Reflections

Hello friends,

It's been a while. I've been working, travelling, juggling motherhood with everything else on my plate, so it does happen that updating my blog takes a back seat sometimes. But I do miss having a journal, and I want to reignite that small but important aspect of my life. Actually, what I really miss, is writing in a diary, with a pen and having hours of time to myself to just scribble down my thoughts uninterrupted. But in this stage of life I'm in, time is such a luxury, so I'll have to make do with blogging once in a while. Hmmm.

I travelled to Nigeria in March and returned to the UK in August with my family. We were based in Port Harcourt for the four months, with a couple of trips to Lagos. I have to say that it was one very weird and eye-opening experience for many reasons. We are considering moving back sometime in the future, so this was a trip to "test the waters" and see what it would be like. But by the end of the trip, I returned to London with very mixed feelings. 

Some aspects of the trip were funny. I experienced culture shock, as usual, even though I still went back to visit in 2012. Upon arriving, the simplest things struck me as different. Seeing people carrying lots of cash around to pay for goods. Seeing people immediately count any amount of cash you give to them. Seeing Nigerians everywhere I looked (living in multicultural London, you see such a variety of nationalities). Seeing the huge and very obvious gap between the rich and poor. And so on. But for my three year-old, it was very amusing to watch her adjusting to a very different life from what she knew. For example, the fist time the electricity went off, she came to me and started apologising. She thought I had turned off the TV because I was upset with her. I laughed and laughed and after trying to explain that "sometimes the light goes off in Nigeria", seeing her confused face just made me laugh some more. She saw a cockroach for the first time and asked me, "What animal is this?", more laughter. We took a walk down the street and saw some muddy gutters and she said "Mummy, look! There are puddles in the road." Oh dear.

Now, actually living in Nigeria was unsettling. I think, in the past when I went back for visits, I didn't fully immerse myself in the day-to-day things that people did, so that didn't affect me. Or maybe because I was usually only staying a few weeks, so it was just a case of "I'll be out of here soon" so I tended to overlook a lot of things. But after a while, certain things about Nigerian society become obvious. The police. Where do I start from? The terrible customer service. Again, legendary. The roads, the lack of constant electricity, and the simplest things that I used to take for granted. The government? Who? Sigh. The religious fanaticism that is simple unbelievable. The level of dishonesty. The terrible work ethic. Then, the culture. The culture! At some point, I began to wonder if I had really grown up in Nigeria. Or if I had changed so much, that Nigeria was now a foreign place to me. I actually started doing research, asking people lots of questions, and taking notes so that I could understand my own people again. In fact, I started watching Nollywood films everyday, because I wanted to know (or remember again) what was normal and acceptable in Nigerian society. And what I found was (mostly) not pretty. In fact, a lot of things were downright disturbing. For one, the immense pressure on Nigerian females to suppress themselves and fit into a mould of cultural expectations was quite alarming. I didn't understand it for a long time, why some of the ladies based in Nigeria that I interact with online had some weird ideas about relationships, marriage, sexuality, ambitions, etc. But after returning to Nigeria, I started to understand. Then, realising how much misogyny and patriarchy is so deeply rooted in normal day to day life, made me bristle. I wondered, how do women put up with this? How do they cope? How do they not question these things? 

Case in point: I was watching a Yoruba Nollywood movie with my niece. One of the characters mentioned a proverb, "Omo to da, ti baba e ni, omo ti o da, ti iya re ni" which translates to "A good child belongs to the father, but a bad child belongs to the mother." Immediately I heard it, I was like "Why? WHY does the father get credit for a good child, and why does the mother get blame for a bad child? Aren't they jointly responsible for the upbringing of their children? Why doesn't the mother get any credit if the child turns out good? Or am I missing something here?" My niece tried to explain the proverb by saying that it means a woman has to do everything she can to make sure her child is not bad. But then, I argue, so what is the father doing? If a child is becoming bad, does he sit and fold his arms? That led to a long argument and discussion, and in the end, I realised that women in Nigeria have a very long way to go.

I could rant so much about so many other examples that I came across, but I wonder if it would make any difference. Maybe a little. Anyway I read an article on Sabi News by Joy Bewaji (click here to read) that sums up a lot of what I saw. The article is witty and funny but also very very sad. A year ago, I would have been naive enough to believe that she was exaggerating, but now I know better.

Well, the upside of going to Nigeria is that there is plenty of inspiration for crazy flash fiction stories (lol). Stuff that would strike people as unbelievable happen every day in Nigeria. You don't have to look far to see, hear or experience drama. So hopefully, when I need inspiration, I can dig into my Nigerian experience and come up with something. I'm hoping to publish another collection of flash fiction stories before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I've been busy working on Accomplish Press. We've completely redesigned the website and updated our publishing focus and services for writers. If you're interested in taking your ideas from inside your head to books reaching your audience, then check us out @ Accomplish Press. We can help make your publishing dreams come true. We're also co-hosting an event for writers in London in November, and I'll be sharing more details about that soon.

If you're still reading this blog post, thanks for staying with me. I appreciate it and I hope you'll leave a comment. Or two. Or come back again. Cheers and have a great weekend!

On Life: My Summer Break

Hubby and I have been travelling to some cities in Europe, then we've had family and friends coming and going because of the summer holidays, there have also been places to go, people to see, four weddings, two birthday parties and all the other social events that increase when the weather is nice. I never thought I would say this, but I really can't wait until the holidays are over and things get back to normal so I can resume my usual routine.

The travelling has been fun though! I've definitely enjoyed lots of quality time for hubby and I to reconnect, away from the pressures of work and everything else. We've been to Eindhoven, Bremen and Paris in the past three weeks, and the lovely memories will last a life time. I finally went on the Eurostar that I had been hearing so much about, finally got to see the Eiffel Tower. Sorry I'm feeling too lazy to sort through the photos and upload them.

When I've had some downtime, I've been catching up on my reading, which is good cos I need to keep myself inspired. I've recently read two fiction novels, The Pirate's Daughter and The Outcast, and two non-fiction books: Love and Respect and One Love, Two Colours (this one I particularly enjoyed cos it was very personal but also thought provoking). It was great to be reading again. In the busyness of everyday I sometimes forget how much I love reading, how good it feels to be so absorbed in a good book that you lose track of time, how much books have the power to change your mind and even challenge your beliefs. I used to enjoy reading books, magazines or newspapers on the commute but now I have to remind myself to pick up a book occasionally.

Have a great weekend and remain favoured.

On Life: Trip to Ghana

I finally got round to writing this post, after procrastinating for weeks. It's been sitting around in my drafts for a while, but I must warn you though, it's quite a long post.

When my dad suggested to my sisters and I that we should visit Ghana during our holidays, we were all really excited and up for it. I thought it was a great idea because I hadn’t visited any other African country before, and it would give me a chance to meet up with my friend from uni, who was also home in Accra for the Christmas break. Initially, I thought we were going to fly, but my dad suggested we should take the car instead. After some persuasion, I thought it would be fun. The whole journey took us about 12 hours – going from Lagos to Accra, and then another couple of hours to get to Elmina, a historical town along the coast. We stayed in Elmina for two nights and then spent another night in Accra.

Our journey began early in the morning at 7.00am. We wanted to set out of Lagos early so that we could get to Ghana before night. Our first stop was at a petrol station to fill our tank to the brim, then we headed towards Badagry. It took us about two hours to get to Seme, which is the border between Nigeria and Benin Republic. The border was bustling with people, as travellers mingled with traders and hawkers. There was also a brisk trade in currency exchange going on, as people needed different currencies to trade between borders. Crossing the border was relatively smooth. We had to get some documents to take the car out of the country, then customs officials asked to check our luggage and made a few other checks and within thirty minutes, we passed through “no man’s land” (which is the small space between the two official borders) and crossed into Benin Republic.

It was my first time entering another African country and I was curious so I paid attention as the car drove into Cotonou. The first thing I noticed was that there didn’t seem to be as many flashy cars on the road in Benin, compared with Lagos. All the cars we saw were small or moderate cars. We saw the usual mobile phone networks – Glo, MTN and the like – had a big presence in Benin too, with recharge cards sold at road sides. We were surprised when we saw ladies riding bikes! But our driver explained that in Benin, bikes are not just for public transport, people also used motorbikes as their means of private transportation.

The public riders wear a visibility vest to distinguish them from private riders. They also have a lane for bikes on their roads which is really useful, so they don’t run into the path of cars, like the riders do in Lagos. Apart from that, the only other notable difference was the French language. I could take a photo in Cotonou and if you didn’t know, you would not be able to tell that I was outside Nigeria.

We journeyed on, passing through Cotonou and driving towards the other side of the country. We passed a number of small towns and villages on the way. Our journey through Benin was relatively uneventful, we ate snacks we bought at the border and watched the countryside as we drove by. The next border we had to cross was the Benin-Togo border. Again, we had to go through the documentation checks, the driver had to fill out paperwork for the car and so on. While we were waiting, I started to take photos, but I was told that it was illegal to take photos at the border and if an official saw me, my camera would be seized! I promptly put my camera and snap-happy finger away until we had crossed into Togo. Here are some photos I managed to take:
Togo is quite a small country and it took us less than an hour to get across it. We drove mostly along the coastline and we could see the Atlantic ocean and the nice beaches.



We soon got to the Togo-Ghana border and again had to go through a time-consuming process of getting paperwork for the car, then customs checked our luggage again. Eventually we were clear to go and we got into the border town of Aflao. The road was a bit rough for a few miles but it was under constriction so we soon left the bad bit behind and enjoyed a smooth ride into Accra. We passed by several police and customs check points on the way, checking that we had the right documentations, and checking our luggage time and time again. I have to say though, that I thought the police in Ghana had a friendly attitude that Nigerian ones don’t have!

We took a short break before we entered into Accra, stopping at a filling station to stretch our feet and buy a few snacks from the small supermarket. My sister had an MTN sim card, and we had been told it would work in Ghana so we had loaded it with enough credit before we left home. We were glad and surprised to realise that it cost less to call Nigeria from Ghana, than making calls within Nigeria!

Around 7pm we got into Accra, just before it started getting dark. We drove past Accra Mall (the equivalent of Palms Mall in Lagos), the Presidential residence, a busy market (I can’t remember the name) and a few other places of interest. I noticed that the traffic was orderly, the streets of Accra were very clean, all the traffic lights worked, and there were very few bikes on the roads. We didn’t stop because we still had a journey of almost 130 kilometres to cover before we get to Elmina. Some photos of Accra:

We arrived at Elmina around 9pm, by this time it was already dark so we couldn't see much of the coastal town. We went straight to our hotel, where we checked in. We were given the family suite which was really nice. We all had a shower and ordered dinner from the restaurant. The menu was good – we had fried rice with a really nice chicken and vegetable stew, as well as beans and fried plantain. After dinner, my sisters and I started watching a Nollywood movie but before long, we turned it off and went to bed.

The next morning, we got up bright and early and had breakfast in a nice chalet by the beach, which was part of the resort we were staying in. Some photos of the resort:

We left the resort with my dad’s friend who is a tour operator, to see the main attraction in this part of Ghana which is Elmina Castle. It’s one of the many forts built by the Portuguese when they first came to Africa to establish trade links. But in the 17th century it became a depot for the transatlantic slave trade and its dungeons housed many slaves captured from all over West Africa to be shipped to the Americas. (You can read more about the castle and it's history here).

We were taken round the castle by a tour guide. The tour included a history of the castle and its links with the slave trade. It was a very informative experience for me personally because although I had heard a lot about the slave trade, seeing the castle and images in the museum really brought it to life. It seemed almost impossible to believe that such things actually happened but the evidence was right there for us to see.

After the tour at Elmina, we went to the museum to see some of the items and exhibits of the town and the slave trade era. We left Elmina Castle, and took a short drive to Cape Coast to see Cape Coast Castle too. This castle was also purpose built for the slave trade and one fact that the tour guide pointed out to us was that the castle had dungeons for male slaves on one level and a church right above it! In those days, the slave masters still attended church services and called themselves Christians. I was wondering what they did to silence their conscience and perpetuate such wicked acts against their fellow human beings. I spent quite a long time in the museum at Cape Coast castle digesting a lot of information about the slave trade and its impact on Africa and history. There was a lot more information and artifacts at Cape Coast than Elmina Castle, but if anyone is interested in the history, I would recommend a tour of both. Here are some pics I took at Cape Coast:

I won't bore you with all the other grisly details that I saw and heard about during the tour of both castles, but its a trip I would recommend to everyone who wants to know more about Black history. At the end of that day, my sister mentioned that it made her appreciate the presidency of Barack Obama even more.
The rest of our holiday went well, the next day we visited Fort St. Jago before we left Elmina and went to Accra. We had fun in Accra, hanging out with two of our friends who took us to lunch, a short tour of the city and chilled out in a nice bar afterwards. By the time we got back to our hotel it was very late. And because we had to get up early in the morning, we decided to call it a night.
The next morning, we packed our stuff into the car and began the long drive back to Lagos. In all, it was a lovely experience and I would definitely visit Ghana again, but next time I'll fly!