ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Art category.

Marching On, Counting Down

This month officially begins the last three months or so of my Fulbright year, but not the end of this blog. Yes indeed, by sometimes in May this year I’d be done with teaching my delightful students how to pronounce Gbadamosi and kpangolo; or how to greet an adult they might meet on a dusty road in Surulere, Lagos; how to perform naming ceremonies after eight days of the child’s birth; or how to sing in Yoruba, or dance the bata dance; or how to beat a talking drum. In short, by sometimes in May 2010, I will be taking off these photos from my wall, packing my bags, auctioning my winter jacket and boots, returning my bicycle to my beloved host parent, and getting onto a home-bound plane. I’m excited. Well, not really but that’s not the point. 🙂 My work here will be done by then, and I will be heading home.

In this month of March and beyond therefore, here are a few things I am looking forward to:

Re-issuing my first collection of poems Headfirst into the Meddle (first published in 2005) on Amazon. It will be available in both electronic and print editions.
Releasing a new book of photography, comprising of some of the best and/or memorable photos I’ve taken in the course of my stay here in the United States. The book – not being a full memoir – will only have some sparse notes beside each picture telling of the experiences that gave birth to the shots, but it will surely contain so many more things that I have never talked about on the blog. It will also be on Amazon and other online booksellers.
Getting published in one of the New York Times or The Washington Post. I don’t know why this is even important. Oh, screw it! 😀
Wishing my mum a very special happy birthday.
Going on Spring break to a very cozy destination in the United States, if possible.
Featuring more interesting guest-posts on ktravula.com. I want to spend much of the remaining three months reading from others as much as I write. I think I deserve it too, 🙂 so if you are a writer, or a blogger, or just a passer-by with an opinion, an anecdote or something to share, let’s talk and you could be my next guest-blogger of the week.

Beside that, everything else is fine and as they should be. And oh, there is a new poll on the right side of this blog, to commemorate the coudntdown that has just begun. What do you think I should do with this blog as from May 2010?Close it? End the travelogue but keep it open for reading indefinitely? Keep writing on it even from Nigeria? Or turn it into a book? You can choose more than one options. I appreciate your taking the time to tell me what you think. And don’t despair, May is still so far away. 😀 And, your votes count.

And, one final thing. This post about meeting Paula Varsavsky has been updated to show a few things I learnt from the talk. I was too much in a hurry the last time to post pictures that I left out the essence of the talk. And yes, this blog KTravula.com is now avalable on the Kindle! If you do have a Kindle, you can now subscribe to this blog so that you can read wherever you go. Head over here to check it out, and do leave a few nice words of review about this blog there if you have the time. I will appreciate it. Thank you.

Enjoy, and have a pleasant month.

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Picture taken in class last week at a drum-beating session. Used by permission.

Nostalgia – A Not So Old Poem

Do men really feel or just believe? In wandering afterthoughts from your sonic alter-ego,

Love, my belly tickles to a distant bell in childhood paces around our childish lusts.

See me there on the streets of dustland, with heels on the playground of luckless rants.

Am I supposed to feel this way again, muse? Your voice spins me to a thousand memories.

I do not stir, nor do the droplets in my eye move beyond their range of steam. No. Muse,

I do not control this softness that drives me across a beaten path towards your taken arms.

It is the voice of the night, or else a green-eyed beacon that pushes these fingers to work, and

To stalk: “Traveller, your love has not always been without the crawl of blunt senseless drive.”

It is the delirious dope of distance then, or caprice, or a flighty strong wind of love’s nostalgia.

A Photo

I saw this picture on the wall of the Meridian Ballroom where the African Night Dinner took place on Sunday. It shows the writer Maya Angelou in one of her animated moments, and I couldn’t resist taking the picture. It was definitely one of the liveliest portraits on the wall that night.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. – Maya Angelou

Video Mardi Gras

I realize that this is a bit late, but I did make a short video of my visit to the Mardi Gras at the Soulard in St. Louis. Find it below so that you can appreciate the crowd. And the crowd you can see here is not even almost a tenth of the whole population of visitors on that day. I wonder how wild it would have been had it taken place in the summer.

My report of the event appeared in the Nigerian newspaper 234Next last week Friday. Find it here. This was my first time of being published in that newspaper.