The Watchman

A glass cup placed on a wall, with one’s ear then placed on it, can not help isolate one from the sounds around so that the voices behind the wall can be heard. I proved this eavesdropping tactic to be a myth, as I tried, twice, to hear the sounds behind my uncle’s bedroom wall with a glass cup. But I heard nothing. I was curious to hear those sounds that my mind envisioned filled my uncle’s room. In that time of my life, with confidence, sometimes blind simmering in me, I was certain that there had to be the moaning of the woman under my uncle, or him releasing a groan on reaching some point. It was hunger, a ravenous brand of hunger that engulfed me, as I desired to hear even the creaking of the bed, my uncle and his woman lay on, or the tussle of their intertwined legs. But I never heard anything, but the silence that echoed back from my uncle’s bedroom wall.

There was the day my uncle strolled into the living room with the same woman he had brought over, a few days before. I, with my back on the throw pillow that had animated images of Polar Bears and clover leaves imprinted on it, stood up, on seeing my uncle walk in with the woman. Of course, I did not rise as though I was acknowledging the presence of a superior or commandant, but I stood up because, on seeing the woman, I suddenly realized that the manner I lay on the throw pillow with my right foot on my left knee, made me look childish, innocuous. I greeted my uncle and the woman, and then she giggled.

“I am Cordelia, remember I was here four days ago”

I shook my head, remembering her and how she had come into the living room and could not stop gaping at the Arabic words inscribed on the flower vases my mother had bought from Dubai. I remembered her very well, but confused her name with the girl, my uncle had sneaked into the house,the night before. The girl, or should I say very young woman, had short curly hair that was slightly above the length that the girls at the Government college were meant to keep. From the way that her skin gleamed a dark black different from those of the other girls in the estate, it seemed it had been coated and cast with coal and then oiled. I had first seen her when she came to fetch some water from our house, during the one week power outage in our estate in Port Harcourt. She carried a plastic white Jerry can on her head, with a cloth rolled into a spiral separating her head from the Jerry can's abrasive bottom. The white Jerry can leaked and so caused a trail of water to stream down the groove in her back visible under her white blouse. Her name was Ini and she was the housemaid of the family in the estate who owned less than two cars.

My uncle after waiting patiently for Cordelia to end her conversation with me, ordered her, jovially, yet not discarding his authority, to come over with him to his bedroom. I turned my head away from them, trying to hint that although I knew what went on in the bedroom, I had no interest, whatsoever, with what they did. Of course, this was fallacy. With them gone, I went back to my childish position on the throw pillow, switched on the television and then looked away from it. Music from MTV invaded my ears, as I looked up at the ceiling. It was somewhere in between my gawking at the perforations in the ceiling and glancing at the music video , that an idea, or more aptly, scheme occurred to me. But come to think of it, it was not really a scheme; it was only a thoughtful idea to let my uncle, who was busy in his un-shut bedroom, know that I was leaving for a friend’s house. Rising from the throw pillow, I concluded that it was only polite and respectful that I let my uncle know my plans for the day. And so I walked up to his bedroom door, and with two swift, three-second, yet revering knocks on it, I opened the door.

One would think that with the anticipation that I had of not only hearing, but also seeing what went on in my uncle’s bedroom, the first thing that I would have sensed would have been an image, something for my mind to capture and immediately store, for future viewing and relishing. But my first sensory perceptions had been auditory. It was my name that I heard first, before my eyes saw any thing.

“ Baddy, Badero” my uncle called out to me, his voice trembling.

“I’m going out now, I needed to let you know, in case you were looking for me. Sorry” I said averting his stunned gaze, and Cordelia's under him

I closed the door. I rushed out to the terrace and placed on my slippers. Throughout this time, my mind was not cluttered, but free like an open grassland with sparse trees, each of the sparse, spiny trees being the images of things my eyes saw around the terrace and my mind usurped and stored. It was not until I left the house and stood in front of the gate of my friend’s house, that my mind, without my control, began to play the images that it had saved from my uncle’s bedroom. There had been the burgundy silk cloth that had covered my uncle from the small of his back to his knees and had shielded part of Cordelia’s breasts. The veins on my uncle’s forehead were enlarged and more visible like the fibrous roots of Palms trees that reached close to the soil surface and bulged out. Cordelia’s face had been turned away to the wall, and so I could only see her garish red weave and how it had a similar hue to the reddish brown of her neck like the shaft of groundnuts. I saw one side of Cordelia’s unclothed buttock, and how it had formed cascading folds where it pressed on the bed. My uncle had not yelled out to me or spat pejorative Yoruba words at me or ordered me to get out of the room. He had only shook his head, still on top of Cordelia and replied to my thoughtfulness

“I have heard you. Thanks”

In this place where grey iron poles and chipped pillars evenly separated, hold up three storey buildings, I often wonder if what I saw in my uncle’s room on that day lead to my presence here. When I search through the dim, dusty archive of mind, I often wonder if my adolescent curiosity which fomented the other yearnings to see and hear what happened when a man and a woman were isolated from the rest of the world in their shut rooms, made me dismiss and reject offers from other universities, both here and abroad. Was my sudden curiosity in religion and the desire to attend a Seminary a way of dismantling the burdening guilt I might have felt on humiliating my uncle, and most especially Cordelia? Perhaps it did not end there with my uncle and Cordelia, and that me being in the seminary was a way of atoning for the sin I committed when I peered through half-shut doors, hid in
wardrobes, just to see those couples going at it. But that could not be, as I did not, or ever did feel that kind of guilt that people claimed festers in and corrodes one’s insides. And sin, its very concept was something that I never did accept to feel heavy whenever I did something that others considered sinful. In that case, if my being in the Seminary was not a means of seeking divine redemption, then it certainly was my route of escape.

In the seminary school here in Owerri, the routines are, at first difficult, sometimes inane to follow, but as one lives here, the routines become a second nature. At night, fluorescent bulbs, with insects congregating in front of them, light the verandas where students stroll to study rooms. The white light from the bulbs illuminate the Ixora hedges and Frangipani trees that line the front of the
verandas. The white Cassocks of prudish and reputation-conscious students and off white of the less-hygienic ones gleams when the white light showers on them. The white light of the fluorescent bulbs is essential to the boys here in the seminary, because out into the field and surroundings exists an enveloping kind of darkness, since the lamps are usually not switched on when the generator is in use.
But for those boys who engage in clandestine activities, the darkness is often a relief and shield from the predatory eyes of the head boy and housemasters.

I am a Seminarian and an altar server here in St. Barnabas. Not with the intent of sounding self-ingratiating, unlike the other altar servers who were selected for their father’s position in the church, I was chosen for my remarkable academic performance and outstanding self composure. On Sunday mass, that some other students complain of being dreary but I find immensely engrossing, I assist Father
Andrews in performing the Eucharist. With his back to me, I hold out the Paten containing the flaky, cracker-tasting body of Christ. Father Andrews inured to the routine of the Eucharist, does it a robotic manner, uttering the creed, as though not thinking of it or even realizing that he is saying it. He places the bread
on the lips of the communicant, places the grail containing wine on their mouths and then wipes away the spit or lip marks with a kerchief. If one does look at Father Andrews and sheds off, from one’s eyes, those misty scales of reverence accorded to priests, one sees disillusionment in Father Andrews’ eyes. His disillusionment seems not to sprout from his doubts in the Catholic beliefs indoctrinated in him, but
emanates from his observation of his congregation, of the world.

I have seen Father Andrews drink beer and sip brandy in his room. It was one of those nights, with an enveloping darkness and I had gone to respectfully inform him that a suspicious looking man had walked in with a bag, and left his room with nothing. When I peered in through his door, still left half-open by the suspicious-looking man, I saw Father Andrews drinking alcohol. He seemed, at that moment, not to care about anything, about the half-opened door or the possibility that someone peered in through it. Father Andrews staring into nothing in the room and seeming to ignore, yet at the same time listen, relish the Jazz music from his radio, looked like a man who had finally unravelled the secrets and lies of the world, and concluded, disappointingly, that it bore so much resemblance to the animal world. When he finished his beer bottle, he let it oscillate, as he seemed to ponder on how this race to attain so much wealth, and survival of only the most ambitious and the neglect of the inept ones, the casualties was similar to the primal rule of the survival of the fittest in the animal world. Then Father Andrews smiled a tired smile, and let the beer bottle rest in the middle of its oscillatory path as though he was mocking himself at choosing to be at the periphery of the world’s rag race and surrendering himself to be what; a puritan! A celibate man!

For a while, the seminary did offer me escape from the outside world and the curiosity to see others in their most intimate of human connections. But my eavesdropping on Father Andrews and he catching me ended that. Father Andrews, a disillusioned man, had stared stoically at me from his room. Without him speaking, his expressionless eyes were able to order me walk into the room.

“How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

“Not long Father. I’m very sorry”

Father Andrews stared back at me, his face still blank, yet demanding a precise answer.
“Two minutes, Father”

“I could have you severely punished for trying to steal from me” Father Andrews said, looking directly into my eyes.

“I am very sorry, sir. I was only going to report to you that a suspicious man had walked out of your room”

Father Andrews let his eyes linger on my face, and he pushed his head backward almost as if to get a clearer view of me. It was when a smile slowly formed in his face, that I knew he had found in me, a useful gift.

It might have been the way that I gave the excuse of the suspicious looking man as though it were truth that I even believed or that, for a short moment, he actually did believe me, that endeared me to him. I became Father Andrew’s wingman, and helped watch out, when he had a woman with him in his room. The women, most of them miracle-seeking and husband-searching, were the ones who sneaked into his
room, averting my gaze. But there were those tense moments when a student would want to file a complaint or a priest would want to see Father Andrews, and I would, inevitably have to badge into Father Andrews’ room to warn him of the incoming danger. These moments were rare, and when they came I used them wisely, my mind usurping every image it could in the short moment I stood in Father Andrews’ room. I would storm in making it seem that Father Andrews was busy attending to me, and the other people, therefore, had to wait. In the dimness of Father Andrews’ room only lighted by a half-dead orange incandescent bulb, I would see the woman first murmuring her discomfort, and Father Andrew chuckling as he engulfed her with his weight. In the dimness and stuffy room, they would be drenched in sweat and so their skins glimmered. Father Andrews would raise his head to me, stoically, and order me to go tell the person to wait outside, where he would attend to them.

Escape eludes me. Father Andrews’ midnight trysts have awakened in me, curiosities buried beneath my years of routine and devotion in the Seminary. Now, I can no longer stare past couples and hold myself from wondering and imagining what they were like in their most intimate moments. Now, at mass, as I stand behind Father Andrews, Paten in my hand, I imagine how the couple, both young and
old do it. I question under what lighting they do it, and if their breathings compliment or repel each other. Even the Nwabueze’s, a strange looking couple, with the husband being a scrawny man and the wife being overweight, rekindle my curiosity. I wonder if Mr. Nwabueze on top of his wife, which is most likely the position they take, almost sandwiched between her thighs ever unintentionally
holds on to the bed and then realizes “very big mistake, wrong cushion”. Now that I am upended by my curiosities and constantly wish that they free me , I experience the boredom and frustration the other seminarians feel. The seminary no longer offers to me, the escape which it used to. I have to leave. I have thought of going back home to Port Harcourt, and letting my family know and maybe their
repulsion and consequent pity would make me change. But I doubt if I can bring myself to do this. A viable option to me, at this moment, is a Sanatorium. Certainly, it would be a drastic change; moving from the jailhouse of the Seminary to the den of a sanatorium, but what else am I to do, in this eye-popping conundrum.

EXCERPT

After Jaiye and his brothers were done drinking the soft drinks, Star and
Guilder, and eating some of the pieces of fried meat that Ahmed had bought, Jaiye
retired to the room upstairs. Abioshe watched her father undo his watch and then
place it lightly on the desk, so as not to awake her mother. Though he had the dense odour of Guilder, Abioshe knew that he did not drink any alcohol with his brothers. It was
during some period which she could barely remember, that he had stopped drinking and bringing Brandy and Gin to the house.

He watched Abisohe and Akin laying on the mattress on the floor, and in the dim room, only partly illuminated by light from a street lamp filtering through the window, he only saw the white mattress, appearing fluorescent, while they appeared dark and asleep. He walked in between the space Abioshe and Akin had ensured they left between them. With his back first, he rested on the bed, and then with his hands, he lifted both legs onto the bed.


Abioshe peering from in between her folded arms, had thought he was already asleep, when she, suddenly, heard him call out to Akin, and then to her. It was as if, the sound she made with her feet seemed to him too purposive to be from someone asleep.

“Are you awake Abioshe?”

“Yes, Daddy”

Then she felt and heard the thudding sound of his feet on the floor, and
felt his weight as he lay in the space between her and Akin. He asked her
how she was doing and if she had any problems living in his father’s house in
Tejuosho. Abioshe raised her head, letting the light, filtering through the
window net, illuminate the feigned smile on her face.

“It’s a big family, Daddy”

“Yes it is, but wait till you meet my other siblings who live on their own.
You know we’re fifteen, in total, now we’re fourteen after Kayode, the third born, passed away”

“So, is your mother the second wife?”

“Your grandmother, Abioshe, your grandmother is the second wife, and

as you know, I’m her only child”

They were both silent as Jaiye tapped Akin’s shoulders, but Akin shrugged and mumbled something inaudible, as if he was protesting from a dream that he did not want to be awoken.

“Your brothers all seem to be Muslim, how come you became Christian?” Abioshe asked, her face still brightened by the light.

“Remember that I told you that your Grandfather was a Principal of a
grammar school in Yaba. Principal was Muslim and a staunch supporter of
Pan- Africanism. He made sure that we were all well-educated and at the same
time, aware of our heritage, as he called it”

“But is Islam part of our heritage?” Abioshe asked, her face contorted in
confusion.

“You must understand that in that time, what mattered, for some, was doing what
was not indigenously white or considered European. As I was saying, all of his wives and sons were Muslims, except my mother and I. Your grandmother was Christian, and she would always take me to her Celestial Church”.

“You’re mother was Cele, you were?” Abioshe asked, amused and incredulous, yet
trying to hold back the laughter rising in her throat .

“Yes, we were.” Jaiye answered, smiling and then continuing “it’s not all
you think or picture it to be, though. At least, it was different, when my mother
took me. Principal always tried to convert her, and, especially, me. He did not
like the idea of us going to church, not to mention walking barefooted to
church, because some book claimed that the house of God was a holy place,
which was to be revered”

Abioshe began to recollect the stories her father told about her grandfather, and how she had, from them, formed the portrait of the Principal as a stern, almost impatient man.

“Remember when I told you those stories of my older brother Kazeem, who is now
in Canada. He would go clubbing on some nights, because he thought Principal was asleep. Only he would get back to find that the gates were locked, and Principal would be standing on the verandah, warning him to go back to where he came from or risk being man-handled by the vigilante” Jaiye recounted, looking at the ceiling, as if the tiny perforations on it, helped him remember the minute details of those moments.

“He seemed to have laid down so much rules of what not to do” Abioshe added.

“You are right. He even had a curfew that we were all bound by” Jaiye said,
smiling, as if to trivialize his father’s attitude.

“And on one night, my mother and I went to a Vigil and he did the same
thing that he did to Kazeem, to us. You can imagine, we standing barefooted
outside in the cold night, hoping that he would open the gate” Jaiye said, still smiling, and almost erupting into laughter.

Abioshe was stunned, almost petulant, but lowered her head, below the light, to conceal the look on her face. She tried to understand this man who her father called
Principal and why he was that way. Did it have less to do with his children and
wives, and more to do with him? Was it some kind of unhappiness or
discontentment buried within, that made him cold and callous?

“Did he later open the gate that night?” Abioshe asked.

Her father did not immediately reply. He remained silent, as if he could not recollect what had happened after his mother’s pleadings, as if that particular story, he had stored in the attic of narratives, that his mind seemed to be, ended with him watching his father’s unperturbed and obstinate face.

Abioshe turned to her father, to try to see, through the dimness of the room, if he still remembered, but his face looked like a black satin vieled mask.

“You know my father was very strict, and stuck to his word. He was a disciplinarian.” Jaiye finally uttered.

Then her father stood up from the mattress and moved onto the bed. Abioshe heard him murmur something to her mother, who had woken up, on feeling his weight on the bed. She heard his palms make a clapping sound as he placed them together, and rested his head on them. The image of her grandfather appeared in her mind. From the pictures of him, she had seen around their house in Port Harcourt, he appeared very formal, but from the pictures here in Tejuosho, he was older and more regal. Then she pictured him walking in a public school yard, with rows of grey buildings which had open verandahs and rough cement-plastered floors. In her mind, she saw him ordering
students to get into their classes. Then she thought of Tamunouh, and if he did
well in the Chemistry test, he was afraid he would fail. She wondered if she should call him tomorrow, or if he would call. Before she closed her eyes, she questioned how Aramide felt sleeping in that room, she wondered how the room looked and if it still hinted that an old woman previously lived there. Then all the thoughts seemed to slowly recede, and it was as if a void was left. She closed her eyes, and it seemed her consciousness drifted with her receding thoughts. She slept. Then the void began to fill with thoughts that were lucid and dream-like, in the manner frothy waves arrive on dry and beige sand. She was in her home in Port Harcourt, hurrying with a cup of juice, and suddenly, tea, in her hands, to go listen to her father narrate the story of why the shell of the tortoise is cracked.

One of those things.

It's the middle of the semester, and I'm swamped with school work. And today, I decided that
I'll update my blog. Truth be told, I am not sure of what I want to write about. But I do
know, that the insides of my head feel cloudy; the hangover feeling. It's like the thoughts in
my head are blurred by this thick miasma, that I can't quite express them, coherently.
Anyway, a friend and I got into an argument, a few days ago, about corpral punishment and its
pros and cons. I've always been very questioning of corporal punishment, and I always did argue
and speak against it, even among ardent Nigerian and black crowds. But now that I'm starting to
realize that one has got to be silent,as it's the wise thing to do. Though, I do feel it's not me to be silent and risk appearing foolish and vulnerable to attack, these days, I'm beginning to understand compromise and commonsense. It's like these two similar things (if you think about it) are manners that I have to learn, and work to achieve!


Back to corporal punishment, which one of my friends corrected and claimed that it is
flogging, whipping and not what I called it. Saying it is corporal punishment is making it sound too grave, too serious like capital punishment, he said. So my other friend made a point that I find really poignant. She claimed that children who are not smacked, but raised under the whole "we can talk it through" way, tend to feel that the world, in certain ways, revolves around them, and that they think that they can solve all problems and feuds by simply "talking it through". And she said this from the point of view that these people tend to feel that others around them will always be there to listen to them, as if it is some kind of duty.


I had always attached this way of thinking to being spoilt, a trait that arises from
having people do almost every thing for you, rather than not being brought up with the whip. When one is brought up, with the maids, cooks, washermen, gateman and the others, one sort of has this
false notion of ones importance and place in the scheme of things. And with these false
notions of self, comes the whole belief that people around you will always be willing to listen,
because it has always been that way. I think that what my friend was doing was equating people
who are not spanked, with spoilt people. And I don't know if I agree with her, but her point,
sounds so strong, almost true. Here in Canada, where you see so many young people doing these
stupid things, as if they never heard of moderation, one wants to ask if it's flogging that will
solve their problems. Yet there are those who have these mature minds, and they were not spanked.
And it all just makes me wonder if corporal punishment inhibits that desire in us to question. I
mean, am I wrong if I say that spanking, sometimes lessens us into people who do not question the
state of things; the right or wrong of things. Does whipping inhibit that desire for us to
questions our own lives and choices, and dig deep into that pile of fears, secrets and motives
in our subconscious that define us.


As children when we were whipped with those cains and "Omoroguns" or "Garri-turners",
sometimes we knew what we did was wrong, yet, we were not aware of why that the thing was
inherently wrong. It was just something we were not supposed to do, and that was it. And I wonder
if this training, makes us not seek the good and bad, or analyze the values placed on us. Is
corporal punishment, one of the other factors, that creates this reactionary society, void of
movements, of people coming out with wild, provoking, questioning ideas. Maybe, I have rushed too
far here, drawing relationships between things that are too disparate.

I do not doubt the efficay of corporal punishment,it sure gets the point across, I still feel it should be questioned, and used less of. Isn't it possible to have a situation where a Nigerian parent before using his whip, the second time in a day, thinks about his action, and tries to speak, admonish or ground their child?

At Forefronts.

Pepper Soup and since I didn't have yams, improvised with potatoes and with no palm oil, used ranch.


I'm listening to some Naija songs and I definitely love what I'm hearing. The fusion of sounds, beats is just crazy, and it's just so dance-inducing; you can't help but move your body, even the most stoic of us would probably bob his head. There are those who feel that Nigeria's current music industry is a caricature of America's hip hop. Perhaps the industry borrows so much, sometimes blindly from America's hip hop scene, regardless, I believe they've been able to own it and create of it, something with originality, such that anyone who listens to it, will point out that it is certainly different and Nigerian. And to me, this is the beauty of it, because so as the suburban American and British teenager sits in front of his T.V and watches the latest of hip hop, so as the Nigerian teenager. As such that, young people from both sides of the world, regardless of varying environments, absorb similar cultural influences. And this is not to say, that at this time in the world, both young people are exactly the same culturally, there are vast differences as there are striking similarities, and this accounts for why when people arrive in the west, they usually do not experience that much cultural shock. Though I admit that I might have excluded young people who grow up in rural areas, but still I don't think many people will be surprised going back to their villages and towns and seeing young people trying to outdo themselves in the latest hip hop trends and songs.

So this paradigm shift from basing music and art on what we consider indigenous to a more contemporary style, I think, puts today's Nigerian young people at forefronts of greatness. There was a documentary I saw back in Nigeria that praised legends in music history and Fela Anikulapo Kuti was one of them, and it was mentioned that Nigeria was the third in top music industries in the world, and this was when there were the genres of Apala, Afro-beat, Juju and so on. But I wasn't born in this time or wasn't raised knowing that such music was meant for me; it has always being music for my parents, of the older generation. And now, to expect of me to reproduce such music, or in my case to write in the ways of Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta is to expect of me something inauthentic, as I'll be recreating what is not me (and by me, I mean how I've being externally influenced).I listen to Onyeka Onwenu (love Bia Nulu),Fela (he's such a social critic, at the same time he can be easily dismissed as being an idiot, but I like him for standing his ground and immersing himself in his cause), Haruna Ishola (sometimes I feel ashamed that I don't fully understand what he's saying, but there's something that makes him sound so much like a griot), but I don't expect of today's musicians to reproduce what the above-mentioned musicians have done. Finally, what I'm getting at is that modern western music and art and culture has through the west's imperialism come to be sort of a world language that the rest of the world understands and can speak, and for us young Nigerians who comprehend this language, we are placed at forefronts where we can achieve world greatness, only if we own, personalize this language and create of it something that the rest of the world will have to stop to listen and be awed by.

Why I Blog About Africa

No matter how detached I might sometimes feel from Nigeria and Africa, or view other cultures and then look at mine and ask what it is that hasn't happened yet?, I still feel that I can never abandon Africa. Growing up in Nigeria has greatly influenced who I am, and for this reason, my writing has elements of Africa in it.

Whether I am writing about complexities on myself, fiction or complaining about culture and people, I think it all relates to me hoping that there can be an alternate future for the African continent. That even when I read other African blogs, I go there hoping to find something new that marks improvement. It is the hope that when I visit Niyitabiti, I'll see something really exciting about Nigeria's emerging youth and entertainment culture.

And even being away from Nigeria makes me feel like I see the counrty better. I mean it's understandable that some people might disagree with me thinking I have a better vista, just because I'm outisde. But I feel that being away sought of puts me on some precipice where I can look down and see things that those in the valley might ignore. And I think that is why I blog about Africa, to tell what I see, when I look down.

I tag Jaja, Allied, Naijababe

All these Veges!!

It's the American thanksgiving today, so a friend from the US celebrated it-but had a Vegan one. So I decided to go over with some friends to try it out, and see how Tofu taste like. After the meal and the usual mashed sweet and common potatoes, boiled carrots and scallops, Tofurkey all topped with mushroom and onion gravy, I thought the meal (most especially the Tofurkey was quite a delightful surprise- and I'm not being sarcastic). It did not taste like Turkey that it was supposed to simulate, but it did taste good and different, yet similar to something I had tried before (spiced Salmon, beans or Moi-moi? couldn't quite place it)...Regardless, it was good.

And that silly, half-thought notion I had, that questioned the sense in people simulating the same foods that they were against its excessive consumption, cropped up in my head again. I mean why try to simulate beef, Turkey, chicken with Soya and the other stuff they use, and call it all these names that try to allude to the real thing. Why don't you just eat the real things in small proportions, or better still make entirely new foods. But now I'm coming to realize and see the reason and concern in these people and even the courage (hope I'm not exaggerating, here)in them. The decision to eat differently from what ones been weaned, really, to eat and crave must be a tough one. Apart from the cruelty some claim eating animal products cause on animals, I was a bit perplexed on how exactly consumption of meat and animal products deteriorates the environment. Then I learnt of this concept Environmental Footprint in one of my Environmental Science classes. This concept measures the impact and demand humans have on the environment in relation to how much the earth can accommodate. So each individual's ecological footprint is dependent on how much resources he uses and the consequent impact on the environment. When I first arrived here in Canada, my footprint and most people from Nigeria as measured by the EC. Ft. website was really moderate, if not small, as compared to other Canadians.But after a few months here, it increased.

So after this my lecture, what I'm getting at is that the more meat one consumes, the higher ones impact on the environment. Also, the higher society's collective demand for meat, the more land is cut down for rearing livestock and then the more "cruelty" on animals.

So now, do I intend to become vegetarian or vegan, NOPE!! and I don't expect anyone to become one, neither do I see any kind of righteousness or uprightness in the people who do. I do admire them for their concern and courage, but as for me I feel that if I ever move towards that green path, it won't be because I truly care for animals or want to save the environment. I think I might be doing it because I want to lead some kind of alternative lifestyle. But who knows, a few years from now, I could become truly concerned. I am not an advocate for saving the environment through the avoidance of certain things like meat (I eat, like it) as I feel the deterioration of the environment can be reduced, through individual self-awareness. That awareness should take form in one knowing that the simple and everyday things one does, adversely affects the environment. Does one really need to spend more than 10minutes in the shower, sleep with the lights on, eat meat products for every meal? I myself am guilty for all the things mentioned above. But, I think I should really try to reduce my impact and I really don't have to follow blindly this western bandwagon of wastefulness and consuming more than what one needs and even expected to want.

Mind, Restless, Tired

There's been a story in my head for more than a year now. It has crept into crevices of my mind, stayed there, almost parasitic. It saps, whatever it is that doesn't make it dissipate from me, and grows. There are limbs, facial features, that continue to protrude from it, as it rests in my mind. But still it looks like an aberration, totally malformed. And I, the forced sculptor has to mold and make it less of a phantom. Soon, it is done, the sculpting is complete, yet there are hole, tiny and large, that need to be filled.And the story keeps plaguing for its completion, for its holes to be filled. In the most unusual places, it comes to mind. In class, with the boring professor teaching that dreaded chemystery, it emerges. Though this time it is redeeming as it takes me away from my class. I continue to stare at the professor, my eyes partially blind to the formulas on the board and my ears hearing words that sound like that of a seceding crowd. In the absence of my mind, the story reveals itself; its limbs-the corners of the stories, it's features-the complexities and connections of characters. And then I know I must write it, do it and myself a favor. But when I finally did see it on my laptop screen, it looked even more malformed. It appeared like those Asian gods with many arms stretching and curling out of their straight bodies. I did not know how to handle all those corners, flash backs and complexities.It was more than 25 pages (not double spaced, or edited) and I felt it was a mash up. But that was during the summer, now winter approaches, if not already here and I'm writing all over again. It seems to be going alright. This time, there are no flash backs, no corners yet, just starting the story in all its simplicity; just from the beginning. It takes a lot of maturity to write a book, not to mention starting from the end to beginning.

I was disappointed, yesterday, to find out what it meant to be a free thinker. The meaning contrasted with what I had always thought it was. Did I or I did not perceive it to mean one who was free spirited and thought out of the box and even what is deemed reality. But its actual meaning, to me, steals from it what it sounds like. Though the free thinker, by its dictionary definition, thinks outside the norm or tradition, I still feel that his focus on science and logic steals from him, much of his free-ness.

Why do I feel this way towards science- humanity's way of reaching new frontiers. It is too logical, too rigid for me, I've never felt I can contribute to the world through science.

I saw a play yesterday and in the end when all the actors, removed from their characters, took their bows, I felt lifted, inspired. I wanted to act, even though the only time I ever did was in high school. After my first play, I got reactions of both surprise and mockery. Both reactions made me feel good. Still, I want to be a writer! (it should be known) and I cannot imagine my life without exploring these things. Scary, scary images.