ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing ktravula – a travelogue! blog archives for January, 2010.

10 Reasons to Buy KTravulart To Help Haiti

10. Haiti was the first black nation to get independence from Europeans, and they did it through bravery and collective action. Since then, however, they have been impoverished. For years since their independence, they had to pay reparation to France, a sort of price for their freedom.

9. Haiti does not have the required infrastructure to deal with the destruction of their homeland by the earthquake that hit them in January, and foreign volunteers can only do so much before they return to their own homes. They need help. They need money, badly.

8. You will get a precious artwork from and lovely postcards from ktravula.com. Yea, that’s worth repeating. 🙂

7. You will be saving lives.

6. This offer to buy beautiful soon-to-be-famous artworks for less doesn’t come all the time, and will definitely not be open forever.

5. Singer Wyclef Jean might send you a “Thank you” email or hand-written letter for helping his country. Don’t doubt it!

4. The city of Chicago, Illinois was founded by a man called Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a Haitian. He was also the first known non-indigenous settler and the first Haitian-American and person of color in the area which is now Chicago, Illinois. A support for Haiti is a support for Chicago, and by extension a support for the State of Illinois – if we want to take it that far. Don’t forget that President Obama is also from the state. Help Haiti and help us, somewhat. 🙂

3. Many of the survivors need so much medical attention which only money can buy.

2. It’s a drop in the ocean, but it can still make an impact.

1. The photos are beautiful, and worth every penny spent.

Alrighty, let’s do this and let’s move on. I’m sure I almost can hear someone say “enough already.” Well, the travelogue continues without fail, just after this commercial break… “Haiti I can see your Halo” by Beyonce. “911 Remake” by Twista, and “Redemption Song” by Rihanna.

To participate, go to this page for more information. The travelogue resumes its schedule in the month of February.

10 Reasons To Buy KTravulart To Help Jos

10. It is one of Nigeria’s most serene cosmopolitan cities, now facing a humanitarian crises that could as well be called genocide going by motive, and the number of deaths recorded in the last couple of weeks.

9. It is a tourist destination for expatriates living in Nigeria maybe because of its altitude. If there is peace, stability and vitality in Jos, there is peace, stability and vitality for all who visit the place. And it’s a good place to visit if you are ever in Nigeria.

8. It is the site of a very advanced Nok culture and civilization who lived there from around 3000BC and disappeared in the late first millenium.

7. Its National Museum is one of the best in the country, and it boasts of some fine specimens of Nok terracotta heads and artifacts dating from between 500 BC to AD 200. It also incorporates the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture with life-size replicas of a variety of buildings, from the walls of Kano and the Mosque at Zaria to a Tiv village. (Source Wikipedia)

6. The state has over forty ethno-linguistic groups, some of the largest in the country as far as linguistic diversity is concerned.

5. It has the potential to be – as it has always been – one of the best places to live in Nigeria.

4. You will have a beautiful photographic artwork hanging in your living room, signed by KTravula, all the way from the Midwest of the United States.

3. You will have something to show for it beyond the beautiful photograph hanging in your living room: a peace of mind that comes from giving.

2. For Nigerians, you will have done your little part to contribute to the progress of the country Nigeria, without having to occupy a government office, and be sure that your money is making an impact, and not going to a corrupt pocket.

1. I said so. And you love me, don’t you?

PS: That photo above is of the famous Riyom Rocks. It is located in Riyom, the local government in which I spent twelve months in 2005/2006 on the National Youth Service programme. (Picture Source: Paramino.)

PSS: I got an $80 cheque from Clarissa today, as donation to Jos. She had mistakenly addressed it to Access Bank Nigeria instead of to me, but that’s fine. I can’t post the cheque to Nigeria because no Nigerian bank will cash an American cheque. On Monday therefore, I will make her re-write it, address it to me, I’ll cash it and transfer it to the Access Bank Account of the Nigerian Red Cross for Jos Relief or send by Western Union to them, or to someone who will pay it into the Access Bank Account and provide me with proof. It shouldn’t be so hard jare!

iSkits

Scene I

+++++

Kola: Ben, what’s your favourite Apple product?

Ben: I gotta say, the iPod.

Kola: The iPad?

Ben: No, not the iPad. The iPoood. [Pronounced as “iPaaad”]

Kola: What? You like that new product?

Ben: No, you’re not listening. I mean the iPod, the iPod; the small one that fits into your breast pocket. That one you’re holding.

Kola: Oh, the iPawd, you mean.

Ben: What is that? iPawd?

Kola: Well, the way you’re pronouncing it, I couldn’t tell the difference between when you say iPod and when you say iPad. Can you say “iPod,” this time in English?

Ben: Good God, you’re terrible.

Kola: Don’t you mean “Good Gawd?”

******************

Scene II

++++++

Kola: Hello, am I speaking with the Apple representative? I made an online order of the new iPad.

Operator: Oh nice. I’m here to help you. Was it the iPod classic or the iPod touch?

Kola: Does it come in those options?

Operator: Yes. The Classic comes in 160GB, 120GB and 80GB types…

Kola: I think you’re getting me wrong. I mean the iPad.

Operator: I got you right. You want the iPod, right?

Kola: Yes, and I’m told it has come to knock the Kindle off its lazy ass.

Operator: [Silence.]

Kola: Hellooo.

Operator: Yes. There must have been a mistake. Did you say you want the iPad or the iPod?

Kola: From what you just said, I really can’t tell them apart. Maybe you should please let me speak with someone who speaks English.

Operator: Good Gaad!

Kola: [Click]

******************

PS: None of these conversations has taken place, as far as I know. But I won’t bet against the possibility that they are taking place right now in parts of the United States, especially between Nigerians and Americans.

Blank Head Rants

“No one can ever know for sure what a deserted area looks like.” – George Carlin

I honestly, honestly have nothing to blog about today. Ask me, I can’t wait for January to be over with. It’s the longest month of the year, especially because it follows an already long festive one of December. February however is the shortest month, which is nice, except you are a compulsive blogger who has to write up to fourty-six interesting articles in a month.

What I intend to do in this short post then is to tell you the response to my so called “Charity Work”. It is interesting to see the responses so far, which is to me quite encouraging. We already have $100 pledged to Jos, Nigeria; I think. And today, Thursday, I will be making out the said photograph to send to the said donor who lives in Dolton, Illinois but wants to remain anonymous as soon as I receive the proof of said donation. There are two other pledges from contributors to this blog, and I thank them, Yemi and Tayo. Needless to say, it’s not sufficient. It is not the best we can do.

In a similar vein, I wrote a letter to the Fulbright Organization yesterday informing them of the project, and to the coordinator of the Haiti relief effort at my University. I haven’t received a response from either of them. What I hope to do in the next week is to hold an exhibition, if possible, of some of these photographs on campus. What I’m afraid of is that students may not have that much money to spare, adults who can spare may have already donated to Haiti. So for all its worth, if that ever happens, it will be more of my opportunity to showcase my work rather than to raise money. In any case, I’d be glad to explore the opportunity. Day by day, the pictures look better and better to me. I didn’t know that I’d taken so many shots in this little period of time.

If you’re interested in buying the works in this effort to raise money for Jos, Nigeria; and the country of Haiti, please head here for more information. I will try to keep the offer open until the end of my Fulbright Programme in May, if I can. From then on, you will have to pay heavily to buy them, by which time they would have become a collector’s item, even if I say so myself 🙂

SOMETHING ELSE: I heard that Apple has finally come out with it’s new tablet, and they have chosen no other name to call it than the iPad. The obviously flawed marketing strategy has now spurned so many spoofs and parodies on twitter since yesterday. The product was actually called the iTampon by pranksters in the extreme of it. What worried me the most why Mr Jobs hadn’t considered the fact that the iPad uses the very same sound patterns as the iPod, at least in Americans English. How will listeners be able to tell them apart? This may as well be a failure of language sensitivity as it is a failure of marketing. My two cents.

Short Observations from Class

Most students tended to make hasty generalizations from what they read. The book A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt had very many interesting stories from the perspective of the then young and uneducated Toyin Falola and his upbringing, but most who read it tended to think that his story was true for everyone else, e.g. people not remembering their date of birth. This happened last semester as well. Maybe we should bring Chimamanda back.
Americans wrote the shortened form of the English word for mother as “Mom” instead of “Mum” as I have been used to. I didn’t know this before. I’ve always written it as Mum, until someone from class gently corrected me after I wrote it on the blackboard. Then I gently corrected her too, and voiced my reluctance to ever adapt to American English. They found it amusing.
One of my students said on Monday after submitting an assignment to write a summary of the life of Wole Soyinka that his mother had met the Nigerian Nobel Laureatte once before, and found him to be brilliant. “Cool,” I said.
Many students used Yoruban whenever they used Yoruba as an adjective in an English sentence, rather than the usual Yoruba, e.g Yoruban boy, Yoruban culture, instead of Yoruba culture. Yoruba boy etc. I noticed this in the scripts of my Fall semester students last year as well. Do British English people make this generalization as well?

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