ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Soliloquy category.

Becoming Citizens

I did realize today while prancing around the corridors of the International Institute in St. Louis that if I were to apply to become a citizen of the United States, I would be asked several questions that many regular Americans of my age might find very difficult to answer. What the capital of some states are, who was which president and what made them different and great, and what significance some milestones and symbols are in the United States. I was staring at a picture on the wall of some new adult immigrants becoming citizens of the country after going through the citizenship classes that the Institute offers as part of its programmes.

I also thought about what it meant to become the citizen of another country, obtaining such a privilege through rigours of study, diligence and loyalty rather than as a birthright. I don’t remember ever feeling particularly grateful to be Nigerian because it was just an accident of birth, yet some people would queue up in immigration offices in Lagos and Abuja from other countries of the world to obtain that as a privilege. Same for America. The pictures show the immigrants looking rather ordinary, but holding on to their newly acquired flags and papers with pride and hope. A new life, and a new expectation awaits them, along with a new status of being. What does it take to be a citizen, and how do we experience it when it is not handed to us as a privilege of birth.

Becoming Citizens was published on October 11th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Of Lost Things

I’ve been thinking about lost things. Where do they go? When I lost my bunch of keys a few weeks ago, and I exhausted my patience in searching for them in the most unlikely of places, I pondered what Carlin, my favourite comedian had said on lost things: “where exactly do they go?” It didn’t help that when the police finally traced it to me and gave me a call, they didn’t say where they found it either. They just took it to where they felt it belonged, and then gave me a call to come pick it up in its mangled state. At least one car had run over it… Sometime last year in one miraculous instance of divine intervention, I lost my $10 leather gloves along with sunshades I had got to make myself look a little more sophisticated in the sun. In any case, not only could I not find it, I also never figured out where it went, especially since I had gone to only one place that evening, and I’d gone back there to check many times, and it wasn’t there anymore, nor had anyone found it afterwards. Where did it go? And more importantly, what else did I lose with it that evening. That has always been my bigger worry.

Since the incident of the key, I have lost a few more things still: a Nokia phone (which I got back a week later), and my new sunshades. I’m almost fed up with myself. Now, what prompted this musing is not even a desire for those material things, but the thought of losing even bigger things. There was a short play I wrote in 2002 titled The Sculptor. It was once performed in the University theatre by a handful of actors in a private production but I lost the manuscript of that play a few months after then and I’ve not come across it since then. Occasionally when I sit in silence, I can recall the lines long enough to write them down, but not in the right sequence. It was a three-man satire on the state of the nation’s politics and intolerance at the time when a religious law was introduced to some parts of the country. Some day, I know that I will come across it while rummaging through stacks of papers in a locked up suitcase, yet the thought of it totally disappearing unnerves me. Of course I’ve not written another play of its kind since then. It’s one of those consequences of movement, and changing seasons.

Today I discovered online an one old article about language, non-literary translation and computer based language technology which I wrote for a literary journal in 2005, and it brought back memories of an earlier even more fascinating experience. It was one of those writings of mine that I remember vividly because of the events around the time I’d written it. I was in a spiral limbo and needed to move forward, desperately. Writing it provided that avenue, unexpectedly, and I was set free. But it was the last paragraph of the piece that surprised me, because as far back as then, I had never even considered the possibility of finding myself as I do now at Uncle Sam’s neighbourhood. Lessons learnt: times also change. Fast.

I still keep that lesson in mind, everyday, as I search around for all my lost things.

Of Lost Things was published on October 7th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , under the Art, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Laughing at Myself

It’s been long since I last laughed at myself on this blog. I should remedy that, I thought this evening. Should I tell you the story of my one of many first encounters with a duvet (often also called the “comforter”), or how I finally became friends with Boo the cat while his owners were far away out of the country? How about my recent reunion with winterboots from last year in very unexpected circumstances, or about how I had been unpleasantly surprised about the absence of roadside cobblers in the US to fix my sandals when the buckles gave way? I also felt I’d talk about my surprise in finding my blog listed yesterday on the BBC website featuring a few Nigerian blogs talking about the nation’s independent anniversary celebration. But I felt that that won’t be funny enough.

Then I thought I could tell you about how I lost my keys last week in town and had the police call my mobile phone just to return it to me. They had obviously traced it with a special number coded on the keys. But that wasn’t funny at all becuase a new set of keys would have cost me a lot of money that I don’t have. Then I resolved to tell you about the private pranks I’ve been playing on the GPS machine these days. I would put in a particular destination in the machine, and deliberately go to a different place through a different route and watching the machine run mad with instructions: “Please turn right in .5 miles… Please make a legal U-turn as soon as possible… Re-calculating route…” etc. As you would see, I’ve been very busy. In another world a long time ago, I’d call two different people with a hidden number, connect them in a conference call and listen to them fall in love after a few false starts and them eventually believing that the lines jammed into each other by some random error in the system and the gods actually want them together. That used to be much fun, just like calling the fire service station while we were young, and telling them that there’s a fire somewhere and watch them laugh at our fake attempts at seriousness, then threaten to tell our parents. Oh the days.

Then I felt that by the time I told you all of this, you’d have at least let out a smile, and I’d be forgiven for not having blogged for as much last month, and for the fact that I would blog less and less as school progresses and my life gets more interesting.

Laughing at Myself was published on October 2nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Fun, Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Twenty-nine and Counting

It’s probably been a while since I last celebrated my birthday in contemplation. Ah, it was just twelve months ago, on the wings of an earlier interesting travel experience. But other birthdays before then manage to fade away in comparison and I tell myself in the mirror as I go out that I’m an adult already. I think the idea has properly sunk in by now. Perhaps the most memorable birthday was that one of whose memory I don’t even possess beyond that which is shown to me in the glossy photos of childhood. I had just turned two years old (or is it three), and was looking good and innocent behind a cake and a horde of neighbours invited to celebrate. I still look at that picture every now and then. All the invited guests of that day are now scattered all over the world in different endeavours.

Starched new clothes, shiny shoes, jollof rice and chicken (or fried fish), and cake (of course) made by mum to make the day feel special, I have fleeting images of birthdays looked forward to with such eagerness and delight. It always helped when the day fell during the week. I would be except from wearing the school uniform. I could show off a new attire and get the whole class to sing me a birthday song. Of course I also had to go to school with sweets and biscuits for those said classmates and teachers. I remember chocomilo, bazooka and sumal chewing gums, and Marie biscuits, and 7up, Crush and Mirinda. And some little solid sweets of many colours we used to call eyin alangba. Birthdays during those years of innocence were one of those days of the year when you get to be king for twenty-four hours and dictate your choice of food and drinks. The other day is whenever you came home with a report card that said you took the first position in the school year.

Gone are those days now. Today I will spend the early part of the evening taking a syntax examination with no singing, and no jollof rice whatsoever.

But in the distance between the pleasant innocence of childhood and the now grown maturity of youth, there has been very much to be thankful for, too many to count. From love of friends and colleagues, the assuring presence of family, to even the reliable permanence of season, every turn has been rendered a blessing not quantifiable by words. And for that will I spend this day in the gratefulness for all things good, happy, cheerful and soothing. I’m a year older again, it seems. It is a prime number, a number divisible only by 1 and itself. Ah, the delight of arithmetic. This is also the last year of my twenties.

This is the oldest I’ve been yet. So maybe it’s time to prepare for all needed rites of real adulthood, in within a mouthful of the best delicacies of this day, thankful in the process for the great gift of life.

Twenty-nine and Counting was published on September 22nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 8 comments on this article so far.

Another Month After

It will be another “month after” youknowwhat by the 18th of this month, and I want to take this moment to say it’s been a great pleasure ride of new experiences. It’s a travelogue, right? So everything I observe has to be in line with the overall acceptance of the transience of every passing situation and the potential of every little event to illuminate, to entertain and to inform. Thinking back, I think the best decision I made was to keep the blog open after the first long travel experience. Sometimes when I go back into the blog archive, I myself get amazed at the kind of things I read from myself, things that I’ve forgotten that I wrote, but which bring back a sweet memory.

Overall, I find it interesting that everything in life can actually be situated in a travelogue frame, considering that we are all travellers in one way or the other. So that whether or not I move from where I am, the progress of life constitute a kind of parallel journey out of which to draw whatever strength needed to move on and about. Hopefully, it only gets better.

So any new observations about the United States so far? No, except that studies have threatened to totally drown my creativity and leisure space. Or am I growing too old? I’d better steal myself back before grey hairs sprout up to compete with those on the president’s head. Well, see you guys around. I just wanted to leave a few words. And please do keep coming back 😉

Another Month After was published on September 15th, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.