ktravula – a travelogue!

Interlude

There is no writer’s block, just laziness. Perhaps.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for an e-zine on the motivations for blogging, the challenges it provides, and the general pleasure of having things to write (now just “almost”) everyday of the week. Here’s my experience. I sit down facing a blank sheet of paper trying to write something serious or concrete either for a newspaper or for a class project/assignment, and I get stuck. Nothing comes. The part of my brain needed to get the work done just blatantly refuses to start up, and I remain in one spot for as long as possible, beating myself up and wondering why on earth it seemed so hard to do something as simple as writing, and why I’d been so hated to have been given the task that offered no exit, and no mercy. Nothing else to do, I would then go to my blog, open a blank page for new posts, and write something long and pretty – in less then fifteen minutes – in relative ease, loosening my “writerly” tongue and allowing the brain the luxury of admitting that writing could actually be pleasant. It is the same brain which a few minutes before had locked itself up like a clam. It is also the same typing fingers now addressing a different audience. And that has always defied all explanation. Is the conclusion to be drawn that of the fact that life should be smooth, easy, and playful, subject to our moods and whims? Or should it be regimented and organized, subject to the wishes of a remote instructor waiting to mark our work with inks of red? Or that whenever faced with the latter, a mood of the former should be immediately invoked in order to get through the mood?

Here I am, unable to find the first word with which to begin my final class project due next week, writing without stopping for air on a blog that would give me neither an “A” nor a tuition refund. FML(?) Back to work now.

Wine Tasting in the Town

The last time I went wine-tasting was in September. There was an exhibition of the wines of Missouri and wineries from parts of the state came to showcase what they have. It took place at the Botanical Garden. I returned home with a bottle of Chambourcin.

Last Friday evening however, I went for another one – a private event at a local winery in Edwardsville called Springer’s Creek. The house, built in the 1800s, was nicely decorated with warm lights and wall pictures with other cozy features and a live band playing slow music in the basement. The wine was very sweet and distinctive. The company was pleasant, warm and relaxing, and after a few gulps that counted for much more than just tastings, I was loosened enough to go ice skating at an ice rink thirty-five minutes away.

Oh, I almost forgot. We were actually celebrating something: the joy of blogging, and the pleasures/treasures it brings.

Remembering Feynman

I strongly recommend Richard Feynman’s book Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman! for anyone interested in the appreciation of the world and the little beautiful things in it. Not able to tell you why I’m thinking about him right now, I found his recollection of his childhood and professional life to be one of the most pleasurable one I’ve ever read. I can say for a fact that his was one of the best books I’ve ever read. And the last time I read this book was more than five years ago. He also wrote The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and What Do You Care What Other People Think.

Written from transcripts of interviews recorded over a long period of time, the man walks through the many curious instances of his precociousness, from learning the secret of mathematics to learning to pick locks and safes. At some point in the later parts of my teenage years, I almost learnt to pick locks too, picking after the physicist. I failed terribly. It was the early days of internet in Nigeria and I desperately craved its promised access to the information highway, and I would do almost anything to get usernames and passwords of uncles and friends without their permission. I failed at that too, eventually, and I remember the very many nairas, savings from my first real (also poorly-paying) job at a computer service centre, which I spent surfing the internet and learning new things along the way. Who knew that a day would come when everyone had internet on their computers for 24 hours every day. As far back in 1997 in Nigeria, that looked like a faraway fantasy of a future.

The book by Feynman also takes us back to the beginning of the research into developing the atomic bomb, and all the mischief he caused on site of the research facilities at Princeton, and as a professor at Carlton and MIT, picking locks and leaving clues for his scandalized superiors. He claimed to be the only person to see the bomb tested with his own eyes through the UV shield of a car. All the other people wore glasses. (He also worked at Los Alamos at some point later). Beside the lucid and very absorbing prose and his story telling abilities, Feynman comes across as an eternally curious being not limited to his field (of Physics) or any field at all in his approach to understanding the world. After the crash of the space shuttle “The Challenger”, he broke down the hard details of a scientific error for the common man on TV at a public hearing, and cemented his reputation forever. Whenever I think about my outlook on the world, I think about how much of it I owe to the kinship with the spirit in Feynman’s book. I also immediately begin to look for the phone numbers of my friends who have always pawned my copy every time I buy a new one.

From the love of the science of language, to syntax, to computer programming (which I learnt at some point during the idle times after my secondary school), to learning to play musical instruments, sing, laugh, ride bicycles, almost crash my parents’ car, mess up my cousin’s hair at some point with the barber’s clipper as an experiment (and getting deservedly pummeled for it later on), and learning to draw, to paint, to write, to learn languages, and mostly to explore the many awesome areas of life as it tosses them my way, I have learn to live life to the full. We have less than 24 hours of it at our disposal every day, but it’s amazing just how much pleasure each discovery brings. If I ever become famous, I want to be like Richard Feynman, a wonderful down-to-earth physicist and a great teacher whose ideas changed the way we looked at the world, but who himself never stopped being just a man, with a regular (although many times very mischievous) taste and sensibilities.

Image from http://www.brew-wood.co.uk/physics/feynman.htm

The First Test

Today is World Aids Day. For that, let me share with you an excerpt from my short story “Behind the Door”, published in the African Roar short story collection. The story was initially called “The First Test.” Enjoy.

______________

I followed her to the lab table and was going to ask her whether she had done the test on herself before, but I decided against it, convinced that she must have, at some point.

“What happens when one tests positive? Do you know?”

The words came out of me by themselves, but her response confirmed that she had heard it many times before. “Well, mostly we will just ask you first to do a few more tests to confirm that it is really the virus, before we know what to do next.”

“So you are telling me that it’s possible that this test shows positive and the other test shows negative?”

Her “yes”came in a firm tone that now got me uneasy. “It has happened before, you know. Sometimes there are some other infections that may manifest themselves on this test, and may not in fact be the virus.”

I was surprised, but more than that I was now scared. I thought back on my life and my confidence wavered. Her latest disclosure was now leading me to consider the possibility and consequences of being wrongly diagnosed. I did not like where my riotous thoughts quickly went.

“Let me ask you a last question,” I said, after a short pause.

“Alright.”

“What is the rate of infection in this part of the country?”

“Well, it depends on the organization that did the statistics.”

“No. I mean in your hospital. You do this every day, right?”

“Yes.”

“Like how many people, on the average, come here for testing every day?”

“About twelve.”

“Okay. Now about how many of them turn positive?”

“I would say about two.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She said firmly.

Oh my God!

“Don’t be surprised, good sir. The infection is actually prevalent. With every ten tests I perform, there’s usually one positive person, at least. That is why we encourage people to come out and test themselves. There are actually more infected people roaming the streets than we know.”

I did not smile.

“So how many tests have you conducted today?” I asked.

She was busy writing on the notebook, so she gave no response. The statistics are not in my favour if all the people she had tested today were already negative, I thought. I could be the scapegoat. Oh wait, mathematics doesn’t work that way. Today may be the exception. Or in any case, the day is still too young for despair. The real unfortunate fella may be walking in very soon to receive his news. It is not for me. But even if this woman had already registered three positive people in her inglorious notebook today, is there anything in the world of random figures says that I can’t be another one. Damn, I should have spent more time in the arithmetic classes…

She gave me a wad of cotton wool on one hand, and in a quick movement of a professional punctured my right thumb with the little pin before I could scream for her to stop. She smiled assuredly, and proceeded to transfer the drop of my blood onto the little testing strip of cardboard resting on the table.

“Why don’t you go wait outside?”

“For how long?”

“Well, for just for a few minutes until the result shows on the strip.”

________________

The story is one of the twelve short stories in the anthology which you can buy here, here and here.

The National World War I Museum: Pictures

A torpedo, a view from the Liberty tower, one of the sphinxes on the property, a hall full of paintings, a real plane from the war, trench and war replicas, the Liberty Tower, the city’s skyline from 217 feet, a revolver, and the Tower again.