ktravula – a travelogue!

Ah, Ah, I’m home.

This is nothing but freaky. I’ve living “under the bridge” for the past one and a half weeks for very good reason. The student accommodation on campus was already overwhelmed with requests when I decided to return here that there was no single spot for me or for anyone else for that matter. Don’t get me wrong. This “under the bridge” accommodation came with free breakfast, lunch and dinner, free laundry, free movie night and a ton of free goodies and pampering that I can’t quantify. It’s been a kind of overwhelming love that is not only rare, but genuine and delightful, and I can not thank the Schaefers enough for that. But trying to get back into the campus, rather than the spoilt student, mode of existence required a space among real students and it became quite an ordeal. By the time I put down my name to the list of waiting applicants, I was on number twenty or something.

What’s freaky then is the call I got from University Housing a few days ago that went like this:

“Hey, is that…”
“Yes,” I replied. “It’s me.”
“I got good news for you. I’ve found you a space on campus.”
“Really? That’s super. Where is it?”
“It’s at Cougar Village.”
“What?”
“At 431.”
“You’re kidding.”
“And at your old room. The same place you were earlier when you came here. You can move in from tomorrow.”

How it happened, I have no idea except that some mischievous spirit has put a hand in returning me to a spot of very many interesting memories. Sitting down here now on my old bed with a view of the surrounding trees, I write a post that has been dying to be written. Ah, ah, I’m home, and it feels good to be back. Now, you mischievous spirit, please show yourself now or forever remain silent. :o.

Ah, Ah, I’m home. was published on August 28th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the adventures, Fun, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 5 comments on this article so far.

The Last Cougar Village Night

My eyes are heavy in the forest of ghosts. The traveller – that’s me, actually – reclines on a soft sheetless bed. The sheets have now just arrived from the washing machine. By this time tomorrow, the bed will be empty. So will the wardrobe, living room and kitchen. This room, this building – a sponge of memories, pregnant with the mischiefs of a 10-month internship – will be empty. If it isn’t, at least I know that I won’t be here to enjoy its comforting embrace.

Funny how time flies. One day I was checking in and marvelling at a house designed just for me, when NEPA (or whatever it’s called) took power. Now I’m pulling out the sheets to leave the wonderful apartment just the way I met it – without the grapes, cookies, chocolate bars and wine, of course.

The Village itself has changed, from the brown red leaves of fall to the white wild winds of winter snow. It has evolved from a place where I almost couldn’t find my way around just after five minutes of stepping out of my apartment back in August. Now, it’s just a sprawl of land that I have learnt to call home. The peace of the lake, the mischief of the geese and the craftiness of the ugly menacing raccoon lurking by the trash can. What will I miss about this “village” the most beside the warm people, the police patrols, the bike trails and the basketball courts? Hmm, maybe the sense of safety and security that I get when I walk or sometimes cycle back home after a long day.

Of course, Cougar Village is not a village, except by the smallness of its population. By many standards, it is a small town with enough social amenities and a working government. For the rest – especially the animal population – let us write it down as an icing on an already pleasant living space cake. I think this could actually be the Eden the old folks talked much about. When I get out of here tomorrow evening. I will hope that right behind me at the gate will not be cherubs holding a flaming sword. It shall be goodbye Cougar Village, and its name will resound with me for more than a few mischievous reasons.

Photos by Ikechukwu Ohu.

The Last Cougar Village Night was published on May 9th, 2010, with the tags , , under the Observations category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

Jungle Fever

I translated a poem for my Slovenian poet and musician from English into Yoruba a few weeks ago. It was a very short but humorous piece of work. I’ve also recorded it for him in my own voice.

But while we were looking for an appropriate background sound for the poetry recital, he sent me the following:

“I put the voice of birds. This would actually stress that you read in an African language and it would give some jungle atmosphere.”

Even though the bird effect turned out pretty well in the end, I really couldn’t stop wondering about what his reasons for it really reflects. It sounds like there is definitely a wrong assumption somewhere in there. Or maybe it’s just me. There are birds in England, India and Canada too, right? If birds and the “jungle atmosphere” is enough to identify an African language, what animals would be required to make noise in the background if I were to read in an American language? A bear, perhaps? Hard rock? Or a gun shot? How far do we go until such assumptions just turn into a bunch of pointless categorizations?

It was not long ago that I discovered that many people here wouldn’t really believe that I’d never seen animals in the wild until I came to the United States. (I saw a monkey, a chimp, a gorilla, a zebra, a lion, an elephant, a camel, a fox, and an ostrich for the first time in a public zoo of what later became my University in Ibadan. I was about eight years old then. I later saw some baboons in the wild when I went to Kenya in 2005, but before then, beside dogs, chicken, cats, cattle and sheep, most of the animals I’ve seen have been in confinement.) Cougar Village alone however has a large population of deer, geese, raccoons, cats and squirrels than I’ve ever seen anywhere, walking free without confinement. And the geese are wilder than any I’ve ever seen anywhere. One day in the winter, I saw a lonely fox walking by itself on the highway close to where humans might be found walking innocently on a lonely day. Maybe Cougar Village was the kind of  jungle he meant!

Jungle Fever was published on April 14th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy, Travelling category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.