Dear friends,

I cannot resist this urge. And since we are in the mood for rejoicing,
I urge you to kindly do so with me as well. A few hours before Barack Obama
got his own ticket to the White House, I got news of mine to his great
country. Well, not a flight ticket just yet, but a confirmed selection
as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant. It is a one-year
teaching grant to a post-secondary American institution to teach my
language in the 2009/10 session.

As much a great news as well as a great challenge, I am now beginning
a new extensive re-immersion into the culture and ways of my people. I
would not be going there only to eat hamburgers, right?

Greetings on Obama’s victory. It’s a new day.

Thinking back, I cannot almost believe that it’s already one year. What this means, of course, is that a set of new Fullbrighters have already been chosen now as well. By this time next year, I will be back home, or wherever else the wind of life blows me, and this university would have got its replacement scholar just trying to find his/her feet. Two years ago, they had Busola from Ibadan, last year, there was Tola from Lagos, and now Kola from Ibadan. If the trend of names are anything to go by, I won’t be surprised if the next person to come over here is a “Sola”, “Demola” or “Bola”. For one thing, they are easier names for Americans to pronounce.

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