This and That

Weekend

Weekend was okay, especially Saturday. Practically stayed in bed till three pee-em cos it was raining all day. Had breakfast and lunch in bed. It hasn't happened in a while. The joys of having a woman in the house. Big sis took good care of me, etc etc

I've found a new love in John Saul! Dude got me gridlock'd on my bed all Saturday as I read from where I'd stopped days go to finish, the page turner "Black Creek Crossing". Just my type of bloodcurdling book! There is humor even in the place you least expect to find it.

The book starts with a gruesome murder carried out in the house at Black Creek Crossing and then the story goes on to bring in the girl whom she and her family moved into the same haunted house in another part of town. Enter the scene: a boy, about the same age as Angel. He is a photo enthusiast. He always had an élan for the kind of spookiness he felt from taking pictures of the house. Both kids are treated as outcasts in the schools they attended - the girl from where she moved from and meeting the boy in their new school. The two kids were brought together by the same "weirdness" that surrounded their lives. No one liked them in school, they were punked and bullied by the rest of the highly socialized students. Still, the other kids wouldn't stop at giving them a helluva run in school. Even when these two chose to be friends, the other kids still found something to taunt them about.

Then the part of the mystery shrouding the house the girl moved in to. The stories about the murder in the house and ghosts of the building's former inhabitants lurking about. The two lads set out to find out more about the past of those who'd lived in the house and all that went with that. In the process, they uncovered a lot of stuff, with witchcraft at the fore of their discovery. Long story short, they mastered basics of Wicca, got back at their school tormentors, killed both their parents and in the end they took their lives. Sounds simplistic but the thing is John Saul knew how to raise my furs from his storytelling. I'm eyeing four other titles:

*The Manhattan Hunt Club
* Midnight Voices
*Black Lightning
*Nightshade

Next stop, currently reading: Blind Run

The Diaspora

The other day a friend of a friend of one of a member of the "League of Boys" joined us for a drink. As the night wore on, with more bottles poured and the 'spirit' taking its toll, the arguments shifted from one banter to the other. Then the external body from the group became the butt of the jokes 'cos he just returned from Yanki. One of the boys has no qualms saying $#!+... He started yarning about how our friend from Yanki is a butt-kisser in the white man's land and says all sortsa nasty stuff about Naijas living abroad. I got incensed and our argument just gave me an idea for a post about letting the guys abroad be.

I mean, give me a break, really! Back here at home, there is no incentive for wanting to stick around. A lot of the youths are agitating to run away at the next opportunity that shows up! They'd rather stick their necks out there and kiss ass than be in Naija doing the same, they'd rather work their butts off out there, doing all the jobs no one else would take, than come here and face the mismanagement, agro, corruption and what have u! To some extent, one's gotta be kissing ass for good in terms of something to show for it in terms of living conditions. Cleaners out there, though they might living space with other people, but the system and infrastructure functions and just 'cos of this they don't mind sticking their butts out there, against the odds. Of course, a lot of them steel themselves against the harsh treatments they'd receive while trying to get past the immigration officials in their destination country. They know they'd be hunted down, but they still give up whatever peanuts they have here, just to get out.

A majority of Naijas out there aren't there out of will any more than they have a control over going-ons back home. It's just 'cos they got born in a foreign country: most of these Nigerians are born into households where their parents got job transfers and had to move with their families from way back. In a way, they established a niche there and raised families. Others are born into families of immigrants who sought for greener pastures. Of course, the kid wouldn't just grow up and look himself in the mirror while taking a dump and say, my color isn't of the majority here, I want to go back home and fix myself up. Nope! There has to be some sort of connection to their background.

Now a lot of immigrants who leave the shores of Naija after having had it bad at home before they managed to scale through immigration would want to relinquish most of what they've left behind: the bad memory, culture etc. So it'd be hard for such ones to want to talk about their homeland as often as it should've been done under ideal circumstances, not even to friends and mayhap kids, when they have them there. There's a sharp contrast between this group and those who legally immigrate and want to genuinely contribute to their new country. There are Nigerians out there who make us proud...a lot of these do come home and pitch in where they can. These are commendable acts.

Back here, at home, there's still a lot of sycophancy. Most Naijas will rather kiss an oyimbo's ass than do it to/for their fellow Naija. You know, psychologically it makes a lot of difference. It hits harder being hurt by an 'insider', someone you'd call a 'brother', than from someone on the outside. So in small office settings, project teams the 'yessirmasir' keeps reverberating off the office walls. Peeps wanna belong and get accepted by the oyimbos who don't really give a rat's ass about them, anyways. They just wanna make their monies and leave.

I'm not in anyway endorsing the mentality of "checking out". I'm not saying either that we'd be nasty to foreigners around us, either within or outside our borders. I'm just saying sticking around here doesn't make us any more patriots than those who are away for the right reasons.

I think i need to get a Coke.