“You aren’t really 60. Just 21 with 39 years experience!”
Since there are really no words to say how much I wish I was there to rejoice with you, I will only wish you the best of your 6oth birthday. Happy Birthday mum. You are a treasure, and I wish you many happy returns of the day, with joy and blessing from all of us who love you: Agama, Lara, Bukky, Yemi, me, Laitan, Deola, Jolaade, Henry, Oyin, Subomi, and that cute last one whose name I don’t yet know. And all cousins from far and wide.
Considering how much you beat the living shit out of me while we were growing up, even for the filmsiest reasons, 😀 please consider this form of public greeting a mild recompense for all those fun times. Sorry, the plane ticket to Britain is beyond me at this moment, or I’d have come over to deliver these cards myself* ;). You’re my only brother after all – as far as I know (haha), and it would have been fun to catch up. But heck, have a blast with your family. I wish you the very best on this your special day. May the rest of your days be the best of your days!
* Besides, even if I somehow make it through to Heathrow Airport, those buggers at the airport entry points would still take one look at my Nigerian passport as they did the last time I had ambitiously marched towards them (on landing after my connecting flight from Lagos in August) and told them that I wanted to spend my five idle hours on the streets of London shopping, looking at stores, parks, red phone booths and double decked buses , and tell me with the stiffest upper lip I’ve ever seen, that “You hold a Nigerian Passport. We cannot let you in… Yes I see that you have an American visa on it, and a ticket that says you’d be moving from here in five hours, but that’s the law here, thank you… Anything else I can do for you?” Damn them! I wonder how you survive. Here’s what my friend George Orwell the British had to say: “Soon or late the day is coming… (that) the fruitful fields of England shall be trod by beasts alone.” Ah-ha, there you have it. I wish you the best of luck. Happy Birthday Brother!
As excerpted from the list of Yoruba proverbs researched, translated and submitted by students of my foreign language class in their first homework assignments back in August.
Blog Question: Can you tell what the original Yoruba version of these proverbs are, and what they mean in simple, non-proverbial 21st century English?
(Picture source: the cover of a greeting card I received during my birthday last September)
Here are a few new things buzzing in ktravula’s universe at the moment.
A Travula Interview
Last week, I sat down for an e-interview with a Nigerian-based literary blog Bookaholic for questions ranging from my influences to opinions on matters of literacy in Nigeria as well as my impressions about the Fulbright FLTA programme. If you ask me those same questions tomorrow, there is no doubt that I might answer them a little differently. When I was asked about my most treasured possession, my first choice of response was “My brain, then my laptop, iPod, camera, and bicycle – in that order.” Check out the interview here, and please leave comments if you can..
Frank Warren at SIUE
What would a man once referred to as “The Most Trusted Stranger in America”, Frank Warren of PostSecret.com and Postsecret.blogspot.com be coming to do at SIUE as a guest speaker on the 29th September? That’s the big secret (no pun intended). “PostSecret is a sight that originated from a community art project based on a simple concept: asking people to anonymously send a secret on a decorated postcard. Since November 2004, Warren has received more than 400,000 postcards, with secrets spanning from sexual taboos and criminal activity to confessions of secret beliefs, hidden acts of kindness, shocking habits and fears.” I have been the website, and seen some really weird, quirky, funny and revealing secrets of people pasted anonymously there. What drives a man that handles such a project that encourages people to tell it all? How does he sleep at night? He’s surely gonna be an intriguing person to hear, and I look forward to the programme. Is there something particularly you want to know about him and about PostSecret? Send them to me.
A Birthday Wish
It’s my birthday on Tuesday the 22nd, and I’m trying my hands on selflessness. I’ve made a little birthday wish: to help raise money for cancer research. There are too many causalities for a disease that should by now have got a cure. Check out the donations page on Facebook Causes here, where you can donate whatever you can afford to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
For my birthday, I intend to spend the evening at Rudy’s place in company of a few international students as well as some American friends. I don’t have recollection of many personal birthday party celebrations while I was growing up, but I do have a few pictures though that show evidence of such a time when I was allowed to have child moments with my young friends and playmates, eating cakes and candy and being generally jolly, but I don’t remember any of those times. I was too young to remember. Birthday was synonymous with partying, and cakes, and it was always called “the Birthday” (or “Baiday/byeday,” depending on how many tooth gaps are in the mouth of the little kids doing the pronunciation). Rudy has promised cakes, food and drinks. Oh well, I can’t complain. One day in the future, I’d look back at the very few birthday pictures I have, and say: “Oh yes indeed, I was young and fun once.”
