So I'm officially stateside . . .
And it feels like there's been no time lapse. . .
But at the same time I'm very aware of the two and-a-half months that I spent at home. That felt exactly like two and-a-half months.
And although I'm sure as time passes I'll continually unveil new understandings and appreciations of what I've gained from my time away from here, I'd like to keep record of those things that immediately come to mind - those things I miss already and look forward to when next I find myself there.
Here goes (in no particular order):
- the variety of fruit, so natural and fresh it makes what we call 'organic' taste like plastic
- the cultural respect for education
- being called 'aunty' by my students
- calling women 'aunty' and 'ma' because that's what you do to show respect for those older than you
- having enough time to read
- the beach
- plantain chips
- bartering at the market
- gawking at beautiful men
- evenings on the balcony with my father
. . .
God Bless the adaptability of the human spirit.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
. . . for small mercies
So guess who gave me a discount the other day?
That's right, Internet Cafe Girl! She hooked me up on some print-outs. I TOLD you she'd come around (smile).
Although, I wouldn't quite agree that we'll ever make it to 'buddy' status: the other day as I was buying my web-time, after my customary greeting of 'How are you today?' I added that I would be leaving soon and would miss the crew at the cafe.
Her response?
A 'well alright then' press-lipped grin and raising of the eyebrows.
Hey, but still - we've come a long way . . .
That's right, Internet Cafe Girl! She hooked me up on some print-outs. I TOLD you she'd come around (smile).
Although, I wouldn't quite agree that we'll ever make it to 'buddy' status: the other day as I was buying my web-time, after my customary greeting of 'How are you today?' I added that I would be leaving soon and would miss the crew at the cafe.
Her response?
A 'well alright then' press-lipped grin and raising of the eyebrows.
Hey, but still - we've come a long way . . .
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Let Us Pray
There’s a church across the street, or rather their choir, that assails me – ASSAILS me every Sunday morning from 8AM to 11AM. I gotta tell you, if moral salvation depends on the ability to properly intonate, these people are in serious trouble.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Mango! Mango!
An ode to mango – the perfect fruit!
I cannot blame the bats for those which they loot
For when spying one juicy, hanging from my father’s tree
I project into the future; it’s sweet nectar I devour sloppily.
Oh but this morning, such a treasure I did spy!
But when going to capture the bounty noticed something quite awry
It was somehow out of place, not nearly as ripe or plump
Oh my goodness it’s been pilfered! It’s stem now but a mere stump!
Who’s the culprit, who’s the thief, who’s the dasher of dreams?!
Fair enough, let them be, it’s not as bad as it seems
For the tree looks quite pregnant with as many as 15!
I cannot blame the bats for those which they loot
For when spying one juicy, hanging from my father’s tree
I project into the future; it’s sweet nectar I devour sloppily.
Oh but this morning, such a treasure I did spy!
But when going to capture the bounty noticed something quite awry
It was somehow out of place, not nearly as ripe or plump
Oh my goodness it’s been pilfered! It’s stem now but a mere stump!
Who’s the culprit, who’s the thief, who’s the dasher of dreams?!
Fair enough, let them be, it’s not as bad as it seems
For the tree looks quite pregnant with as many as 15!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Ivory Standard
When I first arrived in Lagos, our house was a revolving door for friends, well-wishers and distant relatives: all coming to welcome me home and I suspect some simply coming to satisfy their curiosity about those living in the highly romanticized ‘Ah-meh-ree-kah.’ One visitor, a stately-yet-animated schoolmarm, said something I found I couldn’t forget, even though I wasn’t wholly surprised to hear it. I was telling her and my father of some of the woes my DC household has been experiencing of late: at the hands of our neighbors who do a poor job of concealing their problems with substance abuse and all-around bad judgment. As they shook their heads and sucked their teeth to hear of our trials, my father’s friend added matter-of-factly, “You see? If it were white people it wouldn’t be that way.”
Uh . . .
“They are white people,” I tell her simply.
“Eh-eh-eh?!” was her reply, her eyebrows raised and her jaw tilted upwards incredulously.
Alright, so I’m not so insulated in thought as to imagine that the colonial regime that held this nation in its grips for the better part of the 20th Century (and beyond) wouldn’t have left an indelible impression – one that would still lay claim to the mind of the everyman in more ways than one. But regardless, I can’t help but frown whenever I hear my father casually refer to the ‘colonial masters’ when attributing to them one feature or another of the country and its traditions.
Now, maybe herein lies my naïveté: my father’s generation was born, and grew into their adult lives, during the occupation, not to mention that they were raised by a generation who knew no other Nigeria. While acknowledging the quasi-inevitability of their partiality, I imagined that by sheer definition, those of the following generation, my generation, would be of a more drastically independent existence and therefore more liberated from possessing similar bias . . . .
This past weekend I endured the disappointment of encountering some opposition to this theory for the first time. My cousin and I spent Valentine’s Day (known here as ‘Lover’s Day’ – so very Nigerian) at a popular beach; one that’s obviously a top-choice in weekend entertainment for many of our peers. As this was the second beach we’d visited in as many weeks and we found it to be quite different from the first, we thought to ask around of what other varieties of seaside paradise we might delight in with the remaining days of my visit.
A young man of about our same age, pleasant and obviously knowledgeable, named one that he said was a bit far off, but assured us that all one had to do was lay eyes upon it’s splendour to know that it was well-worth the trek.
“Is it very nice?” my cousin sought to confirm.
“Ha!” The young man replied, “White people swim there – WHITE people!”
I let out a little laugh, a bit surprised and certainly disappointed, thinking that my cousin would share a similar reaction, but the fact is that neither he nor the young man seemed to notice, or if they did it was obvious from my cousin’s resolute expression that it was the two of them that were of the same opinion in the matter: If white people swam there, it was indisputably a good beach.
Man.
I’m torn in my reasoning on this one, because anyone with one good eye can see that Nigeria needs some work, and that yes, areas where foreigners reside (mostly to perpetuate further exploitation of the land and it’s people) are better maintained and serviced. But there are definitely areas where the hardworking Nigerian and his shockingly corrupt contemporary have pooled together their wealth to form modern communities with the same comforts and diversions as exist in any developed nation . . . . And I’m torn because to acknowledge this configuration within Nigerian society feels a bit like admitting that a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is only sometimes a square.
. . .
But I flat out refuse to subscribe to any such absolution. To do so would be tantamount to self-imposing the same brand of mental slavery I’m determined to help eradicate within my lifetime.
So no dice.
But here’s another head-scratcher:
Earlier this week I walked into the classroom of my older students (9-13) and caught the tail end of some kind of presentation by one of the more bright-eyed youths. I couldn’t quite hear it, but it seemed that in the delivery of his last line, the student made a rather successful joke, and the entire classroom erupted into laughter and applause. Seeing my blank smile, their teacher happily launched into a brief version of what was apparently a modern-day fable of sorts that the student had been re-telling.
In it there is a man that moves to London and phones his brother here in Nigeria that he has found a wife and is bringing her home to make introductions. The brother prepares for the arrival excitedly but is shocked when he sees that his brother has brought home another Nigerian, and not a white woman. He boldly says as much to the man: “Why would you go out into the world and return with what you already had in your trouser pocket?”
Everyone laughs again, and again I smile, but inside I think to myself, “I just hope that there’s another fable they hear about valuing what one can find in their trouser pocket.”
Uh . . .
“They are white people,” I tell her simply.
“Eh-eh-eh?!” was her reply, her eyebrows raised and her jaw tilted upwards incredulously.
Alright, so I’m not so insulated in thought as to imagine that the colonial regime that held this nation in its grips for the better part of the 20th Century (and beyond) wouldn’t have left an indelible impression – one that would still lay claim to the mind of the everyman in more ways than one. But regardless, I can’t help but frown whenever I hear my father casually refer to the ‘colonial masters’ when attributing to them one feature or another of the country and its traditions.
Now, maybe herein lies my naïveté: my father’s generation was born, and grew into their adult lives, during the occupation, not to mention that they were raised by a generation who knew no other Nigeria. While acknowledging the quasi-inevitability of their partiality, I imagined that by sheer definition, those of the following generation, my generation, would be of a more drastically independent existence and therefore more liberated from possessing similar bias . . . .
This past weekend I endured the disappointment of encountering some opposition to this theory for the first time. My cousin and I spent Valentine’s Day (known here as ‘Lover’s Day’ – so very Nigerian) at a popular beach; one that’s obviously a top-choice in weekend entertainment for many of our peers. As this was the second beach we’d visited in as many weeks and we found it to be quite different from the first, we thought to ask around of what other varieties of seaside paradise we might delight in with the remaining days of my visit.
A young man of about our same age, pleasant and obviously knowledgeable, named one that he said was a bit far off, but assured us that all one had to do was lay eyes upon it’s splendour to know that it was well-worth the trek.
“Is it very nice?” my cousin sought to confirm.
“Ha!” The young man replied, “White people swim there – WHITE people!”
I let out a little laugh, a bit surprised and certainly disappointed, thinking that my cousin would share a similar reaction, but the fact is that neither he nor the young man seemed to notice, or if they did it was obvious from my cousin’s resolute expression that it was the two of them that were of the same opinion in the matter: If white people swam there, it was indisputably a good beach.
Man.
I’m torn in my reasoning on this one, because anyone with one good eye can see that Nigeria needs some work, and that yes, areas where foreigners reside (mostly to perpetuate further exploitation of the land and it’s people) are better maintained and serviced. But there are definitely areas where the hardworking Nigerian and his shockingly corrupt contemporary have pooled together their wealth to form modern communities with the same comforts and diversions as exist in any developed nation . . . . And I’m torn because to acknowledge this configuration within Nigerian society feels a bit like admitting that a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is only sometimes a square.
. . .
But I flat out refuse to subscribe to any such absolution. To do so would be tantamount to self-imposing the same brand of mental slavery I’m determined to help eradicate within my lifetime.
So no dice.
But here’s another head-scratcher:
Earlier this week I walked into the classroom of my older students (9-13) and caught the tail end of some kind of presentation by one of the more bright-eyed youths. I couldn’t quite hear it, but it seemed that in the delivery of his last line, the student made a rather successful joke, and the entire classroom erupted into laughter and applause. Seeing my blank smile, their teacher happily launched into a brief version of what was apparently a modern-day fable of sorts that the student had been re-telling.
In it there is a man that moves to London and phones his brother here in Nigeria that he has found a wife and is bringing her home to make introductions. The brother prepares for the arrival excitedly but is shocked when he sees that his brother has brought home another Nigerian, and not a white woman. He boldly says as much to the man: “Why would you go out into the world and return with what you already had in your trouser pocket?”
Everyone laughs again, and again I smile, but inside I think to myself, “I just hope that there’s another fable they hear about valuing what one can find in their trouser pocket.”
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Story of My Life
Why so many men - male musicians to be exact - decide to turn the simplest things into big giant pissing contests is beyond me. I’ll elaborate: one of my ‘missions’ for this trip has been to connect with Lagotian musicians, since Lagos is to Nigeria what New York is to the U.S - in terms of being a center for the arts anyway . . . I’ll not bother to mention all the ways in which that analogy falls flat otherwise. In any case, I figured meeting with fellow musicians would be a great way to: a. get access to a drum kit and b. have an opportunity to hear music being made in ways previously unknown to me. For me, one of the greatest ‘successes’ from this trip would be to build lasting musical friendships that transcend the span of the Atlantic.
Unfortunately, I’ve encountered my fair share of flakiness in the past month and a half (flaky musicians – no WAY!) and so I eventually resolved to continue making the most of it with my current set-up (my snare placed in a chair that faces sideways so that I can use the back of it as my hi-hat) and settled on returning to my full kit, and jam session fantasies, in March. I was saying as much to the one they call Blue the other day, and I was a bit surprised to hear her disappointment. Apparently, she’d been sharing the same visions of awesomeness that I had originally possessed, and so she ever so gently urged me to continue on my quest.
Fair enough, I was officially re-motivated.
For the past week or so, on my way to the market, I’ve been spying an ad for a guitar tutor. I decided it was a not-so-long shot to hope that a professional guitarist might know a drummer/drum kit, and so I took down the number and gave it a ring. Sure enough, the guitarist (I forgot to ask his name) didn’t hesitate to put me in touch with his friend, Victor, who met with me the same day. Victor turns out to be a very young (just taking his college entrance exams), very non-creepy drum player who has access to a drum kit at his church, which is about a 30 minute walk from where I live.
Super score!
He generously offers to escort me to his church anytime there’s no service underway and let me have at it. I’m totally grateful, but by now am much better at formulating my own Lagotian precautions, and so I decide it’s best not to go it alone; I ask my cousin, who also lives in the city, to tag along and he agrees.
Now, Victor has already asked if I was looking for drum lessons, to which I replied that I was not. I let him know that I’m simply looking to play on something that doesn’t sound like wood and vinyl so that I’m not completely without the feel for a kit when I get back to the States. I just want to practice.
OK, deep breath . . .
We get to the kit (hooray!) and I get my sticks out and start to go into some beats that I want to remember. I knew it wasn’t like I was going to have complete privacy, but I certainly didn’t expect for Victor to be standing directly next to me, watching my every move, ready to critique:
“You need to use your wrists more . . . hit the bell . . .”
“I don’t want to hit the bell.”
“Oh.”
He doesn’t move.
I’ve been playing for all of 3 minutes when he asks me to get up so he can “show [me] something.”
Here we go . . .
10 minutes later my sticks are handed back to me but I haven’t been playing for 5 minutes before I’m asked to get up AGAIN. Now when he sits down he instructs me to repeat what he’s about to demonstrate.
Sigh . . .
I’m starting to tense up a bit from frustration but then I say to myself, “You know what? It’s all good. He’s been playing for ten years, you’ve been playing for three. It never hurts to learn. Be a good sport. And besides, he’s been so kind to help you out and not ask for anything . . .”
And so I become Victor’s pupil – not entirely whole-heartedly, but what the hey.
No sooner had I made this resolution than in comes Victor’s friend, another drummer, Sampson.
He plops himself directly in front of me and begins to move the parts of the kit around, “Don’t you want it closer? I like when it’s right on top of me.”
He hits me in the knee with one of the toms as he shoves it towards me. I slowly push it away, “That’s a little too close.”
Sigh . . .
Now he’s staring at me.
“Do you want to play something?” I ask him.
“Me? Oh nooo! I just got here, I want to see you. Play something.”
Sigh . . .
I oblige, but when I’m finished he looks a bit confused. Maybe even indignant, like he’s been served tuna salad when he paid for steak.
“What is that style?”
“People say I play melodically . . . really I just play what I hear . . . ”
“Is that all you play is that band stuff? Don’t you play any jazz, funk . . .?”
Sigh . . . . . . where’s Katy Otto when you need her?
“Why don’t you play something?” I suggest.
He smirks and gets up with a leisurely sway. We switch out. He starts to go, and not to my surprise, he’s wonderfully talented. As he plays, he looks at me occasionally, unabashedly gloating.
Really?
What part of “I’d just like to practice” translated to all of this? What is it about men and female musicians???
And believe me, this is not an isolated incident by any means. This is just one of the many, MANY episodes of male musician muscle-flexing that I’ve endured since I started playing the drums. It’s like there’s some gene that needs to be expressed in men when it comes to music. Some ‘jerk’ gene. Maybe for all of the years that women weren’t encouraged to be musical badasses and settled for quietly taming the flute and the French horn while our male counterparts were blessed with amps and overdrive pedals at their bris', the gene grew more dominant, it’s expression more intrinsic.
But you know what, it’s about time to start breeding that shit out of the DNA. Thank GOD for Girls Rock! band camp!!! I figure that by the time our graduates get to be my age, they would have come up against enough of the ‘jerk’ gene (and respectfully ripped it a new one) to put the recessive wheels swiftly in motion.
(smiling) And how.
Unfortunately, I’ve encountered my fair share of flakiness in the past month and a half (flaky musicians – no WAY!) and so I eventually resolved to continue making the most of it with my current set-up (my snare placed in a chair that faces sideways so that I can use the back of it as my hi-hat) and settled on returning to my full kit, and jam session fantasies, in March. I was saying as much to the one they call Blue the other day, and I was a bit surprised to hear her disappointment. Apparently, she’d been sharing the same visions of awesomeness that I had originally possessed, and so she ever so gently urged me to continue on my quest.
Fair enough, I was officially re-motivated.
For the past week or so, on my way to the market, I’ve been spying an ad for a guitar tutor. I decided it was a not-so-long shot to hope that a professional guitarist might know a drummer/drum kit, and so I took down the number and gave it a ring. Sure enough, the guitarist (I forgot to ask his name) didn’t hesitate to put me in touch with his friend, Victor, who met with me the same day. Victor turns out to be a very young (just taking his college entrance exams), very non-creepy drum player who has access to a drum kit at his church, which is about a 30 minute walk from where I live.
Super score!
He generously offers to escort me to his church anytime there’s no service underway and let me have at it. I’m totally grateful, but by now am much better at formulating my own Lagotian precautions, and so I decide it’s best not to go it alone; I ask my cousin, who also lives in the city, to tag along and he agrees.
Now, Victor has already asked if I was looking for drum lessons, to which I replied that I was not. I let him know that I’m simply looking to play on something that doesn’t sound like wood and vinyl so that I’m not completely without the feel for a kit when I get back to the States. I just want to practice.
OK, deep breath . . .
We get to the kit (hooray!) and I get my sticks out and start to go into some beats that I want to remember. I knew it wasn’t like I was going to have complete privacy, but I certainly didn’t expect for Victor to be standing directly next to me, watching my every move, ready to critique:
“You need to use your wrists more . . . hit the bell . . .”
“I don’t want to hit the bell.”
“Oh.”
He doesn’t move.
I’ve been playing for all of 3 minutes when he asks me to get up so he can “show [me] something.”
Here we go . . .
10 minutes later my sticks are handed back to me but I haven’t been playing for 5 minutes before I’m asked to get up AGAIN. Now when he sits down he instructs me to repeat what he’s about to demonstrate.
Sigh . . .
I’m starting to tense up a bit from frustration but then I say to myself, “You know what? It’s all good. He’s been playing for ten years, you’ve been playing for three. It never hurts to learn. Be a good sport. And besides, he’s been so kind to help you out and not ask for anything . . .”
And so I become Victor’s pupil – not entirely whole-heartedly, but what the hey.
No sooner had I made this resolution than in comes Victor’s friend, another drummer, Sampson.
He plops himself directly in front of me and begins to move the parts of the kit around, “Don’t you want it closer? I like when it’s right on top of me.”
He hits me in the knee with one of the toms as he shoves it towards me. I slowly push it away, “That’s a little too close.”
Sigh . . .
Now he’s staring at me.
“Do you want to play something?” I ask him.
“Me? Oh nooo! I just got here, I want to see you. Play something.”
Sigh . . .
I oblige, but when I’m finished he looks a bit confused. Maybe even indignant, like he’s been served tuna salad when he paid for steak.
“What is that style?”
“People say I play melodically . . . really I just play what I hear . . . ”
“Is that all you play is that band stuff? Don’t you play any jazz, funk . . .?”
Sigh . . . . . . where’s Katy Otto when you need her?
“Why don’t you play something?” I suggest.
He smirks and gets up with a leisurely sway. We switch out. He starts to go, and not to my surprise, he’s wonderfully talented. As he plays, he looks at me occasionally, unabashedly gloating.
Really?
What part of “I’d just like to practice” translated to all of this? What is it about men and female musicians???
And believe me, this is not an isolated incident by any means. This is just one of the many, MANY episodes of male musician muscle-flexing that I’ve endured since I started playing the drums. It’s like there’s some gene that needs to be expressed in men when it comes to music. Some ‘jerk’ gene. Maybe for all of the years that women weren’t encouraged to be musical badasses and settled for quietly taming the flute and the French horn while our male counterparts were blessed with amps and overdrive pedals at their bris', the gene grew more dominant, it’s expression more intrinsic.
But you know what, it’s about time to start breeding that shit out of the DNA. Thank GOD for Girls Rock! band camp!!! I figure that by the time our graduates get to be my age, they would have come up against enough of the ‘jerk’ gene (and respectfully ripped it a new one) to put the recessive wheels swiftly in motion.
(smiling) And how.
Monday, February 8, 2010
. . . and rising . . .
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our death rate here in Nigeria – it’s much higher than in any other place I’ve known so intimately. Or maybe it’s not and it’s just that I’m so intimate with all of the deaths. Both of my parents lost siblings in their youth, as have many of my many aunts and uncles lost numerous children - to mostly treatable illnesses nonetheless. . . . And aside from the all-too-common passing of children, people are constantly lost to traffic accidents, complications from minor surgery, and of course, old age.
Since I’ve been home there have already been four deaths that I’m aware of; two within the family and two with close family ties. I know it’s sort of an inhuman assumption, but I was beginning to believe that people living here certainly have to get just a LITTLE bit desensitized to all of the loss. . . . But as I began to think more about it I realized that I don’t see that it has so much to do with being desensitized as it has to do with traditions and beliefs surrounding death.
Westerners have a notoriously sanctified notion of the entire process, constantly separating life and death, further mystifying the latter with an unspoken decree that only the most depraved and morbid dare to engage themselves with death while life pulsates all around them (i.e. the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an undertaker – God! Even the name!).
But so many other cultures integrate the two, and even with the influence of Western beliefs, I believe this integration may be what keeps my people afloat amidst so much seeming tragedy. Here, apparently, death is no great mystery, but unfortunately, for far too many, not living just at the edge of it is.
Since I’ve been home there have already been four deaths that I’m aware of; two within the family and two with close family ties. I know it’s sort of an inhuman assumption, but I was beginning to believe that people living here certainly have to get just a LITTLE bit desensitized to all of the loss. . . . But as I began to think more about it I realized that I don’t see that it has so much to do with being desensitized as it has to do with traditions and beliefs surrounding death.
Westerners have a notoriously sanctified notion of the entire process, constantly separating life and death, further mystifying the latter with an unspoken decree that only the most depraved and morbid dare to engage themselves with death while life pulsates all around them (i.e. the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an undertaker – God! Even the name!).
But so many other cultures integrate the two, and even with the influence of Western beliefs, I believe this integration may be what keeps my people afloat amidst so much seeming tragedy. Here, apparently, death is no great mystery, but unfortunately, for far too many, not living just at the edge of it is.
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