you could actually count a few ribs. His feet were swollen and his eyes sunken. He looked gaunt and was so uncomfortable. I adjusted his bed several times before we found a position he could relax in. The doctors weren’t saying much but we really didn’t need them to. We all knew he was going to get better and return home in no time. This was our daddy. He taught us to have faith and our faith coupled with his would bring us through this one too. Just like always.

As I left the hospital that evening I waved at my father and like he always did, he gave me a thumbs-up sign albeit a weak one. He always did that. Like he was trying to say “Don’t worry, I’ve got this one too”. I had instructions from my mother to have my younger sister come to the hospital the next day to relieve her as she needed to run a few errands. I got home and delivered the message only for an uncle to come to the house as early as 6am to tell my sister not to bother going to the hospital as my dad had been transferred to another hospital more equipped to handle his case. We should have known.

By 7am another uncle came around and I remember thinking that he was trying too hard to make us laugh. I should have known. But why didn’t I? The day just gradually rolled by. Those who were going to work prepared and left, I didn’t have to be at work till later so I attended to some laundry, all the while, the 7am uncle kept going outside to take calls. It seemed strange but then he probably had some discreet business to attend to. Uh-Uh, he was disseminating the news of my father’s death, yet I had no clue! Not until that afternoon.

The uncle had concluded his ramble and we all sat there wondering what to do with ourselves. Suddenly, our auntie shows up and everything crumbles. My mother suddenly jumps up calling the auntie’s name and throwing her hands everywhere, wailing “He didn’t want to die, He didn’t want to die!”
Quickly all of us kids jump up all at the same time running towards her and holding her. That’s when the crying started. I begged mummy to stop crying as my auntie led her away into her bedroom but she didn’t. I still didn’t cry.

Of course work was cancelled for the day and even for the week. My concern seemed to be for other siblings who were yet to hear the news. Who would tell them? How would they react? They were free to cry but I hoped no one would do anything irrational. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t going to give God the benefit of my tears. Not one drop!

That was one helluva long day. I sat in the main living room and watched as the visitors came trooping in. Most of them wailing. I remember feeling like slapping a few of them. Their faces were all contorted with wails that produced no tears and after 60 seconds or so of their ‘mock wail’, it was business as usual. “Can you give me water to drink?”
Water to drink? Water to drink? You are asking me if I can give you water to drink? My daddy just died!!

By the end of the day, all my siblings had heard and thankfully they all seemed to be taking it well. The entire week was filled with planning for the funeral and receiving yet more visitors. Some visitors just felt they had to say something and how that irked me!

“God knows best”
Oh yeah, He does eh? Is your dad still alive? Tell me that again when he dies.

“It is well”
Really? So why’s my mom in there taking drips and suffering from acute depression?

All the activities leading up to the funeral were a blur but I held this thought close to my heart. God and no one else killed my father. That was my conclusion.

Daddy had been seriously ill for close to 4months. His liver had been damaged. He was neither a drinker nor a smoker. He didn’t eat any fried foods or any such junk. He ate all the fruit and vegetables ever placed before him so what do you mean his liver has been damaged?

Ok, let’s say this is an attack from the devil, what would it take to get rid of it? Prayers? Faith? Fastings? Declaration of The Word? We did all that. We had faith! Not once have we ever asked for anything as a family in faith that did not eventually come. Our faith always worked! But not this time. So, God, you are to blame. You killed daddy and watched while we grieved, cried and wailed. Well, for your information God, if it’s my tears you want, You ain’t getting any of it!

That was how I packed all my theology in a big black box. Locked it up and threw away the keys. Yes I still went to church. To sneer at all those church folk who earnestly answered “Amen!” to the Pastor’s declaration “You shall not die….!”
Yeah right. That’s what they tell you and then you step out the door and…you end up like daddy.

I was so bitter in my heart. I carried around this coldness and heaviness. It was eating me whole! I was becoming some sort of a hard creature no longer the young woman who had had her whole life stretched before her, full of faith.

I was dying.

Calabar my Calabar!

2009-01-06T07:13:00.013+01:00

If I mention the name David Diop, I guess most of us who have ever come accross it would identify him as that great poet who wrote the poem

"Africa my Africa!

Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannas Africa of whom my grandmother sings,

on the banks of the distant river....."

Well, my piece today is neither about David Diop nor his poem, rather, this piece is about "Calabar my Calabar!"

I couldn't resist putting that caption in green! Even though the official colours of the Crossriver State is "Blue-White-Blue", you can't help but think of the colour green as you find your way around that city.

I’d heard about the city from friends and colleagues and I was like “Yeah right!” Even before I left Lagos to be with my husband in Port Harcourt, the air waves were already being inundated by news and adverts of the Calabar Christmas Carnival – the brain child of Donald Duke and his wife several years ago.

I honestly didn’t go to Calabar for the carnival per se (we both had to be back in Lagos for the Christmas celebration with family), neither did I go to see the people or any such thing but my husband and I needed to get away for a few days and Calabar seemed to be the natural choice. The Obudu Ranch Resort was way out of our budget at the moment so it wasn’t an option. We were just going to go to Calabar, see the sights and return home.

And that’s exactly what we did. Only we came back a lot more inspired.

We got into the city at night and the Christmas lights on the street lights and roundabouts were truly beautiful. Tired from the 6-hour trip from PH, all we wanted to do was hit the sack. All other explorations would have to wait till the next day.

And early did we rise to face the next day. We stepped out of the hotel and I was immediately struck by the ‘laid-backed-ness’ – if there ever was such a word – of the people in the immediate vicinity considering it was a weekday. I mean these people didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all; didn’t they have jobs or businesses to attend to? It was a Tuesday and so it wasn’t like TGIF or anything. We walked down almost the entire length of the road – and it was a long one – but it was the same. You just got the feeling that life here was easy and free of hassles. While this may not be true for everyone in Calabar, it was a sure indication of the people’s general psyche.

Another thing that struck me was how clean the city was. I’d heard of this before but I’d always thought to myself how this was possible since you really couldn’t control the amount of waste generated by a city’s inhabitants especially in any Nigerian city. In Lagos for instance, anyone who’s been around for a while would bear me witness that things have changed a lot especially in the area of waste management. The government is doing a lot but you still find heaps of bad smelling garbage spilling over to the ground from the trash receptacles from time to time. Although they are usually cleared within a day or two, the stench around the site still lingers in the air. So in my mind, if they say Calabar is clean then it just means that the horrible smelling garbage is cleared a lot earlier and the stench isn’t quite as bad as the ones in Lagos. Right? Wrong!

My husband specifically pointed out to me that the streets had already been swept that morning but I wasn’t quite sure. Does it mean that the Highway Managers (as they are called in some parts of Lagos) did their work as early as 5am? Or worse still, did they sweep the streets while the city slept? What ever the case, when you got out of your house and onto the streets, you’d find that they’d already been swept! I saw several garbage receptacles but not once did I see one spilling over, nor covered with smoke marks and rust from having the garbage in them being burned, nor standing askew as though missing a wheel or two. Did they clear the garbage on an hourly basis perhaps? Or didn’t these Calabar people generate any waste at all?!

The streets are lined with trash baskets with an inscription “USE ME” pasted on them. Every once in a while as we walked by (Yes we did a lot of walking!), I would actually see someone use the basket! You would have to forgive me if I sound too unpatriotic but since when did we actually start using waste baskets on the streets? No, don’t get me wrong. P. and I have actually had arguments about why I always insist on bringing my ‘trash’ home. You see, for as far as I can remember, I just cannot for the life of me throw peels and wrappers of stuff I ate on a bus out the window and neither would I drop them on the floor of the bus. In his opinion, if I didn’t want to throw stuff out the window then just leave it on the floor of the bus but I just can’t! There’s always a separate nylon bag in which I put all my trash – banana peels, orange peels, gala wrappers, yoghurt packs – just name it and when I get home, I go straight to the dustbin and dump it. End of story! But we all know that a lot of people in Lagos throw stuff out the window with unbridled impunity right? Not in Calabar. There wasn’t a single ‘KAI’ official or other enforcement agency in sight but these people knew where all trash should go and that none of it should ever deliberately leave your hands and touch the floor. It was all integrated into their lifestyle.

So much has been said about the new crash helmet ('Element') law currently being enforced in Lagos and other parts of the country and I have seen all sorts. I’m sure the ‘Okada’ riders in Calabar would laugh if they ever saw what their counterparts in Lagos were doing to ‘fulfill’ the law. Every ‘Okada’ rider in Calabar has a proper crash helmet on his head at all times and if you refused to wear one then you could go find alternative transportation as he was not willing to take the risk of carrying an ‘unprotected’ passenger! There’s no special unit enforcing the use of the helmets, the people just knew that they should and they did!

We went to lots of beautiful places in and around the city of Calabar and I had an eerie feeling that the people were too good to be true. How did they come to have this kind of lifestyle?

We left Calabar not only refreshed but truly inspired! It is possible indeed to have a society governed by the simple rules of civility. An entire people could actually be influenced to the point that they have a common psyche for the common good. Already, I see it happening in Lagos but it is yet to pervade the very fabric of our society. I hope it won’t be long.

So the next time I see anything that makes me feel like we’re too far from an ideal society, I would bring out this picture and look at it again and again if only to remind myself of the possibilities that lie ahead. This picture of Calabar my Calabar!

Happy New Year!

The day I cried....(2)

2008-12-04T15:10:00.000+01:00

Spontaneous. That's one of the many words that would describe my father. His spontaneity was quite infectious too! That's also one of the major ways he and my mom were different. If my mom hasn't thought long and hard about something - pros and cons and all - she won't take action. Not that he was reckless or anything, but my dad could just do things on the spur of the moment.

One beautiful Saturday afternoon, everyone was at home generally lounging. I'd passed the living room several times and seen my dad flipping through a magazine. At first I thought it was one of his numerous engineering catalogues but the animated look on his face meant otherwise. Soon after, he excitedly called us kids to come see something in the mag. We all wondered as we gathered round him. It was a home-improvement magazine and he had the page turned to a section on lighting fixtures. There were so many beautiful designs but a really nice-looking blue one had caught his attention and he was asking us what we thought. We simply looked at each other and shrugged non-committally as though to say "who cares what we think? What difference does it make anyway?" We readily agreed with him that it was indeed very nice. That was it. The gathering dispersed and my dad left he living room to go to his bedroom. Soon after, we heard the roar of his car engine as he drove out the gates. He could have been going to any number of places - the filling station or the mechanic workshop or even a friend's place.

Two hours later, he drove in and started offloading brown boxes of stuff from the car. Out of curiosity, we all ran outside wondering what the goodies were. There was a mischievous look on his face as he handed each of us the boxes to carry inside. We hurried with the carrying because the faster we did, the quicker we got to see what's inside. The excitement just kept building and daddy wasn't telling!

Finally we had all the boxes sitting on the living room center table and while we all watched, he opened the first box to reveal the same nice-looking blue lighting fixture we'd seen in the magazine just a few hours earlier! We were all like wow! Quickly we all unpacked the boxes. The electrician was called. In a few short hours, all the old light fixtures came down, the new ones went up and the appearance of the living room changed! It certainly did feel as though Christmas was in the air even though it was still mid-year then. My dad could do that to you.

If he saw a car he liked or even a beautiful house, he'd draw your attention to it excitedly and if it was close enough for you to touch, he'd ask you to place your hand on it and get the feel of it cos "one day, it could be yours"! He had really big dreams and he liked to talk about them too.

My parents have 9 kids and the first five are girls. It was from my dad that I learnt that being a girl was no excuse for mediocrity. Being a girl didn't mean you were weak and so needed some guy to do 'everything' for you. You just had to be strong and take charge of your life! Taking charge of your life for him meant having a solid academic foundation and that was what he consistently sought to give us. Taking charge of your life also meant being able to handle a few 'masculine' chores yourself.

On environmental sanitation days, it was us girls who were out there with the guys doing the extra work of cleaning out the gutters and shoveling sand off the sidewalk! I learnt how to wash and wax a car so well because I often did it for my father. My dad personally taught me how to change a flat tire so I won't be stranded on the road if I ever had one!

Whenever I think of the many triumphs of faith we experienced with my dad, I am inspired again and again. My dad was a man of great faith! It's amazing how he was able to show his faith in everyday living.

There was a period in time when his company had all but folded up. Those were really tough times and even us kids knew that things were no longer the way they used to be. We had meetings in the mornings with mom where we all decided what meal to miss. Mostly we preferred to miss lunch. Several times the little ones were sent home from school with a note from the headmistress asking when the fees would be paid. It was bad but daddy seemed to take it all in his stride. In fact, he actually told us that he was glad we were experiencing this hardship because life was not always easy and it would teach us to be strong.
One of those days was really exceptionally bad and there was not a dime anywhere. We didn't even have the luxury of two meals for the day. My dad declared a fast. He said we were not going to go anywhere but stay indoors fasting and praying till something happened. He made sure we were not enveloped by gloom or filled with sadness over the grim prospects before us. Every few hours, we gathered to sing praises, we prayed and read of bible heroes of faith. By 3pm, most of us were really famished and mom quickly threw together a little meal for us who could not continue. Mom and dad were going to continue theirs for the rest of the day.
There was a calmness in the house. Not a gloomy kind of calm but a hopeful one. There were stirrings of faith in our hearts but we weren't quite sure what the outcome would be.

Around 6pm, there was knock on the front door. A man wanted to see my dad.It turned out he'd been driving past our road for close to 2hrs looking for my dad's company. He had no idea that the office had relocated and most of the company's operations were now being carried out from within our living room! (The former office was just opposite the house).
Bottom line - He urgently needed a long list of heavy duty engine parts required for some work the next day and he'd checked all other companies he thought would have them but they were out of stock. My dad's place was his last port of call and if he didn't get them here, he'd give up and go home. It turned out that my dad had everything he had on his list and the man paid cash! It was the single largest sale in several years! We were all short of words! It was a miracle!! God answered!! Oh how we sang that night. We sang with our hearts. We sang with our bodies. We sang! That miracle brought tears to my eyes. I cried tears of joy. Words were not enough but neither were the tears too. Nothing could suffice - would suffice.

In my young heart, I saw faith work wonders. I found that there was nothing we could not achieve if we would only believe. That became our lifestyle as a family. We prayed about anything and everything. We watched God work in our favour time and time again except for once. There was one prayer that God did not answer. One unanswered prayer that caused me to cry like I have never done in my entire life nor ever will again. Just one.

The day I cried...(1)

2008-11-27T11:08:00.000+01:00

My mother was a stay-at-home mom while we were growing up. I just remember a clear picture of her getting us ready for school and rushing out the gate to catch the school bus just in time. I never had to do much rushing though because my school-bus gave me ample time to prepare. My elder sister's school bus however would be honking as early as 6.25 am! The girl would barely have enough time to gulp down her tea while my mom ran outside to reassure the driver that she would soon be out. That was the routine almost every morning.

Once school closed and we got off the school bus, we knew there was a steaming meal waiting for us! The school bags would go flying to one corner while we make our way to the kitchen with shouts of "mommy good afternoon!". Then off come the sandals and socks - I still wonder how we managed to do that with one fluid movement. By the time we got to the kitchen we'd have stripped to our little singlets and panties. And sure enough, there was food waiting for us! We knew however that we could look at the food but not touch it until we'd picked up every single piece of school accessory we'd dropped on our way to the kitchen. It was almost like a ritual.

I can't remember not ever meeting my mom at home after I came back from school. She was always there and ever patient to listen to all our ramblings about how school was that day. She always had some little project she was working on. If she wasn't fixing torn clothes with a thread and needle, she was sewing a new one with her sewing machine, or knitting a sweater, or tending to her chickens in the backyard.

If we needed anything, we went straight to mummy to ask for it. When she finally gave it to us she'd say don't forget to thank daddy for it o! Whenever our school fees were paid she'd make sure we knew it was daddy that paid for it and we should not forget to say "thank you".

As far as I was concerned, my daddy was a far away thought. He was never really around. Not that we never saw him or that he abandoned us, but he was always on one business trip or the other. He'd only stay for a few days in-between trips. Even then, whenever he was around, I had this uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, you know, like he was spoiling all my fun. I just couldn't wait till he was off gain cos it always seemed like he was a spare wheel! Funny now that I think of it. How did I manage to form that opinion about him? I must have been between the ages of 5 and 9 during that period!

Just before I left Primary school for junior secondary, it finally dawned on me that my dad wasn't going anywhere anymore. He'd been around for like 5weeks already and he wasn't budging. What was I to do? Pretend he wasn't there? It didn't take long though for me to see that something had definitely changed about my dad. What was it? There was this quietness around him. if you ever met my dad, you'd find he was anything but a quiet man. His voice always boomed across the room when he spoke and when he laughed? The walls literally shook!
His voice was enough to send us kids scurrying when we knew we would be reprimanded for some wrong-doing. He was a disciplinarian and you really didn't want to cross his path! You can imagine why he wasn't exactly our favourite parent then.

But he'd fallen silent. Not that he didn't talk or laugh like before but there was this atmosphere he exuded. He had definitely changed but I couldn't put a finger on it. There was one of those days, I remember the incident vividly but not the words that were spoken. In my mind's eye as I write, it comes across like a silent melodrama - no words, only actions and gesticulations....

I am pressing some clothes and my dad approaches me from his private living room. He asks me a question and I shake my head. He says something else with a serious look on his face and I start giggling. What he says isn't funny in any way, in fact there is an earnestness in his face but my giggle only progresses till it becomes full blown laughter - mockery more like. He just stands there and stares at me, visibly fighting the anger that must have begun to well up inside him. Suddenly he turns around and walks away. I turn off the pressing iron, run up the stairs to my room, flop on my bed and cry. Strange incident. Really strange indeed. Was I taunting him? Maybe testing the waters? Why was I laughing at him? Why didn't he just grab me and 'deal' with me for mocking him? Till this day, I have no idea but that incident left an indelible impression on my heart - my dad had changed and he was truly home to stay.

From that day, the way I saw my dad changed. I saw he was making efforts to be included in our lives. We started having family devotions, and there began to be an atmosphere where we were free in the presence of our dad. Rather than go through our mom, we were now able to go straight to daddy to make our requests. He threw open the doors to his private living room letting us into his world. I discovered for the first time how so very funny my dad was! It was a new life...a whole new world was open for us to explore.

If you would stay close to my blog, I'll take you through that world....the world of my father.

"..........We have no time to stand and stare?"

2008-11-05T11:08:00.009+01:00

Does anyone remember this poem from long ago? It goes like this...

What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad daylight, streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at beauty's glance, and watch her feet how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can enrich that smile her mouth began.
A poor life this if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

(W.H Davies 1871-1940)

In primary school then, we were made to memorise several poems and this one was one of them. I had completely forgotten all about it when I ran accross the poem again recently and I laughed at myself when I, for the first time, actually understood what the poem was all about!

I must have been barely 7 or 8 years old then and my only concern was just to ensure that I recited the poem (whatever I thought of it) for the audience without missing a line. At the end of the recital, I'd wait dutifully for the applause I knew was coming and when it was done, I'd courtesy and return to my seat, my heart pounding in my chest the whole time!

But now, about 20years later, I read that poem and find that it holds so much meaning. What indeed is this life "if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare"? You know, like they say, stop and smell the roses!

I believe that if we let it, life will just happen to us. Afterall, if we just sat and did nothing, the day would break and night would fall. Time would simply pass. And that's all our lives will be in the larger scheme of things - A passage of time. Sad if you ask me! On the other hand, we can actually make life happen for us and enjoy it the whole time!

A few weeks ago, it seemed like I was being inundated with so much bad news that i felt overwhelmed! I had challenges with my health, two of my sisters got knocked down by a hit-and-run driver, just as two of them were getting better, one of them reacted severely to one of the drugs she was taking and it put her life on the line, a neighbour was seriously ill and even her husband feared for her life, a friend's sister lost her baby yet again, my car got bashed (yet again) by a careless danfo driver ...... the list could go on. It seemed like I was placed in such a vulnerable position that news such as Christians in India being killed which obviously seems like a remote problem made me feel like it was all happening in my own back yard! (Not that it shouldn't or doesn't concern me....)

Everything was happening all at the same time and I found my mind consumed with the problems and challenges that were before me. Laughter seemed so far away and I even questioned my faith at some point. The truth however is that these things are a part of the life we live. Of course some of our problems are self inflicted and so could be avoided in the first place but there are other problems that still come to us even after it seems we'd played all our cards right.

Something however kept me going - faith. My faith in God that everything would be alright in the end kept me forging ahead and helped me make the right decisions at each turn. That faith helped from time to time, to look away from my avalanche of problems and count for my self those things for which I am grateful. It made me see that everything may not necessarily work out the way I planned, but would all work out for my good. Sometimes I felt that my faith was useless and I sought to squelch it but it would not be quenched, a flicker remained and gradually that flicker was fanned into a huge flame by the little victories I recorded each day.

Did you ever watch that animated movie "Prince of Egypt"? I love that movie especially the lyrics of one of its soundtracks - "When you believe".

".......Now we are not afraid, though we know there's much to fear.
We were moving mountains long before we knew we could......
....there can be miracles, when you believe, though hope is frail
it's hard to kill.
Who knows what miracle you can achieve, If you believe, somehow you will......"

That song touches a special spot in my heart and makes that bible story ever so vivid before my eyes. A classic case of overcoming all odds to reach the finish line. It reminds me that even though sometimes we cannot choose the challenges we face each day, we can make the choice to surmount them or be surmounted by them. We can make the choice to sing even when all around us seem to draw tears from our eyes. We can choose to have faith or be consumed by fear. We can choose to focus on our problems or to count our blessings. Whatever the case, the choice really does ultimately lie with us.

So I ask again - "What indeed is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?"

Welcome!

2008-10-29T11:00:00.012+01:00

For as long as I can remember, I've always written things down. I simply love to write! Most of my writing however over time has been in the numerous journals I've kept over the years. If I was happy, I wrote. If I felt sad, I wrote. If anything new was happening in the family, I wrote. If I needed to think deeply about a decision, I wrote. Even when I felt bored with nothing to do, I wrote!

In writing, I find I can express myself more than I would talking. As a matter of fact, writing helps me see issues from several view points I had never even considered before! All I need is a pen and a notepad and you've ticked me off! One beautiful thing about writing stuff down is that you can go back and read them again years later and see how much things have changed since then.

For instance while my husband and I were still on the verge of becoming an official 'couple', (We'd been friends for 2years and were considering adding commitment to our relationship - taking it to the next level). I remember writing several thoughts about him. At first I was a bit concerned as to whether or not he was "the one". Our relationship for the last 2years had been so spontaneous and easy-going. It was as though we'd been friends all our lives! And anyone would think it funny but the fact that the relationship was that beautiful got me quite suspicious!

You see, I was just coming out of a relationship that didn't go very well at all. It left me heart-broken and my self-esteem shreds.It took 2years of being friends with P. to gradually begin to feel comfortable again being me. And so you can understand my scepticism as we came to the point where we went from being friends to being a couple. I was so sure everything would change and I'd be back where I started from. Those were the thoughts I wrote in my journal as I asked myself over and over again - "Are you sure you want to do this?"

I went back to my journal more than a year later- just before our wedding- and all I could do was smile. My concerns were absolutely unnecessary! If there ever was an accepting person, it was P. I never had to check myself when I was with him. I never had to plan ahead of time what we needed to talk about just so it came out right. I never had to care how my laughter sounded and he simply knew that when I spoke, it came straight from my heart! So it was possible indeed to be truly free in a relationship? Our first wedding anniversary'll be coming up in a few weeks. These 12months have truly been blissful! I'm not saying this with starry eyes like a teenager oblivious of real challenges. I'm saying this with true conviction in my heart and gratitude to God.

Whew! I thought I was just going to welcome everyone to my blog and see how I got carried away! I told you I loved to write! ha-ha!

Alright, let me welcome you all formally to my space - Enkay's Space.
I'll do my best to update and publish posts from time to time.

Welcome!