…for lack of a better title…
This set of pictures consists of shots from Carbondale, Chicago and St. Louis.
.
Browsing the archives for the adventures category.
One day very soon, I am convinced, I will write a post on this blog that might begin with words like “tttoooeddydyy isssss teiehehe ffirissttt ddyofff snoeoow”, which would only mean that I was cold, freezing and shivering enough not to be able to edit simple sentences. I am convinced that that day is very, very soon. In fact sooner than I expect. Yesterday was my coldest night ever in Edwardsville and it reached -3degrees by my blog temperature meter, and 30degrees Fahrenheit. Even my bed now is too cold for comfort. Very soon I won’t have to go out to feel cold, and I am not looking forward to that.
Meanwhile, I’ve just returned from another day of feasting – probably my last of the Turkey Genocide season. This time, to the house of my “official” host family: the Indian father and the American mother. The special attraction was another visiting family from Chicago, who were originally from Nigeria. It had a father, let’s call him Dr. O, his wife, and two kids who would not speak Yoruba to me however I tried to make them. They were born in Nigeria but have lived in the States for a long time that they have become Americanized in dressing, speech and conviction in a way that could have been bad if it had hampered their cultural awareness. Apparently it hadn’t, and although they would rather not communicate in the language, they had a kind of cultural awareness that could only have resulted from good upbringing and appropriate socialization. To them, I must however have been a special kind of attraction as someone sent specifically from the home country to teach Americans the language. But if that was the case, I didn’t notice it. It was mostly a gathering of laughter, wine, food, and practical jokes. The first born of the Dr. Os is married to a beautiful American girl who was also present, and who I am discovering to be a masters student of my University as well.
In gatherings like this, I am almost always bringing back the topic of language and awareness, and here’s how Dr. A, my Indian host rationalized it from his reading in German, Indian, Irish, French, and African migrations to the United States: First generation immigrants usually speak and understand the language, being a product of the two cultural experiences, and usually try to pass it along to their children. Their children – the second generation with little connection to the cultural experience of the homeland beyond their parents’ teaching usually become rebellious and toss out the language and cultural ideas of their immigrant parents while opting for the American way of life. It is the third generation however – without any link whatsoever to their original culture and language, according to him – who make the most effort to reconnect with their grandparents’ cultural base. This, obviously, is because they are usually the ones without an anchor. They most experience the feeling of homelessness and limbo, and usually find themselves going back in research to connect with what they feel most deprived of. According to this theory, it is only a most natural process when children of first generation immigrants try to become “Americanized”. And everything made sense to me.
However, contrary to the seriousness of this last discussion which actually took place in the car drive back from his house, the atmosphere of the get-together was one more of conviviality, guitar playing, joking and generally fooling around. It was like one of those old times of my upbringing when I sat around my siblings on an idle night after a game of cards, just tossing around all the craziest ideas in the world, laughing, arguing and generally being silly. I bring it up here because now that I think about it, I suddenly miss those times when all that mattered was who had the silliest ideas, and we would stay up all night singing, scrawling on the wall, or decorating the house for Christmas with little coloured paper decorations cut out and sealed with pap syrup and stretched across the house ceiling sometimes with multicoloured Christmas lights. It is usually towards this time of the year as well when we begin to learn new Christmas songs or make a fool out of the old ones, all the time trying to be careful not to make too much noise that could get us the beating of our lives. Oh the times we had. Tonight, I’m convinced that we could never get back that memorable childhood in the same old form we enjoyed it, but I look forward to a grown-up future recreation of those experiences, this time along with nieces and nephews, and a bigger happier family. Some day soon folks…
Here’s one of the most interesting displays of democratic ideals in the United States of America: a set of turkeys – yes the animals and not the humans from the country of Turkey – are set free by official pardon of the President. 🙂 By this I mean that an official decree is made that these animals are now set free from the penalty of death, and are free to go (“and sin no more” perhaps) and live their free lives. Isn’t it amazing? Oh the Americans! Nobody ever told us what eventually happened to the turkeys once they left the vicinity of the presidential presence, and perhaps wandered into a poor neighbourhood of a nearby state.
In any case, there was no such presidential decree, ceremonial or otherwise, in Edwardsville today as I stepped out of the house to my host’s Thanksgiving get-together. And God bless them too. Even if I was a vegetarian, today was one of those days when it was better to renounce the faith for the good of all humanity, and peace on earth. Well, maybe I exaggerate. In short, I had a very nice day. The food included turkey, of course, turnips, smoked bacon, bread, crab and sausage stuffing, green beans, potato pie (the real sweet potato), chocolates, whipped cream, ice cream of different flavours, sweet corn, cranberry sauce, salad and other fruits and drinks (sparkling wine, white wine, red wine, mojito and margaritas) – a very traditional American meal.
The get-together also included a diverse mix of people: My hosts, their beautiful daughter and her partner both from the state of Utah, their friends, neighbours white and black, acquaintances, a few elderly women looking gorgeous and us – the Africans. We had gone there with a Thanksgiving card, one of the ones that I bought since a few weeks ago, as well as a copy of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as a kind of present, which they both greatly appreciated. The repercussion of that thoughtless decision is now that I had to leave the house when the gathering eventually dispersed with a huge paper sack of very many great used books of fiction, history, non-fiction and poetry which, according to my host were already slated for giving away before we showed up. He loves us, that man, and he has asked us to come back for as many more books as we want, for his giving away. One of the things that North America is full of, if I may assume, is plenty great books to which I would never say no.
It’s thanksgiving day, and because of that someone in Nigeria will receive a present of a sack of books, just as soon as I figure how to ship them out without depleting scarce resources…
For the rest, it was just a wonderful day of feasting and merrying. The turkeys that made it out this year with their necks intact had better thank God too with a large feast, and then go out and sin no more. That is, of course, until Christmas comes. Sigh, the precarious lives that livestocks live. Thus the riddle in one of my earlier cards: “What do you think the turkeys would say about the Thanksgiving holiday? Answer: Probably something fowl!”
So how did yours go? The Thanksgiving in America and the Sallah festivities in Nigeria?
The other thing that came with my ordered dinner of “fried rice”, soup and soda yesterday night was a pair of fortune cookies which I had not ordered for. They are chinese cookies “folded and baked around a piece of paper on which a saying or a prediction of somebody’s fortune is written.” (definition by Encarta) I’m not superstitious (all the time) but I take little fun in poking fun at the predictions of the cosmos. I never believed in zodiac signs, but I always read the predictions in the papers whenever I can. Don’t mind the fact that all the predictions for each zodiac sign are in one way or the other similar and could work for anyone with as much as a little dose of superstition. It’s the placebo effect, I guess. But I digress.
By now you already know that in about a few weeks, very very soon now, I will be heading to the East Coast of the country, again! Yea, I’m excited about it too. There are just so many things to see in Washington DC. I can’t wait to stand underneath the real Lincoln Monument. The small one we took pictures with at the Chicago Grant Park was an impostor. I’ve hoped to use the opportunity to do a little wandering around the neighbouring states as well: New York, maybe New Jersey, and Maryland. The last state, definitely, thanks to Ikhide Ikheloa who has promised me a ride from Washington DC to Maryland, warm beddings to lay my head on, plenty naija books to read and to steal, a new iPhone 3Gs and an unlimited supply of Ofe nsala, isi ewu and cow leg pepper soup! Ha, don’t even think of reneging on the promise, Baba!
Anyway, when I broke open the two blasted cookies yesterday, I was too much in a hurry to consume them that I ignored the “fortune” paper in them until after the cookies, the food and the “soup” were well digested. And when I was ready, I took a look and here was what I found: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Travelling to the east will bring you great rewards.”
And suddenly, I’m a believer.
New York, DC, East Coast, here I come… at least after I finish devouring all the livestock of this Thanksgiving Week!
The Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis comprises of more than just the Gateway Arch. Beneath the large steel architectural wonder that is the Arch is the Odyssey Theatre and the Museum of Westward Expansion. It was in the theatre where we saw the movie of the recreated account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Museum of Westward Expansion has real-life replicas of things used during the expedition, things obtained from the native Indians, guns, carriages, animals, maps, and animated robots dressed and speaking like the characters they represent.
The way the Indians lost their land to the invading Europeans was a rather curious one – quite similar to the African experience. The white Americans approached them with a prepared text from the President, informing the awed natives that their land now belonged to an entity called the United States of America, and that more white people would soon come to displace them, and settle them in new places. To seal the “treaty”, the natives were given silver and gold coins that were said to represent coming in peace. The truth of the matter however was that the natives didn’t understand what the invaders were saying. All they wanted was to live in peace, so they agreed to everything without making sense of it. They probably thought that their guests were just going to settle among them in peace. Big mistake. By the time they realized it, it was too late. The land belonged to someone else, and they had to go elsewhere hungry, homeless and dispersed from their environment and means of livelihood. How messed up is that?
The African experience was different only in the fact that we were not totally annihilated, and after a while, the land was given back – except of course in places like South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and some parts of southern Africa. The Native American Indians were not so lucky. It must have been the presence of malaria that made Africa such an uninhabitable place for the “visitors”, that after about a hundred years of exploitation, the invaders were as willing to go away as the Africans were willing to have them leave. But here is the similarity: artifacts, mineral resources, labour and artworks belonging to the great kingdoms were – mostly forcibly – taken over and given to the King, the State or the President as the case may be. It ceased to belong to the original owners from the time they however unwittingly agreed to accept the new folks into their midst.
Real, real curious, that word: civilization and enlightenment. If you asked the people of the great old kingdom of Benin, they would gladly give back (European) “civilization” to have back the original casts of their famous artworks now residing in the British Museum in London or the people of Egypt the great bust of their famous kings now resting in German museums. It’s a time like this when this saying rings most true: “As long as the deer family is unable able tell its story, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” – an old African saying.
.