ktravula – a travelogue!

Roads Around The Child (Non-Fiction)

Our house lay at a junction of roads. The first one stretched from an unknown place beyond the mango trees and a public water well in front of the Oguns’ house. Ahead, it reaches out into the dry dusty parts of the village, past the albino barber’s house and farther down into places where now I can’t immediately conjure beyond the sight of leaves, dry wood and old men playing draught on wooden benches outside their unpainted houses. The other road goes past the Bello’s house to the church, then branches towards the main road where tar begins and heads into the town. When put side by side as they both inevitably lay approaching the wide spot in front of the house where we all usually play in the evening around the grown men of the area, they form a dusty wide line of an attempted “v” which ends at the Baale’s house. From there, they part, each again taking up a lonely path to my right into as far as the eyes can see.

A mental stepping now out of the big compound of my house into those streets, I stand now, facing the Baale’s house, turning my back to the dusty “v” of the coming road. On to the left, the road veers by the small thrush in front of the house where Lanko Lanko lives, then a little further down it reaches an electric transformer. After that, to the left, is my school, fenced around with a white concrete wall and spiked metal bars. Further down is nothing but gullies and leaves, and a beaten path to where moin moin is sold along with its corn paste companion, into the labyrinths of huts and a maze of households of mud and concrete of old women with intriguing dress patterns and ribald tongues. They knew me and knew that I ran away from them whenever I could, except when I had things to buy. And one of them called me “my husband”. Further down in the centre of the village woods where dirt competed with house animals and putrid smells from collective waste is a large agbalumo tree. It came along with it a myth that it housed spirits that tormented wandering children…

Back to my junction, on to the right are the better, sanctioned spaces of play: the opening towards Mama Lawyer’s clinic, just three houses away. Before that is the kolanut seller, then the farmer and professor’s awesome cottage where I saw a chess board for the first time and wondered why it didn’t look like the draughts boards I’d seen my brother play at home. In there are their three boy children one of whom was around my age, older by about a year or two. Then an orchard of sweet smelling flowers, a corn mill, trees of mango and cashew, and livestock. The cottage opened itself always up as a paradise of treasures, menu, and learning.

Mama Lawyer’s clinic, for then and now remains as old as memory. I never saw her husband who was the real lawyer. She has travelled to many countries, we were told, and she had come home to retire, operating the clinic as a way to stay active. Even then, tufts of grey hair already dotted her beautiful hair that kept her demeanour always so disarming. The smile, the warm hug of a mother of all little children, and the music in her voice when she asks “Young man, what have we got today? Aren’t we looking good.” It always made the enduring phobia of needles immediately disappear, if only for the second. So when I get the “fever” as all ailments are called to a six year old, Momma dresses me up in a thick sweater and the right pair of trousers, and we walk hand in hand towards Mama Lawyer’s house, stirring the dust paths of the village’s open roads into the evening sky.

(Photos taken in Jos, Plateau and Obi, Nassarawa. July 2010)

Pondering Education

On returning from my weekly work in St. Louis, I’m pondering the importance of education and the state it is today worldwide (and especially in the US since I can only speak from the sneak peek perspectives that I have from being a teacher as well as a student at different times so far.) No doubt – as Clarissa comments in one of her recent posts – higher education in the US is (one of) the best in the world today. The reason why this is so is not just because of facilities, but because of some safeguards put in place to ensure independence of thought, and the freedom to pursue new challenges. It is terrifying to think of how easily it can collapse if allowed to become subject to the whims and prejudice of politics. Just last week, I followed the very many of people in the academics who had their hearts in their mouths while waiting for the result of the gubernatorial election because of the prospects of what would happen if a certain candidate wins. He had promised to cut funding to Universities in order to fulfil his party’s agitation for “small governments.”

The No Child Left Behind Act passed under the Bush administration is notorious today because of how it subjects the prospect of learning to a set of blanket rules that doesn’t take into consideration a lot of testing biases, and variations in language aptitude and proficiency in child learners. It also subjects funding of schools to fulfilling a set of rules arbitrarily set by Government without regard for procedures or tested and trusted research results on child education. I’ve been reading a lot about the act and its effect on early childhood and high school education in the US, and it brings tears to eyes to see that had the changes in the Senate had been as drastic as it had been in the House of Representatives last week, by now, we would have returned to the same old process of returning schools to that retrogressive path. For now, higher education has been (only largely) immune from the influence of federal politics, but for how long will that remain? Till the next election?

The US federal budget for defense is more than twice the total annual budget of some other countries in the world – and for good reason, some might say. It’s not my place to knock the country’s defense or military agenda. Yet, thinking about it, one wonders if it is not always infinitely better to educate the mind of citizens than spend an even larger cost putting them and the country in harm’s way sometimes for totally non-justifiable reasons. The program on NPR today on my way to St. Louis focuses on the increasing number of US soldiers that have committed suicide since the occupations in the Middle East began. The number increases everyday, and the country spends more and more seeking psychologists and psychiatrists to take care of the resulting effects of the combat fatigues that fuel those horrible, preventable deaths.

I do hope that education grows someday to become a bigger priority for government spending, but I won’t cross my fingers yet. I live in a country of sometimes contrasting values, possibilities and characteristics.

The Church at Wusasa

Today, I want to tell you about Wusasa. I never did tell you about my visit to that little village of one square mile, three miles outside Zaria City in Kaduna state, Nigeria. I was there in July.

This set of pictures is that of the very first church in Northern Nigeria, according to sources, built by missionaries after they were evicted from the Islamic Zaria City in 1929 not just by the Emirate council, but by the British administrators who did not want to offend the indigenous Northern rulers and upset Indirect Rule.

Due to this policy, development in the region became forever stymied with Wusasa rather than Zaria producing the many firsts in indigenous breakthroughs in Northern Nigeria. The first Northern Nigerian to qualify as a medical doctor (Dr. R.A.B Dikko), the first Nigerian pharmacist (Mallam S.M.Audu), pediatrician (Professor I.S. Audu), BSc in Economics (Amb John M. Garba), among very many impressive others were born, lived in, or educated in Wusasa. Even General Yakubu Gowon (the first Northern Nigerian Head of State) was raised in the city, and the tour guide showed us his father’s house right behind the Wusasa church.

The church (St. Bartholomew’s) was built with local materials and by local architects. It has been attacked a number of times by Islamic extremists during the Northern Nigerian riots, and was even set on fire during those times. The mud materials of the building however withstood the assault, and even got stronger. Prince Charles of Britain, who had visited the church a few years ago, has reportedly been instrumental to its renovation. Now the church has a rug over all the concrete seats, and dozens of fans on its walls. But it retains much of its outward appearance as the oldest church building in Northern Nigeria, and an important one as well to the history and development of the region. Read more about it here.

Special thanks to Zainab Shelley who took me there, and a pastor of the church who gave us a detailed and guided tour on arrival.

Religion, Campus, Trouble!

Really? Not really. But if you see someone in the middle of a university campus on a cold afternoon preaching with every zeal in his body, you’re bound to have a few eyebrows raised, especially if that University is in the America. Very soon, the crowd around the said preacher will get bigger and bigger, and its members would begin to engage him in a loud debate. Trust university students never to let an opportunity for an argument go to waste. And then, as a result of that public spectacle, more and more people would come to see what the whole thing is all about. They don’t see that often.

I’d been alerted by a phone call. “Oh Kola, come! A crazy man is preaching here.” But I knew that the man wasn’t a crazy man, by the hysteria in the voice of the caller. I’ve also seen many preachers in public places (Who from Nigeria hasn’t seen one of those anyway), and I knew it highly unlikely that a crazy man would be allowed to stand for long in the middle of campus in America. Maybe it was just a healthy argument of opinions, I thought. Getting there and seeing the young man within a circle confirmed my suspicion. He was only as crazy as his decision to come to a campus filled with young fun-loving students to preach the gospel of Christ. So we all stood there, and listened to him.

But he never really made any new points, perhaps because of the hecklers who didn’t give him the chance. What he did the most was rehashing an old conservative messages of Christianity that excludes recognition to gay people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the theory of evolution. And all I was thinking as we were joined by the many other people curious about the activity in the circle – and a few other angry hecklers that wished they had a chance to push him off – was “What what the young man was trying to prove?” “Is this the right place for this?” “Does he mind that people were there mostly for the heated debates?” If anything, does he realize how much of a lightening rod for criticism of all that is wrong with zealous proselytism as he stood there responding to every heckler in the crowd with an opinion? And then again, I wondered how possible it can be to make a case of God’s love for some special people alone over all others without sounding inappropriate.

The police eventually showed up but didn’t disperse us. They stood at a distance, watched, and later walked away, as eventually did I, wondering if there was any lesson to be learnt from the drama. It doesn’t happen often around here.

It is reported here and here in the campus newspaper.

How To Survive on a Fulbright Stipend

Someone had searched for the following phrase “fulbright grant stipend how to survive” and have been referred to my blog. Since I’ve never written anything on the subject, I doubt they’d have learnt anything so far. Leaving one’s country and base to go abroad is already a trying experience. Add to that, having to survive on a stipend not figured to encourage extravagance as to guarantee qualitative subsistence could be harrowing at worst, or unsatisfactory at best. So here would be my response – from experience – if I were asked. Most of them are actually commonsense guides to surviving college.

Dear Fulbrighter in the US,

1. Get a Bicycle. Transportation is a bada$$ in any little town. If you are at SIUE, you’ll most likely have the bus shuttle,but then it comes at intervals. If you want to get to where you want to go at your own time without paying for gas or being frustrated by transport, a bicycle it is. I bet this works in every little town. If it is a big town/city. A bicycle might still work, but you’ll need a map and it might take a while getting used to it. Ask friends or faculty members for a ride. They will gladly help get you around. You’re an international exchange student. You’re VIP. Take advantage of it and enjoy every moment. If you ever get lost, you can also ask the police for a ride. They will eagerly help you (although they might have to search you for weapons first).

2. Cook rather than eat out. Papa John’s pizza costs about $20 bucks, and it lasts only for one sitting. A meal at a restaurant costs about $10. Home cooking will cost far less on the long run, and it will be more filling. Shop for groceries at weekends, and spend your time cooking at home. Attend campus events. Many of them come with free food and is open to all. Attend other social events too, and eat to your heart’s desire. In many cases, you are even allowed to take home fruits. Visit people. If you have host parents, visit them when you can. Tell them of memorable events in your life, like your birthday. They might throw a party for you and cook lots of food. Express interest in outdoor events and you’ll get plenty invitations.

3. When you buy books online, buy used books. They’re usually as good as new, and they’re much cheaper than new ones. Watch plenty TV rather than buy DVDs as they come out. You would have too much load to carry home at the end of your grant and may have to pay for excess luggage. All movies eventually come to the TV anyway, so spend your time watching the old ones you may have missed instead of amassing new ones that would chop off your stipend. If you must go to the movies, go in the mornings during weekdays. They usually cost $5 at those times. I wouldn’t say you should download movies or music illegally online, but there are many sites where you can watch movies for free or listen to music for free. Use them. Some will even stream movies going on at the theatres at the moment.

4. Do not get a mobile phone. You really don’t need it. Most campuses give you access to a house phone that you don’t pay for for calls to places on campus. You can also receive calls through them for free. But they’re fixed and not mobile. For mobile phone calls, use many of the cheaper VOIPs online. At the moment Google offers free phone calls on Gtalk to anywhere in America, for free. For international calls, use Skype to Skype conversation with your friends and family. You don’t need to pay for international calls. Mobile phones are a rip off, and you don’t need that. When you think about it, you don’t have that many friends in the US anyway. Those you know are mostly in your campus, and would be able to track you with your office hours. The rest can find you on Facebook. If you have to pay to call home, especially Nigeria, use Rebtel. The value you get from calling with Rebtel is twice that of every other online call services including Skype. Trust me on this. More than that, you can also use it with your mobile phone rather than scratch cards.

5. If you start a blog, don’t get a domain name (like KTravula.com). You get to pay for that. Use the free ones (like ktravula.wordpress.com or igwatala.blogspot.com. WordPress.com and Blogger.com can tell you how to get those. If any telemarketer calls you (you can tell their voice by how polite they sound and how fast they try to tell you all they’ve been paid to say in that little space of time that they have your attention), hang up immediately. They usually start with a question: Are you interested in free grant for your studies? etc. If you need to buy anything in the store, there are usually cheaper versions of that same product. Ask the shop people. Questions will get you out of any panic buying. If you buy any product, ask for warranties. Most places have them. If anything you buy gets bad, even after seven months, take it back. They might take it back from you and give you a replacement.

6. If you want to send money home (since a few cousins or friends or family might need it at some point – depending on how responsible you were before you travelled) – do not use bank wire transfer. It’s damned costly. Do not use Western Union either (Sorry Brian), except you can get them to offer you a discount. (Ask me more about this). So what should you use then? Well, how about take the money home when you’re actually going by yourself? I know it sounds lame, but when you get home, everyone would expect that you’ve become a millionaire, so you might not want to disappoint them. Besides, money is easier to carry in one’s own wallet. Else, you can use it to buy gift items and take them along, but remember that excess luggage charge is no peanut. Airline people are bada$$es.

7. Use Craigslist.com. There are very many things you can buy there for really dirt cheap prices: a good camera, an ipod, a DVD player, and even a bicycle. When you want to travel by road, or by air, book far ahead. By land, Megabus.com offers incredibly cheap rates. A five hour trip from St. Louis to Chicago could cost you just $1 if youbook about two months ahead. Look out for coupons. It’s America’s shopping culture/secret. Coupons will save you a lot of money. When you go to Washington in December, don’t stay back or go visiting friends in other states except those states are close by (Maryland, New York, Boston, Connecticut, Pennsylvania etc). If you have to fly to Texas on your own money, it’s not really worth it. Let your friend who’s inviting you pay half the flight, and then you may go. Else, visit states that you can get to by road, or train.

Here are the few I could come up with right now. You do not have to comply with everything, especially since I haven’t obeyed all of these rules myself faithfully. However, I felt that since you’ve been searching for information, I should be able to help from experience and observation. And now, I’ve run out of points. You may have to make up yours as you go along. Oh, and if this helps, do send me a mail or something. It’s cheaper than a gift card or a postcard. Cheers, and have fun in America.

« Older Entries Newer Entries »