I do exclaim quite a bit, even in real life! I think we Africans tend to like a bit of drama, with all the Ahs! Ohs! Hei! O’s, Ehh’s! Hmm’s! that dots our spoken words to emphasize the thoughts that goes with the words.
So genetically, I practice this as a true African to help you get the drift of my thoughts!
I very well can’t add all the hmm’s and hah’s to my writing or can I?
I think those punctuation marks were created for a purpose and I am not even sure that I am using enough of them!
Therefore, when I am making an expression that goes on and on and I am not sure how to do that, I use continuous spots or should I say dots! It represents a pause……., so that you can mull over that thought!
I love little bits of colours here and there ( sometimes, I think I am a magpie that is forever attracted to shiny stuff).
I love to smile too! Even on paper. 😊 Well, not on my thesis, I guess Master Prof. will not find that very impressive and will assume that it is a lame attempt at buttering up 😕
When I write, a lot of times, if I don’t have my headphones on, I say out my words as I type or write them, as though you are in here with me and I try to simulate your answer and how we would twist the topic to 7 Sundays.
My pencils do suffer anxiety attacks from not knowing which of them I will chew to bits the following day and my keyboard has suffered a nervous breakdown a time or two.
My family have grown used to the queer awesomeness of this Lady of the Manor and my husband’s roll of his eyeballs when my laughter gets raucous makes me share tidbits of juicy bits from this awesome community.
Sometimes, most times, I have to reduce my words when I am bursting with so much to say. I keep silent in my head to allow you get in a word sideways as well.
It is a shame that the banter we share has to zip through the cyberspace, bypassing some
word- nappers across all the oceans before making it safely to you and sometimes it takes forever to arrive.
No, I am not a mad-hatter, but I do have my writing and real side quirks which makes me who I am.
That’s some of my quirkiness (I hear that they grow as you get older). So let me know about yours.
We all have strange relationships with punctuation — do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without? Tell us all about your punctuation quirks!
Ever so often a brilliant bulb comes on in my head with an idea hovering within.
I am not the dullest knife in the pack, so my genie lamp does come on frequently you know 😉
Hatching good ideas seems to be a pastime, but the big question is what do I do with all the hatched ideas that I incubate?
Sometimes, nothing at all! A lot of times I share them with others who go forth to continue with the hatching!
Nevertheless, I have recorded a few successes here and there, one of such is that I am here talking to you!
Another happened several years ago, when my dear husband was on assignment in Lagos.
I wasn’t prepared to return to the formal workforce again, because I wanted to have time for my young ones. I looked around, saw the need to provide quality culinary and baking services, so I jumped in with my two feet.
It was not an easy feat with the ups and downs of Lagos, but the three years spent doing that business, were exhilarating, financially rewarding and extremely tasking.
I started out with a team of six staff, consisting of a cook, a baker and his assistant, a driver and service girls.
We started à la carte meal supplies to corporate enterprises that required our freshly made finger foods and huge pots of jollof rice, stew, pounded yam and soup etc for their workshops, training’s, meetings.
It was a crazy time. We would sometimes start work at 4:00a.m. in order to get every thing ready and deliver to the customer by lunch time and race through the infernal Lagos traffic jam with a customer calling every five seconds to know if you are almost there.
Sometimes, it required prepping stuff the day before in the evenings in order to meet deadlines.
I would come home worn out but satisfied and we got lots of referrals from satisfied customers.
Within the space of a year, I outgrew the space that I had rented inside the shopping complex and I needed to secure bigger space.
With money in my pocket I went hunting for land to purchase. Purchasing a parcel of land, I built and equipped a bakery and modern kitchen from scratch coupled with a little office for myself and a staff cloak/relaxing room.
Several learning obtained from the experience:
Catering business is a grueling business but financially rewarding!
You work harder to ensure the success of your own business than any other employment.
Learning how to effectively manage a retinue of 10 full time staff and several ad-hoc staff (the staff number grew within a year) with all their quirkiness.
Customer is key to your business. Keep your customer happy and you grow your business.
I actually started putting a cookery book together but….
I became not only a Business Owner, but also a Manager/Supervisor, Procurer, Human resources Officer, Accountant, Marketing Executive and all the hats that needed to be worn.
I invested and gained a property from the process.
I provided employment opportunity for others.
It gave me extreme satisfaction to prove the naysayers wrong. At the initial onset, even my husband was not too keen on the idea, until he saw me buy my first bus cash-down. NOT ON CREDIT! To obtain loan in this part of the World is no piece of cake, especially when a business is viewed as a new venture.
When I started building the bakery/kitchen without any form of loan but the sweat from my brows, he was amazed at my tenacity and success.
Sadly, our nomadic lifestyle of moving from one Continent to the other made it unfeasible to effectively run this business from afar.
Another day, we could share more brilliant bulb ideas over a cup of coffee!
Now I am looking at other possible ventures, let me go and put on my thinking cap.
”Hia!” ”Is this not where I hung the shirt?” Ikem queries the silent night. His brand new blue second-hand T shirt with the Chelsea logo was gone! Could it have been carried by the breeze? ”Ah! Ah!” ”I just washed and put it out here not too long ago to dry in the light harmattan breeze!”
His other frayed shirt is hanging and flapping in the wind as if in mockery of his thoughts. He knows in his heart that one of those crooked eyed boys in the neighbourhood has pilfered the new one! ”Maybe it is Jude that took it o.” ”Jude!” ”Jude!” ”Jude!” he bangs on the Jude’s door, to no response.
This reaffirms his decision to go home to the village for Christmas in a couple of weeks and proceed to Onitsha with his cousin Chuks. “From the look of things Chuks seems to be doing well at Onitsha.” ”I will join him and start afresh from there.” ”I am tired of this place!”
”So what am I going to wear for tomorrow’s event now?”
He had just walked out of the dingy common bathroom of their quarters bare-bottomed feet; the sling of his worn-out slippers had finally died a natural death on his trek back home after a hectic days hustle.
It was dark in the neighbourhood. ”O boy, these NEPA boys have dismantled and collected the wires o”, says his neighbour Jude, seated on a heap of cement blocks outside, enjoying the nights fresh air. Their light connections are haphazardly and illegally done, coupled with their inability to settle the NEPA officials with something for the weekend.
Child naming ceremony
Ikem chooses not to let such things bother him right now. He is moving to higher grounds in a few weeks time, besides he had purchased quite an assortment of apparels including two new sandals and sneakers that he will launch over Christmas in the village.
As a matter of fact, if fate continues smiling the way it has been these last couple of weeks, ”I might even consider buying a G.S.M torch light phone and a few items to take to Mama and Nwanneka.’‘ ”It is almost my turn to collect the accumulated funds from ‘Isusu’.”
He felt happier than he had in a long while as he quickly washes and hangs his shirt to drain before he retires for the night. Tomorrow will be a good day, he whistles as he goes along. Papa Emma’s is having the child dedication of his twins, and surely the celebration will be followed by several plates of rice and meat coupled with free drinks to go around.
Party Jollof rice with plantain and moi-moi
He plans to join them to go to church. He has not been to church for so many months. It was tiring attending church services that were fast turning into fashion parades, whilst he had nothing fashionable to wear. It always made him feel ashamed.
Now! The new Tshirt he planned to showcase tomorrow has disappeared. “Thank God I didn’t wash the Chinos jeans as well.” ”I will just have to wear something else!” He muses to himself.
Links to the earlier series are at the top of the page. Thank you
Quick Glossary for words that you might not know:
Child dedication: Child dedication is a symbolic ceremony undertaken by Christian parents soon after the birth of a child. This rite is intended to be a public statement by the parents that they will train their children in the Christian faith.
Chuks: A shortened form of an Igbo name given to boys which could be derived from Chukwuka, God is greater, Chukwuemeka, God has done so well, Chukwudi, God lives, Chukwuebuka, God is very big etc
Isusu: An informal means of collecting and saving money through a savings for the enablement of kith and kin ventures.
Harmattan: Harmattan is a cold-dry and dusty trade wind, that blows over the West African subcontinent, from the Sahara Desert into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March (winter).
Hia! Just an exclamation like Oh dear!
Moi-Moi:Â Nigerian steamed bean cakes made from a mixture of washed, peeled black-eyed peas, onions and fresh ground peppers (usually a combination of bell peppers and chili or scotch bonnet). A very protein-rich food that is a staple in Nigeria
NEPA: National Electric Power Authority was an organization formerly governing the use of electricity in Nigeria now replaced by PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria).
Nwanneka: An indigenous Igbo name given to a girl and it means: ”my siblings are supreme or very important.”
Onitsha: A city with one of the largest commercial markets in West Africa. It is situated on the river port on the eastern bank of the Niger river in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria.
To settle: The act of adjusting or determining disputes between persons without pursuing the matter through the formal process. In this case, it is giving something under the table to the officials.
I found a lot of treasures in the neighbours backyards this past week. Will share just a few. Do take a peek.
When we came here for a look-see in December, to help facilitate our migrating decision-making process, we spent weeks in a glitzy, glam hotel having a tour of the lovely city.
Hotels spuriously dot Dubai’s landscape to meet the needs of a teeming tourism industry which keeps blooming by the day. From the 0 stars to 5 stars and the only 7 Star hotel in the World!
Naturally, I got a bit friendly with a few of the staff, especially a young lady that tended to our room. I have no idea if I was drawn to her because she is of African descent, but I remember observing her very earnest yet polite demeanour as she rushed through her duties like a fire-ball in a haste to get her job done in record time.
The little tips that I gave her were highly appreciated and by the end of a few days, we became a little more friendly. I even suggested to her that I would like to share a day working with her for the heck of the experience to her alarmed and vehement refusal.
Out of piqued curiosity an interview ensued on one of the days that she was making up the room, little did I know that I would use the excerpts one day!
I will keep her name different and no mention is made of the hotels for privacy sake:
Me: “Lydia, where are you from?”
Lydia : “Somalia.”
Me: “How long have you been living here?”
Lydia : “Three years now.”
Me: “Wow!” “That’s been a while!” “Do you live close by?”
Lydia: “Not at all.” “The outskirts, after Sharjah.” “It’s too expensive to live in the city.”
Me: “That’s far! (I exclaimed with the little idea that I had to the terrain). ”What time do you leave home?”
Lydia: ”Most times 5 or 5:30 in the morning!” ”I have to be at work by 7:30.”
Me: “And I see you here till late evening around 9.00pm or so when the bus is taking a bunch of you home.” “Doe’s the bus take you home?”
Lydia: “No it stops us at a metro station and we find our way from there.”
Me: “Oh good!” “So how do you like it living here?” “Was it easy to transition from your place?” “I thought it was a bit difficult to move here as a single woman, given the rules and regulations?” A battery of questions came from my end and all these while she busily went about her duties in the apartment, changing sheets, fluffing pillows etc.
Lydia: “It’s okay to live here even though it is more expensive than Somalia, but this place is better.” “An employment agency engages a lot of us.” “We cannot apply directly by ourselves and they are the ones that obtain the visa after medical tests and other requirements have been satisfied.” ”The agency gets a fraction of our income – they are actually our employers and they deploy us to work in places where they get contracts.”
Me: ”How did you get to know about the agency?” ”Are you happy with the work?”
Lydia: ”My cousin told me about them.” ”We were searching for a proper way to leave Somalia because of certain hardship due to conflicts.” I observed the flitting of emotions on her pretty face, but I didn’t interrupt as I was regaled with bits and pieces of what home meant to her.
Me: ”So what about the job?” ”Is it tedious?” ”Is it okay?” ”What has your experience been like?” I asked leading questions trying to probe a bit beyond the surface.
Lydia: ”Sometimes, I do about 35 check-outs in a day.” I got to understand that, that meant putting rooms in immaculate states when an occupant has checked out.
”Some days can be very stressful especially when some occupants are difficult and don’t want you to disturb them until when they are ready.” ”Then they call and tell housekeeping that nobody has done up their rooms; meanwhile, they are the ones that put a do not disturb sign on the door.” ”What can you do?” ”You just have to manage.” She stated philosophically
”Every job has it’s problems, but if I get money, I will open a hairdressing salon.” ”I know how to make hair very well.” Her face lit up at such an anticipated prospect.
“This is actually my second place of work.” ”At the first hotel that I worked in, I was nearly assaulted by a client.” ”It was during a festive season and the hotel was fully booked at that time.” ‘‘I was assigned to work that floor for the week and this man kept making overtures but I ignored him.” ”On one of the days that I was cleaning up the toilet (and he is a very messy guest), he followed me into the bathroom, got aggressive and tried to force himself on me.” ”I barely managed to extricate myself without getting seriously hurt, but the Indian housekeeping manager informed me two days later that I was fired for upsetting a customer.”
”I was lucky that the agency was understanding and they deployed me to this place.” ”This is a better hotel, she enunciated quietly in her sing-song drawling accent. ”The manager is a nice Egyptian Christian.”
I was very disquietened and left the interview at that with a bigger tip than usual.
An appeal to your Bitter, Blustery Highness, As your Icicled fingers of Frigid coldness, Begins to drift in and it gets drafty, Could we appeal to your Foggy, Frostbitten senses? Could your Frozen Flurries and Freezing Rain be few? We spend tons on Flus, Flannels and the Fireplace too! Heating our Hearths to halt Hypothermia! Expensive jackets, gloves, leggings, woolly mittens, caps, scarves and socks, Long-Johns, Overcoats, Parkas and the entire shindig, cost a huge packet too! White Christmas, Snowman and Ice skating is nice we know, But Ma’am, we could do without your, Foggy Overcast which forebodes Ice-storms and Hails! We could survive without your Slippery Black Ice too! We Turn Blue from the Huge Heaps of Knee-deep Snow on our doorsteps, Where we are forced to Seek Cozy Comfort, to Bundle, to Hibernate and indulge in, Copious cups of hot chocolate and Warm Soup, Until your Dreary Frozen Highness, Thaws from the Fingers of the Warming Sun! Please, Your Frostbitten Excellency, Do not get gusty and nip at my Chimney in annoyance, I simply utter a shivery request! Thank you, Your Chilliness.
Do you love to dance, sing, write, sculpt, paint, or debate? What’s your favorite way to express yourself, creatively
Oh! I love to dance! Dancing can make a bad day seem good. You can’t dance and be angry. The two things don’t go together. Sometimes, I visualize myself as a background dancer to some nice music, but I guess that’s where the dream ends, except a team of us come together to form a band in our later years. You never know these things 😉
Oh! I love to sing and shake to the music while at it. All done in a loud voice too. I doubt if I will be winning talent shows or occupying the  Top 10 hits anytime soon, but seeing the fond smiles on my families face as I goof off is definitely worth a Grammy. I can lead a very rousing Praise and Worship you know! That must count for something.
Oh! I dabble in drawing and painting too. I am no Vincent van  Gogh but I do paint pretty flowers now and again and I doodle nonsense too 😄. I however, think my youngest brother ‘Ifesinachi Adrian’ is a fantastic artist! A few of his artwork are displayed below.
Another doodle! A flower I suppose 🙂
I was quite the mouth piece for my school in my Secondary/High school days. I represented the school in so many debates and was always a lead speaker. I haven’t done such exercise in recent times, just debating with my husband and children which is quite exerting, I must tell you.
Oh!  I have a  sister who sculpts as well. I enjoy watching her work, mess
My doodle. What do I call her?
around with her stuff and I get to be her art critic too. I must assure you that it’s not an easy job to be a critic.
Now, when we talk about writing, that is an entirely different kettle of fish. Writing is MY ABSOLUTELY favorite way of expressing myself. I write to think. I write to speak. I just write to live. If you took away writing from me, I really don’t want to imagine what I would do. Maybe scribble in the sand!
I don’t have to be an expert to enjoy doing those things that I love. Those things that make me laugh heartily. Those thing’s that tickles my soul in a positive way.
There I was thinking I had a holiday from Writing 201 this weekend, alas! Mr Ben Huberman says it ain’t so.
I guess Ann Taylor’s poem stuck in my mind because it was one of those poems that I learnt and recited as a child and coincidentally, as my young son was having a bit of allergic sniffles this weekend and being a bit irritable, the poem came back to me, since I sought ways to make him comfortable and ease his distress.
The line that stuck in my head is: ”When pain and sickness made me cry, who gazed upon my heavy eye?”
It is practically a self-explanatory poem. Enjoy remembering it with me. Kind regards
My Mother – Poem by Ann Taylor
Who sat and watched my infant head
When sleeping on my cradle bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed?
My Mother.
When pain and sickness made me cry,
Who gazed upon my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
My Mother.
Who taught my infant lips to pray
And love God’s holy book and day,
And walk in wisdom’s pleasant way?
My Mother.
And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who wast so very kind to me,
My Mother?
Ah, no! the thought I cannot bear,
And if God please my life to spare
I hope I shall reward they care,
My Mother.
When thou art feeble, old and grey,
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I will soothe thy pains away,
My Mother.
In fulfillment of Writing 201 Poetry potluck for the weekend.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 