ktravula – a travelogue!

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

Festivity & Fun Feedbacks

Chapter nine of Toyin Falola’s A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt was probably the most difficult for the students to handle. It started on a rather shocking note of the sex songs sung yearly at the Okebadan Celebration of his youth. The songs were supposed to induce fertility in nature, praying down the rain to come and fertilize the earth, yet their words were those of the human anatomy, and they were explicit. Very. And little children as well as adults sang along on the street as they go from house to house taunting each other in the most explicit way possible. According to Falola, the songs for which one would ordinarily be punished had they being sung on an ordinary day would be sung loudly in public throughout the celebration and everyone would be joyous.

I have just finished reading my student’s report on the chapter and many of their observations left me in stitches of laughter. Many claimed to have been confused. Some were shocked, and a few said they found it interesting. Those who were shocked claimed not to have been exposed to any occasion in America where sex is discussed in such an open manner. I’m guessing that they had never attended the Mardi Gras. 🙂 In all, I have always had a good time reading their feedback on the text portrayed by Falola. Interestingly I myself have never witnessed the Okebadan festival, but beyond the words of the songs by the little children singing them, I don’t believe that it ever got any “raunchier” – to use the word – than the Mardi Gras, which I still think is a wonderful celebration of life as well.

This was – verbatim – one of the reports from a student:

The most interesting part of the ninth chapter for me by far was the beginning. The groups of people were running around the city and going to different houses singing all kinds of crazy sexual songs. It was not just the fact that the songs were somewhat explicit that made them interesting. The logic of the songs was rather interesting as well. One song stated that “Penis times vagina equals penis. Vagina times penis equals vagina.” I am not sure about this. Still, I found the songs very comical. After all, I am not a mathematics major.

Reading it here in my room, especially the last sentence, I couldn’t stop laughing at his sense of humour. And somewhere in my mind, I believe that Toyin Falola must have taken great efforts to make this chapter controversial with a subtle confrontation of African sexuality and spirituality with accepted Western standards of morality and propriety, since it looks like the book was written with foreign audiences in mind. Or why else would he devote so many pages at the beginning of that chapter to the matter of sex and the Okebadan festival? I’m glad at least for the discussion it generates. How for instance there is so much sex portrayed in the American media, and how different and conservative the real life society seems when observed at a close range. It’s all an interesting paradox.

PS: Photo taken at the 2010 Mardi Gras in St. Louis of two guys simulating homosexuality with rubber penises.

Literally Disengaging

Whoever has lived in America for up to a year would have acquired a new kind of identity whether they like it or not. It could be the one they themselves realize, or those that is bestowed upon them from those who occupy a different clime. In the case of someone like me, he might have learnt to spell the word learnt as “learned” and mum as “mom”, to write dates with the month first, to eat pizzas, to shake hands firmly, smile everytime his eyes make contact with a stranger’s, use expressions like “I was like…” and wash clothes with washing machines rather than with hands. If he’s also from Nigeria, like me, he would also have learnt to stay up all night making most use of the internet, or leaving the lamps on in his bedroom for as long as possible. And eating grapes. And getting home deliveries of food whenever one is too tired to cook or to go out. In any case, all those are about to change, along with new disengagements in language.

I do not yet know the extent of my enslavement or adaptation to the American English speech patterns, and I might not know until I get back home. But this I know for sure, somebody is going to point out to me soon enough when I get to Lagos that “going to the bathroom” could only mean one thing: going to take a shower. If I want to go to the toilet, I will have to say so. I will leave medication in the United States and return to drugs in Nigeria and not feel ashamed to call it that. Old people will return to being old people and not senior citizens, and when I say I’d like to eat yam, I will have yam, I will be sure that impostor potatoes won’t surprise me in the most unexpected part of the plate. Potato chips will return to being potato chips, and the fries will remain the America.

Let the disengagement begin.

The Traveller is (not) Tired!

It has been long since I wrote a long post. Why? I can’t say. School schedules are going haywire now that things are winding down. I have deadlines almost every week. And I still have to teach. And grade homeworks. And begin packing. And meet up with the final schedules of invites and little goodbye dates that have begun to show up one after another. I feel special. And I feel stressed and worn out. My bones ache. After yesterday’s workout on the basketball court, I realized how much I’ve neglected my muscles and bones. I should exercise more. Should I blame the unpredictable weather again for my lethargy?

Sometime last week, it came to my attention that one of us somewhere on the East Coast has returned home abruptly. He was was sick, and had to be discharged. I’d been in touch with him at the beginning of the year but I didn’t know how serious it was until I heard that he had gone home. I felt sad partly because I wished I had called him more. He used to leave comments occasionally on this blog.

No, I’m not depressed. I’m doing everything to make the last moments count for something. I have a term paper to write about the phonology of Yoruba. Sigh. Heavy stuff, then I’m done. It will be play, basketball and packing. And guest-posts. Until then, I’ll try to work up the time and effort to make a serious/stimulating post sometime before the end of this month :D. Until then, you can go to my Karaoke Page to see a list of my songs and listen to the recordings, or my Youtube channel to see the videos made from scrap video clips and photo slideshows. When I can, I’ll put some of the videos on here.

Adios amigos. Have a nice week ahead.

PS: I was at the Episcopalian Church again today after such a long time of absence. Along with Mafoya, we were the only two black people in church and we looked totally like exotic beings from outer space. When the service was over, everyone wanted to greet us.

Poland!

The horrible news of the death of the Polish President and his wife moved me almost to tears. There were about 96 other people on the plane when it crashed onto Russian soil where the man and the top military brass of the country had gone to celebrate the 70th anniversary of a massacre of some Polish citizens in the old Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II.