ktravula – a travelogue!

the Nigerian Ghoul in an American Forest

The Class Project

Last year, at the end of the semester, my students all had to write short stories in English with Yoruba characters and sensibilities. It was a way for me to have a peek into their knowledge of the language and cultures so far and see what they’ve gained from the class and from their own research. Their stories all surprised and impressed me, individually and I will cherish the scripts for as long as I live.

This semester was different. The class project this time was that they had to pick particular songs in Yoruba and learn to sing it within three weeks. To do this, they had to work with a student tutor who is also a from Nigeria who came to train them every Wednesday. He also found them costumes. I had told them the meaning of the songs in class before handing them over to the tutor, so all I had to do next was just to wait for the final presentation which was set for the final day of class. I invited the head of department and a journalist from the Alestle to come on that day to share in the surprise. I had only heard of their progress and how much fun they had rehearsing for the day. I had not seen them sing before, and I had a feeling that some of them were nervous. At the end of the day, this happened: I was very impressed. From the following video made of their presentation, you will see why the class presentation was the best final class I could ever have hoped for, as a goodbye to a great teaching year.

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The Class Project was published on May 1st, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Academic, Fun category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

To Principia

Today, I went to the Principia College, Elsah Illinois with a two professors from SIUe and another international student from here. Retired Professor Wilson had been invited to give a talk on diversity to a few students in the University, and it turned out to be a nice experience. The campus of the College (called University in Nigeria) is located at a site off the river road and overlooking the great Mississippi River. No words can describe the grandeur of the river as seen from the road while driving. I’m much convinced that it would look and feel so much better while on a bicycle. According to Prof Wilson, Mark Twain the writer used to come over to the river to get inspiration. Oh well.
The journey to Principia took a little over thirty minutes from the SIUe campus, and we had to pass through a few small towns including Alton and Elsah, each with a repertoire of historical information, especially about the Native Americans that made the area their habitation for many years before their forceful dispersal. Alton has the famous Clark Bridge, and there is a famous painting of a prehistoric piasa bird on the face of the cliff also overlooking the Mississippi river. According to Wikipedia, Alton has “its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, and brick commercial buildings”, and it counts among its famous former residents Miles Davies, the legendary trumpeter/musician, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who was murdered in 1937 for his role in anti-slavery movements (and after whom the Library at SIUe is named), and James Earl Ray, the murderer of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr.

IMG_0447Today, I went to the Principia College, Elsah Illinois with a two professors from SIUe and another international student from here. Retired Professor Wilson had been invited to give a talk on diversity to a few students in the University, and it turned out to be a nice experience. The campus of the College (called University in Nigeria) is located at a site off the river road and overlooking the great Mississippi River. No words can describe the grandeur of the river as seen from the road while driving. I’m much convinced that it would look and feel so much better while on a bicycle. According to Prof Wilson, Mark Twain the writer used to come over to the river to get inspiration. Oh well.

IMG_0445The journey to Principia took a little over thirty minutes from the SIUe campus, and we had to pass through a few small towns including Alton and Elsah, each with a repertoire of historical information, especially about the Native Americans that made the area their habitation for many years before their forceful dispersal. Alton has the famous Clark Bridge, and the even famous painting of a prehistoric piasa bird on the face of the cliff also overlooking the Mississippi river. According to Wikipedia, Alton has “its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, and brick commercial buildings”, and it counts among its famous former residents Miles Davies, the legendary trumpeter/musician, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who was murdered in 1937 for his role in anti-slavery movements (and after whom the Library at SIUe is named), and James Earl Ray, the murderer of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr.

IMG_0435One of the notable sights on the way from Edwardsville are the many oil refineries in Illinois that litter the way. “Those refineries refine the crude oil from Nigeria”, the professor quipped “before they are sold in the United States at different rates.” The crude oil is brought from different parts of the world – and indeed from Nigeria – in large ocean vessels, are refined, and sold as “gas”. What he didn’t know until I told him was that the finished petroleum products are also sold back to Nigeria – like chocolate products – at exorbitant prices whenever the steam engines of Nigeria’s refineries go down and the continent’s petroleum giant finds it hard to refine its own products. Passing through those areas of Illinois that I’ve never been before only reminded me of Nigeria’s Niger Delta: plenty smoke in the air, and plenty smell of gas – a depleting environment under serious gas pollution.

IMG_0468The Principia College is an institution for Christian Scientists and it graduated its first products in 1934. The campus is small, yet beautiful. The student population is 490 and from the little we saw, the students are warm, and all find a way of interacting with one another much more than one would find in a large campus as SIU because of the size. An interesting discovery I made was that one in every five students there was an international student. And over seventy percent of those international students are from Kenya. All of a sudden, it felt like if I was back on the campus of Moi University in Kenya again. I still haven’t discovered the reason for this density in Kenyan students population. At SIUe, the international students population is mainly Indian, and then a few others. In 1993,according to Wikipedia, the campus was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.

The visit ended with a very delicious lunch at the University cafeteria where many of the international students worked as kitchen staff among others. The food also somehow reminded me of my stay in Kenya in 2005. Maybe it was because it was the first time I was eating rice again in a very long time. Luckily, we made it out of the campus early enough to get back to campus so that I was still able to get to class where my students, who had already waited for nine minutes, said that I was indeed lucky by a minute, or I would have met another empty class. Spoiled brats, those kids.

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To Principia was published on October 15th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , under the Academic, Art, Fun, Observations, Travelling, adventures category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

The First Class

It was with a little apprehension that I walked slowly into that Peck Hall classroom at 1.30pm on Monday to begin my first teaching assignment. I had waited for this day for a long while, but when the reality stared me in the face just before I entered the class, I wondered for a micro-second whether it would be worth all the travel. My outfit already stood me out of the crowd, and anyone who bothered to look in my direction on the corridor could not have missed the fact that I looked different, and could only be “that professor from Africa.” I mean, who still wears native caps these days but the Africans? On one hand was my bike helmet, on the other were the copies of the course syllabus and behind me was the bag that had needed texts. They were all waiting for me when I entered, on time, and I immediately contrasted that fact with Nigerian university system where students would still stroll into class thirty minutes after the lecture would have already started, offering no word of remorse even when the teacher stops talking and stares at them from his lectern. Two students came in just some seconds before I closed the classroom door, and they were apologetic.

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“Ẹ káàsán o. Ẹyin akẹkọọ,” I started, and the class went silent! A thick, almost disqueting silence quieter than a deafman’s graveyard.
A second trial yielded a few suppessed sounds, but it attracted a more encouraging response. “Ẹ káàsán o. Ẹyin akẹkọọ.” I said, again and I picked up a chalk to write it out. Then I wrote my name, in full, pointed at it, and contined.
“Orúkọ mi ni Arákùnrin Kóla Ọlátúbòsún. Ẹyin Nkọ?”
Everyone kept quiet, and looked a little amused. A few giggled, and it was just what I was waiting for.
I touched my chest, moved away from the board, and repeated. “Orúkọ mi ni Arákùnrin Kóla.” Then I pointed at the one with the most mischievous smile. “Iwọ nkọ?”
She looked lost, as did a few more, and then after a little moment of almost uncomfortable silence, the bulb lighted in someone’s brain and he shouted from the back, “Ross!”
“Beautiful.” I responded, the first time I would speak English in the class. They all felt at ease from then on, and each volunteered their name in turn: “Keonia, Adam, Amber, Tonde, etc.”
“But you shouldn’t just say your name,” I corrected. “You should preface it with ‘Orúkọ mi ni…’ then put in your name. Let’s do it again in pairs, shall we?”
“Kíni orúkọ rẹ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Amber. “Iwọ nkọ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Tonde.”
“Kíni orúkọ rẹ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Trish. “Iwọ nkọ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Ross.”
“Kíni orúkọ rẹ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Keonia. “Iwọ nkọ?” “Orúkọ mi ni Adam.”
…and that went all around the class of thirteen students, only three of whom are black – out of which one (Tonde) is a Nigerian Ijaw.

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I turned out to be a better experience than I imagined, and I left the class feeling elated and swollen-headed. This is going to be fun. I am actually teaching my language in an American university. The aim of the course, if you’re interested in knowing, is to make authentic Yoruba speakers out of those bright and brilliant American students. By the end of the class that lasted one and a quarter hour, we seemed to have forgotten about time, and all they wanted to say is “Sé alàáfíà ni”, “Báwo ni”, “Dáadáa ni. Iwọ nkọ?” If you have a child in Nigeria, Britain or America today to whom you have refused speak your language, you would have only yourself to blame when after they reach the age of twenty-one, you have to put thousands of dollars out just to make them learn it well, this time from those to whom it’s not even a first language. As for me, I’m having fun here, and discovering interesting new things about my language, and how it comes across to the complete strangers hearing it for the very first time.

By the next class, each of those students would have chosen their own personal Yoruba names to be used in class and everywhere else. No more Ross, Trish or Adam. Let the Yorubanization begin!

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The First Class was published on August 26th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the Academic category. There are currently 18 comments on this article so far.

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