A naira ain't worth a kobo anymore.

I feel great...and I kiss even better.
-Emo Phillips.

I haven't had the best of weeks...but I got kissed like three times (still wondering what came over me o!)...that's a big deal, if you've been a good kisser and then gone on leave for like 18 months.
I kiss and tell, so what??? lol!
I've been fooling around with this crazy old friend of mine...he thinks it's the other way around but then...it doesn't matter who's fooling who, as long as there's a fooling somewhere between us then it's just great.
Spare me the sermon, I haven't had a good kiss since eternity...

it doesn't count as cheating, does it???

Now, to my title. I spent close to 2,000 naira flying okadas around Lagos looking for a Fax machine...and it was raining elephants and lions (...by the way, what does it take to own and connect a fax machine???...) I was tired and dirty after the whole gross ordeal. Someone even directed me to the Post Offices, it was when I got to the second post office that I knew that the silly jerk didn't even know what a fax is.
After going from one end to the other, clothes wet with rain, feet covered in mud, i gave up hope and took the last bike home, guess what? I found one bill board near my bus stop that went somewhat like this.

TDA VENTURES.

Typesetting.

Photocopying

Laminating.

Binding.

Internet Calls.

Fax Services.

I almost fell off the bike. Hell's on earth! You sure pay for your sins here...all that kissing and fooling around, I paid for it. Never cheat on your boo...-with the littlest kiss...-especially if you haven't made it clear to Party 2 that you're just fooling around. Lol! me and my superstitions. Anyways, I got to the shop, did my do which took like 10 minutes and another 1,000 naira and went home.

BTW, did I mention that since I was at Mushin during the Ultimate Search, I'd chosen to do some 'grocery' (I always like to use that word, dunno y) shopping and give my people a fried rice treat...it cost me a arm and a leg, the way things are these days eh! I almost changed my mind and prepared Fried-Garri (will give y'all the recipie for that one later)but a new bag-of-rice-suprise from my dad helped.

I was jejely cooking this wonderful meal, not minding how tired I was from the day's punishment when my mother came home and threw a tantrum about how live chicken is better than the frozen one that I bought...I was so mad, I had the right to remain silent so I should have shut up, but I didn't, we had this heated argument that resulted into a ...whatever it was. I'm not speaking to her sha...maybe it will take a week (if she doesn't jejely stretch the olive branch towards me)...although, I know she took this fight thing seriously because she boycotted my fried rice (ME! My own fried rice!!! My Own Fried Rice that happens like one a month and doesn't turn out as well as it did yesterday once in a while) and ate Sardines with that dry coconut bread from KJ, I felt really sorry for her. I'm still angry with her sha. I read my horoscope for today and found this:

July 30, 2008 - Do not underestimate the feelings of sickness that are due to overwork or cardio-vasculary disorders. Don't harbor ill feelings toward certain members of your family who could have hurt you recently. Beware of your brimming imagination and your exacerbated sensibility which might impede your objectiveness. You may not be able to finish the work that was demanded from you: try to justify yourself, don't feel or appear guilty. If money befalls you, don't spend it now: it'd be much better to invest it somewhereHow do these people know these things???

1.I want to talk to her...but I'm not goina beg her sha o.

2.I feel sick today because I HAVE been overworking myself lately (But the AB King Pro has nothing to do with it).

3.Me and this my imagination!

4.Nobody asked any work of me so I don't think I need to finish anything...except of course!!! My tellers!!! Gawd!

5.Money did befall me today! Courtesy of my cousin Mr. Grubs Suya, it wasn't much, but I've invested it somewhere in my wallet anyways! lol!

I've been spending too much time on the internet.EVIDENCE: I was on the phone this morning with my sister-friend and we were cracking jokes but instead of laughing originally, we were both screaming LOL! LOL! LOL! so I was like, 'can't we laugh the real laugh? LOL' my case is pathetic.

PS: where do you go to get anorexia???

See me see trouble o!

This woman (abi na man???) tried hard, but she will not succeed in putting me in a really tight corner.
God, thank you for the wonderful discerning spirit You have blessed me with...although any humble idiot could've read between the lines here;


From Mrs Rebecca WilliamsN�[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

ATTN:
DEAREST ONE OF GOD
I am the above named person from Kuwait . I am married to Mr Benson Williams, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account. Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don抰 have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don抰 want my husband抯 efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don抰 want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don抰 need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband抯 relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan . I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life. Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information抯, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your
reply.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs Rebecca Williams.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my reply???

here:

go ahead and die of cancer you asshole!
Why don't you give the doctor your phony 2.5 million dollars or better still give a fucking begger on the street since you're so fucking crazy about charity.
you be Nigerian abi???
you should be ashamed of yourself.
THIEF!!!

dearest one of God.

Painters and Writers.

"Suppose you have been invited to a private view of a painting wherein the artist has chosen to join to a human head the neck of a horse, and gone on to collect some odds and ends of arms and legs and plaster the surface with feathers of differing colors, so that what began as a lovely woman at the top tapered off into a slimy, discolored fish – could you keep from laughing my friends?
Believe me dear, paintings like these look a lot like the book of a writer whose weird conceptions are just like a sick man’s dreams, so that neither the head nor the foot can be made to apply to a single uniform shape. “But painters and poets have always been equally free to try anything”. We writers know and insist that such a license be ours and in turn extend it to others but not to the extent of mating the wild with mild, so that snakes be paired with birds and lions with lambs."






When i read this letter written by Horace, it seemed to me, almost immediately that he had read Ben Okri's story of AZARO, the spirit child...but Hor wrote these letters B.C., he probably knew Ben Okri was going to write these two books.

I 'struggled' to read this books and make meaning of the story. I am a die hard fan of Nigerian writers, when I found the first part, i was impressed that he'd won the Booker Prize in 1991, so i just grabbed it and then the lady at the shop told me there's a sequel, so i bought the two.
I tried and tried to finish the first part, i gathered strength upon strength to turn it page by page. i kept saying to myself, 'i should be able to read and enjoy these books, is something wrong with me? he won the booker prize afterall', even my sister who doesn't ever read novels unless it's hyped picked the first one, finished it and then picked the sequel BUT decided she'd had enough when she got half way.

Maybe it's just me, maybe nothing is wrong with the book...i just didn't like it, i'm talking about The Famished Road cuz i wasn't even interested in the sequel.

I will keep on struggling to finish these books, it's the hardest book i've had to read.
Meen!

From her lips to God's ears.

'God I love you, and I know you love me too. Thank you for the food I eat, it may not be much, but I don't really go hungry. Thank you for the clothes I have, they may not be beautiful like the other kids' in the neighbourhood, but I don't have to go naked. Thank you God for Mama Ologi, she may not be the best guardian, but at least she treats me like a human being. Thank you for my school, it may not be private and orderly, but at least I learn the little I can. Thank youGod for the life I have now, I remebmber it was worse but you came and saved me. God, I know I may seem ungrateful if I ask any more of you but life has been hard without school. I know you know. And I know you make everything happen for a reason, please God, make them call off the teachers' strike, I need to go back to school, I miss everything, I miss everyone, you know there's the only place where I feel like I really matter, that I'm really someone, the other kids won't play with me at home, they are all 'private' and snobbish. Please God, don't let mama kill me with work before school resumes. Thank you God for my answered prayers, please give me the strength to go through each day. Amen.'

-Bose

This is Bose. She is nine years old. Bose is my neighbour's 'child'...after all, she calls her 'omo mi', although I can tell that they do not share the slightest consanguinity. Mama Ologi is a sixty -something year old woman (or 'timer' as Rex calls them aged people), she suffers arthritis and she lives on the second floor, so she is pretty useless...but Mama Ologi isn't useless or contented enough to just be idle and let her numerous children take care of her...she dabbles into different business but the main three are selling pap (as her name implies), distributing crates of eggs, and selling firewood.

Don't wonder how Mama Ologi manages. She has nine year old Bose.

Bose is Mama's eyes, ears, mouth, hands and most importantly, legs. Suffice it to say that, once in a while, Mama uses her own mouth and hands to rain curses on Bose and beat her mercilessly when Bose accidentally behaves like the child that she really is.

Bose gets up at 5:30am, she delivers crates and crates of eggs to the six corners of the estate and in between, she makes stops at the differnt blocks to the pap retailers. She comes back home around 7:30 am and gets ready for school, although she has been on an indefinite holiday for a while now following the on-going teachers' strike. Perhaps if the federal government knew how the strike is affecting Bose, they'd meet NUT's demand and call it off immediately. I won't go into the things that Bose does with the time she'ld rather spend at school. On a normal day, Bose closes around 10pm.

Bose is my estate's most prominent nomad. She covers distances in a day that I as an adult wouldn't dare to in a full week. Bose seldom walks alone, she usually has company, sometimes, it's about ten crates of eggs, at other times, it's a mighty bundle of firewood, or when it's a good time, it's a 50ltr bowl of corn balanced on her tiny head. Bose is never allowed to stop, just to catch her breath.

Still, Bose is the happiest child I've ever met. I cannot begin to explain the ways this little girl's life had touched mine. When I look at her, and the permanent smile that adorns her beautiful face, I see a child who, though still a child, has seen life. I wonder where Bose comes from, she is at peace with this excuse for a life that she lives, maybe she is from hell??? I think of the childhood I had and the things I took for granted.

Bose hasn't watched television since she came to Lagos about two years ago (the only things electically power-able in Mama's flat are light bulbs, ceiling fans and a boiling ring...ironically, her PHCN bill reads 123, 935.65 naira), and i can tell that there are no televisions where she comes from. When Bose gets a 5naira buscuit treat from Mama Ologi, she must have made a fortune that day.

Bose's smile is a facade...a big lie. Definitely, Bose is not happy, she might have been worse but she is well aware that she can be happier. Yet she smiles...I am not fooled, although there is a strong temptation here to not see the forest because of the trees.

I got talking with Bose yesterday evening, first I convinced her (as always) to cut out her crappy charm and really talk to me, this time, I succeded. Bose is a very depressed child. She says - put in my words - that she feels she is not living at all. Like she's standing still. Not a day goes by that she doesn't think about her family she left behind or rather, a family that sold her to her current life because the former was worse. She feels extremely inferior around the other middle-class kids. I know Bose doesn't want to be superior, she just wants to feel that she can be as good as and acomplish as much as anyone else. I think those are her major troubles...she has enough to last her a lifetime (i'd rather not go into some of them here).

Bose's life demonstrates the many pernicious effects of rejection upon a growing child. Maybe it isn't full-blown yet, but it is incipient. Basically, there are unsatisfied cravings for attention and affection. Unfortunately, these cravings are coupled with an inability to realte emotionally to any person who could be in a position to satisfy her. It is not only distrust and resentment that stand in her way, she simply hasn't learnt how. She has a constant fear of abandonment and rejection, 'what if Mama makes good her promise of sending me back to the gutter where she picked me from???'...although, it's not as if she is not in another gutter -maybe a better one- but a gutter all the same.

Bose was born with the capacity for relatedness, like any other normal child, but it never got any encouragement to grow. The picture is an outer expression of decietful happiness and an inner desolation that is appaling. She has the Mark Of Oppression.



For Bose, I have the gift-love, one that needs to give; therefore needs to be needed. But still, I know that the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where she no longer needs my gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them that they may soon not need out teaching. That's the problem: what can I do for Bose??? already, i try the things I can in my own power, not seeming like I'm seeking adoption or anything, my gift-love must work towards it's own abdication. I haven't found a way to make myself superfluous. I fear for her, that, love having become a god, becomes a demon.

His people are coming!

His people are coming!

His people are coming?!
I am happy. I am sad. I am nervous. I am going crazy with worry. Oh God!


I haven’t ever been a fan of LDRs (Long Distance Relationships), in fact, I tend to discourage them (without sharing this opinion).

It wasn’t until five months ago that I realized that I was actually in one; I have been in one for seventeen months now. Funny how it never dawned on me until then. For the sake of them teasers, I refer to my sweetness as ‘sweetness’. We met (officially) twenty years…sorry months ago, we’ve been dating for seventeen months and then things kinda got really serious and we’ve been engaged since March, that’s five months now.






At first, I called it an LDR right from the beginning because we (I) resolved to abstain, keep our distance as far as urges were concerned, Long Distance sexual Relationship ( I learnt from my first relationship that sex messes up everything if you haven’t discovered what your true feelings are), this was a problem at first but love prevailed OR maybe our relationship was saved by my sweetness’ decision to go back to the UK to further his education (he’s a medical doctor) , make some real money and the rest. (????)




I didn't think this was a big deal at first; not with the mobile phones + the many wonders of www. There was so much of our not-so-distant-afterall-relationship that I realized I had taken for granted when my sweetness and I had it. In Harriet Beecher’s words, I am one of those unfortunately constituted fellows in whose eyes whatever what is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in possession. Whatever I had, I seemed to survey only to pick faults; but since it’s been fairly away, there’s been no end to my valuation of it. I must confess, most times, I find myself wishing I hadn’t insisted on an LDR before the LDR.

Somehow, days have turned into weeks, weeks to months, and now it’s been almost two years now, still it feels like yesterday. It almost always feels like yesterday. My sister Lala (23) says it’s because I’m 19 years old that I can afford to not be time conscious, she is a firm believer in back-up and insurance, by this she means ‘not dating exclusively’, but that doesn’t work for me, I’m way too plain for that…there’s no way I can be in love with more than one person at a time...messsy, one day bushmeat go catch the hunter.



Last week, my sweetness and I were talking (my brother, the mathematician said one time that I spend roughly 20% of my day on the phone and over half of my allowance on calls and communications) and he was like, '...my people and I are coming...' 'blah blah blah' I wasn't listening.

'your people are coming with you???'

your people are coming?

his people are coming??

This guy is not joking o!

I'd never really thought about this for a second before now...
I'm not sure.

I'm soo not sure.

I'm craaazzzyyy about my sweetness and what we have together.

I'm happy.

I keep telling myself, 'i'm happy'

'i'm happy' again and again, just to be sure that I really am.

At the moment, I don't know what to do...

With school and three major exams and all, this should be the least of my worries, but it sure isn't.

I'm happy, but i keep asking myself, 'what if i can be happier?'

What if i just think i'm happy???
What if it's just someting i want to believe??

What if I can be happier???

What if?

Phew! it's finally over.

So, I'm officially 19 years old...feels like a huge weight's been lifted off my shoulders. I don't know if it's just me but I feel like everyone expects too much from 18 year olds.
So 4th of July was a wonderful wonderful day. I felt the love from the four corners of the earth.
Thank you God for your mercies. So, I was a big mistake in the begining, but look how I've blossomed and flourished!

I conveniently forgot to take pictures of my birthday cakes in the frenzy, but believe me y'all, cakes have never been so beautiful.
I have like one million people to thank but I'll try with the few I can remember for now.
Thank you God, nothing I can give you will be commensurate to the love you've shown me.
Thank you mum, thank you dad, for how can I be without you two???

To my sis, Lala, life'ld be impossible without you, thank you for the delicious dishes, here's the only place I can agree that you make better Fried rice than me. I love you.

To my one and only brother Gaby, I's more than flattered that you remembered, it's the best gift I received this year.

Jack Omezi, La Familia, I guess you're the most important of the three afterall.

Ezi Nwankwo, I love you so much girl. W'are five hours ahead this time of the year, lol...but t'was mighty thoughtful of you.
Angel and Koko Nwankwo, Harriet Abihkui, Emmanuella Ejimamu, Ibilate and Tamuno Awatt, Jenny Okafor, Mosunmade Solanke, e.t.c thank you girls.

Tundun Salami, I liked your idea of being the last to wish me a happy birthday, I can never forget you.
Toyin Hunter, your cake was wonderful, how can I tell you that I don't know your birthday???
Rabila and Baba, I can't imagine celebrating my birthday without you there to sample the meals.
Ugo pumping, very thoughtful of you, still, I can't date you.
Keenat, your piece of the cake's intact, come get it when you're around this part of the world.
Jenjelow, words can't express how much I apprecaite you, you still are the best cousin in the my world.

Many thanks go to Victor Ganzllo, Atilola Adeyemi, Soba and Sotonye Jonah for your prayers.


I almost forgot to mention that my darling baby and I share birthdays, she's the most adorable thing that's ever lived. She's officially five years old!!!! I hope I can post pictures soon.


To all the people I accidentally left out, thank you tons, I didn't forget you because you're not important, of course you all are, there's been a permanent smile on my lips since Friday.

I love y'all back.

So, I spent about one hour on Facebook today...Eh! come and arrest me. Lol!

Anyways, a 'friend' (that's what we call them...F/bk has crazy ideas of what friends should be...my No.1 grudge) wrote this on my wall...and I liked it.






♥If one day u feel like crying♥
♥Call me♥
♥I dont promise that i will make u laugh♥
♥But i can cry with u♥
♥If one day u want to run away♥
♥Dont be afraid to call me♥
♥I dont promise to ask u to stop♥
♥But i can run with u♥
♥If one day u dont want to listen to anyone♥
♥Call me♥
♥I promise to be there for u but also promise to remain quiet♥
♥But one day if u call♥
♥And there is no anwser♥
♥Come fast to see me♥
♥Perhaps i need you♥



(...it doesn't end there o. It goes on to say some superstitious stuff like 'send this msg to 10 people under one hour and you loved one will visit you, if not, bad-luck-will-follow-you-for-the-rest-of-your-life, wtf???
I get messages like this on my wall and i never forward em with the curse, for what???
why do people ruin nice msgs with that crap???)

Oh well! There you have it ... go find someone like this person in the message to be part of your life, or better still, be this person in the message. Understand that there's always a reasonable reason people behave unreasonably.
Understand...it's what makes the world go round...really.
It's not love - that's overrated, and it's not money either -that's underestimated actually.
But understanding, I think that's why Africa and Nigeria in particular is finding it hard to take a step from this stand still; WAAAY TOO MANY TRIBES, too many languages, we don't understand each other. Hummph!