Kama Sutra

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My cellphone rang loudly, rousing me from the uneasy sleep I had just drifted into. I reached for it, with half a mind not to answer if it was my elder brother, ‘Chief.’ It was.

Courtesy, and the knowledge that I seldom called him, won out. I flipped the phone open.

“Hello?”

“Hello! Azuka, this is Chi!” I was assailed by his loud voice. My brother, like my Dad, has a habit of shouting into the phone. I held it some distance away from my ear.

“Hello Chief,” I said. “You just woke me up.”

“Sorry, Azuka, I had something important to tell you.”

I already knew what he wanted, but let him go on just in case I was wrong.

“Did you remember to buy the book I asked you to?”

I was drifting off to sleep again.

“Azuka!”

“Yes, yes, I’ll buy it today,” I said. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“Ok,” he lowered his voice. “How’s school?”

“I’m done for the semester. Chief, I need to sleep — you know it’s night here.”

“Goodnight.”

I think we both hung up the same time.

Later that day, I walked into Borders with my friend Kwame. While browsing, I picked two Clive Cussler books, surreptitiously looking at the section titles to see if I could find the book without asking the clerk for any information. She was a fiftyish, grandmotherly type, who helped me check whether there were any Marie Corelli books available, genuinely pleased (I think) at meeting someone who could talk books with her.

I summoned the courage to ask, “Um… do you have any copy of the Kama Sutra?”

The smile was still there on her face, but something changed in her eyes. The smile was suddenly not so inviting. Usually, she would walk me to the bookshelf where a book was to be found, but she nodded me towards the Relationships Section.

Good Lord, I thought, I’ve been labeled a sinner.

I got the edition with pictures. Chief had been specific about that.

I was checked out almost mechanically, and hurried out of the bookstore, Kwame trying to keep up with me.

I‘m pretending to have no idea why that happened, but I daresay I never felt more relieved when it was done and over with.

Criticism

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We both know my writing is flawless. There are absolutely no mistakes — grammatical, punctuation-wise, or otherwise. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I cast modesty aside and called it perfect.

It thus came as a surprise when I came across this comment on my faultless article The Jinn by someone called Mememe, here reproduced verbatim:

So many things wrong with this story i dont know wgere to begin. i must say though it is well written however, you have got your facts wrong.

First: human beings cannot see jinns

second: the names: fair enough he is Tuareg and named abdullahi but Harun is used by the Arabs. Tuaregs use Haruna.

Third: people in this region do not Say “by Allah”

Fourth: A muslim cannot pray right after sex without a shower – even in the desert.

Fifth: “Hajiyah” is only used in nigeria. The global word is Hajja.

Sixth: In th Sahara, only the high class and noble have swords. the peasants and commoners only use daggers.

Understandably, I was miffed. What the hell was this! What the hell was this?! Someone dared to find so many faults in my writing!

Let’s cast the sarcasm aside for a bit 😀 .

Every time I write something, I love to share it with others — I wouldn’t be blogging otherwise — and I’ve always encouraged everyone to critique my work as ‘brutally’ as possible. Looking back now, I realize no one had ever done that — until Mememe came along.

I thought I was impervious to any faults being pointed out — then again, the only faults readers ever found (or dared to point out) were punctuation errors, misspelled words, incorrect phrasing (or clausing) and the like — but this one hurt like crazy, especially because it showed I hadn’t done any research. I can be very proud — stubborn as well — and I did the writing equivalent of sulking for quite a while.

The date the comment was made was sometime in September 2007. If you’re observant (hint: look at the months listed on my sidebar), you’ll notice I didn’t make any posts after that until January 2008, but before that, I posted every month.

While in Nigeria and going through my work from years and years ago, I wondered where my enthusiasm for writing had gone. Back then, I was either reading or writing — if you look through my secondary school notebooks, you’ll find most of them have been converted into novellas and short story collections. Time was when I couldn’t be far — for survival reasons — from the traditional pen and paper.

I had a lot of time to compare the me from before and my present self. I realized I wasn’t who I used to be, and yes, I wanted to return to the good old days.

I’ve started to write more, and would probably have blogged more (if I’d had better Internet access in Nigeria). Thanks to everyone for reading…

…And thank you, Mememe.

P.S.: Does anyone know where Idemili is?

I’m back

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… or at least, have been since Monday.

I wish I could say Nigeria was completely fun — not that it wasn’t, but being away for quite a while had gotten me unaccustomed to some of the important things. Like NEPA PHCN.

After a few weeks of making excuses with my employer and spending quite a bit on diesel for our generator when not doing so (making excuses), I got flat-out broke and had to stop working. The internet connection at home was a joke, and I don’t want to talk about it.

I probably sound like I hated going back home, but I didn’t. Mom’s cooking was absolutely fabulous and although I intended to lose some weight back home, I couldn’t, although I didn’t gain any either. It was great seeing my younger brother, Uche, and my elder, ‘Chief’ as well as my cousins, aunts and uncles. I met up with a few old classmates too.

I’m not blogging from my PC (which has some issues at the moment), but in any case,

Tadaima (I’m home).

Accident

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I started taking driving lessons about a week ago. It’s been exciting in a way — never mind the fact that the instructor uses a very old Volkswagen ‘Bug’ Beetle. The gears make the most awful grinding noises in the world when I shift up or down and having long legs, the wheel touches my knees.

My ‘school’ is in the GRA area and I stay in Mile 4. It’s not very far, so I decided to get there quickly on an okada, today. The ride was uneventful — the okada-man made some dangerous maneuvers, but how many of them don’t? We had just headed in from Agip Junction when I felt a beautiful sensation that was matched only by the jarring impact some milliseconds later. A car had hit us from behind, sending us through the air and into the gutter — or almost in.

I think I was more shaken than wounded, as the cyclist cushioned my fall. Fortunately, we landed on a section covered by wooden boards so he didn’t really get hurt either, but his dashboard (or whatever it’s called on a motorcycle) and headlamp were torn off.

The driver parked and emerged from the car. Most of the onlookers who’d gathered dispersed quickly in disappointment when they saw the driver was female.

‘Na woman sef.’

Is there some law of nature existing only in Nigeria which renders women incapable of driving properly? I don’t think so, but for some reason whenever a lady driver commits some error, the men standing around almost always say the same thing. Na woman sef. Funnily, some women join in, as though female drivers are expected to possess poor driving skills. OK, OK, I’m ranting.

From her story, a taxi driver had tried to ‘chance’ her at the junction, and he had done it so abruptly that she swerved to avoid him. The cyclist had suddenly jumped in front of her and gotten hit. Passersby confirmed her story.

My cyclist was having none of it. Swearing and cursing himself (or at least that’s how I would interpret ‘If I you no repair my motorcycle today, make thunder fire me!’), he proved to be very unreasonable.

Azuka hates getting in conflicts, especially when the person whose side he should be taking is being an ass, so I paid him for his services, accepted the apologies of the nice lady, and boarded another okada with side mirrors — I’m never getting on any without them again.

They said…

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‘They said a witch was caught this afternoon close to Garrison,’ my cousin Bukky informed me breathlessly.

Who are they? I wondered. It took me about ten seconds before it registered.

They — that quaint Nigerian way of using the pronoun such that it meant no one, anyone, some people or everyone without any specifics as to what was being said about what.

Apparently, three cats moving in a group had been trying to cross the road. One got hit by a speeding car and turned into a woman in her birthday suit. Evidently, getting her clothes or treating the gash on her face were secondary matters in the minds of onlookers.

‘People gathered and started beating her,’ Bukky was quite excited as she reported the incident. ‘Then two men put her on a bike and took her to the police station. After the police beat her some more, she “confessed” she had come from Abuja on a mission with two other witches to kill some people in Port Harcourt.”

Part of the mission had been completed because they had just one target left.

I think the response she expected wasn’t anything like the look of amusement on my face. I was thinking, ‘This is Nigeria. It’s never boring here,’ and wondering how long it’d been since I heard such a story. Two years and some.

I’ve reported it as they said, and duly done my part in spreading the rumor :-D.
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I’ll be in Port Harcourt till August, learning how to drive, getting used to the heat, and well, trying to fit in. Any PH bloggers interested in meeting up?

Naija…

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The title of the post says it all.

I’m back where I like to call home. I’m putting together the gist at the moment, but let’s just say I’m having a great time 😉