ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Soliloquy category.

New Year Resolutions

I felt I should speak about new year resolutions since everyone is doing the same. I don’t have any. I outgrew the whole process a long time ago. This doesn’t mean that I don’t make plans. It only means that I don’t wait until the end of a year/month to begin them. My resolutions come onto me like a whim and stay until I decide to change them again, and life goes on. Recently, I have been thinking of riding my car less and riding my bicycle more. This is one resolution that will be beautiful (not to mention cost effective) if we were not in one of the coldest time of the year. Still, as soon as it warms up, as it often does around here without warning, one might see me cycling with the wind around the campus. End of resolution. Oh, one more: (maybe) blog more, in spite of what school work looks like.

Now what do I expect of 2011? Even that, I’m not totally sure, but I assume that whatever it may be would include plenty traveling, new discoveries, more time with girlfriend, and friends, new pictures (and maybe a new camera), and a more productive time in school. It is funny when I ask myself whether I’m having a more productive time as an independent writer/blogger or as a graduate student; or whether my ability to develop myself by writing is made better by the peer review of the classroom walls than by the comments in a blogpost. Times just change so rapidly that it may well be that the education via this means of global interaction might come to become more challenging (if not more valuable, or more relevant), than the one we get from classroom. In any case, a combination of the two can only be even better. More importantly, I intend to have more fun, laugh more, and love more.

Clarissa gives voice to my thoughts when she advises that resolutions be made to delight the author. As far as resolutions go, I can do with none, or very few. But that won’t stop me from dipping into my bag of curiosities once in a while to look for new things to try. The other question left would be: would I go to Nigeria again this year? I hope so, but I most likely won’t, except I get something/someone to pay for my trips, and give me something really fun to do while I’m there. Summer in Edwardsville is really hot, and I don’t need a tan. Moreover, I’d really love to go and complete my tour of the country – and maybe visit Jos for a third time, and the Eastern and Southern parts for the very first time. But what do I know? Let’s see how the year turns out.

Happy new year to you all.

September’s Children

It makes sense now, the glee of the New Year’s Eve either with wine, snacks, food, music, and revelry. A special night. What do you know? In an open space with souls of fun drinking to their hearts’ desire, and shouting as the clock counts down to zero, life will begin again with fireworks of the most spectacular kind. It makes sense. What am I even talking about? It is not just a coincidence that December 31 is one of the coldest nights of the year. In the tropics, it is harmattan with the cold dry winds blowing from the north. Here in the cold regions, it is the winter snow and its windshield factors across the night sky. Yet nobody cares, it is the 31st, and the street fills with great spills of joyous moments, and hugs.

Now I’m giddy. A few hours ago, today looked as promising as just any other day. Now not so much anymore. It feels like the end of an old world and a triumphant approach to a new one filled with promises. I already know where I am going to be, riding on the pleasant wings of a beautiful air with loud noises, and laughter, and drinks going down in measured installments. There are many precedents to this revelry, and each comes with the pleasure of remembrance. One of them does not, however, only because it couldn’t be remembered. It feels like the very beginning of a special day. Is there a hovering spirit of birth lurking around the corner? Not for me, but just a general air. Fertility? By September next year, many new children will be welcomed into the world – a result of the pleasantness of New Year’s Eve.

It all makes sense now. Father never was one to spend his New Year’s Eve in the bosom of a church. What do you know? In the space filled with people of fun drinking to their hearts’ desire, and shouting as the clock counts down to zero. There, life sometimes begins, with fireworks of the most special kind. We are called September’s children. And tonight, we celebrate our conception.

As Time Goes By

The year is over, almost. In a few more hours separating us and that faraway place, we’ll change calendars and wish each other a happy new year within drinks and glee. Why January 1 is such a special day is beyond me. I don’t worry myself about it now anymore than I worry about the Chinese year of the Tiger or the Moslem Hijiras with its lunar calendar. In another faraway place, it is a time for reflection, sometimes in the premises of a church, with singing and praying for grace for the new year. In some other part of the world, it would just be another day. For me, it shall be for cheers of whatever kind possible in a foreign land.

What did I learn this year? Much, along the many roads that I trod and the peoples I met: that people are different, that people are the same, that the earth is large, that the earth is small, that there is pleasure in travel, and food, and adventure, in writing, that the problems of Nigeria will not end tomorrow, or that America is not the heaven where everything gets solved, that life is an adventure and that plenty can be learned in every little experience.

On Christmas Eve 2010, I heard with sadness of another major terrorist attack on Jos, a city in the Nigerian middlebelt. In a continuation of a cycle of madness that has gripped the otherwise beautiful homeland of the ancient Nok culture, some politicians and other undesirable elements have chosen religion as a means to further their evil machinations to seize political power in 2011. Scores of lost lives later, the country has returned to a path of precariousness held only by a small thread of hope. For the many residents of that town and the many other unsuspecting ones in Nigeria today, 2011 is already too far away to wait for a country where safety is guaranteed for lives and property.

And so, the year ends. What did we learn? That humans will never learn anything but will return to their folly and squirm in the mire of their own barbarity? That there’s hope? Maybe neither. Maybe just the certainty that no matter what happens, and no matter where we go, we will meet with both the beauty and the barbarity of humanity. The challenge might be to delight in the minutes, and let the hours take care of themselves. Or maybe do what we can to help in whatever way we can, wherever we can. Maybe, just maybe, evil might get defeated? Maybe.

A Little More Than Fun

I enjoy the trips I make – when I can afford to make them, most times between the moments of mouthing profanities at mandatory fees of the graduate school. (More angry posts on this later). They enlighten, they inform, they surprise, and they provide countless photo opportunities – very great shots that present themselves at unexpected times in unexpected places. I also love them for the brief relief they provide from the stress of graduate school. In the end, they delight those who read about them, and that in turn makes me happy. Like I always say, life is too short to be spent in the tedium of just work.

I’ve discovered something else. More than just a chance to see my word in print – and who hasn’t harboured plenty of such narcissism – there is also the desire to say something, or say something new. Whether that desire is realized itself is another matter, but the pleasure of having something to say, and the chance to say it in one’s own way at one’s own time is delightful. In-between the appreciation of nature through photographic lenses, or songs, or words of others from books, there sometimes rises moments of professional epiphany, or hubris. The self realizes itself as a medium, and immediately assumes the responsibility to communicate a freshly discovered idea. I mean, I’ve not always been meant to be here, even though I’ve always felt myself moved to write, or to interpret concrete ideas of the world in my head through my own thought processes. But the present delights. In one moment, I’m in the vortex of confusing ideas even of my own relevance, and in another, I’m thinking of writing a book: Yoruba for Dummies: a guidebook to machine translation from and into Yoruba (although speaking out on my thoughts already makes it easy to absolve myself of the responsibility of having to do the work).

What was the point I was trying to make? I’ve lost it now, but it must have had something to do with deciding to write more on this blog in the coming year about my career projections, observations and opinions; sort of like a regular shrink session of ideas with my own personal silent listener. On second thoughts, maybe I was just getting the end-of-the-year blues characterized by looking for relevance in the most mundane things, or taking myself too seriously.

A Review

No, not of a book, movie or song although that would be fun, but of the year itself. Yes it’s too early to do that since we still have about nine days to go, but it is amazing to see how close we are already to its end. By this time last year, I was here, same spot, same posture, probably complaining of snow or making a general observation of a particularly fascinating endeavour. The only difference is that then I was a teacher of many young students of Yoruba, but now I’m mostly a student myself. (Speaking of reviews, I’d appreciate you taking a moment to tell me what your favourite posts on this blog has been. There’s a poll on the right side of the blog. Please choose as many options as appeal to you).

I miss teaching in the Yoruba class. It was one of those moments when everything stands still and a continuous flow of knowledge and fun merges into one beautiful experience that lasts for about one and a half hours, two times a week. It’s incomparable, not just because of the things learnt and taught but for the pleasure of being there, and being the vessel for such cultural exchange. I met a few students this semester who said that they registered for the class either because they attended my talk last year or had heard from other students, and wanted to experience the class for themselves. I am thinking of returning to teach that class next semester. What do you think?

I’ve posted less on this blog per month since August, deliberately, and I think that has worked well. I realized at the end of the first blog year that it was better to write whenever I could rather than make posts everyday as I used to when I had all the time on my hands. It was inevitable that graduate school will attempt to suck me dry of all my waking moments. But then, here we are, still talking, and still sharing little moments of laughter. My semester has been made even better to bear by the presence of lovely colleagues who bring me chocolates and other nice stuff (you know yourselves), and those with whom I share nice stimulating conversation somewhere amidst the bustle of the day. There is also the doting host parents who have treated me no different than their own son with free access to their home, their food and their wine. What else could one ask for?

This year I travelled around (some parts of) Nigeria, and that was fun. I hope to complete my tour of that country in a not too distant future. I also got to see a few more of the midwestern United States. A few people have suggested that I should travel with a more critical eye next time (instead of my usually fawning admiration of spaces, I guess). In my defense, I have gone around less with the intention of understanding the people in the places I go and more with the intention of understanding and describing the places in which they live. But now that I know the difference, maybe I should take one more step closer. (You might like this article about the BBC reporter who attempted to understand and describe Americans in a new book). Maybe it is the desire to take pictures and write about places that moves me the most.

When the year ends next week, what I’ll be most grateful for is the general beautiful pleasure of warm human company. There’s still no alternative to that yet.

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