It is 31 years of japa

We left and never wept

When I think of it, at this time 31 years ago, I had just arrived in the UK on a flight from Lagos which was the last time I was in Nigeria. I have since then not found any inclination or urge to return either for sentimental or other reasons, it feels like o broke free from a system and a situation and that was the end of the matter.

Even as I write, too much of what I read and hear of Nigeria is not just scary, but terrifying. If not the abuse of power by the rich and powerful, it is the menace of agents beyond the control of the state terrorising the regions that the state in attempting to arrest the situation almost always descends into atrocity and criminality.

Our hopes for something

Then again, I commend the many, especially among the youth that has been able to make Nigeria work for them after a fashion, their tenacity and resilience cannot be poohpoohed, they have shown that regardless of the circumstances, there is ability and possibility even as things could be better to expand opportunity for broader ascendancy in the citizenry.

Nigeria for me is just a place to observe and assess, my involvement and engagement is necessitated by relationships in the familial and the fraternal, beyond that, my energies and prospects are being directed to other places. Over time, I have increasingly doubted any anticipation of my return, even for the particular. We are done. Yet, my dream for Nigeria remains one for peace and prosperity for the majority marshalled by those who have a good clue of what they are doing. That alone is the welfare for everyone anywhere with a Nigerian connection.

Blog - From a Nigeria 30 years ago

Japa – Urban dictionary

That boarding pass of the 30th of December, 1990.

Basil Fawlty is in Cape Town

What you see is anything you get

We had such an abundance of choices about where to spend the rest of our time in Cape Town, that the decision took days. The fact that some advertisers on hotels.com do not bother to update information about their properties and most especially the pictures leave one wondering what is available and what is not.

For instance, where we are staying now, the information about the property said there was no lift in the building and that there was only a shower in the apartment. Well, there was a lift, and it was not recently installed and how do you miss a bathtub in a bathroom?

Who we saw was something to see

The new place we booked for an overlapping day for checking in and checking out said there was only Wi-Fi in the public places apart from the fact that the pictures depicted a different place from the address that I had to visit the property manager to confirm the situation. One of the pictures had an old-style cathode ray tube television when the detail suggested a flat-screen television. You do wonder what these property agents get paid for.

Taking Brian with me to collect the keys, there was no way I could have returned to tell him of my experience with the agent and he would have believed me. The agent, a rather unkempt man well into his sixties, if not seventies who should have retired probably a decade ago attended to us, and I use attended quite loosely.

What we saw was nothing we’d seen

He was as disorganised as to have that be a credit to his managerial prowess, I sat watching as he attempted to get many things done and successfully half-complete anything, even as he fielded telephone calls, gave instructions, confirmed bookings and we were to pay a breakage deposit and collect the keys to the apartment.

It so happened that he also had to show us into the apartment, moving supermarket trolleys around his jumbled office, grabbed linen and other essentials before giving us a ride in his car to the apartment. We could have been riding shotgun with a twisting roller-coaster for the road when a call came in.

How he drove was daringly crazy

He unbuckled his seatbelt to get the phone that he put in his ear with the left hand in a right-hand drive vehicle when we began to veer off the road. So, whilst holding on to the phone conversing, he took his right hand off the steering wheel to shift the manual gear across his body to the left, we prayed and it was close to our destination as we silently promised ourselves never to be a car where he was driver, ever again.

The man who has probably been in property management for decades has a good idea of what he should be doing, but there is no doubt that he needs not just help, but a professional air of competence that belies his business, for my patience was tested and my mettle experienced a dip in tolerance. If Brian were not there, I cannot tell of what I would have done.

Who he was, was someone we knew

When he told me his name a few days ago, I thought I heard the English name Basil which left me concerned about having encountered the South African version of Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers. And though his name does end up in the English version, if so addressed, we could never have met up with a better version of the hotelier as a property manager. The less said the better. It was an ordeal and a half, that I was not all shook up leaves me rather staggered.

Coronavirus streets of the underhand - LV

Doing it again

There is always a desire to do something different when we are in Cape Town, though there are things we cannot tire of doing and repeating out of the beauty of the experience and how the passage of time allows us to see things anew.

The walks to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, sitting at Nobel Square where now all the four Nobel Peace Prize laureates from South Africa whose statues stand there have passed on, the last two within months of each other.

Funny funicular fudge

Other popular places we have visited many times and today we decided to return to Cape Point and take that 45-minute walk from Cape Point to Cape of Good Hope. On arriving at Cape Point, we thought we would have enough time to visit the lighthouse before going on the trek, but with the time we queued for tickets to the funicular ride up and the waiting to board, there wasn’t enough time before returning to the rendezvous point for the trek.

One thing we noticed about the funicular situation suggests there might be some nefarious activity involved in the ticketing process that probably should be investigated, then we are not accusing anyone of anything, yet it did not escape our cursory observation. I paid for two adult return tickets, and I was given two separate proofs of payment and two return tickets with barcodes.

I gave one ticket to Brian, and we presented our tickets at the turnstile, mine was read and I walked through, but Brian’s did not let him through that the staff used a ticket from the next person to let him through. I suppose our apparent discomfiture made the staff improvise and we thought nothing of it.

A collusion in practice

At the top, we only had time to use the gents, take a few pictures and return on the funicular where this time, Brian was able to walk through the turnstile, but my ticket was refused as having already been used. The staff there did not do much to check my ticket, he simply led me to the passthrough gate by unlinking the chain.

It was then that we compared tickets and found that the reference codes and barcodes were the same when they should have been different. It would appear I was genuinely charged for 2 adults, but the ticket was duplicated for just one. For this to work if there is no proper reconciliation between tickets issued and moneys collected, the funicular staff have to collude in a fraudulent enterprise. I have my doubts that paying for two adults would have produced two identical codes rather than unique ones.

The fact that it was overlooked at the departure gate and the return gate of the funicular service would suggest something fishy, but who knows? An error of sorts in the system? I cannot say for sure; I just have an eye for interesting irregularities, and this was one of them.

Like a different tour

We arrived in time for the trek, it was exciting as it was at times also terrifying, but we did it along with seeing such breath-taking views at the edges of continental Africa. The tour had changed from a first stop at Bloubergstrand with picture-postcard views of the Table Mountain to Kalk Bay, the tour guide was a chatterbox raconteur who seemed to retell the tall tour tales we had heard before with more relish and insight, we were caught between amazement and rolling our eyes, most of the time.

As the restaurant at Cape Point had closed, we made for Seaforth not far from Simonstown where we had a late launch and as we had seen quite a few penguins in bigger colonies, Boulders Penguin Colony presented no particular interest to us. Water’s Edge Beach and Boulders Beach were teeming with crowds that we hardly noticed on our last visit.

We even got to see wild eland and ostriches at the Table Mountain National Park, we could not have said it was the same tour of April 2019. As we returned through Simonstown to Cape Town.

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Coronavirus streets in Cape Town - LIV

Electric menace with stupid

There is nowhere in the world where the riding of e-scooters is not a menace. In fact, any electrically powered vehicle that shares a pedestrian walkway or a pavement and in this case the promenade has usually inconsiderate riders whizzing past oblivious of others with literally no control or direction.

I had to jump out of the way of one hurling down at speed and in 10 metres, he crashed and fell. Whilst he got up and dusted off himself that we onlookers did not have to ask if he was alright, there have been casualties and fatalities after such accidents. The only word that came to mind was stupid, and we all to an extent have a proclivity for stupidity when the circumstance presents.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu

This morning as we contemplated and vacillated about going to church, which we eventually did not do, as I had a rotten night and his own was hardly any better with insomnia, we learnt that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had passed on, at the age of 90.

So many things will be written about Archbishop Desmond Tutu, I would leave that to the eulogists. To me, he was an exemplary man of God, who understood that his calling and cause was greater than self to the service of humanity, challenging the entrenched, the absurd, the hidebound, the acceptable, the untenable, the reprehensible, the unnecessary, the prejudiced, the judgemental, and the bigoted to see a greater value to our common humanity rather than our diminished individuality in the church, in our communities, and in society.

He enters the pantheon of the exceedingly illustrious, in the class of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nelson Mandela. Our world was by all means blessed by his ministry and empathetic wisdom in his life and living in our time, that his passing, though a loss cannot expunge his footsteps in the eternal sands of time as a record of human history.

In the seat of his priesthood, his archbishopric, and in his heart, he gave Christianity a beating heart, a human face, a loving message, a welcoming sign with embracing arms, revealing divine purpose in mortal and flawed vessels. Rest in peace, Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu and may eternal light shine upon thee.

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A Merry Christmas noted

By fate we were late

We entered Christmas slightly in a demur and sober mood, crashing out the night before in the living room, I on the so-called sofa-bad hewn out of rock that each shift was a creak in body ache allegro, you would find more comfort in wincing. He on the rug that sheds its thread at peak alopecia, and I doubt it was any more comfortable, but when I woke up in the witching hour, I got both of us to the bedroom and the comfort of the bed.

The Christmas service had to be registered for as the church was only going to admit 250 worshippers due to Coronavirus precautions. It was to start at 10:00 AM and for all our early wakefulness and preparations, we arrived as they were finishing the processional hymn and found seats to the front left nave with a good view of the altar and the celebrants.

In the humanity of our frailties

The president was Reverend Michael Lapsley, whose storied life of priesthood and social justice activism included having both his hands blown off by a letter bomb sent to him by the Apartheid regime. The atmosphere was lively and solemn, the choir in full angelic voice especially for the Latin recitals.

The Sung Eucharist is quite conservative and traditional that when censer was filled, I thought of it as God’s shisha, for it smoked up like one was observing a full burnt offering, a sweet savour to the Lord as the Bible has usefully described that Old Testament sacrament. I could do without finding fault in things as the pamphlet had mean for meek in one of the carols and the Gospel was read from John when it indicated Luke, the Latin for heavens is Caeli, but it had Coeli, amongst other things.

At the end of the service, we posed for some pictures before stepping out to greet the ministers, going to breakfast, crowd watching at V&A Waterfront before returning home for Christmas dinner. It has been a wonderful and beautiful day; I hope you all had a beautiful merry Christmas.

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For the simple need to be heard and understood

If only I was heard

When I asked my line manager some 28 years ago that I wanted to attend an assertiveness course, he scoffed at me saying there was no way I needed to be on that course, that I was his rottweiler in tough negotiations and I was more than articulate enough to get my point across.

On reflection, I should have been allowed to attend that course for the simple reason that I might have learnt something about being heard when I speak and being understood when I have spoken.

If only I was understood

There is something missing in my communication, no matter how hard I try to convey a point or a situation, some of my longstanding readers read me through a prism of experience and provenance, it is rarely situational in the context of the particular time and place. Dare I say, they do not capture the zeitgeist and I am left making multiple attempts to be heard and understood.

In some ways, I am heard but not listened to, the hearing or the reading creates a kind of awe of the mastery of language, which might fail in the efficacy of meaning. Invariably, the myth that I am a good communicator is just that, a myth, because everything I have intended has been lost in the superfluity of delivery without delivering the message itself.

If only it didn’t have to be in a rage

I tried in at least three blogs to shout out my helpless situation for which I had concluded that I needed therapy, it did and literally fell on deaf ears, it became a soliloquy when I thought it was broadcast communication from which those who read my runes could reach out to me to offer support and succour.

I must conclude I failed in that simple task of asking for help, getting some time, and eliciting the latitude of patience to allow me to sort my head out. In the end, it all came out in a rage, seething rage, untrammelled with raw emotion and worked up in utter exasperation and helplessness. Sadly, we sometimes just need to hurt a little to know that the pain is real, the truth is bitter and maybe we might just see let the chips fall where they might.

References

Blog - Thought Picnic: Stuck on the absence of desire

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the struggle to resume as I

Blog - Please, be at ease with me

Please, be at ease with me

Fear not what you see

Do I ever rebuke,
Even as though a duke,
Or my words abrade,
And inflict like in a raid,
Seek I constant apology,
To be beheld like an effigy,
My lips spew criticism,
With all its cynicism,
Has one given no praise,
Just not to follow a craze,
Too difficult to impress,
Leaving some in distress,
Seen as quite impossible,
That I am unapproachable,
Many are my faults,
As deemed the assault,
A god I seek not to be,
Fear not what you see.