ktravula – a travelogue!

I Hate Big Cities

Maybe I should just say I hate cities because Lagos is not such a big city (except by population) yet it has succeeded in riling me up enough to write this while battling headache and fever induced no less by a few days of activities in its rowdy belly. There is always an underlying assumption by residents of cities, I now believe, that they live in a concrete jungle and that the only way to survival is to live by the jungle rules. I talk of noise, of course, and a general rowdiness that always, always disorientate, or at best push one to a resolve never ever to return to that scene of madness except in a cocoon that blots out the noise, the long traffic, and the general lawlessness on the road of stressed office workers trying to get home in time for the latest edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I bet New York is like that too. Darn, count me out for now. I’m going back home to take paracetamol and some malaria drugs, and then to bed.

I Hate Big Cities was published on August 14th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Meanderings

The task of making comparisons between states and towns along the roads to the North of Nigeria would soon inevitably fall on anyone undertaking a task of going around the country – Africa’s largest by population. Are there much differences in population, order, electricity, internet access, and a general sense of well-being? Are we that much different after all no matter where we choose to live, or do we differ only because we speak different languages or pray to a different invisible man than the other person? The answers are not that difficult if only we apply ourselves to discovering it.

The young man in whose house I slept for two days in Kaduna finished from the University in Zaria in 2005 and served in the same year in Edo State. I had never met or spoken with him until that night when I showed up at his door with another friend and asked to stay overnight for the period of my footloose tour of his state. The young man at the motor park who negotiated by bike ride with the hausa-speaking rider within my first five minutes of arriving in the state was of the same breed. Oblivious of the fact that we had indeed been in the same car through the ride from Abuja to Kaduna and never haven spoken even once, he gladly got me towards the right direction, all for a handshake, “thank you” and a goodbye smile. Human goodness, I say.

In countless meanderings around places around the world, I have encountered the same kind of optimism and open-heartedness even from random strangers, and it has never ceased to amaze, and to delight. If only we could all live together as one, all the days of the year. While eating lunch yesterday and getting prepared to head out, there was the news flash on television that nine (or ten, depending on who you ask) people have again been killed in a fresh case of violence in the city of Jos. Over what? Religion?

Of all the things that should cause violence, shouldn’t religion in a sane world be the least relevant, especially since none of us is really sure? But what do we have? Moslems pray to Allah to help them destroy their enemies, and sometimes even lend him a hand. Christians sometimes do the same, praying for God’s help to vanquish the unbelievers. To paraphrase George Carlin, one of these groups would be fucking disappointed. Could it be… everyone? Is love for neighbour so hard to conjur in a world where we have succeeded in dominating nature and pretty much everything else?

Forgive my rant, all I wanted to say was that I love what I see in most of everywhere I have been around the country. Kaduna reminds me of Ibadan, but not in every way. Ibadan is too rowdy, and so is Kaduna city, with rickety buses and loud bus conductors who speak only the local language. But as far as scerenity is concerned, Ibadan has much much less open land areas along the highways than Kaduna does, and politically, my city seems far less mature. End of rant.

Meanderings was published on July 18th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy, Travelling category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Blank Head Rants

“No one can ever know for sure what a deserted area looks like.” – George Carlin

I honestly, honestly have nothing to blog about today. Ask me, I can’t wait for January to be over with. It’s the longest month of the year, especially because it follows an already long festive one of December. February however is the shortest month, which is nice, except you are a compulsive blogger who has to write up to fourty-six interesting articles in a month.

What I intend to do in this short post then is to tell you the response to my so called “Charity Work”. It is interesting to see the responses so far, which is to me quite encouraging. We already have $100 pledged to Jos, Nigeria; I think. And today, Thursday, I will be making out the said photograph to send to the said donor who lives in Dolton, Illinois but wants to remain anonymous as soon as I receive the proof of said donation. There are two other pledges from contributors to this blog, and I thank them, Yemi and Tayo. Needless to say, it’s not sufficient. It is not the best we can do.

In a similar vein, I wrote a letter to the Fulbright Organization yesterday informing them of the project, and to the coordinator of the Haiti relief effort at my University. I haven’t received a response from either of them. What I hope to do in the next week is to hold an exhibition, if possible, of some of these photographs on campus. What I’m afraid of is that students may not have that much money to spare, adults who can spare may have already donated to Haiti. So for all its worth, if that ever happens, it will be more of my opportunity to showcase my work rather than to raise money. In any case, I’d be glad to explore the opportunity. Day by day, the pictures look better and better to me. I didn’t know that I’d taken so many shots in this little period of time.

If you’re interested in buying the works in this effort to raise money for Jos, Nigeria; and the country of Haiti, please head here for more information. I will try to keep the offer open until the end of my Fulbright Programme in May, if I can. From then on, you will have to pay heavily to buy them, by which time they would have become a collector’s item, even if I say so myself 🙂

SOMETHING ELSE: I heard that Apple has finally come out with it’s new tablet, and they have chosen no other name to call it than the iPad. The obviously flawed marketing strategy has now spurned so many spoofs and parodies on twitter since yesterday. The product was actually called the iTampon by pranksters in the extreme of it. What worried me the most why Mr Jobs hadn’t considered the fact that the iPad uses the very same sound patterns as the iPod, at least in Americans English. How will listeners be able to tell them apart? This may as well be a failure of language sensitivity as it is a failure of marketing. My two cents.

Blank Head Rants was published on January 28th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , , , under the Art, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 7 comments on this article so far.