Birthplace of Langston Hughes, writer and poet.
I’ve always wondered why my Indian friends were usually the most conservative. Growing up on Bollywood movies featuring crooked cops, handsome heroes and beautiful women with delightful voices, I knew that the country – if anything – was just as diverse, as unpredictable, as unique, as anyone else. Finding out that they had given the world karma sutra however prompted the questions of what went wrong between then when women knew and practiced (sometimes only within marriage settings) the secrets of sexuality and now where an imported religion (mostly Catholicism) defines their outlook on life.
One of my most defining perceptions of the American society obtained also through popular media while growing up is sexual liberation. Much more than what obtains in Indian movies, American movies gave us the concept of deep kisses with men to whom a woman wasn’t married, random sexual contact after a few dates, sometimes after a few drinks, infidelity portrayed beautifully as art sometimes eliciting sympathy from the vulnerable audience, and gratuitous violence. A little boy on the streets of Mushin today still assumes that all it takes to get an American girl is to take her to the movies a few times – all conditioned perceptions. The often conservative nature of the American society is thus a source of shock to the immigrant trying to figure out what just happened. The United States exports perhaps the largest number of porn videos to the rest of the world, has nudity and sexual jokes in most of its most famous non-porn movies, yet impeached a sitting president having, or for lying about, oral sex. Explain that to a seven year old. I never quite understood it.
So, there was Weiner the congressman who tweeted his genitals, and Schwarzenegger who fathered a child with the maid, then Edwards, then Gingrich. Sufficient examples in private and public life of the country I live in show just how liberally the most powerful people there take the sanctity of marriage that many of them have sought to define, and “protect”. It is thus always a surprise when a thing such as gay marriage becomes such a big deal that it has to take almost divine intervention to get passed in the country’s third largest state. Not to take anything from the efforts of the legislators and the activists who achieved what they did a few days ago in New York, my immigrant sensibilities took a few moments to process the fact and realize that the America I had envisioned/perceived since a very long time while growing up is just now coming out slowly of its own closet. And that this is why it all seemed so jubilatory (if that’s a word), and not that there was something really extraordinary that happened in the passing of the law by the NY city legislature. The contrast between what already obtains and celebrated in the country’s popular culture and what the society accepts and sanctions in its laws and public behaviour is going to be subject of much rumination for a long time to come – especially in the mind of migrating visitors like me.
Coming up next, who knows, maybe marijuana? Obviously, you haven’t seen The Hangover. At least now I understand why those who watch Nollywood movies outside of Nigeria expect all Nigerians to speak, act, and behave in a particular way. And what about juju. Don’t ask me. It is not recognized by Nigerian law either.
The blogger would like to thank readers who nominated KTravula.com for the Best Travel Blog category in the on-going Nigerian Blog Awards 2011. You’re wonderful. To vote for this blog, go to this link, and choose KTravula in the Best Travel Blog category.
I ran into a few new accents during my visit to Joplin at the weekend. Some more than others I had to listen to three or more times before being able to understand at all. “You said what?” And, as always, it was as hard as ever to ask people to repeat what they’ve said without feeling guilty. My accent also became the subject of a few random stares, and eventual conversation starting prompts: “You speak good English” and a few more variants of the same compliment/curiosity. That was Lauren, the beautiful American from Tulsa who was excited to meet people from different parts of the world – especially from the faraway places like Nigeria and Benin where Mafoya and I come from. She thought that our accents sounded “different” but “cool”. Tulsa Oklahoma is about a hour and half from Joplin. And now, we have a standing invitation to visit there whenever we find ourselves again in that part of the country.
Who has seen Justified, the tv series featuring Timothy Olyphant? The accent that the preacher at the church service on Sunday spoke was similar to what I heard a lot from watching the series. Musical, a little slurry, and definitely pleasant to the ears, a distinct Kentucky-like flavour that delights a stranger’s hearing perhaps more than anyone else. Maybe a style of dressing too, but that’s beyond my specialty. But it is more understandable that those who live in rural, farm areas dress in a particular way, especially in the summer. And what do I know. I’m the guy who wore chinos rather than jeans to a work site.
Tulsa (Oklahoma), Topeka (Kansas), and Fayetteville (Arkansas) were some of the famous little towns from which the people we met came from, bearing gifts of the different ways of speaking and, no doubt, looking at the world. (PS: The writing on the garage door in the photo above reads U loot, we shoot. Click to enlarge. I won’t count that as just a kind of Joplin humour.)
Pictures of some of the most heartbreaking of the sites. These are the mild ones. The worst ones featured wrecked, torpedoed cars and total levellings of several huge buildings, and homes.
The pictures were taken around Range Line Road where most of the damage took place over a large expanse of land area.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but none of these appropriately captures just how bad it is.
