ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the adventures category.

The Eagle Has Landed

I arrived in Lagos Yesterday.

Well, I don’t know if it was really “yesterday” or “today” because I’ve had to reset my wristwatch so many times. Right now, it says a quarter past 5am on Sunday. On my laptop whose time still reflects Edwardsville, it says 11.16pm on Saturday. I am sleepless. I have been travelling for 24 hours, but now I don’t even know which of the days I want to occupy. Let me just take Sunday.

I have not eaten anything other than a few fried chicken wings that my sister thought might do me some good. Really? Even with this overweight size of mine? When I left here in August, I was about 176 pounds. Now I’m about 200, and what do I get for that? Some more fried chicken. I’ve danced, and sweated, and hugged my nephews and nieces some of whom I’m meeting for the first time. I’ve now also been bitten by wicked mosquitos as I type this post. Returning from a one-year trip abroad has certainly put some things in perspective. Electricity, area boys, police, stable internet, time zones, and fried chicken.

Let me thank you all faithful blog readers, those who leave and those who don’t leave comments. I thank the wonderful staff of the foreign languages department, SIUE, for a wonderful session. Belinda Carstens-Wickam, Douglas Simms, Tom Lavalle, Olga Bezhanova, Mariana Solares, Debbie Mann, Yvonne Mattson, Joaquim, Heidi, Carolina; and the workers in the language lab: Catherine, John, Rachael, Elizabeth, Heather, Scott, Joey, Elvira and everyone else I may have forgotten to mention. I thank Prof Ron Schaefer, the director of International Programmes, Sandra Tamari who also works in the same office, and every other person in the IP who made my stay very pleasant, even though they don’t read my blog. I thank the students from both semesters for a wonderful time. I also thank my friends in Cougar Village, Mafoya, Chinomso, Ikechukwu, Jocy, Chris, Ben, Mahsa, Iman, Yo, Keshi, and Afua. See you guys soon. I miss you already.

This is not the end, dear blog readers. I am going to tell you about the trip, and some observations from France and New York. Right now, I just want to figure out which of these time zones I want to adjust to.

Places

Here are the reports of a few of the most interesting places of interest I’ve been in the last ten months, with pictures. Enjoy.

Chicago, and Chicago

St. Louis and St. Louis

Washington DC and Washington DC

La Casa Mexicana

How could I not have known that the best and the most affordable restaurant in Edwardsville was going to be a Mexican one? I had never eaten at a Mexican restaurant until yesterday. It was a get-together to say bye bye to Ellen who was retiring from Foreign Language teaching after about 42 years. Present at the event were all members of staff of my department (except the Head, who inevitably had to be absent). I had my first intimation with plenty Mexican dishes and drinks, including the famous jarritos (which is actually pronounced as harritos). There was margaritas, tortillas and chorizos. If your mouth is now sufficiently watered by just the thought of spicy delicious Mexican food, you can give me credit for it. Just go out now, and buy yourself a nice meal. I promise that you will thank me later.

The dinner was wonderful. What’s more, it was my (sorta ;)) final get-together with that wonderful crew that run the department of foreign language department.

After that, there was another get-together with teachers and students of language in the house of a different professor. Then at night, a hang-out with some friends over bottles of beer. Well, the goodbyes are done. The last supper? Maybe not. Next stop, an all-night drinking binge with somebody, somebody and somebody.

When? When? When?

Departures

Today, I attended a potluck lunch in my department to mark the end of the semester. It was a gathering of friends and colleagues most of who work in the foreign language teaching lab. On Saturday, I had attended a get-together of international students who had arranged to send us (Reham and I) forth from the US with a small get-together. Both events reminded me of the transience of time, the value of friendship, and the strength of communality. We ate, we chatted, and we exchanged ideas. A few of them, I might not see again in a long time. Many others, I would be seeing again soon. In short it has been a week of goodbyes.

A week ago, Reham and I were hosted in the house of Prof Schaefer the International Programmes Director for the first time. I met his wife, and another scholar from Ibadan who was just completing his PhD thesis. I also met their cats, and got a chance to admire the beauty of their well situated, and well decorated house with artworks from all over the world. He had collaborated with universities and communities in Nigeria for many decades. On Friday this week, there will be a final get-together with the staff of my department to celebrate one of us, and an informal send-forth for both Reham and I. I look forward to it.

Today, I will be visiting the University Centre in East St. Louis. Famous for many of its arts and culture events like poetry readings, spoken word performances, drama etc, the centre boasts of patrons like Eugene B. Redmond the publisher of the famous Drumvoices Revue, among many greats. I’ve never made it to that campus of the University, and I hope to rectify that today.

The Power of Many

While seated at the back of the Merridian Ballroom on campus yesterday where I had gone to see the legendary big band jazz of the Count Bassie Orchestra, I could not stop thinking about the power of collaboration. The event was the Arts and Issues series of the University as part of the Annual SIUE Jazz Festival. The Merridian Ballroom has played host to very many special events in the life of the University. There it was on March 29, 2005 where the then newly elected Senator Barack Obama first announced that he was going to introduce his first piece of legislation in Washington, D.C. It was in the same venue that the last Arts and Issues event at SIUE took place that I attended. That was the visit by writer and poet Maya Angelou in October 2009.

It wasn’t my first Orchestra attendance, but it was the first that I was attending without much knowledge of the players. Only a late change of mind by my adorable head of department gave me access to the tickets in the first place. And because I didn’t get there on time, I sat at the back, too far to take good pictures but not too far to enjoy the beautiful work of the orchestra. My first orchestra very many years ago at the University of Ibadan featured mostly Yoruba tunes and foreign musical instruments; a stimulating mix which was also easy to follow. The Count Basie Orchestra performance featured tunes mostly famous to Americans, and perhaps more sophisticated Jazz audience to which I obviously didn’t belong. I didn’t know exactly when to clap and when not to. I depended on the crowd which however didn’t disappoint. What the performance lacked in appeal to my expectations in familiarity to its tunes, it more than made up for in satisfaction of my appetite for good music, brilliant compositions, amazing vocals, laughter, a few theatrics, and general geniality expected of a world class orchestra of its reputation. I have now begun to look for their songs on iTunes.

William “Count” Basie is widely regarded as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his day. He came out of the Kansas City Swing scene in the mid-1930s and assembled a sound that became an anthem for a generation. The group has won every musical award imaginable, including 17 Grammys, and has been named to every respected jazz poll in the world at least once. Some members of the orchestra are new, as could be found on the youth of their faces. But, according to the literature inviting us to the event, “the majority of sound still swings from musicians handpicked by Count Basie himself.” He died in April 1984 after having led the band for nearly fifty years.

The SIUE Jazz Festival, presented by the SIUE Jazz Studies program in the Department of Music, is a non-competitive, educational event that celebrates jazz innovators. This season’s festival features the music of Count Basie. In addition to jam sessions and clinics, performances will include high school and middle school bands plus an appearance by the SIUE Concert Jazz Band.

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