ktravula – a travelogue!

A Mean Day

Today started very early, and promising. I had woken up very many times in the night in order to drive the current visiting scholars to the airport. They are visiting Washington DC for the first time for the Fulbright conference. I knew the feeling of anticipation that attends such an important experience. Less than a year ago, I was on the plane eastwards on the same mission across the country. Now, an older (and hopefully wiser) man, I volunteered to drive them to the airport perhaps in order to relive some of the excitement. Eventually, after waking up the umpteenth time, I realized that I’d had enough sleep. I got up and set out. It was seven in the morning. The flight of the first one of them was billed for nine thirty. We had underestimated the traffic situation in our neighbouring state.

A news camera set up at around the bridge. I found this by error while looking for where to turn around.

A few minutes later at seven thirty, we reached a detour. The interstate highway was closed and the only way to get to the airport was to take another route, which ordinarily would have got us there in twenty minutes. After about three miles, we ran into a traffic situation that brought me thousand kilometres away from the scene of the annoying stretch of ice-capped cars on the Missouri road. I was back in Lagos, on the Third Mainland Bridge. It was morning on a Monday morning and the only available space for movement was just an inch, and if we got lucky, a foot, then a stop for another three minutes. The cycle repeated itself for as long as possible until you got to work, late. It was my first experience with bad road traffic. Back to the present, it was about eight twenty.

Thirty minutes, very many exasperated sighs, plenty discomforts and pretend conversation easing topics later, we got off that stretch of road finally and headed out to the airport. The traveller needed at least thirty minutes to get to the airport before his flight. The distance from home to the airport was supposed to have been thirty-five minutes at the most. We got down at ten past nine, and rushed into the terminal. We were late, as were about four other people. The attendant staff were courteous but unyielding. “You have to be here thirty minutes before. No buts.” They scanned the machine for available flights and put my friend on one to leave at twelve thirty. He didn’t mind. It wasn’t as if he had a choice. Then we went to the tables, sat down and started talking about everything under the sun. I had my eye on the car outside just in case a cop showed up and wondered why it was left attended. He did. The car bad been there for about two hours.

There was a ticket on it already, and he was just getting into his car. “Are you the owner of this car sir?” “Yes.” “Can I see your license?” “Here sir.” “Can you read that sign over there?” Sigh. The sign read Vehicles should not be left unattended. For the first time, I also heard the announcement on the PA that said in two minutes intervals: Cars left unattended will be ticketed and towed. “I was already getting ready to get it towed” the officer said. I looked at the ticket and hoped that the soft unassuming look on my face would earn me a slap on the wrist and a pardon, being a first time offence. Nope. He was already leaving. “You have to pay that before thirty days or you’d lose your license,” he said, and moved to the next car. Now I had a dilemma, get out of the car back into the terminal to say bye to my friend, or to go home. I waited it out for ten minutes, hoping at least that said friend would come out towards me. He didn’t notice, probably, so he didn’t. The cop did however, with a mean look on his face. I moved, and headed home.

Not yet over, I got back on the road and found myself back eventually at the interstate closure. It was time for another long roundabout rerouting through a series bad roads and empty countrysides and through Alton in order to get into campus on time for the first time today. It was almost one o clock. What a day.

Update: I have now found out the cause of the closure. A petrol tanker had run into a stationary car on the bridge, killed a man and set parts of the bridge on fire. That was why by the time I returned home, a few people who had heard about the news on the radio had been frantically looking for me, praying that I was not the victim. Now I have to worry about paying the darn ticket! On the bright side, look at how many pictures I took, even in my state of distress.

Save the Mark Twain Museum

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my visit to the Mark Twain Boyhood home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri. What I didn’t say was what I didn’t know then: that the facility is underfunded and is in need of serious renovation to bring it to standard. The management of the museum have for a while been raising money through very many ingenious means (one of which was promising to get the names of donors on the famous white-washed fence in front of the home. I did that, by the way. If you ever find yourself there, try to look for my name and the name of this blog on the white fence). Yet it seemed that it won’t get the job done as fast as needed.

Enter Pepsi.

Since the beginning of this year (or God knows since when far back), Pepsi has been giving money to great ideas worthy of monetary support. All they ask for is that the idea be good, and that people vote for it. They have been funding ideas every month to the tune of $1.3 million: (2 Grants at the $250,000 level; 10 Grants at the $50,000 level; 10 Grants at the $25,000 level; and 10 Grants at the $5,000 level.) The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum is one of this month’s contestants for the $250,000 level which would be given only to two great ideas. Their standing as I write this post is #19. Voting ends on December 31st. That is 25 days away.

Now this is what I hope you’d do for me, as very loyal blog readers. Go to this page, and vote. It will take only two minutes for you to register and vote. And voting is free – of course. All I ask for is your time. And in return, I promise to drive back there at some point next year to write about what new things are taking place at the Mark Twain Museum. I also promise to visit downtown Hannibal rather than just the museum, and send beautiful KTravula postcards to some random blog readers, signed of course by the blogger. When you finish voting, please tell your friends to do the same. There’s nothing worse than getting so close to the mark and then falling off to the ground. I believe that the $250,000 will go a long way to save the museum (and perhaps reduce entrance tickets for future visitors too.)

Please vote as many times as you can from now till December 31st. Thank you very much. Alright now, off you go, please. Thank you.

Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, is the author of many books including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, all inspired by his life in the Hannibal countryside village by the Mississippi river.

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

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