ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Travelling category.

Ten Random Questions

10. Will it be too cold in Washington DC next week for me to enjoy the sites that I want to see there?

9. Who is the president of Nigeria now? And does it matter in the scheme of the country’s present political arrangement that there’s no one really in charge at the moment while the nation awaits the news on the president’s health? Does it stop the quotidian activities of the agents of state from going on or have citizens realized that their lives are really not controlled by whomever occupies the government houses?

8. Do I sound too angry in some of my blog entries?

7. Has someone in the entourage of Nigeria’s president been reading my blog from Saudi Arabia as Google Analytics has pointed out? Because I would really be flattered. Who else could be reading from Saudi Arabia? Could it be the president himself, to while away the time?

6. Does snow and fog affect the visibility of airplane take-offs and landings?

5. Will I still be able to make blog posts in the Winter when at this moment of just minus six celcius my fingers are already freezing up? If I don’t make new posts for more than a week, will I ever be forgiven by my now dedicated audience?

4. What other impressions does the reader of this blog get after reading a few posts, other than the fact that I’m a curious and often impulsive questioner and prankster – no, I mean quiet and quite unassuming but often probing fella?

3. Who really are those guys who read without leaving comments? 😀

2. How many of my fellow FLTAs now scattered all over the country are looking forward to seeing me at the DC conference? How many of them have forgotten my name, or even what I look like? How many of them are enjoying their teaching and learning experience as I am? How many of the ladies have already accepted marriage or relationship proposals from their American hosts? And how many of the men have made such proposals and have been brutally turned down? 😀

1. Am I really, really making my country – and/or the Fulbright Organization – proud at the moment? What does that even mean?

The Blood Bank

As soon as we passed by the Red Cross blood donation point at the SIUe quadrangle today, Chris and I, and managed to steer our conversation to donation of blood, I knew that I had come to another ktravula moment in the life of this journey. You see, I am conscious of all the dimensions of my Nigerianness, and about a year ago, just after I published my short story Behind the Door, I had had a conversation with an American friend who told me that she had been denied the chance to donate blood in America – for life – just because she ticked “yes” on a pre-donation questionaire that asked whether she has had “sexual contact” with anyone who was from or who had lived in Nigeria and some other sub-saharan African countries between 1977 to date. I didn’t believe it even after she sent me the online questionnaire, so I googled it up myself, and the result was indeed stunning. Nigerians, and everyone who has had sex with them were excluded from donating blood in America. (I don’t know yet if this is the same all over the world). The obvious question then is “Why?”, and it had circled my head for a while now, until that time this afternoon when I came within sight of the Red Cross truck on campus, asking students to donate blood. This website mentions requirements to donating blood in America but does not say why Nigeria is mentioned. So, you guessed it, I went right into the truck, leaving Chris outside to gape at what he said was an obvious time-wasting effort.

There was a sign-in sheet on the table. It had the name of those who are on the waiting list. On the examination table is a young woman whose blood was being taken. She had a pump in her right hand.

“Hi. Can I help you?” A young lady approached me. She wore a white lab coat.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’d like to donate blood.”

“Alright. You will have to write your name in here. The next slot opens at 1.45pm, and there are about three people before you already. Is that fine?”

“Yes, of course it is. I can always come back. But I’d like to know if there’s anything I need to read before you take my blood. Maybe instructions or anything like that.”

“Sure. Here, on the wall, is the first instruction. It’s important to read and understand it. And here is the comprehensive manual that every donor must read and comply with.”

“Can I sit and read it in lieu of going and coming back?”

“Yes, why not. Please sit over there.”

“Thank you.”

And read I did, carefully, until I got to where I am mentioned. Indeed, it’s written there in clear black ink of the excluded list. If you’re from Nigeria, If you have been to Nigeria, or had “sexual contact” with a Nigerian. Or if you have had malaria in the last three years, you CANNOT donate blood. I called her back and asked her why.

“HIV and AIDS, you know.”

“What?”

“HIV/AIDS”

“But you do know that not all Nigerians have HIV and AIDS, right?”

“I guess, but, erm, it’s what the FDA says. We just follow the law.”

“Oh my! So what you’re saying is that you have no way to know which blood is infected and which is not?”

“Like I said, it’s just the law, and we just follow it.”‘

By this time, a more mature looking woman also in a lab coat had shown interest in the conversation but maintained an aloofness that told me that she would allow the younger lady handle the situation rather than get involved. Whenever I looked in her direction expecting her to say something, she just smiled.

“I can’t believe this.” I said, as I gave back the booklet to her. “I guess I have to go now since you don’t want my blood.”

They didn’t say anything so I left, back to listen to Chris say “I told you so.” If she had said they do this because of malaria, I could have been a little more understandable. But AIDS? By population figures, there are probably more HIV infections in North America right now than in West Africa, but it is not so pandemic here because of adequate healthcare and healthy living. With the right technological advancement in medicine in the United States, this definitely did not have to be a factor for denying opportunity to a certain demographic to contribute to efforts to save lives worldwide. If I sound a little upset, it could be because I am at the incredulity of the whole matter. Maybe there are some things that people like me are not meant to understand.

I Miss Her Too

One of the hardest punches of exile for those who choose it above the shackles of hopelessness and the frustration of home must be loneliness, and perhaps a certain pull towards old sources of their romantic filling. I believe it now. The mind wanders, wondering what must it be like for them, the travellers running away from fiery dictators, while risking the lives of their families still left in the jaws of the fiery dragon. Even for those with breaking or troubled families, the pain of distance could be a sure enough catalyst for at least a kind of shared grief and shared catharsis sufficient to sustain their bond across space and time.

So besides regular phone calls, text messages and long nights in the reverie of the good old times, how else does a traveller stay in touch with the feelings of what once rocked his heart with a certain kind of joy from his distant beloved? And for those on the other side of the ocean, just what sustains that drive beyond memories, hope and pride. When does temptation overtake common sense and the flood of personal desires drive the once resolute into the throes of restless passion, reckless or relaxed experimentation?

I’m not in exile thankfully, yet my case is hardly different from those far from home on causes sometimes beyond their conscious control. I am a man, thankfully also human, which could explain why food is not the only reason why I could be missing my home tonight.

Heading Eastwards II

The other thing that came with my ordered dinner of “fried rice”, soup and soda yesterday night was a pair of fortune cookies which I had not ordered for. They are chinese cookies “folded and baked around a piece of paper on which a saying or a prediction of somebody’s fortune is written.” (definition by Encarta) I’m not superstitious (all the time) but I take little fun in poking fun at the predictions of the cosmos. I never believed in zodiac signs, but I always read the predictions in the papers whenever I can. Don’t mind the fact that all the predictions for each zodiac sign are in one way or the other similar and could work for anyone with as much as a little dose of superstition. It’s the placebo effect, I guess. But I digress.

By now you already know that in about a few weeks, very very soon now, I will be heading to the East Coast of the country, again! Yea, I’m excited about it too. There are just so many things to see in Washington DC. I can’t wait to stand underneath the real Lincoln Monument. The small one we took pictures with at the Chicago Grant Park was an impostor. I’ve hoped to use the opportunity to do a little wandering around the neighbouring states as well: New York, maybe New Jersey, and Maryland. The last state, definitely, thanks to Ikhide Ikheloa who has promised me a ride from Washington DC to Maryland, warm beddings to lay my head on, plenty naija books to read and to steal, a new iPhone 3Gs and an unlimited supply of Ofe nsala, isi ewu and cow leg pepper soup! Ha, don’t even think of reneging on the promise, Baba!

Anyway, when I broke open the two blasted cookies yesterday, I was too much in a hurry to consume them that I ignored the “fortune” paper in them until after the cookies, the food and the “soup” were well digested. And when I was ready, I took a look and here was what I found: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Travelling to the east will bring you great rewards.”

And suddenly, I’m a believer.

New York, DC, East Coast, here I come… at least after I finish devouring all the livestock of this Thanksgiving Week!

I Arrived Home Today

And so tonight after a drought of three months and more, I arrived home, and in heaven, with all but the seventy welcoming virgins, of course. It started as a jest and mild daring that we would drive down to St. Louis to check out the “African” restaurants. I had had a few apples and was just hoping to go to bed but the trip proved a little too tempting to pass, so we – Mafoya the Beninoise, Ben the American and I the traveller hopped in the car and drove to St. Louis, seeking a place called “Nubia Cafe.” The name did not suggest anything other than African so believed that I was going to at least find something to my taste, just like I did in the Indian restaurant in Chicago. At least it was peppery (read spicy) enough to my African tongue.

It was the smile of the woman who welcomed us in that gave a first hint. And then the smell from the kitchen, and then the ambiance. Then finally, as we stood staring at the host – a tall and handsome black man with a goatee standing behind the counter, whose smile and sense of mischief led us on a false trail of his true identity – I heard the concluding part of the song Lele by a Nigerian Igbo musical group Resonance seeping in from the surround speakers in the room, and knew at once that I was home. “You’re Nigerian?” I asked, and he nodded, extending his hands. “My name is Henry Iwenofu. Nice to meet you.” And he indeed was a nice personality, well read, smart and articulate.

From then on, things went smoothly, from the overdrive hyperactivity of finally landing on home soil so far away from home to the mellowness of deep conversations that you’d always find among Africans meeting on a distant land.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?

“Over twenty-five years”

He should be like forty years himself.

WHEN WERE YOU LAST IN NIGERIA?

“In 1995, briefly.”

I doubt that he remembered much of the June 12 crises, but he has some Youtube videos of the Biafra soldiers’ songs on his phone.

WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?

“They were here since a few weeks. They stay with me.”

There is a little board sign beside the counter bearing his name. “I contested in the last election for a council seat.” He said. “I didn’t win, but I got some votes.”

DO YOU STILL SPEAK IGBO?

“But of course!”

He also happened to speak a bit of Hausa and Yoruba, and he’s an American graduate of a Political Science equivalent course, with a Master in Law. “I’m a barrister” he jokes, “and that’s why I’m now working in a bar.”

HOW LONG HAS NUBIA CAFE BEEN HERE?

“About eighteen months.”

DO YOU SERVE PALM WINE?

“We used to do so, but since demand slipped, we have discontinued it as well as Edi-kang-i-kong and Star Lager Beer.”

Still unable to believe my ears, the music changed to Asa’s eponymous album and the songs filtered in one after the other while we enjoyed the meals that came in succession after a few minutes of banter.

Appetizer: Suya/peppersoup (Comments: Very very good, but not the best I’ve had. Ben however loved the soup, even though he had to quickly ask for plenty water so that his tongue/throat doesn’t bleed.)

Main course: Pounded yam and egúsí soup. (Comments: OMG! The Nigerian host even had the audacity to provide forks and knives to eat it with. What? Are you kidding?)

Drinks: Tusker beer from Kenya (Comments: none)

After the meal, which was accompanied later by a live band in the corner of the room, we got down to the real African past-time: arguing. It took the whole hour and even though we agreed on little, we shared much, and Ben just looked on, sometimes bored, and sometimes animated. It was his first time in an African restaurant, and it could as well have been his first time seeing two Africans argue, on such an unimportant topic as whether or not we were different, or the same even though we come from different places… This argument must have arisen from a question as to whether he would be going back home. No, he says, but not for reasons I expected (political instability, poverty etc), but because, according to him, “I don’t have the money. I can’t afford to make such trips regularly.”

The other woman who had welcomed us in with a smile turned out to be from Tennessee, and she found the whole show we had put up to be very amusing. She was going to find it a lot more amusing when, as it was time for us to pay and head back to Edwardsville, I looked at the bill and had a very bright idea. Since I’ve been in the US, I’ve been gradually initiated into the tipping culture and found a certain joy in leaving little change for the people who had made effort (don’t tell me it’s their job) to provide good quality service. So to show my appreciation tonight, I looked into my purse and brought out the crispiest – well, not necessarily the crispiest – of my Nigerian currency notes. It was a two hundred. I had brought the Nigerian currency notes along to the States only to show my students (and some of them have actually “won” a few of them for keeps while answering questions in class), and for other unexplainable reasons, but as I looked at the space for tips on the bill, I could think of nothing more appropriate to give back to this long range traveller like me than a small piece of home.

In American currency, it is less than $2, but from one traveller to another – albeit one more temporarily resident than him – I was handing him a touch from his distant past.

“I’ll frame this,” he said, as he posed for a photograph, and the Tennessee woman who sat beside him kept grinning from ear to ear, looking at me with a mixture of thrill and quirky interest. She definitely didn’t see this one coming, and much as she tried to find out from me how much the note was worth in American currency, she failed, to my delight. It was my first experience of home away from home. And from this heaviness of my tummy now as I return from the eating and all the merrying, I feel the warmth of home. Hello Nigeria.

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