Wednesday, 20 August 2014

The MacDonald Banter

I come here everyday. I know the food is hardly healthy, I have put on more pounds since I started eating this junk but I still come.'

'Why don't you just make healthy meals by yourself then?'

Because I'll have to wash up if I cooked. I hate dirty plates, especially the ones I have to clean up by self.


The Five-head Penance

Des had gone to get a haircut and returned. I asked to see how it looks like and he is hesitant. 
It is a regular haircut, you know, just low, he tells me. I am having none of that. I want a photo I tell him. He sends one.
'That is one impressive five-head!' I write in response to his haircut photo and his shiny forehead. I can feel him laughing. Seconds later his response appears and reads;
1 : 0!
I am panicking now. I remember the last time I threw a first punch at him. It did not end well. I bathed with shit-soap for a whole week and he had the best time during the pain that was my karma. I need to fix this, I am thinking. I take photos of my face, trying out angles that can show my impressive five-head too. This one will do I think,and sends it. He is laughing again and responds;
'That is an own goal baby. Why are you beating yourself up?'

Penance. An own goal is still a goal if I remember my football rules correctly. I hope this serves as my official forehead shot.

P.s, you can read my Shit-Soap here:http://conquerigali.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/shit-soap.html


Tuesday, 19 August 2014

A Memoir Is A Status Update

I just read Dani Shapiro's article on the New yorker titled 'A memoir is not a status update' and I am thinking this writer gives little merit to the social evolution that is the emergence of the impulsive, seldom edited and filtered narrative that updated statuses are made of and how just important they can be to writers and memoirists, if put to good use.
In the article the author bemoans the effects of social media on writing thus;
 '...In an essay on Emily Dickinson, the poet Adrienne Rich once wrote, “It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry.” We live in a time in which little is concealed, and that pressure valve—the one that every writer is intimate with—rarely has a chance to fill and fill to the point of explosion. Literary memoir is born of this explosion. It is born of the powerful need to craft a story out of the chaos of one’s own history. One of literary memoir’s greatest satisfactions—both for writer and reader—is the slow, deliberate making of a story, of making sense, out of randomness and pain...'' http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/memoir-status-update
This quote from Shapiro's article  is beautiful. I think it is kind of true to some extent too. For some writers,writing is a tortuous, slow process that marinates into something beautiful and complete, a process that is only perfected during a long period of incubation and birth. The very first time I read it,although I liked it, I saw the gaps in her brilliant lines. I think  Emily Dickinson's is sheer perfection and can do no wrong but Adrienne Rich's words do not fully encapsulate the genius that is the social media status-updating writer.

This reminds me of an encounter I had earlier.

Some months back, a Facebook friend and former Alma matter colleague invited me for dinner on her birthday. Our meeting that day was the first time we were ever talking face to face with each other but she knew quite a lot about me. She remembered an ex from Law school. She knew my current relationship, fun facts about my  daughter Merit and so much more. From Facebook statuses and photos, I knew just enough about her as well and the result of our evening together was just fantastic. At the end of our evening out I was thinking, this woman I thought rarely knows me can almost write a short memoir about me and be very correct in her narrative too! I have been told this and after that evening, i realized  some of it is true too. I am a sort valve and I tend to explode all around my friends and followers in some way or the other. I share a lot about some parts of me on Facebook and the other social media outlets that I frequent. Instead of dropping small quotes of sages like some people do, I write long status updates and sometimes blogs about events that I have had. The effect of this is that people get to know me and even form opinions about me, whether they are all positive or negative, I do not know.

From Shapiro's article, It does appear that some people underestimate the effect of the chronicling of events that social media provides but in the years to come, memoirs and books will be written from/about the tweets and updates that people have posted on their statuses. The chronicling of events that social media provides is the stuff that memoirs are made of. Anyone that trivializes this import of their daily spoken words on their pages may just have missed/is missing out on the gold that they are sitting on.

Oh! By the way, did you hear Kim Kadashian is working on a 'book' that only contains selfies of her? I read it will be called 'Selfish' or something. If people are already 'writing books' from impulsive photos taken with their iPhone's,   isn't it possible then that daily status posts of a writer's coinages and thoughts are a waste of writer-ly space?
Think again.
Seriously, wont it be pure genius if you wrote a book with just the status updates from the important moments of your life or those updates that caused the most storm on your timeline? You could title your book 'Status'. Did I just give you the greatest idea ever? Ah! Thank me later. I wont mind receiving an autographed copy when this book comes out though.

:-)

Awkward Questions

Pre brunch.
The flat-viewing I was returning from was unsuccessful. It sounded like this Nigerian man I had called to see about the extra room he was renting preferred 'white girls because they are very respectful'. I am angry and hungry from not eating since morning. It is 3pm already.
Brunch.
The restaurant carries a scant supply of hungry midday eaters. I have just settled in on the window-seat-with-the-view to munch. The pretty girl I had the small talk with comes to seat beside me with her order.
Do you have a girlfriend? She asks, almost shyly.
A girlfriend? I heard her clearly but I repeated the question to be sure.
I mean, are you seeing someone? She asked this time.
I wasn't wrong to ask her to clarify. This postgraduate Kurdish girl I had met at this Burger King while ordering for a beef burger, fries and coffee thinks I prefer women. I was on the phone with Des the entire time I stood in line to order. She must have heard me end the call with 'I love you too'. How she reckons I was talking to another woman, I do not know.
I prefer men, I answer after a long pause.
Oh right! My mistake, she says and asks where I bought my boots from. I tell her they where Roberto Vianni's and returned to my food. I am strangely full now.

Home.
I am thinking about lesbian relationships, transgender people and what makes them decide they did not sexually prefer the opposite gender. Was it bad sexual encounters? Was it only the medical/ spiritual explanation that everyone gives to justify or oppose the gay debate?

I am looking at the photos I took after she left and I am thinking; Tutma! You look awfully masculine today. It is probably the hair or maybe the no makeup look I am wearing today.
The hair... No thanks to all the African male students in Aberdeen who have all decided to be Soyinka's by rocking clean Afros. Now even women think I am gay!


19/8/2014

Telling Merit; The Burn-guilt script

It was the same dream every single time. I am in the river, paddling away from some danger I do not see. you are holding onto me. The canoe is sinking now...I am struggling to carry you above the water and struggling to get off the boat with you...your back is caught onto something in the water...you are screaming, I am screaming...and I wake up drenched in sweat. 
My Merit is in trouble I am thinking, I would pray in a trembling voice and call. She is fine. she just ate. Are you writing your coursework well? Concentrate eh? Don't worry about her, you father will tell me.
Today, he asks me if I was sitting down. I am. Remember those dreams? I do. You know, she is very active, our Merit. She ran into the kitchen weeks back, hit a pot with hot water in it. It spilled on her feet. The scar is almost gone now. She is fine. I couldn't tell or show you then, you would have done something irrational.
I asked to see a photo of your feet and did.
This image will haunt me forever now.
I did this to my child.
I am so sorry Merit.
I should have been there, guiding you away. I am sorry I let you down for a whole year.

Now, if I ever get the opportunity to give any advice to a young mother who needs to choose between studying in a different continent without her infant with her and possibly postponing it for a couple more years, I would probably advise her against doing what I did.
You will never concentrate at anything for more than a few seconds.
you will be depressed half the time.
There are few things worse than the feeling you will ever get when something bad happens to your child while you are away. Scratch that, there is NOTHING worse than that feeling.


When you grow up enough to understand, we will talk about Aberdeen, Merit. I will try hard to explain how I came to study in a different continent, away from you for that much time. 
I love you, my Merit. I love you very much.


17/8/2014

Monday, 11 August 2014

For When You Cant Mourn

I am reading through a troublesome rewrite assignment for submission in the next hour but my mind is tumbling on a very different unrelated issue.

I am thinking about loses, personal loses like the death of a loved one. I am thinking about mourning, about grief and hidden relationships.

would one's grief be any less important if the deceased was someone he/she was secretly having a relationship with and loved, say a relationship that is taboo or wrong, like adultery?

Could this grief be 'more' because you cant openly mourn the love and lose of this person (seeing that sympathizers play a major role in recovery?)

Could a person in this situation be more suicidal maybe, from the confusion of it all? could they write suicide note, detailing their decision? Would anyone pity such people?

Isn't this bother just pointless?(Especially since i have spent the last 10 minutes thinking about this as I could have properly Oscola'd a reference with this time I've just 'wasted'? 

Do you sometimes have these sort of moments too?

Sunday, 10 August 2014

That Rebound Show

In my days (I am *famzing* old woman now), revenge relationships  were handled differently.
We broke up with relationships or marriages, mourned in silence for a while.
Get into another.
The 'most in-you-face-ex'! show off we did then was walk around for days with the new boyfriend hoping for the ex to hear by word of mouth from his friends or family.

Things are different now, thanks to social media.

To get a recent ex jealous for loosing the fabulousity* that is the social media lad these days, he/she gets a new boy toy/ girl toy as soon as the ex thing is official, come on facebook/twitter/Instagram with the photos and the poetry the minute their lips locks, and yes, he/she must tell the world when the next lip-lock-round is coming up too. Write the taunting messages of how this new relationship best they've ever had.
They play out their silliness to the public hoping to get ONE person jealous till it all fades, then, write the obituary of their dead-yet-again relationship with the rebound, for the public to read.
Again.

A good percentage of people that will read this has done this once or twice. I am probably the queen of this as well although I don't remember (now). Forgive me. This brave new world corrupts even the old at heart, like me.

It is hard to see the things we do and analyse just how stupid we look to the rational bystander sometimes ...

But how much of this rebound show is fair to the rebound girl/boy though? How do they feel when they realize they are mere tools in the hands of a probably bitter woman/man out to show off or use him/her as bait to someone else? Do they realize this at all?
Are we being fair to them? To the public we subject to pick through our rot and stink?

Saturday, 9 August 2014

On men, phobias, the Idris Elba effect and how to tell before it is too late.

Gawker posted a story on Idris Elba and his enormous 'natural resource'. He has since written a disclaimer. Apparently, he was wearing a microphone in his pants and people mistook it for, em something else. :-)
photo credits: Gawker

After I read Gawkers story I remembered a childhood phobia, and wandered if anyone still has it too. First, let me tell you about limbs.

There is something about a man’s hands that I find fascinating.
I find limbs fascinating by themselves but I am attracted more often than not by the accessory he uses first, like watches, bangles, rings.
A good watch will have me looking at a man’s wrists, linger at the quality of what he is wearing, have a conversation with myself about what sort of spender he is, the sort of taste he has, whether a woman shopped the wares for him and yes, about the other thing too.

It all first started with the sex education lecture I had from Mother. She started the sessions subtly with asking biology questions. Do I know this? Do I know that? Did I read that book she left on the table? You know, the EVERY WOMAN book?
Of course I had. I read everything since I could read. Dad’s library seemed like a university library then. You could find anything there from sciences, arts, the full volumes of the Britannica to semi cultic and religious books. I loved the Apocrypha. Mother was so worried at my choice of literature. Ah! I digress.
I was talking about men and their limbs. 

Mother always start our sex talks lectures with the shocks. Seated outside our home in the early 2000s, she would point at a very skinny girl passing and ask me to observe her. I would. More people would pass and she would choose a man among them. See him? See how tall he his? See how long his fingers are? Notice how his buttocks is almost inverted? Listen. If this man lies with that skinny girl that passed just now, his penetration will enter and pass right through her excretion section!

I was so scared of men after that. It took several counselling sessions after, before I even considered coitus as an option to having babies. . See. At 16 I was a full fleshed tomboy. Joined a football team. I was very uninterested in boys and had started asking funny questions. I would read, no, do research about artificial insemination BECAUSE I was scared witless of the whole man/woman thing. Before I left for the university, Mother started with the real sex talks. It wasn't that bad, you see baby? There are options to large things, see? Sex with someone you love will not hurt you, she would say.

My mum is a teacher. She studied Sociology and Psychology as degrees. I am sure she knew what she was doing with me. Mothers always do.

Apart from Mum’s shockers I am not exactly sure where I picked this knowledge about how to spot huge organs but here is the tell. It is all in the limbs. See, the almighty creator of man has very meticulously calculated these things. Every part of a man’s body has a sort of mathematics to it so when you read this, do not assume it is some old wives tale.Really, and I am not that old (yet) anyway. :-)

A man’s fingers (and sometimes toes) are almost a direct measurement of his, em, other limb (before it goes for a walk, that is). The wedding finger or the engagement finger is the exact prototype of his recreational/ procreational tool, if you know what I mean. Remember how you can measure your waist length by measuring your neck and multiplying that measurement by two? That is kind of how this works.

Ladies, If you are afraid of the Elba effect, do remember to consider the following details before considering a sexual relationship with him:
1. Is he black?

2. Is he tall?
2. Look at his finger. Are they long?  Slim or Fat?
3. Does he have an inverted buttocks? 


This research is for you ‘Sister Mary’ in that no-sex-till-marriage relationship.  If your answers to the questions above are all in the affirmative, you may be in for a huge Elba. Your pastor or marital counselor will not tell you this but I am your friend. Tell your fiance you want to read his palms. Take them into your hands and read his fingers CAREFULLY. Is he black? Tall? Inverted buttocks? Long, thick finger? My dear sister, you may want to rethink this. As is with every premise, there are exceptions to every rule, but I am almost always right on this. 

I tell you this only because I care.

Sincerely,

Your friend, Miz.
                                              
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Angeles

Youtube strings Angeles on replay. 

Elliott Smith loves me and I may have lost my senses to him as well. 
I am soulful today. 

Sadness creates a universe for souls to flee in flight and they do. A million cries silenced in limbo by rains of bullets and fear.

Nostalgia. Ah!


*Books on the bed. 
Oscola sends me on errands. Referencing. 

String along, baby, he says, and I do.
We are having one of those days when soul meets mortality.


It is what it is. See? Things are what they are.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-p_q5ZT-38

Thursday, 7 August 2014

Of sacrifices and Love


6/8/2014 



I had Just watched this show on Oprah's channel about two women. 
The first was married to a man, had two kids and realized much later that she was a lesbian. She met the second woman after she came out and they developed a relationship but could not marry because gay marriage was illegal where they where, so the second woman underwent a double mastectomy, did a sex change and they got married in 2012(?).


I am not cynical about love and sacrifices, far from it, but I am thinking now about how love does not work out even when a party fulfills some condition or another to make a relationship work.

I am thinking about Bashir now.

We met through some very unfriendly circumstance during my second day at the NYSC camp (camp Bende) in Abia state. It started with us threatening to kill each other. 

See, we where registering for camp and that particular exercise had to do with filling the information of our hometowns, addresses and our next of kin. It was a huge line, I had stood in line for hours, and, just before it got to my turn, Bash cut through the cue, right in front of me. He came with his 'boys' too.
I didn't let him.
He told me I would 'hear from him soon', that I will be sorry.
I told him I was an Ijaw girl, that we do not fear threats like that.
He pushed me. I hit him, he fell from my punch too.

He succeeded at registering after I did though. being an open register, I was certain he wrote down my hometown and next of kin information so I waited to write his details down and told him I had his Momma's address too. It was so romantic.

The NYSC (National Youth Service Corp) camp is a para military training that young graduates in Nigeria undergo to equip them with some defense and life skills to help them 'serve the nation', so when our altercation broke out, the Nigerian military men who where the 'owners of the camp' separated and punished us for an hour after he (Bash) was done writing. Frog jumps, press ups. I did good. I had to, else he would see me as some fragile girl he could bully.

The days after our fight, news had gone around a bit. We were assigned to the same platoon (9). Bash was stalking me too. Once, during a para military party in camp, I had to be protected by a female army official from Bash and his boys too. Aronkus, remember? 

It became easier later though. He began to like me. I was not willing to cede a relationship but told him he would have to show that he really liked me now by doing something he was afraid of. He didn't know how to swim. Was terrified of villages in the Niger Delta because of Militant activities then, so I playfully responded one day that I may date him if he traveled to my village (a three hour boat ride by water to a little village surrounded by water as well.) . Months after we left camp and I had even returned to Law school, my cousin called from the village (Eniwari). Bash had, without even asking me for directions, traveled to my village, almost drowned because he had jumped inside the Silver creek to swim with kids,and had introduced himself as my friend to my cousin Corbon who housed him and called me until he left my village. When Bash called, I told him he was crazy but I would still not date him. I didn't loath him. I was just really unavailable by then.

Sometimes, sacrifices or even fulfilling a condition present to have a relationship with another person does not guarantee a successful relationship. My analogy with the lesbian is not on the same level of sacrificing, but, sometimes, we should just do the things that are best for us because having a life/career change for another may end up badly for you when the relationship ends (or never even starts, like Bash's disappointment). This woman probably had the surgeries because she really wanted to do it for herself but I am wandering; wont it just be the worst thing if her (wife? husband?) decides to leave her shortly afterwards?

Monday, 4 August 2014

Laverdure (CAN) VS Kunari (IND)

2014 Commonwealth Games: 55 kg Freestyle Wrestling; Laverdure (CAN) VS Kunari (IND)

Finding Budapest; Pictures and Words.

The zoo beckons with primal wander. A bird here, a seal there, a lion prancing around, caged. 
But I am still afraid (and I wander why). So pick up my shutters and click to remember, somewhere far away, this memory will be told to some sleepy toddlers on maternal arms.
love you, I will say. I love you too Mummy, they will reply. My Merits, my Gemmas.


















@2014. Igali Conquer.

Sunday, 3 August 2014

Aminat vs Malik. Glasgow 2014 footage,

One of the many videos I recorded on my amateur camcorder. We had so much fun!

Commonwealth Games;Glasgow 2014. Photo-speak!

I left Aberdeen to Glasgow by bus. The flight of scenery was amazing!

The hotel I booked for and later cancelled. I ended up at the Menzies, right across the road from the Marriott.
The Nigerian Freestyle Wrestling team with Daniel Igali, Commonwealth/World Wrestling champion and President of the Nigerian Wrestling Federation.

With Aminat and Odun, before their finalist competitions. They wrestled for gold hours after this photo was taken.


Aminat and Odun, Leaving for the competition. They won gold medals that evening.

Some members of the team Nigeria wrestling team on their way to the competition arena at SECC.


 Some members of the team Nigeria wrestling team on their way to the competition arena at SECC.






I was psyched up!

Confident smiles.

'Bring it on' I seem to be screaming...

I was confident we were winning ALL medals we came to compete for!

.
More photos of me

Swerve!

With my big brother, Daniel Igali.

I was excited to support him, his prodigees and Team Nigeria!


One of our last competitions was between Nigeria and Canada. It was interesting to watch as Dr Igali supported both countries with both flags and cheers as he had strong ties to both countries. Nigeria lost but won a silver medal. It was a bitter sweet moment, really.


Team Nigeria won 5 out of the 6 medals we competed for: 2 gold medals from  Aminat Adeniyi and Odun Adekuoroye, as well as 2 bronze medals and another Silver medal.

Day 3 of the Wrestling competition

Game end. Last photos

14 Wrestlers entered for the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, 2014. 12 won medals for their country, Nigeria. Hear President Daniel Igali's recap of the games below;

FINAL RECAP: TEAM NIGERIA WRESTLING AT THE GLASGOW 2014 COMMONWEALTH GAMES

''The Nigerian Anthem was not on the airwaves in the wrestling event yesterday, but we still won medals in all the four weight classes we entered. Ifeoma Nwoye, 55kg, won bronze medal, Sampson Clarkson, 65kg, won bronze medal, Blessing Oborududu, 63kg, won bronze and Adibo Dick, 86kg, won silver medal.

We entered 14 wrestlers and won 12 medals! 2 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze medals. Am extremely proud of the team effort. Currently, with 21 medals for the whole TEAM NIGERIA at these Games, it's safe to say Wrestling alone has accounted for about half of our medal count so far!

There were quite a number of highs and lows. A couple of my wards wrestled beyond my imagination at these Games, while some wrestled slightly below their capabilities. Overall though, am extremely proud of them all.

Two of the wrestlers, Hannah Reuben and Nweke Rosemary had their first international matches here. After MRI scans later today, it's possible Blessing Onyebuchi will undergo surgery to reattach suspected torn ligaments in her knee - she wrestled two matches essentially on one leg just to ensure that she won a medal for her country even against doctor's advice.

My prayer and hope is that we get enough funding to prepare our athletes effectively for future tournaments. By the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, the ambition of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation is to emerge the best Commonwealth Wrestling Nation.

Next is the World Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in a month. Thanks for all your prayers and support.'' Daniel Igali. 1/7/2014