TRUTH AND FICTION

Good Teeth (plus an update)

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 15:06:00 +0000

It was the way she said it that made my heart start to pound in my chest. The way she shifted close to me on my bed, glanced around, leaned forward. Her breath smelled of sardines. When I tried to put a fraction of an inch between our thighs, which were now touching, she closed the gap in a second.

- I saw what happened...

I ignored her voice, her breath tickling my ear. I wondered what brand of sardines she favoured. Titus? Lots of people liked Titus? But this girl was cheap. Probably Milo. Yes, she seemed like a Milo.

- This afternoon on the queue…

I knew what she was doing, leaving her sentences unfinished so I could implicate myself. But even as my feet went cold I kept my face straight. She leaned closer.

- I saw what that idiot boy Kenny was doing to you on the line.

The cold was rising from my feet now, creeping up my thighs. When it reached my chest my heart would stop. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. There would be nothing to feel, no shame, if I just fell back on my bed and died.

I sat still. But she was staring at me and her face was a question I needed to answer before she made her own answers. I tried to look confused. She glanced around the dorm room before looking at me again.

- He was… rubbing his thing on your bum-bum when you were standing on the line.

How did I convince myself that no one saw it happen? It was barely two hours ago, standing in line with other students so we could file into the dining hall for lunch, when I felt something rub against me from behind. It took a moment for me to realise that this was no accidental brush, that there was a rhythm to the contact. Our bodies were packed close in the queues, but not that close.

I looked behind me, saw his face. Kehinde – or Kenny, as he preferred – the second half of the principal’s set of twins. There was no apology in his eyes or on his lips. There was a smirk, behind which lay a brazen challenge: so what are you going to do about it? The eye contact lasted two or three seconds before I broke it.

- Didn’t you know what he was doing?

I looked at her now. It was easier to shake my head, so that was what I did. Easier to do that than to try and explain why I said nothing, did nothing to stop him, even though I wanted him to stop. There were no words to describe it, the helpless embarrassment that stopped me even from quietly moving away. I just stood there, rooted, hoping nobody would notice. I suppose it helped that after our brief eye contact he stopped.

- You didn’t know. Hmm…

I couldn’t tell if she believed me.

I wasn’t exactly lying when I said I didn’t know. Because I didn’t know why, when you came down to it, I had done nothing. It wasn’t because Kenny was the principal’s son; I cannot say I would have acted differently if he wasn’t. What was it that kept my tongue tied when I should have talked, my feet rooted when I should have walked? The same thing that kept me quiet as a child when I would rather suffer a scarred scalp than call attention to the relaxer burning on my head, preferring to wait unobtrusively until one of the salon girls remembered the little person they were supposed to be watching? The same thing that wouldn’t let me show my teeth when I laughed, even though they were perfectly good teeth?

- Okay. It’s all right.

No. No, it’s not. Many things are not right with me.

Update...

I guess this is what it’s like when you don’t post on your blog for a year…

So what happened in 2017… *scratches chin*

- I was at Writers Omi for four weeks in the spring of 2017 J

- I left my job at Kachifo Limited, the very first place I ever worked and where I learned to be an editor *sniffles*

- In August I started a three-year MFA Fiction course at Virginia Tech, in the oh-so-small town of Blacksburg. In a few days I’ll begin teaching my first undergraduate class.

People: Are you excited to start teaching?

Me: I am!

Also Me:

- P.S. I’m still here for freelance writing and editing, so hit me up on the little contact form on the top right of the page.

Happy 2018!

'The Girl Who Lied' published as a Ploughshares Solo

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Sat, 21 Jan 2017 08:24:00 +0000

My (long) short story, ‘The Girl Who Lied’ has just been published by Ploughshares Journal as a Solo piece and I’m pretty excited about this.

Kemi, a risk-taker who's used to getting her way, and Tola, shy and obedient, couldn't be more different, but when boarding school brings the two together, they become inseparable. Their friendship and Tola's morals are put to the test when Kemi is involved in a serious and suspicious accident. Tola must make the difficult decision of telling the truth and obeying the grown-ups or protecting the secret of her newfound friend.

~~Support my hustle and~~ get ‘The Girl Who Lied’ here for just $1.99!

Since I've Been Gone...

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 07:30:00 +0000

... not a whole lot has been going on for the ~~eternity~~ three months I've been away.

In case you missed it, my short story 'Long Hair' was published in the latest issue of Per Contra. Below is an excerpt, and you can read the full story here.

When Jennifer first joined our school everybody asked her all the time, ‘Jennifer, are you mixed?’ ‘Jennifer, is your mother from London or America?’ Jennifer liked it when the other girls asked her these questions; you could tell she was the proud type. She would laugh and say yes to everything: Yes, I am mixed. Yes, I was born in London. Yes, my mother is related to the Queen. But we all knew she was joking. We had seen her parents – they were both fair but they were not white.

All the girls liked Jennifer but I used to look at her with side-eye; her type of hair needed an explanation. Nigerian girls don’t have this kind of long hair just like that and for no reason. We pay for her type of hair at the market, and then we pay more at the salon so they can fix it in for us with thread or glue. Then we wear the hair for six weeks so that the money we spent on it doesn’t feel wasted. And when it starts to itch we beat on our heads like drums, because everyone knows your fingers can’t reach your scalp when you’re wearing a weave.

Also (and this is some serious throwback), for six weeks in the months of May and June I travelled Nigeria with a team of fellow artists - writers, photographers and a filmmaker - on a project by Invisible Borders tagged 'Borders Within'. We blogged about our experiences on the road trip here.

Here, I write about my anxieties travelling to Maiduguri; and here's a post about fear and our hotel in Calabar getting robbed; and here I experience my hometown Asaba with new eyes.

Happy reading!

*tiptoes back into oblivion*

Invisible Borders: Borders Within - The Trans-Nigeria Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Wed, 11 May 2016 22:20:00 +0000

I'll be on the road for the next six weeks with Invisible Borders. Nine of us, including other writers, photographers and filmmakers, will be travelling the country mapping diversity.

Learn more about Invisible Borders.

Lend your support.

Danfo Chronicles – The Best Laid Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 13:50:00 +0000

* For Atoke and Abe (@saintabadini), for unwittingly providing the motivation for this post. Thank you.

I was returning from work one fine evening when I boarded a bus from Yaba that looked innocent enough. As the bus went down Herbert Macaulay I was thinking the usual things I think when I first get on a bus: gauging the driver’s speed and demeanour, trying to sense if this was a normal human being behind the wheel or one of those demon-possessed drivers, and whether it was time to start singing ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’. I examined the bus, or at least as much as I could from my place on the second row: side mirrors, check; rear-view, check; door that looked steady enough to not fall off its hinges any minute, check. All gravy.

Moments after we got on Third Mainland Bridge the bus engine started to sputter. The driver eased over to the outer lane and the bus began to slow down. The driver and conductor started a conversation:

‘Na fuel don finish so?’

‘No be fuel. Engine go soon pick.’

‘You sure say no be fuel?’

‘I say no be fuel!’

The bus went slower and slower.

Nononononoooo…!

Alas, no amount of nos could keep the bus moving. We were halfway across the bridge when it came to a jerky stop. The driver turned the key in the ignition. The engine wheezed but wouldn’t come to life. He did this five times before he was ready to admit:

‘E be like say na fuel o.’

Well done, Captain Obvious.

I turned to look behind me at the speeding vehicles. The conductor had got off the bus and was waving oncoming traffic onto other lanes. I shuddered and turned to face forward again.

‘No mind these stupid danfo people. Dem dey drive dey make money, yet dem no go buy fuel. Na water una wan take drive?’

‘This is how they have wasted my time. The whole of today, from one danfo to another, all of them, time-wasters!’

The driver shouted something to his conductor in Yoruba. The man sitting to my right chuckled and interpreted: ‘E say na person come thief the fuel wey dey him bus before.’

‘No be only thief. We resemble small pikin wey dem go dey lie give anyhow?’

The driver turned the handle of his door and let go of it. I watched with alarm as the door swung open and into the road.

‘Driver, hold your door! It’s entering the road!’

The driver pulled the door ajar and shimmied out of his seat. He went to the back of the bus and opened the boot, and then the latch covering the engine.

‘Wetin you dey open engine for, this man?’ This from the woman sitting in the passenger seat. ‘Abeg, come give us our money!’

Really, on Third Mainland? And you’ll do what with the money? Fly?

The driver replaced the engine latch and shut the boot, and he and his conductor stood behind the bus trying to flag down another danfo.

‘What are you people doing?’ the man beside me called to them. ‘Who wan stop for you on top Third Mainland?’

I sat biting my lip and glancing nervously behind me, trying not to imagine a speeding vehicle ramming us from behind.

After a few minutes of futile waving the driver walked back to the front of the bus and opened the door, again leaving it to swing into the road.

‘Oh, God, this man! Hold that your door!’

‘E be like say dem dey follow this driver from village.’

The driver held the door against his body with one hand and, with the other gripping the door frame, he began to push. I turned around to see the conductor pushing from behind. I winced as a vehicle coming fast behind us swung into the next lane with seconds to spare.

The driver said something in Yoruba, and again the man to my right interpreted: ‘He said you people should come down and push.’

I pictured me pushing a danfo bus on Third Mainland, or anywhere even, and I couldn’t help myself. I closed my eyes and laughed till I was wiping tears. The Interpreter joined in, but he and two other men got down to push. As they pushed the bus began creeping onto the next lane, and I stopped laughing long enough to scream to the driver to keep his bus on its lane.

The bus was inching forward, pushed by five men, when another danfo, spotting us from a distance, started to slow down behind us. The other bus flashed its headlights and the message was clear.

‘Enter bus, enter bus!’ the conductor screamed.

The other danfo was now right behind us, and the men who had been pushing hurried back onto the bus. The other danfo bumped us from behind and kept moving, taking us ahead of it, with our driver keeping us in lane using the steering wheel. I looked behind but couldn’t make out the face of our rescuer, only white teeth.

The other bus pushed us all the way to Adeniji Bus Stop where it left us and sped on ahead. But instead of putting us on another bus or giving us a refund, the conductor grabbed a five-litre keg and got off the bus before it had even come to a stop. He hopped onto an okada without breaking stride, and we watched as he disappeared down the road into Adeniji.

‘Him don go buy fuel be that’, the man to my left said with a sigh. The woman in the passenger seat got off the bus with a huff and soon boarded another one.

Moments later, a man with the soiled clothes and unkempt hair of a vagrant appeared at the door of the bus. He placed a slip of paper that looked like the receipt for a lotto ticket on the bus’s front bench, right in front of the man seated to my right. And then, muttering something reproving, he wandered off to stand a few metres from the bus. I looked at the unkempt man, and then at the man to my right. He looked back at me, his face mirroring mine.

‘Wait, so he just came and dropped that paper and walked away?’ I asked. The man’s answer was to glance back at the unkempt man, and then shift on the seat, closer to me and away from the slip of paper. I laughed, but this time I laughed alone.

The conductor returned minutes later with his five litres of fuel. He poured it into the tank as the man to my left said, ‘That’s how they will be buying kobo-kobo fuel. Very soon now they will go and stop other people again on Third Mainland.’

When the driver turned the key this time the engine roared to life. We continued on our way, and I expected to be at Obalende in another two minutes.

As we approached Sura Junction, I noticed the driver muttering something, saw the index finger of his right hand swinging between the road to the right, which led off from Sura Junction, and the road continuing straight ahead, which led to Obalende, like he was contemplating which to take. Everyone knows that going by Sura Junction would almost certainly mean getting stuck in traffic in the narrow streets of Obalende, before reaching Obalende Bus Stop.

‘Driver, no take Sura o,’ the man to my left said.

The driver said nothing.

‘This man, abeg follow straight.’

He kept swinging his index finger

Nononononoooo…!

We reached Sura Junction and the driver turned right. Into Sura.

It took what felt like a full minute. And then, from the man to my left:

‘This driver, God will delay your destiny the way you have delayed us today.’

The driver was calm when he spoke: ‘It is your destiny that will delay. In fact, your destiny have die.’

And so on and so forth.

Exploring Historic Epe and Sungbo's Eredo

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:27:00 +0000

I joined the Nigerian Field Society last December, and on my first trip with the group we explore historic Epe and the mysterious Sungbo Walls. Here’s my account of the trip.

On December 31, about 20 of us met up at Lekki Conservation Centre in Lagos between 8.00 – 8.30 AM and left for Epe at 8.40 AM. During the 80-minute drive to Epe, Ed Keazor, brilliant historian, lawyer, author and filmmaker and our guide for the trip, provided us with some background on the land development around Lagos Island and extending all the way toward Epe, from colonial times to present day. He talked about the intricate ties that Ancient Benin had (and still has) with Lagos and a large part of Western Nigeria, highlighting some of the influences of Bini culture and history in Lagos and Epe. Ed also answered questions on land sale in Lagos, discussing its somewhat precarious nature and some risks and pitfalls to avoid.

As we arrived Epe, Ed discussed the past economic and religious tensions between the 'Eko Epe' – the settlers who arrived Epe with Oba Kosoko in 1851 when he fled Lagos after being deposed by the British colonial government – and the 'Ijebu Epe', the Epe locals. The Eko Epe were mostly traders while the Ijebu Epe were largely fishermen. We learnt that Epe is about 80% Muslim, and that the town got its name from the large number of soldier ants in the area. Ed pointed out trademark Afro-Brazilian architecture, a lot of which can also be found in parts of Lagos, as we drove through the town.

At 9.57 AM we reached the First Epe Central Mosque, built in 1862 and rebuilt in 1930 to accommodate the expanding Muslim population. We met the Chief Imam of the mosque and, with our feet bare and heads covered (for females), were allowed to see the inside of the mosque. (Only then did I realise, to my surprise, that this was my first time ever inside a mosque.) We took in the ancient rafters in the building as the Chief Imam spoke (in Yoruba, with Ed translating) about the significant role of the central mosque in the community, for information dispersal, for guidance and leadership; and also about the ways in which religion and tradition interface in the community (for example, the traditional leader of Epe is turbaned in the Central Mosque by the Chief Imam).

Chief Imam (centre) and Ed Keazor (right)

Inside the First Epe Central Mosque

We left the mosque at 10.40 AM and drove to the Fish Market. There, we explored the market, buying fish, taking pictures and watching the local fisherwomen work. As it was a Sunday the market wasn’t in full swing, but we got a good enough sense of its scale and its economic significance to the town.

Man on canoe

Fish kept alive in water so it stays fresh for long

More fish

Baskets and berthed boats

We left the Fish Market at 11.50 AM and arrived Eredo at 12.25 PM, where we headed to the home of the Baale (community leader) to make our presence known and pay our respects. Next, we visited the caretaker of the Sungbo walls, Chief Sunny, whose dedication and personal devotion have kept the Walls open and accessible. Chief Sunny has had virtually no support from any quarters in maintaining the walls. Since he fell ill about a year ago the Walls have deteriorated even further, and as we walked our guide had to clear a path for us through the forest with a cutlass.

Walking the Walls

As we walked, Ed told us about the history of the Walls – which were commissioned by Bilikisu Sungbo – some of the myths and speculation surrounding them, as well as some amazing facts: for example, sections of the Walls can be seen from space, and about one million cubic feet of earth was moved to create the Walls. Ed pointed out that there are still many unanswered questions about the Walls: its purpose (it is thought to be protective or spiritual, or both), its extent and its shape (circular or otherwise) are debated till this day.

It was saddening to learn that there is very little study being undertaken to uncover the mysteries behind the Walls. Some of the most notable research on the Sungbo Walls was done by British archaeologist Dr Partick Darling. According to our guide there is some talk about some government involvement with the Walls in the near future, but only to the extent of building (much-needed) staircases to allow for safer ascent and descent to and from the trenches, and to build a gate at the Eredo entrance to control access. So essentially, the government involvement will only be concerned with revenue generation, and not research into or preservation of the Walls. The Eredo Walls are on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage Site status.

We emerged from the Eredo at 1.28 PM, and walked about 20 minutes to a nearby spring where we had lunch. We left Eredo at 2.50 PM and arrived the lovely and serene Epe Resort and Spa at 3.10 PM. There, we had drinks and admired the grounds of the resort. We left the resort at 4 PM and arrived back at the Lekki Conservation Centre compound at about 5.20 PM.

The Nigerian Field Society is a national organisation founded in 1930 to:

- encourage interest in and knowledge of the fauna, flora, history, legends and customs, arts and crafts, sciences, sports and pastimes of West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular;

- support their conservation;

- co-operate with organizations with similar interests.

NFS is active in a number of cities in Nigeria. For more information on the organisation, as well as how to join, please visit the NFS website.

Theatre Reviews: Wakaa and Kakadu (Musicals)

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 11:06:00 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone! Here's wishing us all the very best in 2016.

The musicals Wakaa and Kakadu are still showing at Muson Centre, Onikan, and will be on until January 3. I saw both shows and reviewed them on Curtain Call Naija, my new blog dedicated to theatre. Please read, like and follow Curtain Call Naija for theatre news and reviews going forward.

Christmas on Memory Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 08:07:00 +0000

It’s about 40 kilometres from where I now live, in Lekki, to my old neighbourhood in Isolo/Okota. But not all distance can be measured in miles and kilometres; sometimes distance is measured in memories.

This Christmas, my mother and I drove to Okota to celebrate with this family of our friends. The Christmas party is an old tradition with this family, and as kids we would go in our best clothes, always excited, until the ennui of youth set in. It’s been over eight years since I last attended one of these parties.

In 2007 my family moved away from Isolo, from Papa Adeyemi’s house where we’d lived as tenants since we arrived Lagos about twenty-three years ago. It was not a sad moment when we moved; it wasn’t even bittersweet. We were moving to Ikoyi! Fast forward eight years and we’d moved house twice more, each move taking us further away from our very first neighbourhood. But when you’ve lived so long in a place you carry it with you, no matter how far away you move.

Hello... from Young Me

We get in the car on the 25th and the CD player whirs to life. It’s not quite old school music; more like mid-school: J-Lo singing her love don’t cost a thing; TLC being adamant about wanting no scrubs; Mary J Blige urging us to dance for her, Michael Jackson and Akon asking that their hands be held. These songs are the perfect soundtrack for this journey back in space and, in some ways, in time. My mother says the songs remind her about her first trip abroad, and I remember too: the things she brought back, how foreign they smelt, how very international; my teenage elation at touching something that had touched America. Even my mother had seemed brand new to me then. I remember the red and blue Virgin Atlantic blanket she’d somehow brought back. I cherished that blanket for years, despite relentless teasing from my sisters.

I can’t really follow the route or all the turns my mother takes on the drive, but when we reach Isolo and drive past Olufemi Peters Street I perk up. I look out the window at where St Monica ‘Montessori’ School used to stand and six years of my life pass before my eyes. We go past Apata Memorial, that school that had seemed so posh and dazzling and out of my reach as a child. Its walls are no longer white, now some peachy colour that renders the school less imposing.

We drive down Ago Palace Way, and to my right I see a Kingston Jo with its signature red and white. Kay-Jay Burger, we used to call it; there was one two streets away from our old house. It’s where the cool kids hung out, and my oldest sister was the coolest, at least in the eyes of Young Me. It’s where the boys would take the girls when they wanted to impress. I am surprised and inordinately glad to see Kay-Jay still in business.

We pass by Word Base Assembly, one of the churches we’d attended with my mother as kids when my dad was away working in the east and my mother was on a kind of spiritual odyssey. We visit my aunty who had been seriously sick for a year, twenty one days of which she’d spent in a coma. We marvel at the pictures of her 30-something-year-old self sickly in an 80-year-old’s body and praise God for the miracle that is her life today.

We get to the party. We greet, we hug, we smile, we eat and we play games. I like that even though the host family has moved to the Lekki area, like us, they come back to Okota for their Christmas parties. The tradition is comforting. The family now has a different house than the flat of old where they used to throw the parties years ago. This one is huge, it is beautiful, it is theirs. I think about the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same. Okota, same with its perpetual coating of dust. Ago Palace Way, wider now than I remember it, and smooth with its fresh pavestones. I wonder about Pillar of Fire Bible Church, another stop on my mother’s spiritual odyssey. It used to be on a nearby street.

The memories go through my head. Church services at Word Base Assembly; visiting the home of my classmate, Fola, on holiday and feeling slightly better about ours; my sister stealing money from our dad because some ‘prophet’ had said something dire would happen if she didn’t get him money to pray and avert it; St Mary’s and my First Holy Communion, hundreds of Hail Marys and fake ‘confessions’ because even then as a child it didn’t make sense to me to tell Father Faceless the truly appalling things I’d done; night vigils at Pillar of Fire Bible Church; St Monica School and Uncle Daniel, Uncle James, Tunde and Onyedikachi, writing stories, getting caned, marching in front of the school gates to ‘The Brave Old Duke of York’ and other imported songs I didn’t understand; the school’s anthem, whose stolen tune I would only this year come to recognise from a hymn in church one fine Sunday morning; Kembos Private School and the many evening fellowships with fiery prayer said by gentle lamp light. Ire Akari Estate Road: the provisions store just by the market, where the mighty Prince Ebeano started; shopping for school supplies in Aswani Market on Tuesdays. Aina Street, me and my sisters calling out Bisi’s name from our window in her grandmother’s voice and laughing at her confusion as she looked around her every time. The Onwatus on Okeho Street.

Nostalgia is a sepia-toned feeling, and in the hazy harmattan air it’s hard to shake off.

We drive toward Third Mainland, home-bound, our mid-school music still playing our way. My mum says with a sigh, ‘Okota is still in my head.’

Theatre Events for the Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 10:30:00 +0000

It's a great season for theatre in Lagos, with two major musical productions coming up between December 29 and January 3. I will be watching and reviewing both, but not on Truth and Fiction. I recently started Curtain Call Naija, a blog just for theatre; so please follow it for all that good theatre stuff going forward. Also, please show us some Twitter love; we're @CurtainCallNaija.

So here are the coming musicals.

There's Wakaa, which is from BAP Productions, who brought us the highly acclaimed Saro (I and II). Wakaa tells the story of six young graduates as they struggle to find their feet.

Dates: 30 December 2015 to 3 January 2016
Times: Various (1 PM, 3 PM, 4 PM, 5 PM, 7.30 PM)
Venue: Shell Hall, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos

Then there's Kakadu, produced by The Playhouse Initiative, which tells the story of Lagos in the sixties, with vibrant music and costumes.

Dates: 29 & 30 December 2015, 1, 2 & 3 January 2016
Times: 2.30 PM & 6. 30 PM
Venue: AGIP Recital Hall, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos

See why I'm loving the holidays?

Danfo Chronicles: When Passengers are Jerks

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 04:48:00 +0000

Not every time driver did this, conductor did that. Sometimes, passengers, behave yourselves.

One day, on a bus from Obalende, the conductor was collecting fares. At some point, he received a one hundred naira note from a young pregnant female. He asked where she was going and she said Lekki Phase One, and the conductor said her fare was short of fifty naira. She immediately began screaming, saying she had only one hundred naira and he could take it or leave it. The conductor pointed out that he had called out his prices clearly, and so she shouldn’t have entered if she didn’t want to pay. The girl, still screaming like a banshee, said, ‘Can’t you see I’m wearing earpiece?! I didn’t hear you!’

Passengers began piping in: and whose fault is that, they asked. One woman said that she’d noticed the pregnant girl almost get hit by a keke a few minutes ago while they were standing at the bus stop; the pregnant girl hadn’t heard the keke coming because her ears were blocked by the earpiece. An elderly man said with a solemn voice that he’d witnessed an earpiece kill a young man once.

The conductor asked the girl to come down from the bus, but she refused to.

‘I’m not going anywhere!’ she screamed. ‘If you want to beat me, come and try it!’

When the other passengers tried to talk to her she turned on them, and soon she started a fight with the man in the passenger seat in front.

‘I wish you were going to Ajah,’ the man kept saying. ‘You for reach Ajah, then you go know who I be.’

I wondered who exactly he be.

The driver suddenly decided he’d had enough. He stopped the bus to remove the pregnant girl bodily. But he stopped short when his eyes fell on her protruding stomach. He stood silent for a moment.

‘This one na devil temptation,’ he said finally. ‘Touch am now, she fit die.’

‘Na you be devil brother!’ the girl shot back. ‘And na you go die. Bastard!’

The driver got back into the bus and drove off. The pregnant girl carried on, cursing everyone who had spoken to her, and their grandmother.

I was on a bus from Yaba to Obalende. The ride was uneventful, hardly Danfo Chronicles Material. Until we got to Obalende. As the bus came down the bridge, with its door open, the driver and conductor spotted four uniformed policemen, complete with rifles, scanning the approaching buses with hungry eyes. They were looking for buses that would begin letting out passengers before they’d reached the bottom of the bridge and Obalende proper. Both driver and conductor knew what was up, and the conductor quickly shut the door. The policemen eyed our bus as it passed by.

A few metres ahead there was a slight build up of traffic and the bus slowed to a stop.

‘No open that door o,’ the driver barked at the conductor, who nodded.

We were in traffic for a only little while when the other passengers began to get impatient, urging the conductor to open the door. He refused; the policemen were watching. Next thing, we looked up and one of the men sitting in front had opened the passenger side door. He and the passenger next to him got off the bus and sauntered away, with the driver and conductor yelling insults at them as they disappeared amongst the bodies.

Before we knew it, the policemen had swooped in. They commanded all the passengers off the bus, even as the driver pleaded and we explained that it wasn’t the driver’s fault. But the policemen weren’t having it. They were settling into the bus and making themselves comfortable as I walked away.

Finding Home

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 04:31:00 +0000

I began to think about the idea of home after listening to writers at Ake Festival talk about what home meant to them. Is the idea of home tied to a physical place? Is home the people we love the most, or is home something abstract and intangible that we (can) carry with us wherever we go? Is it neither? Is it all?

Whenever I go away from home for a while (‘home’ here meaning the house where I live with my family), I’m often a little sad to return. As a child, the places I visited outside home often held more appeal – the friends’ houses where I visited and slept over were always a little better: better bathrooms, or better toys, or seemingly more liberal parents, or cable TV. The only times I imagine I was ecstatic to be going home was when the place where I’d been was horrible – like boarding school. Of course, each time I was home on holiday and someone annoyed me, I’d think, ugh I can’t wait to go back to school. Still, home always trumped school. By university this had mostly changed, maybe because of the independence that came with university life; maybe because after six years of having lived away from home for months I had become just as comfortable away. Maybe because I had a boyfriend who lived in Port Harcourt where I went to school.

So as I returned home after four nights in Abeokuta, I wondered again at this sadness linked with returning home. Am I sad at the idea of returning to ordinary, to normal? If so, does this mean I am dissatisfied with my normal? Am I sad at the change; and if so why am I never sad on my way out? Or am I sad because my ‘home’, the house where I live with my family, is not really home?

What, then, is home? Everyone has their own answer. I think the definition of home that ties it to a house, a place, is probably the most simplistic. It is an easy definition that sometimes ignores the core of homeness – belonging, the feeling of being in a ‘place’ that you know, that knows you. For some people, this place could be the place where they live, with (or without) their family. For others it is not. For others, home is the people that matter the most to them, which may or may not be family. For yet others, home is wherever they find themselves, and it is these people who I think carry their homes with them on the inside, and whatever space they occupy they populate with little invisible pieces of them that remind them of who they are, who they’ve been. I wonder if people like them ever feel lost.

Theatre Review: Colour Me Man

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 22:48:00 +0000

It was with some ambivalence that I decided to get a ticket to see Colour Me Man. But I ended up having a really good time at the show.

Produced by GbagyiChild Entertainment and The NakedConvos and directed by Najite Dede, Colour Me Man is 75 minutes of pure enjoyment, with an ending that you will not see coming. Colour Me Man is inspired by the play For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, and is based on a series of monologues, by men, published on The Naked Convos.

The play opens with six friends – Black, Blue, Red, White, Grey and Yellow – meeting at Black’s bar. It’s a casual guys’ night out, and the men wind down and begin talking. Grey goes first, disclosing the secret of his extramarital affair – the model couple is not so model after all. After a good dose of ribbing, and some frank talk from White and Black, Grey is left rethinking his infatuation with his woman on the side. Next up is Yellow, who it turns out is insecure about his poor background, and is unable to be with a woman who is way beyond his league and who neither needs nor is impressed by him. White is the quintessential good guy; a virgin who has developed tunnel vision from so intently looking for Miss Perfect. He is Mr Perfect after all, and he deserves nothing less. His friends quickly put him in his place; his perfectionism, they tell him, can keep him from finding happiness.

Blue is the workaholic who has little time to spare for anything or anyone else. Accused of being a snob, Blue’s family money, his father’s unrealistic expectations, and the wariness that comes from being the rich guy everyone wants a piece of, have made Blue somewhat aloof. It is at this point that things start to get heated. Red provokes Black into revealing a secret plot against Blue, as well as his (Black’s) loss, the guilt and shame that have haunted him for so many years. Harsh words are traded and things get even tenser between the six – with Blue and Red coming head-to-head. In an impressive show of self-awareness, Red reveals his sadness, his dissatisfaction with his life, the fear of failure that dogs him, paralyses him even when he knows he should act. He admits that he has done a lot of wrong in his life. His friends try to reassure him of the grace and forgiveness that is available to everyone, but Red is not done yet. In a shockingly graphic fashion that leaves me frozen to my seat and his friends turning away in revulsion, Red reveals the extent of his depravity, and it is clear that there will be no grace or forgiveness for him here.

All the elements of this production come together nicely. The actors had me convinced from the first line. Timi Charles-Fadipe (Red) gives a particularly stunning performance; the last few minutes of the play are pure brilliance. I enjoyed seeing Toju Ejoh (Black) who is one of my favourites, as well as Seun Kentebe, who I like even more each time I watch perform. All six actors were wonderful to watch. I liked the intuitive lighting and the lovely set (although that red settee was a bit distracting; I was worried it might collapse). All in all, it was an evening very well spent.

Colour Me Man is showing for just one other day, tomorrow, at Terra Kulture. Should you go see it? It's a huge yes from me.

Date: Saturday, November 7

Time: 3pm (N3,000) and 6pm (N5,000; command performance)

Cast
Black - Toju Ejoh
Blue - Seun Kentebe
Red - Timi Charles-Fadipe
White - Deyemi Okanlawon
Grey - Olarotimi Fakunle
Yellow - Simi Hassan

Danfo Chronicles: The Preacher

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 11:07:00 +0000

I’m on my way to work one morning, reading on my phone as the danfo rattles along. The bus pulls over to pick up an elderly woman in Ankara. She takes a seat at the back of the bus. I’m on the same seat; there is a man between us. A few minutes after the bus rejoins traffic the woman clears her throat and begins.

— My brothers and sisters, shall we bow our heads as we pray.

I roll my eyes. I’m not a fan of preachers in public transportation; or of the people who take it upon themselves to play Danfo DeeJay, assaulting the busload of people with loud music from their phones; or of the ones who make endless phone calls, screaming out their business for the world to hear.

It’s the usual sermon – sin, hell fire, God don’t like ugly. The Preacher takes out a sheaf of tracts from her bag and passes them around. I tuck mine under my armpit and go back to reading, trying to drown out her words with those on my screen.

We’re pulling up to a bus stop just as The Preacher seems to be rounding up. At the bus stop a few passengers get off and others get on. As soon as we’re on our way again The Preacher resumes preaching, doing a recap of all she’s said before, for the benefit of the newcomers. She hands out tracts to them as she speaks.

Finally, The Preacher is done and she says a short prayer in closing. I am grateful for the restored quiet and I hunker down to enjoy my reading. But then The Preacher begins singing out loud, one chorus after the other, after the other: Take Glory Father, Baba Ese o Baba, Heavenly Race.

I put my phone in my bag and stare out the window.

We’re stuck in traffic at Falomo Roundabout when I notice The Preacher has stopped singing. I glance at her, and she’s looking at the young twenty-something female seated to her other side. There are three of us at the back of the bus now, the young man seated between me and The Preacher having gotten off at some point. The Preacher leans close to the girl beside her.

— Aunty, don’t be angry o…

The girl gives her a questioning look.

— I want to talk to you about this your hair.

I look at the girl’s hair. It’s a long, flowing weave in brown; the inexpensive synthetic kind.

— Where did you fix it?

— In Yaba.

The girl looks somewhat pleased as she says this.

— Hmm.

The Preacher’s sigh is ominous, heavy with unspoken meaning. When the girl does not prod, The Preacher looks at her again.

— Don’t be angry, but I have to tell you, it is not good. This is another person’s hair that you are carrying on your head. Who knows what they have used it for, before they start selling it to people.

The girl keeps a straight face and says nothing. I wonder if The Preacher would have given me the same sermon if I’d been wearing extensions or one of my infamous wigs today. My hair is cut low, unrelaxed, so apparently I pass.

— You should use your own hair that God gave you, you will look very fine, better than this sef. All sorts of spirits in this world… we need to be careful so we don’t go and carry trouble with our own hands.

— I have heard. Thank you, ma.

The girl says this with no malice, and I admire her graciousness.

— You are welcome, my dear. God bless you.

The Preacher resumes singing as the bus inches along in the go-slow. Under the bridge at Falomo, the bus stops to pick up passengers. The Preacher stops singing, perks up. She reaches into her bag for more tracts, and she hands them to the two teenagers who have just entered.

— My daughters, take. Take and read and be blessed.

The girls take the tracts.

— Remember to be reading your Bibles. No boyfriend o; no sinning o.

The girls look slightly confused but they nod.

— Yes, ma.

Theatre Review: Shattered

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 19:47:00 +0000

Duration: 1 hour

Produced by PAW Studio and directed by Kenneth Uphopho (director of Saro the Musical I and II, London Life Lagos Living), Shattered is an intense theatre experience; entertaining, yet incredibly moving.

Loveth is the teenage daughter of Folake, a struggling widow who seeks escape from her troubles in religion. The play opens with a weary Folake returning from work to an empty house – Loveth, who should have been home from school long before her mother, is nowhere to be found. Dishes are piled up in the kitchen sink and an angry Folake seethes with anger as she awaits her daughter’s return. When Loveth returns, the ensuing confrontation causes the teenager to attempt swallowing a handful of her mother’s pills. But Folake gets to her just in time. What follows is a parade of characters and their attempts at intervention: Nneka, Folake’s more affluent friend and, to some extent, voice of reason; Pastor, the Bible and crucifix-wielding, white garmented preacher who has Folake convinced that all her troubles can be traced to her late husband’s family; Mr. Dave, Nneka’s husband and Folake’s benefactor; and Nancy, Loveth’s friend and classmate.

The story that this play tells is not a new one. But what Shattered does well is dramatize the difficulty that the victim of sexual abuse faces in speaking about the experience. In this play, Loveth is surrounded by a community of people she cannot tell about what has happened to her; and for many victims of sexual abuse, this is their reality. Folake, though her intentions are good and her love genuine, is a woman hardened by life and blinded by religious fervour. She cannot reach her own child. The more level-headed Nneka is able to get Loveth to speak, but only so much. Pastor, himself a potential abuser (or so it would seem) cannot answer Loveth’s questions about life and God. It is to her friend, Nancy, that Loveth eventually tells her troubles.

It feels needless to talk about the set, but I have to say I liked it. I think the designer(s) worked very well with the space they had, making use of both stage and floor space to give us a bedroom, living room and a kitchenette. The audience seats were arranged in rows, in a semicircle; the overall feel was one of quiet intimacy.

At the end of the performance there was an interactive session with the cast where the audience was invited to ask question and comment on the play and on the subject of sexual violence/abuse. I think this is a brilliant move on the part of the cast and crew; a way to engage with the audience, to further the conversation, to consider the question ‘what next?’ While there are no simple answers, it’s important that we are able to ask these questions. Shattered is a play well worth seeing.

Cast

Loveth – Goodness Emmanuel

Folake – Bola Haastrup

Nneka – Ijeoma Aniebo

Pastor – Kelvinmary Ndukwe/Patrick Diabuah

Mr. Dave – Martins Iwuagu

Nancy – Bunmi Sogade

Shattered will be showing at TerraKulture on all Sundays in October, at 3pm and 6pm. Tickets cost N3,500 (regular) and N5,000 (VIP). You can get tickets here, on DealDey or at the door.

Danfo Chronicles: Bus on Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 08:56:00 +0000

You’re in a danfo in Wednesday morning traffic. It’s one of those big but cramped twenty-two-seater buses, with a few people lapping. You’re reading on your phone, ignoring the argument between two passengers and the conductor about change. The driver parks beside the road and jumps out to look underneath the bus. You sigh. It's the second time he's done this since you got on the bus four stops away. As he disappears under the bus someone starts to shout fire fire.

Your head jerks up from your phone. People start to scream and there's a stampede for the door. It is a wide door but people take up too much space in a fearful scramble. You're seated on the third row out of four, across from the door but right by a window. The window! You turn to it, but even a small child wouldn’t fit through.

You remember the stories – of danfo engines catching fire and burning the slow passengers alive. (The survivors would have been the ones who ran first and asked questions later, the ones who didn't wait for the evidence of smoke.) You remember your own experiences – doors falling from their hinges as the buses sped by (once on friggin’ Third Mainland!); being driven through pouring rain with no windshield wipers. You join the rush.

You use your body like a ram and you push against the wall of flesh in front of you. You think about fire. It can come in one big explosion, or in a quiet whoosh, or silently, with only the smell of burning to announce it. However it comes, you want to be safely off the bus when it happens.

Your feet meet the ground and you've never been so grateful for roadside grass. You quickly put a safe distance between you and the bus. Only then do you turn to watch the inferno.

Except there’s none.

The driver shimmies out from under his bus, wiping his hands on his pants.

—Where una see fire?

You exchange questioning looks with the other passengers. The fog is starting to clear. You look under the bus, stretch your neck to see behind it. No smoke, no fire. You let out a shaky laugh, and then you can’t stop. The others are giving you strange looks so you cover your mouth. They are grumbling, dusting themselves off, examining scrapes and bruises; everyone wants to know who called out fire.

—Na she!

A young woman in an orange shirt gives a shamefaced smile as she looks away.

The conductor herds you back onto the bus with the others. You find a place on the same row as before, but a man has taken your former seat by the window. You note his smug smile, the smile of one whose calm paid off in the face of panic. You want to smack the smile off his face.

From behind you:

—Na wah o. Which kain nonsense be dis?

—Chai. Oga, sorry o. Your cloth tear?

—E tear now! See my trouser.

—Sorry, ehn.

Silence.

—Oga, na you leave your slippers inside bus run comot?

—My sister, wetin I for do na? I leave slippers o.

Two bus stops later the woman who raised the alarm gets off. As the bus eases back onto the road, the man with the torn trousers hisses.

—See the idiot, with im big mouth.

—No mind her. Since she enter bus na so so talk she dey talk.

—But why she go talk wetin she no see? She wan kill person?

A longer silence.

—See ehn, na fear dey kill person.

Theatre Review: King Baabu

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 19:33:00 +0000

Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu is a comedy satire that parodies many African nations, including our beloved Nigeria. As coup follows coup in the nation of Guatu and the citizens cry out for democracy, the military rulers in Guatu struggle to reinvent themselves. General Basha, shortly after playing a central role in General Potipo’s ascension to power via military coup, is pushed and prodded by his wife, a veritable Lady Macbeth, to acknowledge his ambitions and take over government. With help from his wife, her brother, Tikim, and the labour, religious and traditional rulers of the day, General Basha is able to oust Potipo, who manages to escape with his life, and declare himself monarch of Guatu. He takes on the guise of outwardly benign ruler, paying lip service to democracy and open government even as his actions remain decidedly undemocratic.

All is well for Basha – now King Baabu – for a while. But soon enough, discontent and insurgency arise, led by General Potipo, and King Baabu is on the run.

Featuring a stellar cast that includes Seun Kentebe, Toju Ejoh, Abiodun Kassim, Tessy Brown and several others, King Baabu will have you falling off your seat with laughter. My favourite memories of the play are of King Baabu (played by Toju) dancing in his kingly robes and crown. But besides its fun and humour, King Baabu will get you thinking, about Nigeria and the many countries like us – each in our own way a picture of Soyinka’s Guatu – where former military rulers outwardly reinvent themselves. I think it is significant that for a huge portion of the play Basha/Baabu wears his military uniform underneath his robes – this monarchy/democracy is a sham that makes us question the verity of Nigeria’s democracy. The ease with which the labour, religious and traditional leaders are bought over to whatever side holds power is, though humorously portrayed, disturbing. The play’s ending – spoiler ahead! – is the ultimate question. The supposed savior of the kingdom is General Potipo, the same one who had, in the first act, taken power through a military coup. Is he just another player in the same vicious cycle, a placeholder until the next coup?

King Baabu is an important play delivered with humour and wit. Delightful yet thought-provoking, it is one I am glad to recommend.

Theatre Events This Month (And Beyond)

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 21:32:00 +0000

It’s a good month to overdose on theatre. This September Terra Kulture will be showing two (yes, two!) plays on various days: Wole Soyinka's King Baabu and Greg Mbajiorgu's The Prime Minister’s Son. (Get discounted tickets for both plays from DealDey, before the offers expire.)

(The Prime Minister's Son shows September 19, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27.)

Lekki Waterside Theatre will be showing Tyrone Terrence's Yoruba Romance.

And as if that isn’t enough, early in October there will be Bobo Omotayo's London Life, Lagos Living (get tickets here) and Okonkwo's Inquest, a play based on Achebe's Things Fall Apart (tickets here).

Whew :)

There will be reviews. Watch this space.

Life on Default

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 08:29:00 +0000

I was talking with a 9-year-old the other day about the most riveting of topics – school. In about a year she'll be ready for secondary and she seemed pretty pleased about this, having recently been promoted from primary 4 to 6. She said she would be going to a boarding school. I asked if she liked this and she said, in this odd, adult-sounding way that kids sometimes have, ‘I don’t like it but my mummy said I’m going.’

I went to a boarding school. Did I enjoy it? Well, for the first three years I cried each time I had to go back after a holiday. I remember my mum asking once if I was being abused. So no, I didn’t enjoy boarding school, but I learnt how to do boarding school. In many ways I’m glad for the experience. It has inspired many of the things I write.

A couple of years ago I said to a friend that all my children would attend boarding secondary schools. What he said next was utterly simple, yet it was something I’d for some reason never thought about: ‘why would you want to do that,’ he asked, ‘when you yourself didn’t like boarding school?’ After a moment of stunned silence I finally admitted, somewhat shamefaced, that I’d never looked at it that way. I come from a family of boarding schoolers; it’s my normal. It’s like taking the same route home every day; you never really think about it until you have to. Years before, I’d had a similar conversation with a different friend, saying that boarding schools made children independent. He’d said not necessarily. He didn’t like the idea of boarding schools, said he wouldn’t want his kids living away from home at that age. We agreed to disagree; what did he know about boarding schools, he hadn’t attended one. Me, I knew about boarding schools. I’d attended the same one the whole of my six years in secondary school, and so had all my sisters. We turned out great!

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about the decisions we tend to make with our minds set to Default: big decisions like the careers we get into, the people we marry and when, having children and how we raise them. Sometimes a simple conversation is all it’ll take to cause a shift. Other times we’ll spend years of our lives trying to do the opposite of our normal when we realize that wait, I actually do not have to do life this way.

Having and raising children is one life-altering decision that too many people make by default. For a lot of people it’s not even an active decision: it’s just what people do *shrug*. Having a child means being responsible for a life. Why the enormity of this undertaking doesn’t seem to astound more people is a mystery to me. I know that the thought of raising a child makes me lightheaded with anxiety about the various and spectacular ways I could mess up and scar my offspring for life, the many ways I could fall short as a parent. Maybe the answer is a simple one, that these other people just have more courage than I do. Or more faith? More love?

These days when I think about having or raising children, there are no automatic answers anymore. And I say ‘if’, not ‘when’. Because I asked myself if I really truly wanted to have children, and the answer was not Default-yes.

A Cynic's Guide to Taking Chances

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:49:00 +0000

Long before I go in I know it’s going to hurt. But I go in anyway, because on my New Year Resolutions list it’s right there, number four: take more chances. I am taking a gamble on my heart.

But I will never tell you this. It’s not your problem, not really. Just like it’s not the doctor’s business how long and hard I psych myself up before every visit. His business is to treat me. So treat me, however you will. I am taking chances this year.

But in my head I will live out the worst possible outcomes. I will give you everything I have to give and I will come up short. You will become ingrained, build a house under my skin, and then one day you will move out and there will be just air where you used to live. You will love me but you will leave me. It will hurt but I will not stop myself now. I don’t want to.

So today, while it is still early days, I am nursing my broken heart. I am living my future in my present, taking today’s pills for tomorrow’s aches. I am building up the pain, living in it, dying in it. Say what you will, but I know what I am doing. I have lived this before. The trick is, when you anticipate so much pain and live in it, nurse it and let it break you, it never hurts as bad when the real thing comes.

And the real thing always comes. This is the part some people refuse to learn.

Theatre Review: Batonga

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 04:51:00 +0000

Presented by Seeing through the Arts (I love this name!), Batonga tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who becomes a victim of child trafficking. Abike has a simple life in the village. The oldest child of her widowed father, she works hard to help him and her younger ones, and even other villagers, as much as she can. Abike is loved by her father Olu and many in the village, but her family is poor. They struggle to get by and even regular meals are a luxury. One day Olu is approached by Rachel, a ‘posh’ woman from their village who has managed to make something of herself in Lagos. Unbeknownst to Olu, her income is mostly derived from her child trafficking business. Olu, somewhat reluctantly, hands an excited Abike over to Rachel after she promises that Abike will be give employment, as well as an education, in Lagos. Taken in by the promise of a better life, Abike makes her way to Lagos. But she soon learns that things are not always as they seem.

I thought Batonga was... okay. Not great, just okay. The thing that I enjoyed the most about the play was the dancing. And there was lots of it. I loved the vibrancy and energy of it all, the dancers cartwheeling and somersaulting over each other. The acting was pretty good, but the outstanding actor for me was Bola Atotiyebi who plays Auntie.

Some things I wasn’t crazy about, like the narrator sometimes giving us unnecessary exposition. The narrator served the purpose of summarising bits of the story that couldn’t be dramatized in the play’s 75-minute running time, and this she did well. But there was no need for her to tell us something like ‘Abike was scared, humiliated!’ when Abike was on stage showing us just that, and better than any words could describe. Also, while I like musicals, I prefer ones where the actors do the singing. With Batonga it was mostly songs we know being played through speakers. This probably wasn’t a problem for most people though, and it would certainly have worked better if the breaks between music, the narrator’s exposition and the actors’ dialogue were better coordinated. These three constantly clashing into each other was not very pleasant.

Also, certain story elements bothered me. Like why does Rachel have to, quite suddenly, fall for Olu at some point? I found this unnecessary, and all the more so because it goes absolutely nowhere. Maybe the idea is that her ‘falling in love’ is what gets her to confess the truth about Abike’s situation to him. But surely this could have been achieved some other way without needing such an obvious plot device.

On a more positive note, one thing that this play does have going for it is that it packs an emotional punch. The story is built around an important subject (I think this is one of those stories where subject overshadows delivery though) and a sympathetic protagonist, and we are fully with Abike, rooting for her every step of the way.

Batonga shows every Sunday in August at Terra Kulture, 3pm and 6pm.

50 Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 05:23:00 +0000

It’s ironic to die on your way to a funeral. I hope God isn’t a fan of irony.

I’m in my seat on the plane watching people settle in around me. I take a shaky breath. Fifty minutes defying gravity doesn't sound so bad. But 50 minutes is more than enough time to die; enough time for one thing or many things to go wrong.

It’s my first time flying this airline. Why does the upholstery on the seats look so worn, the carpet faded? How old is this plane? What corners have the airline cut this month, this week? The kind that could kill me?

I remember to not give voice to my fear. God is with me. My life is in His hands. His plans for me are good (not death by plane). I wonder about others who have fallen from the sky, wonder what plans He had for them.

I survey the other passengers. Some are falling asleep. A few are reading. One woman is spanking her child. I stretch my neck to look out the window across from me. The sky is overcast but the ground is dry. Grey sky above, grey ground below. Grey is the colour of impending death, not black. Black is solid, final. Definite. You know where you stand with black. But grey, grey has just the right amount of ambiguous. Grey lets you hope. Grey should know better.

A flight attendant gives the safety announcement. She points out emergency exits; the closest to me is five rows away. But what’s an emergency exit when there’s nowhere to exit to? The flight attendant is dark skinned, with a weave that looks expensive. I’m sure expensive hair burns just as good as cheap.

I wonder about flight attendants. Do they, somewhere between their 2nd and 41st flight, develop immunity to the stomach knots that form in those moments when the engines quiet down after taxiing, just before they rev up again for take-off? The flight attendant is gesturing to the floor lights that should come on in case of an emergency. They do not come on now; aren’t they supposed to on cue? What else will fail to work like it’s supposed to? The wheels? The engines? Or something completely out of anyone’s hands, like the weather? Panic floods my chest and I clench my hands into fists.

A woman seated across from me, two rows ahead, catches my eye. She is putting on makeup. Her hand moves in sure strokes, painting black onto her eyebrows, red on her lips. She wipes a smudge from the corner of her mouth with a bold finger.

Calm settles upon me, slow and barely discernible. Like dew. This woman is going somewhere, meeting someone: the boyfriend of many years who just bought a ring? The prospective client who is about to give in? The secret lover? The interview panel that will decide whether she gets to relocate?

The deftness, the certainty in her fingers, is proof that she will get to where she needs to be. She will take me with her. We will land safely. And because she knows this I suddenly know it too.

Theatre Review: Madmen and Specialists

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 04:40:00 +0000

Madmen and Specialists is a dark satire by Wole Soyinka. Set in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War, it tells the story of a man (Dr. Bero) and his father (Old Man) who find themselves on opposing sides. The father, a physician slash philosopher, following his experiences at war comes up with the idea that humans should eat whatever they kill, including other humans. This stance, really a stand against war, causes him to promulgate a ‘religion’ in worship of ‘ASS’. He recruits four men, old patients of his damaged in body and mind, as ardent followers. His son Bero rises to a position of power in military intelligence, and finds himself at odds with his father. He imprisons and torments his father, seeking to know the true meaning of this ‘ASS’. Meanwhile, Si Bero, Bero’s sister, who has been left to hold the fort in the supposed absence of her father and brother, joins up with two elderly herbalists, Iya Agba and Iya Mate, who teach her the art of the herbs on the condition that Bero continues with the work when he returns from the war.

Things come to a head when Bero comes home, to confront his father and to break it to Si Bero that no, he will not be continuing the work. Things spiral out of control from here, culminating in tragedy.

I struggled with whether or not to write a ‘review’ of this play: how could I – should I even – write a review of a play I did not really understand. The producer had warned us in her opening remarks that we were in for something “weird”, but I had no idea. I have not read Madmen and Specialists, or really very much of Soyinka. A few minutes into the play I understood the reason for the producer’s warning, but I cannot say that it helped me much. I found this play quite confusing and felt off balance for most of it. There were some laughs here and there – the scene where the pastor visits Bero shortly after his return is particularly hilarious and would be the high point of the play for me, only I did not know it then. The rest of it was a struggle.

I will say, however, that the acting was superb. There was Patrick Diabuah, who is a personal favourite, as Dr. Bero. KelvinMary Ndukwe was terrifyingly convincing as Old Man. Other cast members include Bola Haastrup, Jennifer Osammor and Austin Onuoha. I do not fault the cast or crew at all. I just think that Madmen and Specialists is an obscure piece of work, certainly not the kind I enjoy. The play was one hour and twenty minutes long, and for once I did not wish a play to last longer.

I will commend the crew, though, for anticipating the audience’s confusion and trying to manage it. I liked that the producer had told us to prepare for a weird experience before the play started, even though I did not fully appreciate this heads up until later. She’d promised a Q and A session after the play, certain, in her own words, that we would have questions. She was right. I was relieved when someone in the audience asked, clearly confused, for a summary of the play. Director Kenneth Uphopho (with the silent ‘p’s; director of Saro and Single in Gidi) did a good job of explaining the play, and I think the audience was somewhat appeased.

Madmen and Specialists was brought to us by PawsStudios; the final showing was on Sunday July 26. Still, you can catch a play at Terra Kulture or the Lekki Waterside Theatre every Sunday.

Danfo chronicles: The 200

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 10:12:00 +0000

After work one day I got on a danfo bus from Yaba to Obalende. When it was time to pay I offered the worn N200 note that I’d gotten from the lunch lady that afternoon to the conductor. He took the money, eyeing it as he held it between his thumb and forefinger.

‘This money no good o,’ he growled, thrusting it back at me.

I took the note and examined it. Even though it had one or two tiny holes and a small strip of Cello tape fixing a tear on one corner, I thought it was passable. But I don’t know how to fight, so I quietly took a N1000 note from my wallet and gave it to the conductor who took it, grumbling about his not having change. I looked away. It wasn’t the conductor’s business that I had two N100 notes sitting pretty in my wallet. It was nobody’s business. I might not be good at fighting with my fists or with quick, cutting words, but even your mild passive-aggressive has many weapons in her arsenal.

After a while the conductor had a change of heart. He grudgingly asked for the rejected N200 and returned my N1000.

All was quiet until one passenger asked the conductor for his change and my N200 ended up in his hand. The guy took one look at the note and held it out to the conductor.

‘I can’t take this money,’ he said. ‘Be quick and change it; I’m coming down at Adeniji.’

‘There is no change o,’ the conductor said. ‘You go manage am like that.’

I felt a twinge of guilt, but I could see two N100 notes in the conductor’s hand. The man had seen this too.

‘No be 200 naira you hold for your hand so?’ he said. ‘My friend give me beta money before I reach my bus stop!’

The conductor spread out the notes in his hand and, all of a sudden, there was only one N100 note. ‘Where you see 200?’ He asked.

The passenger was incredulous, as was I. ‘I saw two hundred in your hand just now!’ he said.

The bus came to a rattling stop at Adeniji Bus Stop and the conductor opened the door. The passenger stayed on the bus, waving the N200 note at the conductor as he hovered over the laps of the woman beside him, as if trying to decide whether to sit on them. The woman was

not pleased.

‘Abeg carry your yansh, make I see road!’ she said.

The man carried his buttocks to his seat while I raised my handkerchief to my eyes and pretended to be wiping something. I wondered if the man sitting beside me remembered I’d been the giver of the contentious N200. I couldn’t let him see me laughing.

The driver turned to look at his conductor. ‘Wetin happen?’

‘Nothing do that money but he say he no want am,’ the conductor said.

The passenger waved the note in the driver's face. ‘See this money. If they give you you go take am?’

The driver barely glanced at the note. ‘Nothing wrong with this money jor. This man, you like trouble.’ He turned to the conductor, ‘You get another one?’

‘Another change no dey o,’ the conductor said.

‘Passenger, you go follow us reach Obalende be that,’ the driver said as he sped off.

The embattled passenger proceeded to make his case to the woman beside him. ‘See the money wey this conductor give me,’ he said, like a child reporting a bruise courtesy of an overly aggressive playmate.

The man beside me spoke up: ‘Ahn-ahn, that money is bad na. If na me sef I no go take am.’

The woman agreed in a quieter voice. ‘It’s true, that money is not good. Conductor, you suppose change am.’

‘And now that you don carry me pass Adeniji, you go give me money to come back,’ the passenger said, ‘or else you go see trouble today.’

‘See this one!’ the conductor said. ‘Na who you wan show trouble? See ehn, you must to show me that trouble o. Before I change this money you must to show me that trouble. Your mouth like crayfish.’

I kept my eyes and face straight.

By the time the bus reached Obalende it was mayhem, with the driver and conductor on one side and the passengers banded together on the other. As soon as the bus stopped I slipped out from amongst the screaming humans as they hurled insults and threats. I thought of that scene every single action movie seems to have: unflappable hero walks off in slow motion while the car or building she’s set fire to blows up behind her. I finally knew what that felt like.

Theatre Review: The Insomniacs

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:22:00 +0000

About the play

Written by Hafeez Oluwa, The Insomniacs is a delightful musical that tells the story of a band on their way to the big leagues. The Insomniacs - Ada, Deju, Lolo, Eric and Emeka - have worked hard and are ready for their big break, their first real show. But Deju's addiction will lead to a tragedy none of them could foresee, breaking the group apart and setting their lives on different courses. When they come together again years later, a lot has changed: loves lost and gained, hearts and bodies broken. Their only hope is their love for each other, and for the music.

It was with some reluctance that I bought a ticket to see The Insomniacs. I’d never experienced Lekki Waterside Theatre before, neither had I heard of the writer Hafeez Oluwa (as it turns out, The Insomniacs is his first stage play). But I love theatre, and I often enjoy musicals, so it was an easy decision. It turned out to be one I did not regret.

The Insomniacs has a good story line, and really great music to go with it. The band had the audience singing along to songs like Asa’s ‘Jailer’, Styl Plus’s ‘Run Away’, ‘Say Something’ by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, and Staind’s ‘So Far Away’. Tosin Gregory gave an outstanding performance as Eric, the group’s drummer-slash-funny man. I wasn’t laughing when he gave his solo musical performance, though; I was nursing my goosebumps. I’d watched Tosin in Band Aid last year, and now with The Insomniacs I’m definitely a fan.

Two scenes from the play were shown on screen using a projector, and I found this an interesting deviation from the norm. One short scene was set behind the audience, so we had to turn in our seats to watch. Another ‘scene’ was simply a disembodied voice that was one side of a phone conversation. It all came together very well.

In all, The Insomniacs was time and money well spent. The show started almost an hour late, but a few minutes in and all was forgiven.

The show is on for two more Sundays this month. Don’t dawdle.

Venue: Lekki Waterside Hotel, Wole Olateju Crescent, Lekki Phase I

Time: 2pm and 5pm, Sundays in July

Tickets: N3000

Yellow Mitsubishi: The Fifth Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Uche Okonkwo) — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 08:32:00 +0000

Ngwo Pine Forest, Caves and Waterfall, Enugu

For Democracy Day weekend at the end of May we planned a road trip to Enugu. We left Lagos at about 8.30am and arrived our hotel at Independence Layout, Enugu, sometime around 7pm. Take out the bad roads and time spent stuck in traffic and we would have got to Enugu much sooner.

We stayed at Utopia Suites. Our hotel accommodation cost less than N7000 per room for both nights, thanks to our Jovago discount. Utopia Suites did not live up to its name, though – from dirty looking sheets and bath tubs to an apparent one-towel-per-room policy, and other small inconveniences, Utopia was one of the more unpleasant hotels we’ve encountered on our travels.

Our time in Enugu was pretty short. Due to the distance from Lagos we knew we would spend two days travelling and have only one day to explore. One thing we made sure to do was partake of the food of the area. I tried okpa for the first time (I’d come across it many times before but had never bothered to), and some of us got a first taste of abacha from a roadside bar.

We set out from the hotel around 11 on our first morning with a plan to visit Udi Hills, Ngwo Caves and Waterfall and Ezeagu Waterfall/Tourist Complex. We figured out, with maps and with the help of some policemen and passersby, that Ngwo caves was closest to our starting point (it was about 45 minutes away), and so with the policemen pointing the way we headed off onto a narrow, winding road. The bends were breathtakingly sharp, and to our right was a drop of several feet. We couldn’t go any faster than about 20km/h. Where we didn’t have trees blocking our vision, the view was amazing, with hills and the city’s buildings dotting the landscape. It was exhilarating, and a little scary. Not the kind of road you want to be on with any kind of trouble.

We reached a roadside fuel station, and there we picked up a man who knew where we were headed and offered to take us there. The winding road took us further, into Hill Top, Ngwo, and from there we made our way to the pine forest. There, we were met by two men who wouldn’t let us through; they were asking for a N5,000 ‘entry fee’. There was no official entryway or booth, or a ticketing system, just these two guys trying to fleece people. We haggled a bit, threatened to leave, and were able to get in for much less.

The pine forest consists of neat rows of trees. The canopy created by their branches and leaves overhead gives an ethereal feeling. We came across groups of people praying, and at least two wedding parties taking post-ceremony pictures. We invited ourselves to take a picture with a lovely couple who didn’t seem to mind.

One of the men who’d demanded money from us became our unofficial guide. He took us down a long path in the bush, sometimes steep and sometimes rocky (it was like a less extreme version of our Erin Ijesha adventure). He’d said there was an easier path through the pine forest, but that it would take much longer. We had plans to visit other places so we chose the quicker route. It was a difficult path, though; so with the luxury of time the pine forest would be the easier and more scenic choice. At some point it started to feel like the guide might be leading us into an ambush in the forest.

Eventually we arrived at a clearing. The waterfall and caves are tucked in a narrow cavity that opens into a small circular space. It’s like being in a dark room with a small skylight, the water falling from the hole in the roof of the cave and down into a pool that forms into a stream. It’s a small waterfall; you can get close and even stand under it.

The cave has an air of mystery to it, and its walls look like burnt clay. Our guide stood to one side smoking weed and saying nothing, so we had no commentary to go with the sights. I doubt he could have told us much anyway. We had our fill of the caves, took several pictures and made our way back out.

When we left Ngwo we decided to head to Ezeagu. We’d read about a place called Ezeagu Tourist Complex, with caves and a waterfall. Nobody we asked knew an Ezeagu Tourist Complex, but they knew Ezeagu Waterfall, and we figured this was close enough. We found our way with the help of an okada rider. Apparently, it was quite a popular spot.

We found out just how popular when we got to the gatepost leading to the waterfall area. There were several buses parked, most bearing logos from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and we could hear party music in the distance. When we got to the waterfall there was a massive crowd of young bodies, some frolicking in the water, others dancing or drinking or smoking. There were three Deejay posts, with different music blaring from each of them like there was some kind of contest going on.

Unfortunately, we could not stay long – the teeming crowd, the loud music, the partying students, it just wasn’t very inviting. But it looked like a beautiful waterfall, from what we could see of it.

This has been our farthest journey yet on Yellow Mitsubishi. As always, it was a great exploring; I only wish we’d had time to visit more of the attractions Enugu has to offer.

Photos courtesy Yellow Mitsubishi