April in Yoruba is?

My tongue is not of my mother

I have had this song going on in my head for days an aide memoir for the months of the year in Yoruba. Yoruba is my mother’s tongue but it is not my mothertongue, I did not start to speak Yoruba with any level of quality till I was almost 10.

I had mostly spoken English and my accent was somewhere between a Brummie accent (thankfully, I have lost that trait) from the West Midlands in the UK and the corruption that comes with growing up in a mixed society in Nigeria.

My Nigerian friends thought my accent was foreign whilst my English friends though it was foreign, the other nationalities of Chinese, Japanese and Romanian because I do remember Maya who prevented me from coming first so many time just knew I was born abroad.

Horrible Yoruba lessons

In fact, there were people who from the time we returned to Nigeria addressed me as the Omo Ilu Oyinbo - The child of the white man’s land.

I eventually learnt Yoruba but never enough to make a decent passing grade in secondary school, the Yoruba teacher was a cross between Marquis de Sade and a witch, she was wicked, shrill, and nasty; she punished us in ways that would make the torture revelations we hear of today sound like tiddlywinks.

I have been away from Nigeria a long time but many would say the standard and quality of my Yoruba speaking is good, I use proverbs and sayings and can crack jokes.

Who are the Yoruba?

More recently, I have been concerned about where Yoruba is going as a language, culture and heritage, I was taken aback when it took a couple of Cubans to make me aware of the richness of the Yoruba culture that remains vibrant in Cuban through Lukumi and in Brazil through Candoble.

Just as the history and traditions of the Greeks are exemplified in their mythologies that they have not given up for new religions, that of the Yoruba is in their traditions and animist mythologies that have been labeled inherently evil by strange religions that have left us bereft of our roots and bequeathed a heritage that is neither Middle-Eastern nor American - I suggest brand of convoluted Islamo-Churchianity with a Nigerian slant.

The months quiz

One of the things you learn with a new language is the calendar months of the year, Yoruba has those too and the song going on in my head has been that of the Yoruba months of the year, my classmate Goke taught me, I have the memory of an elephant.

I have created a quiz mainly directed at the Yorubas to list the months of the year.

Yoruba months of the year - Quiz

Do not rush off to Wikipedia seeking help until you have completed the quiz, even a good bit of that information is totally wrong, like there are 4 days in a week, 7 weeks in a month and 93 weeks in a year, never use Wikipedia as an authoritative source.

Are you as Yoruba as you think you are or is your rudimentary Yoruba deceiving you into thinking you can really conduct a decent conversation entirely in Yoruba?

Please leave comments in the blog, if you are inclined to. Thanks!

Ronaldo learns he cannot brag about drag

An idle mind

The truth of an idle mind being the devil’s workshop cannot have been so better realised than in the story of the three-time FIFA world footballer of the year being caught in a scandal.

The football prowess of Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima simply Ronaldo as any football prodigy is known – a single name that says it all like Pele or Maradona, legendary and he might soon be on a plinth of adulation as the aforementioned world stars of the beautiful game.

Unfortunately, Ronaldo picked up a knee injury which has left him sidelined and recuperating in beautiful Brazil.

It would appear after a night out; Ronaldo dropped his girlfriend at her house on Monday and then decided to paint the town red or whatever colourful shade you might be persuaded to choose.

Wrong turn, wrong plan

With a person of Ronaldo’s means and status one would think he would go looking for something sophisticated, classy and discrete as gentlemen of that kind of persuasion would do, he throws caution to the winds and picks up three prostitutes.

Every fan of Ronaldo must to wondering with surprise and then with male chauvinistic glee to realise that he is confident that his manhood can tackle three players and score each time – I am exhausted at the thought, already.

Having acquired goods on the street without necessary warranties and guarantees, a trial squeeze of the supposed harbour of mammary glands and a little caress up the thigh revealed that like poles were about to attract.

Guys in drag are not what Ronaldo is about to brag about, it is very much like Ronaldo facing the goalkeeper on his side and sending the ball into the net for an own goal, Ronaldo had picked up transvestites – Ouch! Ouch! Puke up the Viagra.

Caveat emptor

This is very much like yesterday evening when I was out; there are many peddlers of watches, jewellery and gadgets who were going round offering amazing deals. But the thought crossed my mind that many might take up these deals and end up with dud watches, fake jewellery or damaged gadgets.

With no receipts, traceable link to the seller or any means of return, they end up in the serious bad situation of being the buyer caught out for being foolish – there are reasons why it is better to buy things from properly laid out businesses at shops and those reasons are more than just getting cheap stuff.

Smart or fool?

So, Ronaldo in thought over-drive, possibly exacerbated by the plausible psychological problems his knee injury has given him, successfully paid off two of the transvestites but had a hard time with a third business-savvy and opportunistic transvestite who left with Ronaldo’s documents when he refused to buy out his embarrassment in what constitutes both blackmail and extortion.

With proof that Ronaldo has been playing ball in the wrong field, Andre Luiz Ribeiro Albertino gains a profile that elevates transvestism to celebrity and gains probably more that Ronaldo can pay for, but at Ronaldo’s expense.

One must give it to the transvestites for being so convincingly feminine that they were able to persuade Ronaldo of the excitement and pleasure of a trio of commercially available pudenda.

The police would suggest Ronaldo is probably a victim of extortion – I beg to disagree, he is more a victim of himself for being idle, unfaithful and utterly naïve – in those circumstances he was taken advantage of.

Indeed, the legal process should handle the matter of possible extortion but the lame excuse of psychological problems might not persuade Ronaldo’s girlfriend and frankly owning up to the fact that he was looking for fun might just impress me a bit more.

A young man cannot afford to be idle – that is the moral of this tale.

Does a Darwin Award await Father Carli?

All balloons no man

Hearts must have raced to the point of exhausting cataclysm when balloons were found just off the coast of Brazil.

Now, many would have thought this cluster of balloons was released after some peace event highlighting the plight of the suffering all around the world and Brazil in particular.

Unfortunately, the parson had deserted his vocation as is required on Sunday to embark on some earthly glory at the expense of feeding hungry flock.

Booking passage

Father Adelir de Carli might have been divinely inspired but his execution of whatever task he had been given is no doubt grand folly that might have him neither entering the Guinness World Records nor the Lamb’s Book of Life.

On Sunday, the father strapped to 1,000 helium balloons, with floatation equipment, a satellite phone, GPS and a probably displeased Father in heaven was planning to fly for over 19 hours and breaking some world record.

One however should not forget that there was a charitable cause to this seeming madness, the goal being to provide a rest stop for lorry drivers in Paranagua.

If as the news story indicates, Paranagua is a major port for agricultural products in Brazil, the government and lorry owner organisation should not have to be persuaded with stunts like this to make this kind of provision – it should just be there for all purposes that are good and healthy.

Lost father

It has now transpired that Father Carli is not under those balloons and he might have been lost at sea with prayers that he has not met a fate equal to departing this mortal coil.

If the Father had problems operating his GPS device, then that would have constituted a serious problem especially if it had been recalibrated to Mecca time, a disingenuous attempt by Muslim scientists and clerics who should be better engaged to grab our world time system and align it to the presumed centre of the earth, which some believe is Mecca.

I am no geographer, cartographer, scientist or cleric, but I know one thing for sure, the centre of a geoid is definitely not on its surface.

No Darwins yet

That should put paid to that religious ruse masquerading as good science but it is a most dastardly attempt to damage our time and date systems on the premise that our current time system was imposed by colonialists, it works; we need to be delivered from idle clerics whatever their religion.

Anyway, one can only hope that Father Carli is found alive and well which means he would miss the opportunity to be posthumously awarded the Darwin Award.

Between you and me, I do not think the Father Carli was smart and he could have done his charitable work through less stupefying deeds – but then, if he had succeeded in his escapade, I would have gotten a pin to prick all those balloons.

Pope in Brazil gives no abortions message

Where are the Catholics?

The Pope has landed in Brazil and there is no doubt that he would be thronged by faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma as they gather for a message of hope, of peace and of love.

And that is to be expected, the encouragement to keep with the truth and the admonition to keep away from trends and fads that have no religious bearing on bringing succour to the people.

There is also a kind of disaffection amongst worshippers, people are looking for a livelier God, a kind of worship that includes reverence but also involves the whole of their being in vision, hearing and motion - the type that you would find in Protestant Evangelical churches to which Brazil is haemorrhaging followers.

A message for now?

It would appear the message of hope that the Pope takes to Brazil is the anti-abortion message, one that was at variance with medical realities - a few years ago, a 9-year old girl whose life was at risk if she took the pregnancy to term and the parents decided on an abortion - her parents were excommunicated because the life of the unborn child was more precious to keep than that of the suffering child who might not survive the ordeal of giving birth.

In that circumstance, the parents refused to risk the possible lose of their daughter and prospective grandchild to be succoured with the epithet - God giveth, God taketh away. Nobody, not the doctors nor the church could guarantee the survival of either party should the foetus have come to term.

Of doctrine and of relevance

Indeed, unborn life must be protected, but a humanity of circumstances has to be involved too; religion was made for man to help achieve peace, contentment and balance, it is not an ideological set of dogmatic rules upon which man should be offered as sacrifices to maintain an unconscionable status quo.

Too many times through history, we have allowed such machinations to deprive others of the right to live or exist; driven by some force that portends to speak and act for God, men arrogate to themselves powers that do not belong to any man on earth to exercise terror and dominate the pliant; this should not be so.

We know of the poverty, the disease, the illiteracy, the crime and destitution in certain communities in Brazil - the followers of Catholic doctrine must ask their Holy Father one question - How does the anti-abortion message change our lives for the better, how does it raise Brazilians out of desperate circumstances?

Basically, does the anti-abortion message have any relevance to those who hunger, who suffer, who are deprived and who need a different kind of help?

Even I am listening for an answer in the comfort and security of my Western affluence.

The World Cup now excites me

What can I say?

I suppose we can all agree that France definitely has the measure of Brazil - three out of four in favour of France. The streets of Paris were rapturous in celebration as no South American team would feature in the last four of the World Cup in 2006.

After all the punters have said about Brazil and the put-downs that have gone in against France, apart from the French, there are only a few of us who really believed that France would put Brazil out.

Everyone who has a car has their horns in full blast.

Why does the World Cup excite so much passion, the sorrows of England’s loss are now behind me as I milk the energy of the success and jubilation of France – after all, I am in Paris – I do wonder what the lights are now doing on the Eiffel Tower.

Anyway, football now excites me. Germany v. France for the final and France might just pull it off.