ktravula – a travelogue!

It’s Global Warming, Stupid!

I’ve found out that it’s not so cold here after all. Don’t get me wrong, three degrees cold is cold indeed, but coming out of my apartment this morning, I found out that I have indeed been in this kind of cold weather before, and it was neither in Europe nor in the Arctic, but in Nigeria. In Ibadan, to be clear.

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You see, I’ve been having these repressed memories of my childhood brought back. And no, they don’t include memories of a sibling or step-father or any form of touching in the wrong places. I do vividly remember now that while I was younger, it used to be very cold at some times of the year that we always had to wear thick clothing in order to go out. There were times when it rained ice, and it was too cold even to venture out to dance in the rain. As I smell this post-rain atmosphere in Edwardsville, I realize that I’ve indeed been here before, in this cold, in this temperature. I have not seen snow before, and there is no doubt that I will get to see some this year, but what is clear to me beyond reasonable doubt is that I have experienced up to three degrees cold before. In Nigeria, so many years ago. So what happened? Why is it that today at home, everyone sweats profusely and curses the fact that the heat has become so generally unbearable? Yes, you got it. It’s the global warming!

The really memorable thing about this startling discovery is that I did not notice it while I was in Nigeria. There, everything always seemed perfectly normal, even though once in a while, we’d hear someone remark “Oh, it was never always this hot. I wonder what is happening!” And now, I have a perfect explanation for the reason why everyone in my family looked fairer in complexion in all of their baby pictures.

It’s Global Warming, Stupid! was published on October 12th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

It’s Been Twenty

On a cold September night in 1989, an extra ordinary event happened in a brick house in Akobo, Ibadan, a memory of which that I’ve never lost.

It was father’s fourty-sixth birthday, and we had all gathered at night as usual on the large sofa in the sitting room, surrounding him and listening to stories and the many songs father sang to us. It was a cheerful moment, one of the many that I remembered that took place every night after he returned from work. It always took place on the big leather sofa, and as there was not often electric power, but a glow of a kerosene lamp or sometimes none at all. The beauty of the room was often from the glow of our spirits as we learned from the stories and songs. It was always a priceless moment.

This day however became memorable not because it was his birthday, but because a little shortly into the evening of singing and happy birthday revelry, my grandmother passed away. She had been bed-ridden for a while before then, but it was of an eerily moving significance that she had chosen the night of her son’s birthday to depart from the world, and the coming days would witness a deluge of guests and well wishers who knew her both as a storyteller and as a deeply reflective woman. I do remember a few of my times with Mama as she was fondly called by all, but a few of those instances included some rascality on my part as well. I do vividly remember the day that I took off with a pack of Chocomilo chocolate cubes from her wooden selling counter, in order  to retaliate for something she had done to tick me off. My defence was that she deserved to be so punished because I didn’t deserve the flogging she had given me earlier, and that I deserved the sweets for myself anyway since I was a little boy without money to buy it.

Mama always had a long cane to deal with errant children. She also always had a story to tell, or a song to sing. From my earliest memories, I knew her as a fascinating human being who also made the most delicious efo riro whenever we came back from school hungry. I loved her, but back then as a rascally young boy almost on his way out of primary school, I couldn’t have put it this way, not exactly knowing what love meant besides writing fictive love stories about my primary school crush and other romantic interests. I only knew that she was there when we wanted her to, especially when we were about to get a deserved beating from either mum or dad, to intervene, and pacify them. I surely wasn’t prepared for her departure, having known her for such a little time.

Today, I remember my grandmother. It has been twenty years, and the vivid, and often distant memory of her remains with us, especially – I’m sure – her son, whose birthday today will always be a day to remember, and the celebrate the extraordinary gift of life, and love. Here’s to two extraordinary people in my life whose blood runs in me and whose stories I carry, and who by being themselves gave me a tremendous opportunity and mandate to always, always know, and discover myself. Because of who they are, here I am. It is a circle of life.

Happy birthday father.

I remember you Mama.

It’s Been Twenty was published on September 19th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 12 comments on this article so far.