Seen at UCH, Ibadan.
The inscription on the wall beside the man reads “Don’t Urinate Here…”
Browsing ktravula – a travelogue! blog archives for June, 2010.
Thirty days after packing my bags and hopping on the plane from St. Louis outwards from the United States, it is time already to take stock of what I’ve learnt so far.
1. That Paypal doesn’t work in Nigeria.
2. That one year of living in America has turned my football allegiance from my colonial masters (who originated the game) to my host country. Go Team USA! (at least until you meet with Nigeria).
3. That all anxieties about returning to a long-missed place are usually exaggerated. One would always adapt and adjust in no time.
4. That I miss Edwardsville, its people, my friends, the squirrels, and hot morning baths, lemonade and chappati. Very much.
5. That I would not be making any more youtube videos in a long time.
6. That I can survive without grapes.
7. That Summer in Nigeria is better than the summer in Edwardsville. Just a few Fahrenheit difference :).
8. That this blog will go on, at least until I run out of sensible things to say, forget to renew my subscription, or forget my log-in password.
9. That more people have read my blog per week since I arrived in Nigeria than when I was abroad. I don’t understand it.
10. That, in spite of all, it’s good to be home.
PS: I know I’m expected to write something grand and philosophical about returning home after such a long time. Right? Well, right now, with sounds of rain on the roof of my house, I’m at peace, and all I can think of are the simple things.
by Zainab Shelley, NY
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What is art? That was the question that came to me when I visited the Metropolitan Art Museum some weeks ago where the twin artists Mike and Doug Starn are creating “Big Bambu” which is a combination of architecture, sculpture and performance and it is all made with bamboo.
On getting to the roof, I wondered what the sticks were. Yes, I thought they were sticks until I got closer and realized they were bamboo and I was awed by its bizarre arrangement. From beneath, looking up, it was unexplainably intertwined with its intricate arrangement of bamboos tied together with colourful ropes. There are stairs or pathways that take one to the top to see Central park below and a beautiful view of New York and even though it is not yet completed.
Visitors are allowed to see the construction evolving to the “monumental crest” it is supposed to be when completed. Not surprisingly, the work is done by mountain climbers, probably because they aren’t afraid of heights? But I wondered how they knew which bamboo sticks to tie with which. While I was there, there were two of them working on the structure. When completed, the structure will be 100 feet long by 50 feet high and 50 feet wide, with a total of 3,200 bamboo poles and 30 miles of colorful nylon ropes.
Looking up, there are bulbs attached to the already structured bamboo and I guess that when the light is switched on at night, It will be a beautiful sight seeing the light penetrating through the frame, but unfortunately I couldn’t stay because I had other places to see in the museum so I am just left with my imagination trying to figure it out.
After viewing the structure, I came to the conclusion that art is the creation of a beautiful thing and I am sure there is an artist in everyone. I guess I just have to figure out what I can create, maybe with broomsticks? I’ll just have to figure it out.
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Zainab taught Hausa as a Fulbright language scholar at the New York University.
There are several things to do when one is a “retired” foreign language teacher with time on his hands. One could begin to translate a book of English fiction into Yoruba just for the sake of it – never mind that many of our “modern” people don’t read in the language anymore. At least one can convince oneself that it is an effort in the furtherance of literature.
One could also begin to read old books, some of which one had bought over a year ago but had not got a chance to open due to the busy nature of one’s teaching and learning commitments. As much as catching up on old books is concerned, my bed at the moment is littered with open copies of “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, “Slow Man” by J.M. Coetzee and Chika Unigwe’s “On Black Sister’s Street”.
But yesterday, I stumbled on a copy of Wole Soyinka’s “Collected Plays 1” which I had bought from Amazon two months ago. It had in it A Dance of the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road, and The Baccae of Euripides. I’ve read all of them at one point or the other before, but it struck me that there was a part of The Strong Breed that once seemed very strange to me in grammatical accuracy. Today I began to look for it, and it didn’t take me too long for me to to spot. I’ve found it. Wole Soyinka, or his editor at the time, seemed to have missed an almost negligible grammatical rule for one of the lines in the play. Almost negligible, but not quite forgivable for an author that has now gone ahead to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Here:
SUNMA: You don’t even want me here?
EMAN: But you have to go home haven’t you? *
SUNMA: I had hoped we would watch the new year together – in some other place.
pg 120.
The first time I spotted this in 2001, I was sure that it had missed the editor’s eye especially since a random internet search did not produce any result of anyone having spotted it before. But seeing it still in another edition of the book convinced me either of the author’s insistence, or on the forgivableness of the slip on some level. Or not. The character of Emma is neither a teacher known for grandiose language nor an illiterate known for the same. In fact, his ability to speak well was never in question throughout the short play so it couldn’t have been part of character. It could only have been an error. What surprised me was how it was repeated in all the editions I have read. So I’ve brought it here for debate. What special reason could be given for this sentence written like this?
Of course after this, I shall be expecting a cheque from the publishers for my eagle-eyed spotting of a faulty line in a book more than four decades old.
Check out a few more reviews of African Roar, the anthology in which my first published short story has appeared.
http://edumablog.blogspot.com/2010/06/triumph-of-small-things.html
Have you read it? I’d really like to read is your own review of the book and the stories in it. Have you got your copy yet? What do you think?