ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Travelling category.

Living the Toulousain life: My French Integration Experience

By Tolúlọpẹ́ Ọdẹ́bùnmi

In the culture I grew up in, you were trained to look out for a signal from God, nature, the gods or whatever (you choose) especially when you are making and taking a serious decision. My move to Toulouse (Midi-Pyrenees), a southern city in France was one of such decisions I needed to consider carefully. I had been studying in Houghton Michigan for a few years, so it felt like a needed a new adventure.

As a Nigerian, I needed a visa to live and work in France. My visa got approved so I took that as a good sign only for me to miss my flight on the day of departure because I had overslept having spent the previous night doing some last-minute packing for the trip. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I almost got on the flight out of the little old town I lived in the following day although I arrived late again. But alas, I was told that the flight attendant would be needing my seat as hers was damaged so “we’re sorry you can’t get on the flight, but you might still be able to fly out to Chicago from a neighboring city.” I was angry, confused and wondered why life had to be so unfair! My dear friend who dropped me off at the airport had left, but luckily enough I got a ride back home from a stranger. Did I mention that the neighboring city was almost 4hrs away? We made it to Central Wisconsin Airport, Wausau in good time for my flight. Upon arriving in Chicago, I thought to myself, “now you are finally on your way to France.” However, I was told by Aer Lingus Airlines that I needed a transit visa to travel through Ireland which I didn’t have thanks to my travel agent who thought that I was American 😊. My world almost came crashing down, I couldn’t believe that the ‘village people’ (a Nigerian term for negative spiritual forces) were still trying to come after me. I didn’t burst out crying but I shed a tear or two as I walked away from the airlines counter at O’Hare airport. I made some calls and the situation got fixed. My sponsors had to buy me a new flight and this time, I would be travelling through Germany and not Ireland. I thought that I might avoid Ireland for a while, little did I know that an Irish man was waiting for me in Toulouse.

On August 26, 2019, I arrived in Toulouse. It was a warm evening, the airport was moderately busy considering the time of the day it was, French was flowing all around me, but I couldn’t swim in it. That was when it suddenly dawned on me that I had set myself up for something wild. I boarded the tram from la aéroport to Palais de justice. From there, I got a bus to my final destination. Right from when I arrived my broken French was tested, and I also pushed my luck because in my imagination most French people should understand some English expressions so I should be just fine. How wrong was I? The lady who directed me to the bus stop at Palais de justice had been on the tram with me, a young French-Arabic who spoke no words of English but still bothered to speak French to me and used a lot of gestures. Someone else who spoke English on the tram had explained my ordeal to her and so my co French-Arabic passenger had taken it upon herself to help me. I was glad for their kindness but frustrated as I could see a glimpse of what the life of an Anglophone might look like here.

From day 2 in France, google translate became my best buddy. I listened to the voice translation and practiced expressions ahead of a potential interaction in French. Every so often, I blurted out “Tu parles anglais?” Or “Vous parlez anglais s’il vous plaît?” (in a formal context) = Do you speak English? Hoping to be transported back into my Anglophone world. My cliche expression worked sometimes but not nearly enough to make me let my hair down.

A few days upon my arrival, when I showed up for work, my hopes were renewed because my team was made up of native English speakers. Once again, I could express myself freely without feeling inept. Work turned out to be my safe haven since my job was to speak and teach English. The experienced members of my team were very helpful in guiding me and the other newbies into the expatriate resources in Toulouse. The word expatriate had never been associated with me but now as a Nigerian studying in America, I was considered as an expatriate in France where I was offering my English communication skills to French university students. I joined different English-speaking community groups on Facebook, such groups were a constant reminder that many people out there were trying to figure out the French system just like me and I didn’t feel all alone.

The reality of English language in France

The truth is, France is a rich country that educates its citizens entirely in French at all levels of education but can also afford to teach students English starting from primary school. However, many students do not get the opportunity to use and practice their English beyond the classroom so many of them are not likely to improve their English skill to a comfortable intermediate level. Except for kids who were raised bilingual (often with one English parent, or kids of English origin living in France). A good question to ask is why should the average French person care about the English language when they have all that they need available to them in French? A lot of resources are pumped into translation efforts in the French society. Many books, novels, journals, movies, news gets translated into French. Furthermore, prolific dubbing of French over English digital materials makes Grey’s Anatomy (the dubbed version) readily available on TV. I once turned on the TV, saw Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean was being aired, only for me to hear some strange voice when Johnny Depp was supposedly speaking. That was when I realized that it was the dubbed version. Another time, I walked into a lovely librairie (bookstore), in Montauban (a neighbouring town from Toulouse). This store was well furnished with print, digital and multimedia resources of various genres, of course all in French. It was fascinating to see the French version of some novels written by Nigerian authors.

English is used in addition to French

Despite the large number of English speakers in major cities like Paris, Lyon,Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseille etc. The English as a Foreign Language (EFL) status undermines the visibility of English in the French society. One might expect that major companies and businesses would have English services just like services in Spanish is a norm in the USA but that is not the case. As an Anglophone, I get lucky every once in a while, when I come across a service provider who is willing to use their English. It doesn’t help that there is a subtle resistance to the English language and in some cases overt resistance. For example, Académie Française is responsible for keeping the French language updated and relevant. They constantly work on metalanguage, hoping to reduce the influence of English on French. The interesting thing is that the English language has borrowed so much from French, the two languages even share some cognates. For this reason, faux amis (literally meaning false friends) is a challenge for English speakers learning French and vice-versa. Yourdictionary.com defines faux amis as “one of a pair of words in different languages or dialects that look related but differ significantly in meaning. Some common examples are jolly in English and jolie (pretty), medicine and médecin (doctor), actually and actuellement (at present) among others.

For sure, English seems to thrive in the French advertisement channels especially in print ads and display ads with English words embedded in them, English phrases somehow find their way into advertisements. Many young French people love English movies. They are quick to mention Neftlix when you ask how they have been working to progress their English skills. The problem is Netflix feeds you movies that do not necessarily engage you. I suggested to a few students that a better way to get more out of Netflix was to see an English movie and then talk to someone about it in English or even write about it in English. In the language acquisition process listening comes before speaking, so you can watch a foreign movie with or without subtitles if you’ve got some level of competence in it and understand most of the storyline. The actors’ gestures as well as other actions or movements you see give you a hint of what’s happening.

The Attitude

The general attitude towards the English language is positive among the young people (especially students since they have to learn it at school anyway) Interestingly, the Macron administration seem pro-English such that the President has been criticized for embracing “English too much.” For instance, the President Macron tweets in English when abroad, grants interviews in English which offends the French language purists. In fact, the French language conservatives believe that the English language is a big threat to the French Language. Afterall, the English language has been called ‘the killer language’ by some Linguists. This fear of French going into extinction is outrageous in my opinion considering that it is a language spoken by about 300 million people (mostly in Africa), serves as the official language in 29 countries and is the sixth most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic. Maybe this fear keeps the French on their toes and gives them a reason to continue to perpetuate language imperialism or do some people call that globalization? 😉

The fact that some universities in France offer programs in English, such as an MBA program among others is undoubtedly a friendly gesture to encourage Anglophone students in France. But what is the point not being unemployable upon completing one’ studying and because of deficiency in French language? This has been the experience of several students The pickup line is that you can study in private universities in English, but no one tells you your lack of French will lead to no “good” except you plan to leave the country immediately after your studies. Honestly, graduates in Engineering or STEM fields have higher chances of getting jobs that doesn’t require speaking French.

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Portraying a positive attitude towards English language

Conclusion

*With colleagues at an Ethiopian restaurant*

France is culturally rich, has a diverse immigrant population and stands as an imperial force in the world today. My appreciation for good cuisine or gastronomy, nature and openness to pets increased from living and experiencing the French way of life. I enjoy baguette, croissant nature but not chocolatine a specialty in Toulouse because I am not a chocolate person. Now, I can properly ask to buy something at the boulangerie without being corrected for wrong grammar – I now say “bonjour, une baguette s’il vous plait and not un baguette ☺ I have also learned about the galettes du fête among other French food and pastry traditions.

Living in Toulouse has helped me reflect on questions like who has the privilege of resisting a (foreign) language, as in the case of English in France. Many people around the world never learn to read and write their mother tongue because of scarce resources but globalization order ensures that some countries remain wealthy while others scramble for leftovers from the wealthy ones. France continues to reassert her dominant power structure and culture on its residents both directly and indirectly. Who is to blame? Those who succumb to linguistic oppression like me? Another thing is does merely speaking the French language make one French?

I consider myself privileged to have my level of education and access to opportunities allowing me to master the English language (especially the Nigerian variant). With my international exposure and education, I have observed the fascinating nature of other Englishes like the American, Indian, Ghanaian, British among others. In the same way, I have been exposed to varieties of French dialects and accents from the Caribbean or French Islands, Africa, Italy, Latin America. These varieties have become music to my ears since I am only aware of the mixed melodies but can’t really join in the conversation and interact casually with strangers except in simple sentences. This loss of meaningful interaction, feelings of isolation when surrounded by people speaking, laughing out their hearts be it at the park, the busy streets of downtown Toulouse, or on the metro sends my mind to translation mode especially if I am perceiving connected speech which I struggle to catch up with so that the rhythm around me brings a longing of the faraway atmosphere that I once knew- what home was felt like, at least the romanticized version. In spite of the daunting disconnect due to the language barrier, my love for language keeps me motivated to learn French, thanks to my companion Duolingo. Living in a Francophone country as an Anglophone made me realize that being fluent in three languages may not be enough, it just depends on where you find yourself. My multilingual identity is submerged by my baby French level. What is the point of language without the freedom to rap out your soul, say something pressing on your mind, engage in and with your community, feel heard, help out a lost stranger on the street etc?

__________

Tolulope Odebunmi is a communications strategist, a trained linguist and an educationist from Toulouse, France. Her interests include geopolitics and globalization, development issues and popular culture. She was a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) at Michigan State University, USA. She enjoys learning, travelling and problem solving.

The Ransome Kuti Museum in Abẹ́òkuta

Sometime in April of last year (2019), I visited the site of the Kuti Heritage Museum in Abẹ́òkuta. Located on NEPA Road, Isábọ̀ Abẹ́òkuta, the house was the famous home of the Reverend I.O. Ransome-Kútì and Mrs. Fúnmiláyọ̀ Ransome-Kútì, and the likely birthplace of Fẹlá and some of his brothers.

This restoration project has been ongoing for a while. The home of the famous Kútì couple had, over the years, become victim to negligence and decay. Photos exhibited at the venue, showing the transformation of the structure from its earlier state of rot shows it as sometimes being a site for refuse dumping by neighbours and passers-by.

But it was not always this way. Copious paragraphs from Wọlé Ṣóyínká’s autobiography Aké were dedicated to memories of times spent in this place to visit his uncle who was by then the headmaster of Abẹ́òkuta Grammar School, and his wife whose organising of women to protest the misrule of the Aláké led to the Abẹ́òkuta Women’s Tax Riots and the eventual abdication of the king in early 1940s.

Over time, the successful careers of many of the house’s famous former occupants notwithstanding, the home had gradually settled into oblivion. But the Ògùn State Government, in collaboration with members of the family, returned a few years ago to restore the building to its rightful place in the Nigerian consciousness as bearers of history. From what I gathered, the building adjoining the original home is the museum, set up to inform visitors about the family, its famous members, and their role in Nigerian and world history. I could not enter this building itself on this day.

But I did enter the main home, restored to its old stone form, and girded on each corner downstairs with metal beams. Word is that the project was supervised by Theo Lawson, the same architect behind the Freedom Park and the Kalakuta Museum in Ìkẹjà. Being nothing more than a casual observer of art and documentation myself, I was impressed by the presentation.

All the rooms in the old building have retained their sense of time. The furniture reflect those of the 40s, and the upper-class aesthetic that the Kútìs must have enjoyed among the society. The bathroom had a bathtub — what would seem like a sign of opulence in that part of Abẹ́òkuta and that time period. The plumbing of the house was modern, even though the house was made of mud and stones. This restoration has added a few more things to the aesthetic: air conditioning — which should tell us something else about the changing climate.

The veiw of the Museum from across the street.

From the balcony, one could see a good view of the town itself, and one can imagine the Reverend himself, on a cool day, standing there, toothpick or pákò in mouth, staring out or greeting a passerby.

The view from the Reverend I.O’s Balcony.

Even much of the smell has remained, a rusty old smell from the mattresses, stationeries, rug, and furniture.

I recommend the building to anyone in Abẹ́òkuta, especially the adjoining Museum. I hope to visit it again when I’m in town. I am already impressed by this attempt at keeping history alive through structures and other non-conventional means of keeping the names of our famous citizens in the memory of contemporary children.

A few more photos below. Here is a more comprehensive report of the launch.

Ten Years and the Reflections of A Prodigal

Guest post by Ìbùkún Babárìndé

Congratulations to those of you- young, male, Nigerian, and travelling alone, who were able to reach your destinations with(out) molestations, after flying out of Lagos airport in the wake of that failed underwear bombing of December 25, 2009.?

O ye travellers of hope, I hope you have all found your dreams, did you find home, did you find love, did you find happiness? This is a moment of reflection for us, I am one of you. I think we need to gather somewhere and celebrate a decade of surviving what was to become hostile treatment for young Nigerians travelling in the west.

As I write, I recollect all the fears and apprehension that followed the tragedy of young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the recrimination that was unleashed on innocent young travellers from Nigeria by border forces across the world. My own maiden flight was slated for the middle of January 2010, just 3 weeks after the near-tragic incident that involved a bomb on a plane. Those who believe that the USA and the western governments took undue advantage of the incident to heighten security vetting and high-handedness towards travellers from a certain part of the world may not be wrong, as we became legitimate targets for extra checks in frontiers across the world.

I was freshly 29, at a turning point in my life, a make or break moment, a moment that I made one of the most difficult choices. I chose to leave my father’s home, and headed out to the foreign land.

H:\Pictures\Ibukun 2009.jpg — *Taken in 2009*.
(credit: Fèyíṣọlá Babárìndé. Telford, 2010)

I was coming to the UK to start my master’s degree. But the marks of ‘slaves’ were all written on my passport…. ‘no recourse to public funds’, ‘restricted work’, má j’ata, má jẹ iyọ̀, and many other repressive immigration controls on the unsuspecting prodigal son. But unlike the biblical prodigal son, I did not go away with any inheritance to squander, I had less than £100 in my pocket, and owó onírú, owó aláta, owó alájẹṣẹ́kù paid the bulk of the cost… but like the real prodigal son, I went away from home, joyfully.

Before my flight, I had taken all additional precautions, booked a direct flight- avoided ‘Amsterdam’, the bad boy had connected a targeted flight via Schiphol airport. The scheduled landing time at Heathrow must be during the daytime, such that even if I was delayed in London, my onward journey to Wolverhampton would still happen during the day.

I made sure I had ‘no goatee’, no mustache, I identified as a Christian, from the south — it was necessary at the time in order to survive. So I thought I would be no easy target for any overzealous Islamophobic- steroid charged security operative. On the morning of my flight, I was briefly pulled aside to be interviewed by two middle-aged white operatives in Lagos airport before I was allowed to board, that should be it, I have been cleared — I thought, but I was wrong.

The flight itself was safe, and full of anxiety. I was waiting to meet my wife — we had just been married for less than 4 months before the affairs of this world separated us — I became home, she had become exiled. As planned, she was to collect the ‘JJC’ in London, and we would move to the midlands, where we would live for the next decade or so.

I left Lagos around 10am, it was around 33′ C, and London was waiting for me already blanketed by heaps of snow. Snow was something I had only seen in movies. London was in sub-zero temperature, and freezing. So I prayed that our plane would be able to land without diversion, as we were warned that many flights had been cancelled in previous days.

As the plane was landing, I felt coldness creeping up my spine, clearly all my preparation for the cold had proved unhelpful. I was already wearing two pairs of socks, before I left Lagos. To keep warm, I reached for the fairly used unlined ‘Ògùnpa-gbà-mí-ọyẹ́-dé’ jacket that I bought at Dùgbẹ̀ market. My fine boy shoes, I was told were no use for the wintering London.

We landed safely, and I followed the signs towards the bagging area. In one of my luggage bags was gari, ẹ̀wà, irú woro (which had a tipper load of sea sands in it), èlùbọ́, gala, and other women things that I had bought for Fèyíṣọlá at Alẹ́shinlọ́yẹ́ market in Ibadan.

In the other bag, I had some mainframe movie CDs. ‘They will certainly be reminding me of home,’ I had assured myself. Then in 2009, YouTube was still in its infancy, and had not been populated by Nollywood-advert invested contents. I had copies of some Nigerian books too, there was a feeling that I was going to be gone for a very long time, and I had to prepare for them days. I had some Ọ̀ṣúndáres, Akeem Làsísì’s Ìrèmọ̀jé, some copies of my own ‘failed anthology’, some Fálétí’s works, and some other copyright infringed photocopied books. Amazon and Netflix have reversed all these worries today’s maiden travellers.

So I got my luggage, and I headed out into the hands of my new set of friends. I had met a party of them in Lagos, but to be faced with another security men in London… I was waived into a little huddle of fellow young travellers, at this point we were not all Nigerians in that holding, but we were all single travellers. I was taken in for checks… of course I was punctuating them with my ‘pardon’, ‘pardon me’, ‘and excuse me please’ (s), which would become part of my hurriedly developed survival phonetics in the Un-queenly many regional-accented spoken English language that I would later be exposed to, particularly in the black countries of the west midlands.

I was left in a room, with no shirt on, the machines came up to my chest- I knew they would find nothing. No powders, no tuberculosis, no typhoid- there was no ebola then (thank goodness), and no bombs.

Outside the room, I heard chatters, I could hardly understand what was been said, then footsteps fainted away from the door to the room, and everything fell silent for an eternity.

After some 45minutes, it dawned on me that I have been abandoned in the room. I waited for no further instructions, I dressed myself up, and I was posing for what I truly believed was a camera as if to tell them that I was already yielding myself to the 11th commandment (‘do they own will’)… I was no international security threat to nobody, I was just a young Nigerian happening to be travelling alone after a failed bomb attack on a plane.

I later understood what had happened to me that evening, the poor immigration staff had been understaffed, and I was not properly handed over, I must have arrived mid-shift change.

I pulled myself and my luggage out into a narrow corridor, I approached a table at the other end of the corridor, and I asked whether I could leave. Yes…yes…yes… someone said to me. And I stepped into the arrival lobby, even within the foyer, the winter breeze was already lapping up my face.

Fèyíṣọla was already waiting for me, and she was wondering and fearing the worst. There was a possibility of being refused entry, the whole process of delay, checks, and the disappearance of the security/immigration staff took almost 3 hours. We had no time for hugs and kisses, I was herded like a sheep towards the car park by the invisible winter-rod, and we headed north.

The following months were very cold, it was my very first ever winter experience. The days were very short, I was going to bed with the setting of the sun, and over-sleeping, waiting to wake with sunrise that never happened in the morning. I became bitter with the elements, particularly with the sun, I angrily wrote in a poem about the sun… ‘do not rise today,/ if you will not make me warm’… I nearly became clinically depressed. I contemplated going back home.

Every day of the last 10 years, I have remembered the words of Ìyá Àyọ̀ká- as she is fondly called by the name of one of my sisters. ‘Please do not forget home, I hope to see you again’

Her words had reverberated in my head as I drove myself from Ibadan to Lagos on the morning of my departure. I have since made several other return flights to and from Nigeria in the last 10 years, the feelings of my first flight and the words of my mum always return to me on each occasion. Though the definition of both home and exile has changed for me, there is a part of me that now (sadly) sees exile in every thought of the place that used to be home, and there is another part of me that sees new home in my exile.

H:\Pictures\Ibukun 2020.jpg — *Selfie. (September, 2019)*

There is no way I could explain my new philosophies to Ìyá-Àyọ̀ká — It will never help. I have joined myself with foreigners, all in the name of citizenship integration. All the things I should never eat, nor drink have become regulars at every dinner, and I know that I have changed and become different.

My muse left me at the depth of my depression. This is one reason for which I must return. I have failed to see any inspiration in the burgundy of autumn leaves, the white winter fields only depress me, and the sun-shined summer’s meadows would not compare with the poetry of Bẹẹrẹ, or with melodies of Bódìjà market.

______

Ìbùkún Babárìndé, author of Running Splash of Rust and Gold (poetry; Kraftgriot, 2008), writes this as a reflection to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of his ‘exile’ in England.

Two Nights in Paris

Last week, I visited Paris as a guest of UNESCO’s International Conference on Language Technologies (#LT4All). It was a large gathering of language practitioners — from linguists to teachers to tech gurus and other executives — under one roof to share ideas, discuss obstacles, and showcase current activities in the sphere of language technologies. The theme “Enabling Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism Worldwide” was part of the framework of the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.

It was my first time in the city and in the country (since layovers don’t count).

*At the Eiffel Tower during one of the conference breaks.*

The conference was co-sponsored by Google (as a Founding Private Sponsor), The Government of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Ugra (as a Founding Public Donor), UNESCO, Japan, France, and NSF as public donors, and others like Facebook, Systran, Microsoft, Amazon Alexa, Mozilla, IBM Research AI, etc, as regular sponsors. Team leaders from many of these companies were around to speak and share ideas from their ongoing work. It was a delight to be able to listen to many of them, and make connections. I met, for the first time, Daan van Esch, who leads Google’s GBoard global efforts, and with whom I’ve worked in some capacity on these efforts while I worked at Google on some Nigerian language projects. His presentation was about GBoard and how it has empowered more people to write properly in their languages on mobile devices.

I also made acquaintance with Craig Cornelius who has done some work for the consortium, but now works at Google as a Senior Software Engineer. This was during a panel on Unicode where I mentioned the fact that Yorùbá writing on the internet has suffered greatly because of Unicode’s inscrutable decision not to allow pre-composed characters. Because Yorùbá diacritics are usually both on top of the vowel and beneath it, one usually has to find so many different Unicode characters to match before one properly tone-marked character can be typed. Beyond the fact that this would be a nightmare for someone having to type a whole passage (or a novel — imagine!), it is usually often still impossible to find the right combinations. And when one manages to find the combinations, the difference between how one computer system or word processor codes its software often makes it impossible for the text to remain readable by a second or third party. I encounter this problem every day while working on the catalogue at the British Library where many of the Yorùbá books listed there appear in a variety of fonts in the BL system, some of which make the titles unreadable or with a different intended meaning.

*Craig Cornelius (left), Mark E. Karan from SIL (middle), and a guest.*

GBoard has mitigated some of these problems. In Yorùbá on the GBoard app, for instance, we now have pre-composed characters like ọ̀ and ọ́ and ọ and ẹ and ẹ́ and ẹ̀, etc, which can be inserted instantly without any secondary combinations. What we need, as I said during the subsequent informal conversation about the subject, is something like that for Unicode so that every new computer user does not have to spend valuable time doing diacritic permutations from the Insert>Symbol field. Or for browsers (Chrome, Explorer, Mozilla, Safari, etc), so we can stop waiting for Unicode to change its ways.

In 2016, through the Yorùbá Names Project that I founded, we created a free tonemarking software for Yorùbá and Igbo, for Mac and Windows, which has been very helpful in writing on the computer — and with which I have typed all the diacritics in this post. It still combines character elements, however, but it is software-keyboard-based, and a lot more intuitive.

The Yorùbá Names Project Keyboard, launched in 2016, can be downloaded at http://blog.yorubaname.com/keyboard

Its limitations show up when a document typed with the software has to be read with another program (like Adobe or Microsoft Word, then the cycle begins again). It would be helpful if the functionality of this nature already came with the computer so there is uniformity. Imagine if every computer sold in Nigeria already suggests to the user to flip the language as I do above so that the keyboard automatically allows for diacritic markings that can transmit across different programs. That would be great, won’t it? The conversation with these gentlemen convinced me that it is doable, but would take time, and different companies coming together to agree that African languages matter on these platforms. It has not always been the case.

*Speaking with someone from the Woolaroo team, a Googler, who now lives in Australia and wants me to come visit.*

One of the other language products that was showcased there was Woolaroo, created in conjunction with Google Arts & Culture, which is a crowdsourcing visual dictionary for a small Australian language. When publicly launched, users will be able to take photos, and then use that photo to submit words for items in the image, which is then sent to a database and shared with other users. For languages with few speakers, but whose speakers use the tools of technology, it is one way of eliciting lexical items without having to do the physical fieldwork that has characterized most language documentation efforts in the past. There is significance for this type of approach for languages in Nigeria, for instance, where old people who know the name of items are not literate to write, but can perhaps be made to use the visual aid of phones to contribute as much as possible while they are still alive.

*How the Woolaroo app works. It will be launched in 2020, and its API will be made available so others can replicate it in many language communities.*

There were other Nigerians, and Africans, at the conference. I met Dr. Túndé Adégbọlá of the African Language Technology Initiative (ALT-i), Àbákẹ́ Adénlé of AJA.LA Studios, Professor Chinedu Uchechukwu of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka, Nigeria, Professor Sunday Òjó, and Adama Samassekou (the founder of the African Academy of Languages), among others. It was a diverse group of people working in different aspects of language revitalization, technology, and documentation. Mark Liberman, whom I was also meeting for the first time, shared my concern about Unicode, having done some work himself in Nigerian languages, and been frustrated by the problem of finding the right diacritics in a simple and accessible way.

Paris is beautiful at night — perhaps much better looking at night actually. The monuments are lit up, and the beauty of the city shines out from within the glow. The language of the city, naturally, is French, but the tourist who speaks not more than a smattering of the language doesn’t run into much of a problem.

It was cold most of the time, which made walking around a bit of an ordeal. It reminds me a lot of the other global city I once attempted to walk around in 2009. A day before I arrived in Paris, there had been a massive strike that paralysed the entire country and rendered public transportation useless. This could explain why Uber appeared a lot more expensive that I’d experienced elsewhere. Would have been nice to see how different the Metro was from the Tube in England. But the strike also meant that the city was less crowded — at least the usually touristic areas — and the public trash cans seemed always in need of emptying.

*The Arc de Triomphe ahead, and a trash bag nearby.*

I had got a travel grant of £1,011 to attend the conference — which covered my visa (~£295), hotel (~£270), food (~63), train (~£500), and Ubers (~£81.77) and was helpful and convenient, especially since I had to pay for the highest end of many of these things due to the rushed arrangement. My visa was issued on the 4th, so I was only able to attend the sessions on the 5th and 6th, leaving the city in the evening of the 7th. Still, it was enough to take in the fine city, sample the food, make connections, and make future plans to return for more adventure.

*The benefit of the strike is fewer tourists, but more overflowing trashcans.*

The train ride on the Eurostar from St. Pancras to Gare du Nord, which took just under three hours, is a story of its own.

The Ṣóyínká Museum in Ifẹ̀

The new Ṣóyínká Museum in Ifẹ̀ wasn’t that hard to find, it turned out. Knowing that it is located across from the Vice Chancellor’s Lodge was a helpful tip that got us there. A straight road from the university gate, after just one turning, led us right through an open road guided by trees, grass, and lamp posts, and there we were.

Located near the base of an impressive hill covered in thick foliage, the house, built in the simple but elegant style of other nearby structures created for the use of university staff, stuck out in white, decorated by murals portraying the Nobel Laureate in many different states. At the entrance, on top of a constructed covering, supported by metal poles, is a larger-than-life concrete bust of Ṣóyínká himself starting towards the Vice-Chancellors lodge.

The house used to be yellow (see old pictures here), like other buildings in these staff quarters. The new white painting and decorations are a distinctive feature to mark it apart as not just any other residential property in the area. The house has now been adopted by the Ògùn State Government as a museum and artistic/exhibition space about the life of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature and famous indigene of the state and former member of staff at the university. In itself, this is an impressive and long overdue endeavour. In other parts of the world, important buildings of this nature are regularly turned into historical sites, creating great cultural value, and bringing tourists from across the world, which in turn generates funds to keep the structures perpetually maintained, to serve as valuable institutions to the preservation of memory and values of the celebrated heroes.

[Read about my visit to the Mark Twain Boyhood Home in Hannibal, Missouri here here, and here]

This location, I thought, was actually quite interesting. The rumours I grew up around had it that at some point in his career as a Professor of Theatre, WS was in the running to become Vice-Chancellor of the university himself. He has strongly refuted this in an email to me, writing “I have NEVER contested or even desired any administrative position in my entire career at Ifẹ̀ or any other institution in the entire world.” This makes sense, or it would have made for some awkward interaction with whomever had won the tussle living right across from him on campus.

According to the pamphlet handed out to us as we walked through, Professor Ṣóyínká left the University of Ifẹ̀ in 1986 after having “spent about 24 years” on the staff roll. That means he joined in 1962. I’ve found this record a little conflicting with the reality that the dramatist-professor was also the head of the Department of Drama at the University of Ìbàdàn from 1967, shortly before he was arrested for visiting the breakaway Biafra, to 1970, a few months after he was released from jail. So, either he first went to Ifẹ̀ (then located in makeshift buildings in Sango and Sámọńdà areas of Ìbadàn before this permanent site in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was opened), then returned to Ìbàdàn and then went back to Ifẹ̀ after he left jail, or we have got the records wrong. It will be nice to have this all straightened out.

Speaking of records, the ostensible purpose of the Museum is to create ‘an academic and tourism destination’ around the writer’s life, work, and passions (including hunting), yet the only thing here, at the moment at least, are a collection of carvings and other artworks belonging to, collected by, or created around Wọlé Ṣóyínká. Nowhere in the building are directions to what each room used to be: this is WS’s former study. This is where he wrote The Road. This was his work typewriter for many years. This is the room where his children so-and-so used to live. And here is an old manuscript of Lion and the Jewel, with handwritten notations in-between the lines. etc. Maybe being in the presence of his artistic aura around the building and his art collections was supposed to be enough for the visitor. It wasn’t. There was a prevailing sense that a lot more context will need to be added to make it a true museum of the writer’s illustriious career.

At the moment, it is simply an exhibition space, filled with an impressive collection of art from the many corners of Nigeria, collected and preserved over many years. Won’t it be nice to have the structure turned into a real-life manifestation of the creative imagination of the writer’s theatrical and poetic ouvre? At Hannibal, one could pretend to whitewash a picket fence just like Tom Sawyer did in the writer’s famous novel. One could walk around the museum, and around downtown Hannibal like a character in Mark Twain’s early works. One could also visit a gift shop and buy books and other collectables related to the author. The ‘Boy’s Quarters’ of this Ṣóyínká Museum would be a good place to turn into a gift shop if the desire so manifests. Or, perhaps, this will be the case only when Ṣóyínká’s childhood home in Abẹ́òkuta is finally acquired for a more permanent artistic purpose.

The grounds on which this museum building in Ifẹ̀ now stands will make a good venue for festivals, open literary fairs, and other artistic events. The view of the hills, glorious in the setting sun, is a delightful sight from the balcony, even when blocked by a lone palm tree that one can assume has had an illustrious life as a sater of creative thirst through the production of palm wine. One can easily imagine its former residents walking around it on cool evenings, setting traps for wild animals, or venturing into the adjourning thicket, up the hill, for a hunting expedition. Easily imagined as a venue for future writer residencies as well, there is a lot of understated potential for the project. One is glad, at least, that it has begun.

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