ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Opinion category.

Her First Story

A guest-post by Jolaade Adesanya

as narrated by Yemi Adesanya

She was extremely excited at the first mention of the request from uncle Kola, to write something for his blog. Then the big question came when it was time to settle down to it “why does he want me to write, mummy?”. “I think he wants to know what you think about different things.” “OK!”. She then began to tell me the different things she’d like him to know about – she loves babies (a neighbor has just delivered a baby girl, she is now a regular visitor to their home), she doesn’t like the school bus (mum/dad should take her to school instead), she doesn’t like yellow buses (they are always driving roughly), she loves her daddy and mummy!, and yes she loves herself, because she loves babies!

What goes on in a 4 yr old girl’s mind is beyond me, mine is always asking difficult questions, questions that leave you wondering if she is not some old woman re-incarnate. The latest question that got me wondering; “if someone is getting married, will they have the wedding in the girls mummy’s church?”.

Her story is as follows:

My name is Jojo, my uncle calls me that.

I love myself, I love my mummy, I love my daddy

I don’t like people driving rough

I like eating fried egg and yam

Mrs Oladimeji is always dozing in the class.

STOP

It was impossible convincing her to write her name, instead of Joojoo, she definitely wants uncle Kola to know the pet name given her by uncle Kunle!

She promised to continue writing this story, but for now, a road marker STOP marks the end.

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Jolaade Adesanya is my lovely four and a half year-old niece, and she writes from Lagos, Nigeria. The first mention of her on this blog was way back in August when I first went to Six Flags. You can read the entry here.

Yemi Adesanya is my accountant sister who works in Lagos and who has been a very lovely, very dependable, and equally a very delightfully mischievous sibling. If you want to find her, head over here. Of course you may have to buy shoes or bags in the process. She sells them in her spare time instead of writing which, as you can see, could as well have been her vocation as well.

Jolaade’s picture courtesy of Chris Ogunlowo.

Let no one ask me why she chose to paint her face when the photo was about to be taken, or whether it is standard procedure for children of this age to paint their faces like that. You will have to figure it out for yourself 😀

Have a nice weekend.

Ukraine’s Got Talent!

In response to my 10 Reasons post about Nigeria, I have got this guest-post from Clarissa as well as a video from Jacqueline Mackay. The video shows one of the amazing talents from Ukraine where a young woman makes amazing art with sand live on stage to tell a story. I do not know much about the history of Ukraine to decode the story, but I’m sure that Clarissa will be here soon enough to enlighten us. Meanwhile, enjoy these facts about Ukraine by Clarissa, and the video courtesy of Jackie.

Did You Know That Ukraine…

• Is the second largest country in Europe? (If we don’t count Russia, which is located in Asia for the most part, anyways.) Even among my blog visitors, I have had people who refer to Ukraine as “a tiny country in Eastern Europe.” One look at the map, however, is enough to demonstrate that Ukraine’s territory is large and its population is 1,5 times larger than the population of Canada.
• Has the most fertile soils in Europe? Ukrainian soil is so fertile that people have been known to remove the top level of soil and sell it to other countries simply because everything grows and flourishes on it.
• Has a tradition of democracy that dates back to the XVI century? This makes Ukraine a country with the most longstanding tradition of democracy in Europe.
• Started a sexual revolution around 1910? While people in the US and Western Europe had to wait until the mid-sixties for their sexual revolution, a famous Ukrainian writer and the future prime-minister of the first independent Ukrainian Republic Volodimir Vinnychenko dedicated his career as a writer to promoting the ideas of sexual liberation, free love, and the rights of women. His books were hugely popular all over Europe in the first half of the XXth century.
• Has a strong anti-imperialist tradition? In spite of being surrounded by fiercely imperialist countries, Ukraine never followed their example and absorbed the imperialist way of thinking. Even when Ukrainian troops would repel the invaders and enter the territory of the invading country, they would turn back and leave without trying to retain foreign territories.
• Had slavery until 1861? Under the name “serfdom”, the tradition of slavery existed and was very wide-spread in Ukraine until 1861.
• Was the site of one of the greatest modern genocides? In 1932-3, over 10 million Ukrainians were exterminated by the Soviet government in an attempt to wipe out any resistance to the imperial subjection of Ukraine by the Soviet Union. Today, the government of Russia is engaged in endless propaganda that denies that Ukrainian Holocaust ever took place.
• Has recently elected a convicted criminal to be its president? Viktor Yanukovich, a recently elected president of Ukraine, was incarcerated for robbery and assault in 1967 and for assault in 1970. It is said that his second crime was a rape that was eventually pleaded down to assault.
• Does not require a definite article before its name? Many people still say “the Ukraine” instead of “Ukraine.” Not only is this grammatically incorrect, it is also kind of annoying.
• Has one of the most melodic languages in the world? According to a study by the French Academy of Fine Arts, Ukraine has the world’s second most melodic language after Italian. I’m not sure that I agree about the entire world, but it’s definitely one of the most beautiful sounding languages in Europe. Sadly, the language is disappearing because centuries of colonial domination and propaganda cause many Ukrainians to be deeply ashamed of their cultural and linguistic heritage.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might NOT Be Screwed Beyond Repair

The first part of this is 10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might Be Screwed Beyond Repair. But here goes this…

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10. We still have a constitution and a strong judiciary.

9. The economy is (being) deregulated; and even though progress towards this is slow, true federalism might eventually come to help bring the right foreign investment in alternative means of energy.

8. We still have the Nigerian football to unite us once every two years when there is a major tournament, just as long as there are no local coaches. Maybe we’ll win the World Cup someday. Surely it’s not in 2010.

7. We have a strong press that keeps the security agencies on their toes. It is a slow progress, but it helps.

6. Our greatest export is not just our natural and agricultural resources as it is our human resources. There are many Nigerians of repute making the country proud in areas of endeavour all over the world

5. We still have some sane people living in there.

4. In spite of occasional bursts of violence, it is actually not that bad. The probability of getting killed in ethnic violence is really very low. Most people are smart enough to know when to leave a place when a situation begins to look combustible.

3. We still have the power to vote out corrupt politicians and replace them with real hardworking people. As the situation in Lagos has shown, there are leaders who can get things done.

2. Those people who want to be politicians by all means are not in the majority.

1. I’m going back there, soon.

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This is my last post for this month, folks. Thank you for reading. Watch out for more interesting guest-posts in the coming weeks.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might Be Screwed Beyond Repair

10. Its very sickly president without a solid constitutional recognition at the moment still lives within the State House.

9. Electricity is comatose, even in 2010. Without stable electricity, nothing developmental can go on.

8. Tribalism still holds fort there as much we hope it doesn’t. Why should it matter where Goodluck is from? There still is no mutual trust among citizens of different, or even same ethnic groups, and citizens could not live peacefully anywhere in the country as they should. See Jos as a case study.

7. There is no adequate security for lives and property. Meeting a policeman on the street at 10pm is not always a good sign.

6. Dependence on oil has crippled other aspects of the economy that used to bring huge foreign exchange. E.g Agriculture.

5. We have produced at least one international terrorist.

4. In spite of much progress made in civil rule/democracy, current politicians still believe in the do-or-die doctrine, which would explain why more people have been assassinated during “democracy” than during military rule.

3. We have the worst culture of waste disposal I’ve ever seen: plastic bags, metals and other trash disposed anywhere without adequate recycling methods. (I’ve also been guilty of this)

2. Half of us want to become political office holders like the nation’s president or a state governor before they can contribute and effect change – and they’re ready to kill to get there – rather than starting small right at the door of our residences. “If everyone sweeps his backyard, the town will be clean,” the old quote reads.

1. Education is not given the priority it deserves in terms of funding or government attention.

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It’s going to be real hard to find a flipside to this argument, but I’ll try. That’d be tomorrow.

Twurai Undercover

There is much to cope with when you are the wife of a sick and/or dying president. There is even more to cope with if said husband has now been evicted from a better working hospital in Saudi Arabia and is now back in the government house, causing commotion and/or being some sort of nuisance to the rule of law that has vested political authority albeit in acting capacity in the Vice-President for the time being. As a woman in the unenviable position of balancing loyalty to a dying man, taking care of said man and his political capital, and keeping sane within a barrage of flak from the citizenry, there must be much to cope with. If we could step back a little from personal disagreement with her personality (which we don’t know much about, except hearsay) and what the government represents, could we perhaps find in Turai Yar’adua a woman of substance who’s just being a loyal wife to a dying husband? I wondered.

Read up the full text of my guest-post on Nigerianstalk.org. It was enlightening even for me.

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