ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing ktravula – a travelogue! blog archives for the day Monday, January 24th, 2011.

Germany Me

A few minutes ago, I left my mailbox at the department with two German magazines that I hadn’t ordered for. A closer look showed me that they were originally delivered to my head of department, a long-term professor of German. One of them, “German Life”, is published in English while the other “Dasfenster” is written totally in German. All this wouldn’t have made much sense but for the fact that a few hours ago, earlier in the morning, she had mistakenly began to speak rapidly to me in German, again. It usually happened like this: She would come into the language lab with the intention of telling me something, and she would begin to say it in German and I would stare blankly until after the fourth sentence when she’d realize what is happening, and burst out laughing.

Last year, I shared an office with someone from Switzerland who spoke a different kind of German. Although she didn’t manage to switch into the said language subconsciously, she did give me something to look forward to if I eventually decide to learn the language. (Those interested should check out her German teaching website here). Today’s episode has however got me thinking that maybe what a few years of befriending German women couldn’t accomplish, working in a foreign language department eventually would. Maybe, I said. Fantastische! Oh well.

Germany Me was published on January 24th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

On TSA and Mutallab, My Friends.

It’s almost a year since the event of Christmas day last year which changed the way airline security works in this country. We used to just take off our shoes at airports. (Of course before then in the seventies, people didn’t even care much about airline security). Now we get to choose between an invasive body scanner or a more invasive body pat-down. Or both.

Talking to a friend about the new intrusive security procedures at airports all around the United States today brought one grim reality to my attention: this would not have been the case had it not been for that Nigerian guy! Maybe it eventually would have in a different way or form, but being one to blame – however remotely – weighs upon me with a sense of disgust. Everybody blames the TSA for being reactive rather than being proactive in their security concerns. I blame them too, then again quickly realize that it is never their fault that a spoilt and brainwashed young from a third world country would strap explosives to his “junk” and walk into a plane. Now the genie is out of the bottle, and it won’t go back in. Innocent passengers from everywhere are forced to pay the price.

The sad fact, again – of course, is that the people planning the next attack would only think of an even more ingenious way to bypass security, and thus send the country into one more hole of reactive security damage control that limits individual freedom, erodes privacy and attacks dignity and human rights. Let’s hope it never happens. For now I only feel extremely sorry for those who have to endure pawing hands all over them because of the jackassery of someone who once walked the same streets in Nigeria as me.

On TSA and Mutallab, My Friends. was published on January 24th, 2011, under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

On Silence

The depth of perception lends itself at occasional bouts of silence. There is no sound, none, except little rasping taps of the computer keyboard. Imagine the dead of night, or the afternoon in a quiet cottage overlooking a freezing lake. The birds can’t wallow in its open embrace and make their shrill piercing noises. They have moved elsewhere. The air conditioner also remains quiet, and all stays numb except for occasional sounds of footsteps walking by. You are there, all alone, and dead to the world, except to the hum of the laptop. Focus. There connects – in the instant – a soothing link between every letter out of the fingertips and the screen. Besides that, only an occasional flash of a past memory reminds of a world on the other side of the white plasma. The world sleeps at the moment, and a will remains. Only that, seeping out of the tips of slowly rasping fingers.

Colours on the wall, green disagreeing chairs and mild alliances of littering warts brace the space for warmth. Silver gum wrappers on a spiral art, then there is the book and the keys that lay on it like a lover’s head on the bosom. A black jacket, a shawl, a headphone on the other side of the elbow scream: “there is no peace here but calm, and no order either.” A white plug, white paper receipts, white sheets sticking out of manila envelopes.

On Silence was published on January 24th, 2011, with the tags , , under the Literature, Observations category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.