I haven’t posted anything new in the past few days because I’m so worn out when I get home - the 'go slow' these days is unimaginable. Got home at 11pm on Tuesday and it's been that bad for the past couple of months.
Those of us with good memories will remember the Mother-of-all-Traffic a couple of years ago when 3rd Mainland Bridge was being repaired. A well-known construction company hauled their bright blue machinery onto the bridge, taking over an entire lane and causing horrendous traffic at night, over a two-week period. Back then I sometimes got home at midnight, but at least there was an apparent reason for it. Now? You just keep inching along until you find yourself at your front door.
A few years ago a friend of mine told me how her family hosted a guest from New York. “I wanna see the Lagos traffic” the lady announced as soon as she arrived, “I’ve heard so much about it”. So my friend’s family drove the lady around town, looking for traffic during rush hour, but for some really strange reason there was no real traffic to be found. Unfortunately for the lady, it showed up the one time she definitely did not want to see it - as they sped towards the airport on the night of her departure what did they see inching its way ahead, but our infamous Lagos traffic.
For all of my fellow commuters stuck in the recurring nightmare of the Lagos commute, here are three more ways to keep busy during the bumper to bumper crawl:
1. Spice up your social life
If you’re one of those single people who moan about not meeting anyone new, take a good look around you next time you’re in standstill traffic and you’ll see that you are surrounded by hundreds of potential dates. How do you communicate your interest and availability? Slap on a bumper sticker that says something witty about you (Single, Slim, Sexy, Solvent and Searching) or be direct (Here’s My Number - 080…) But beware, people who smile at you in traffic aren’t necessarily interested, they might just want to cut into your lane.
2. Bond with your beloved
If you’re stuck on 3rd Mainland at night with your Significant Other, enjoy the romantic setting. Take a look around you - you’ll see the lagoon shimmering in the moonlight and stars twinkling overhead. (Assuming PHCN hasn’t disconnected the stars and moonlight) With street traders who sell just about everything, you have a chance to spontaneously buy a romantic gift. (Just ignore the screams from the car being robbed in front of you and no, a toilet seat does not count as a romantic gift)
3. Check out the goods
Speaking of toilet seats, if you’re really bored, check out all the shopping you can do from the (dis)comfort of your car. The last time I counted all the items I saw on sale in Lagos traffic in one day, I listed over seventy different things, including: irons, phones, meat, pots & pans, toilet seats, knives, garden shears, mags & newspapers, carrots, peas & potatoes, fruit, sausage rolls, (Gala Gala Gala) cold drinks, masks, flashlights, toys, crockery, slippers, kaftans, boxer shorts, radios, watches, jewellery, sunglasses and of course recharge cards. Oh yeah also: tissue, books, lightbulbs and towels. Not forgetting the aloe vera plants.
Is anyone from the Lagos State Government reading this?? (Probably not. They’re probably all busy mapping out new BRT routes. Which I suspect is the cause of all this madness.)
Help us! Come to our aid! As Nigerians on national TV like to say in polls about the State of the Nation - “We are suffering; the Government should please come to our aid.”
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Back When A Woman of A Certain Age Was 22
I’m going to take a break from this ‘Woman of a Certain Age’ business to post something else. Why? Because while flipping through the old diary I found during the strike, I saw an entry I made on Sunday July 6th 1997 about an encounter with my grandmother, the same one with the unstable nanny (see June 16th’s blog.)
My maternal grandmother and I are alike in very many ways, and yet we do not get along. “Difficult” describes her nicely.
Anyways, to provide some background to this diary entry: we were at her house for a while in 1997, lured there by the promise of an inheritance. ‘We’ being her only child (my mother) and my siblings (including the sister who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘spinster.’) My Grandma lived in one wing of the large family house and we stayed in another.
She is very organized so it didn’t seem odd that she would want to sort her affairs out while alive; give whoever whatever. Well she’s still around, ten years later and I ain’t got a dime from her yet. While at my Grandma’s house I noted a lot of things in my diary because I wanted to write a book about my experience there, unfortunately I never got round to piecing all the entries together and the diary is a jumble of frustrated scribblings.
Sunday July 6th 1997
Me: “Good morning Grandma” (places tray laden with breakfast favourites on the bedside table and helps her to a sitting position)
Her: Mmhmm. (scans plate, prods food, tastes tea) “It’s too hot”
Tea is taken away and a cooler brew brought.
Her: “It’s too cold.”
Tea making paraphernalia brought to her room, including kettle, and tea made under her critical supervision.
Her: No church today? (Asked just as I attempt to escape)
Me: I was making your breakfast so I missed the first service
Her: What about the second service?
Me: It’s too crowded.
She seems to frown and I hurriedly decide that a crowded church hall isn’t going to stand between me and a generous inheritance.
Me: “I’ll have a bath now and go”
She smiles. I leave her room, my smile disappearing as soon as I step into the corridor.
Relations between my grandma and her only child are breaking down; my mother is fed up of her insensitive attitude. “I can’t believe she’s enjoying having us run around her like this” my mum complained.
I could believe it because I wouldn’t have minded having a few people run around me.
My mother, siblings and I, once secure in the knowledge that we are my grandmother’s only descendants, got slightly worried one day when she announced that she could leave all her money to whomever she chose.
That night we held a meeting on Our Side of the house. My grandma by her recent words and actions….
(Present day thought: the following page was torn so that’s it for that entry…)
My maternal grandmother and I are alike in very many ways, and yet we do not get along. “Difficult” describes her nicely.
Anyways, to provide some background to this diary entry: we were at her house for a while in 1997, lured there by the promise of an inheritance. ‘We’ being her only child (my mother) and my siblings (including the sister who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘spinster.’) My Grandma lived in one wing of the large family house and we stayed in another.
She is very organized so it didn’t seem odd that she would want to sort her affairs out while alive; give whoever whatever. Well she’s still around, ten years later and I ain’t got a dime from her yet. While at my Grandma’s house I noted a lot of things in my diary because I wanted to write a book about my experience there, unfortunately I never got round to piecing all the entries together and the diary is a jumble of frustrated scribblings.
Sunday July 6th 1997
Me: “Good morning Grandma” (places tray laden with breakfast favourites on the bedside table and helps her to a sitting position)
Her: Mmhmm. (scans plate, prods food, tastes tea) “It’s too hot”
Tea is taken away and a cooler brew brought.
Her: “It’s too cold.”
Tea making paraphernalia brought to her room, including kettle, and tea made under her critical supervision.
Her: No church today? (Asked just as I attempt to escape)
Me: I was making your breakfast so I missed the first service
Her: What about the second service?
Me: It’s too crowded.
She seems to frown and I hurriedly decide that a crowded church hall isn’t going to stand between me and a generous inheritance.
Me: “I’ll have a bath now and go”
She smiles. I leave her room, my smile disappearing as soon as I step into the corridor.
Relations between my grandma and her only child are breaking down; my mother is fed up of her insensitive attitude. “I can’t believe she’s enjoying having us run around her like this” my mum complained.
I could believe it because I wouldn’t have minded having a few people run around me.
My mother, siblings and I, once secure in the knowledge that we are my grandmother’s only descendants, got slightly worried one day when she announced that she could leave all her money to whomever she chose.
That night we held a meeting on Our Side of the house. My grandma by her recent words and actions….
(Present day thought: the following page was torn so that’s it for that entry…)
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Woman Of A Certain Age (2)
Considering Cradle Snatching
Ok so we’ve talked Biological Clocks and flab around the mid-section. Now it’s on to point 3 on the list of Things That Happen To A Woman Of A Certain Age: appreciating the younger men who find one attractive.
First let me define ‘younger men’: ‘younger’ means anyone up to an hour younger than you. (Yes, the rules are stringent but one needs order in this chaotic world.) ‘Men’ means anyone who’s not a woman. Put that together and ‘younger men’ means someone you never took seriously because you assumed they would be juvenile.
So, you’re thirty. And single. And searching, though you act like you’re not. And after attending the wedding of the last guy you know who is older than you, you realize that what was a shallow pool of eligible men slowly dried up into a puddle and then – right before your eyes – into a mud hole.
You’re just leaving the abovementioned wedding reception when your phone rings. *Aargh!* It’s him again. ‘Him’ being the persistent, much-younger suitor who refuses to accept that you’re Just Not Interested. Oh what the heck, I’ll take his call one last time. You answer. And talk. And laugh. And laugh again. (Hmm he’s funny) And smile at something he says (Aww, he’s sweet.)
You hang up and realize - in absolute horror - that you forgot to take some wedding cake home! Ok that’s not what you realize. Just kidding. What you really realize is that the only reason you blew your baby suitor off all this time was that you were being narrow minded; assuming that a younger man could not be your match mentally, emotionally or intellectually. You locked out a whole ocean of potential partners and allowed your ageist mentality to keep you splashing lamely in the shallow pool of older men; a pool that’s now dried up.
It’s definitely a *Eureka!* moment and you go home in high spirits, grateful that your eyes were opened to possibilities, before it was too late.
You get home in a state of excitement and tell your twenty-something year old sister everything you’ve realized.
“Hmm” she says, looking unconvinced. “Younger men. So you’re now officially a spinster?”
Ok so we’ve talked Biological Clocks and flab around the mid-section. Now it’s on to point 3 on the list of Things That Happen To A Woman Of A Certain Age: appreciating the younger men who find one attractive.
First let me define ‘younger men’: ‘younger’ means anyone up to an hour younger than you. (Yes, the rules are stringent but one needs order in this chaotic world.) ‘Men’ means anyone who’s not a woman. Put that together and ‘younger men’ means someone you never took seriously because you assumed they would be juvenile.
So, you’re thirty. And single. And searching, though you act like you’re not. And after attending the wedding of the last guy you know who is older than you, you realize that what was a shallow pool of eligible men slowly dried up into a puddle and then – right before your eyes – into a mud hole.
You’re just leaving the abovementioned wedding reception when your phone rings. *Aargh!* It’s him again. ‘Him’ being the persistent, much-younger suitor who refuses to accept that you’re Just Not Interested. Oh what the heck, I’ll take his call one last time. You answer. And talk. And laugh. And laugh again. (Hmm he’s funny) And smile at something he says (Aww, he’s sweet.)
You hang up and realize - in absolute horror - that you forgot to take some wedding cake home! Ok that’s not what you realize. Just kidding. What you really realize is that the only reason you blew your baby suitor off all this time was that you were being narrow minded; assuming that a younger man could not be your match mentally, emotionally or intellectually. You locked out a whole ocean of potential partners and allowed your ageist mentality to keep you splashing lamely in the shallow pool of older men; a pool that’s now dried up.
It’s definitely a *Eureka!* moment and you go home in high spirits, grateful that your eyes were opened to possibilities, before it was too late.
You get home in a state of excitement and tell your twenty-something year old sister everything you’ve realized.
“Hmm” she says, looking unconvinced. “Younger men. So you’re now officially a spinster?”
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Woman of a Certain Age
Several things supposedly happen when a single woman hits 30:
1. Her biological clock starts ticking (very loudly)
2. She develops the beginning of middle-age spread
3. She begins to appreciate the younger men who find her attractive
4. Family members stop hinting about marriage and ask outright
5. She discovers herself
6. She gets a significant pay raise at work
Okay the last point isn’t necessarily true, but apparently the first five are to be expected. So did any of those things happen to me??...
Tick Tock
Ah, the Biological Clock, that imaginary device whose constant ticking serves as a reminder to women to “Have A Baby Soon, Have A Baby Soon.”
At some point I thought I might have to take my Clock in for repairs – most times it didn’t tick at all, though I did notice a very faint ‘tick tock’ when I saw a bathed, powdered, well-behaved baby. At one point I got worried – shouldn’t I be desperate to have a child? Shouldn’t I be staring wistfully at other people’s children? Maybe my Biological Clock needed new batteries?
Then I met J, then a two and a half month old and suddenly my phone is full of his photos. I clapped enthusiastically when he tried his first mouthful of solid food and celebrated when he tried to crawl. My Clock is working perfectly!
Looking Flabulous
*sigh* A few years ago I remember staring at my cousin's belly with disdain. If it was possible to have a conceited tummy, mine was it. It was flat and firm and looked down on any that was less than perfect.
As far as I was concerned a sagging belly on a woman without kids was the result of indiscipline! lack of self control! gluttony! I was the disciplined one. I was controlled, strong willed and yet, before I knew it I was on the way to displaying the genes I shared with my cousin.
I tried sit ups. I'd wake up half an hour earlier, stuff my feet under the couch in the living room and huff & puff my way through them. I'd read that Destiny's Child did about 300 sit ups a day and used that to motivate myself but I'd usually only manage five and a half before I gave up, telling myself "they do that because they earn their living from looking great. I don't have to"
As my suddenly-snug shirts confirm, I can no longer carelessly reach for one more doughnut and have taken to occasionally choosing tops which allow me the luxury of breathing. No more tight fitting tops if it means I have to walk around Lagos with my tummy sucked in.
Here's a great tip for anyone who wants to hang loose at work, especially after lunch: (assuming you have an adjustable swivel chair)
1. jack your seat down really low
2. pull yourself in towards your desk and...
3. voila! your tummy is neatly tucked away under your desk. Try it, it works. :-)
1. Her biological clock starts ticking (very loudly)
2. She develops the beginning of middle-age spread
3. She begins to appreciate the younger men who find her attractive
4. Family members stop hinting about marriage and ask outright
5. She discovers herself
6. She gets a significant pay raise at work
Okay the last point isn’t necessarily true, but apparently the first five are to be expected. So did any of those things happen to me??...
Tick Tock
Ah, the Biological Clock, that imaginary device whose constant ticking serves as a reminder to women to “Have A Baby Soon, Have A Baby Soon.”
At some point I thought I might have to take my Clock in for repairs – most times it didn’t tick at all, though I did notice a very faint ‘tick tock’ when I saw a bathed, powdered, well-behaved baby. At one point I got worried – shouldn’t I be desperate to have a child? Shouldn’t I be staring wistfully at other people’s children? Maybe my Biological Clock needed new batteries?
Then I met J, then a two and a half month old and suddenly my phone is full of his photos. I clapped enthusiastically when he tried his first mouthful of solid food and celebrated when he tried to crawl. My Clock is working perfectly!
Looking Flabulous
*sigh* A few years ago I remember staring at my cousin's belly with disdain. If it was possible to have a conceited tummy, mine was it. It was flat and firm and looked down on any that was less than perfect.
As far as I was concerned a sagging belly on a woman without kids was the result of indiscipline! lack of self control! gluttony! I was the disciplined one. I was controlled, strong willed and yet, before I knew it I was on the way to displaying the genes I shared with my cousin.
I tried sit ups. I'd wake up half an hour earlier, stuff my feet under the couch in the living room and huff & puff my way through them. I'd read that Destiny's Child did about 300 sit ups a day and used that to motivate myself but I'd usually only manage five and a half before I gave up, telling myself "they do that because they earn their living from looking great. I don't have to"
As my suddenly-snug shirts confirm, I can no longer carelessly reach for one more doughnut and have taken to occasionally choosing tops which allow me the luxury of breathing. No more tight fitting tops if it means I have to walk around Lagos with my tummy sucked in.
Here's a great tip for anyone who wants to hang loose at work, especially after lunch: (assuming you have an adjustable swivel chair)
1. jack your seat down really low
2. pull yourself in towards your desk and...
3. voila! your tummy is neatly tucked away under your desk. Try it, it works. :-)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Bored & Boyfriendless
The old diary I found is so so precious; it captured who I was when I was 22: a skinny young wannabe writer with an exaggerated sense of humour and no boyfriend.
I wrote in the diary when I was bored, when I was happy, when I was frustrated, I just wrote and wrote and wrote.
It wasn’t a proper diary to start with, so dismiss any images of a leather-bound journal and picture this: a faded orange exercise book with “Three Star Big Exercise Book”, “60 Leaves” and “Made in Nigeria by Star Paper Mill” on the cover, with the mandatory metric tables on the outside back cover. Anyone who went to school in Naija knows what I’m talkin’ about!
Did anyone *ever* use those conversion tables printed on the back?? “Linear Measure”, “Mass and Weight Measure” and “Capacity Measure” (Fluid Volume) Thank God those awful school days spent calculating are over.
Anyway that exercise book was my ‘diary’ for the month of July 1997. In it I recorded the details of my first Weight Gain Programme and the day I heard Gianni Versace had been murdered. I was still stuck in the East at my Grandmother’s and since I had no friends I spent a lot of my time writing about all the stuff happening around me.
On July 2nd (which was a Wednesday) my mum sent me and a male cousin of mine (“O”) to a town a couple of hours away, to pick up something she had commissioned a local artist to paint. I wrote:
Went with O to look for the artist mum commissioned. The journey wasn’t too long, along the way I spotted a sign with ‘Alliance Francais French Language and Cultural Centre’ on it and made a mental note to stop by on our way back.
The taxi driver on the last leg of the trip was very kind; (we had to change taxis twice) he drove us straight to the artist’s house at no extra charge. We knocked, no one answered so we sat on the steps and gossiped about Cousin N’s second boyfriend. I’m starting to get very worried about the fact that everyone else seems to leap effortlessly from one relationship to another with minimum recovery time in between, while it takes me forever to even find someone to relate to: where are all the men?? I can count all the relationships I’ve had on two fingers.
Anyway, there we were talking when the door opened and a hostile-looking woman with dried out jerry curls appeared in the doorway. Talk about delayed reaction: we’d knocked nearly fifteen minutes earlier. Anyway she lived up to her appearance and hostilely asked who I was. I told her who we were and what our mission was, dispelling her fears that I was a student who was pregnant for her husband or something.
She let us in, put the fan and radio on and handed us photo albums as a source of entertainment while we waited for her husband, who wasn’t back from work.
“Why do people here always assume visitors want to look through their photos?” I whispered to O. “Eh, that’s what people here like” he replied. I certainly don’t like it but was forced to look through black & white photos dating back to the Sixties so as not to offend our hostess who sat at the dining table, staring at us.
Only one photo interested me: a recent one of a very good looking guy who, from the landmarks in the photo, was in England. After admiring his cute smile for several seconds I remembered my boyfriendless state and quickly became depressed. The artist came home shortly afterwards, apparently he has a day job as a teacher. Though he hadn’t started work designing anything, he had taken the photos he’d need to work with. After talking to him for several minutes, O and I got up to leave but the artist forced us to eat ‘oji’. His wife brought out a saucer of kolanuts and garden eggs (we’re too young for this!) and we rushed through the ceremony. I wasn’t sure whether he was praying over the saucer or whether he was giving blessings so I lowered my eyes just in case, and examined my left big toe. I stubbed it on a stool yesterday and it looked like a blood clot was forming.
On the way back to town we got in a taxi with a girl with a beard. Not a full-grown Barry White-ish sort of beard but just short of a goatee.
I stared in fascination; this brings to about two million, the number of women with hairy chins that I’ve seen here in the past month. Immac sales obviously aren’t sky high here.
I wrote in the diary when I was bored, when I was happy, when I was frustrated, I just wrote and wrote and wrote.
It wasn’t a proper diary to start with, so dismiss any images of a leather-bound journal and picture this: a faded orange exercise book with “Three Star Big Exercise Book”, “60 Leaves” and “Made in Nigeria by Star Paper Mill” on the cover, with the mandatory metric tables on the outside back cover. Anyone who went to school in Naija knows what I’m talkin’ about!
Did anyone *ever* use those conversion tables printed on the back?? “Linear Measure”, “Mass and Weight Measure” and “Capacity Measure” (Fluid Volume) Thank God those awful school days spent calculating are over.
Anyway that exercise book was my ‘diary’ for the month of July 1997. In it I recorded the details of my first Weight Gain Programme and the day I heard Gianni Versace had been murdered. I was still stuck in the East at my Grandmother’s and since I had no friends I spent a lot of my time writing about all the stuff happening around me.
On July 2nd (which was a Wednesday) my mum sent me and a male cousin of mine (“O”) to a town a couple of hours away, to pick up something she had commissioned a local artist to paint. I wrote:
Went with O to look for the artist mum commissioned. The journey wasn’t too long, along the way I spotted a sign with ‘Alliance Francais French Language and Cultural Centre’ on it and made a mental note to stop by on our way back.
The taxi driver on the last leg of the trip was very kind; (we had to change taxis twice) he drove us straight to the artist’s house at no extra charge. We knocked, no one answered so we sat on the steps and gossiped about Cousin N’s second boyfriend. I’m starting to get very worried about the fact that everyone else seems to leap effortlessly from one relationship to another with minimum recovery time in between, while it takes me forever to even find someone to relate to: where are all the men?? I can count all the relationships I’ve had on two fingers.
Anyway, there we were talking when the door opened and a hostile-looking woman with dried out jerry curls appeared in the doorway. Talk about delayed reaction: we’d knocked nearly fifteen minutes earlier. Anyway she lived up to her appearance and hostilely asked who I was. I told her who we were and what our mission was, dispelling her fears that I was a student who was pregnant for her husband or something.
She let us in, put the fan and radio on and handed us photo albums as a source of entertainment while we waited for her husband, who wasn’t back from work.
“Why do people here always assume visitors want to look through their photos?” I whispered to O. “Eh, that’s what people here like” he replied. I certainly don’t like it but was forced to look through black & white photos dating back to the Sixties so as not to offend our hostess who sat at the dining table, staring at us.
Only one photo interested me: a recent one of a very good looking guy who, from the landmarks in the photo, was in England. After admiring his cute smile for several seconds I remembered my boyfriendless state and quickly became depressed. The artist came home shortly afterwards, apparently he has a day job as a teacher. Though he hadn’t started work designing anything, he had taken the photos he’d need to work with. After talking to him for several minutes, O and I got up to leave but the artist forced us to eat ‘oji’. His wife brought out a saucer of kolanuts and garden eggs (we’re too young for this!) and we rushed through the ceremony. I wasn’t sure whether he was praying over the saucer or whether he was giving blessings so I lowered my eyes just in case, and examined my left big toe. I stubbed it on a stool yesterday and it looked like a blood clot was forming.
On the way back to town we got in a taxi with a girl with a beard. Not a full-grown Barry White-ish sort of beard but just short of a goatee.
I stared in fascination; this brings to about two million, the number of women with hairy chins that I’ve seen here in the past month. Immac sales obviously aren’t sky high here.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Witty Words of Wisdom
Still on the stuff I dug out of my old bag of books; I also found an old email I'd printed out, which had some really funny one-liners.
The email had been forwarded to me and though I usually delete forwarded mails on the spot, (especially those annoying, threatening ones that instruct you to forward to several other people or risk developing boils in your armpit) this one was quite funny.
I don’t know where the quotes originally came from but here they are:
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat tyre and a broken fan belt
Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
And my absolute favourite:
Don’t walk behind me, for I may not lead. Don’t walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Don’t walk beside me for the path is narrow. In fact, just f*ck off and leave me alone.
The email had been forwarded to me and though I usually delete forwarded mails on the spot, (especially those annoying, threatening ones that instruct you to forward to several other people or risk developing boils in your armpit) this one was quite funny.
I don’t know where the quotes originally came from but here they are:
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat tyre and a broken fan belt
Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
And my absolute favourite:
Don’t walk behind me, for I may not lead. Don’t walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Don’t walk beside me for the path is narrow. In fact, just f*ck off and leave me alone.
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