Archive for October, 2011

My Childhood Favourites

This thing called ‘nostalgia’. Who are you? You blow hot and cold at the same time – a child of different mothers, loved and hated both the same. In one hand you hold the polaroids of old, yellowed and dog-eared with age…full of smiles of carefree youthfulness and abandon; yet in the other sits the present and the future, full of promise yet mingled with uncertainty, a road yet untravelled.

Today I find myself….and I’m on a scale, tipping left and right when all I want to do is stay centered, around a fulcrum of certainty. All I need today is to create my future with a patchwork of squares and scenes from the past. Is to reread the stories and novels that made my childhood heart sing, to lick sweetened fruit powders off my palms and to explore the world with eyes of wonder and skinny legs that could run.

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My daughter, I figure I was just beginning to lose teeth in the 80s

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How to Make Nigerian Ogbono ‘Soup’

The Hague, July 2011

Imagine this: Its Monday morning in the official headquarters and I’m in the ‘war room’, surrounded by uber-tech computer screens, sitting around a large wood-panelled table. My entire body finds solace in a soft, black leather swivel chair and I sink in, armed for another work week. Chit and chatter fill the air, colleagues at a meeting  - planning, sharing and strategizing.

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Why I loved Steve Jobs!

I am writing this on my 2011 MacBook Pro. Last night one of my heros died – Steve Jobs.

My husband says ‘I’ll never go back to Windows’, after a few weeks of flirting with my our Apple laptop.

In 2006, I had a sleek black iPod which we loved. I still have it, dead as it is.

But it was in 2009 that I first ‘met’ or even cared that there was someone called ‘Steve Jobs’.

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Reunited – My Camera & I

What joy it is to hold my camera again

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1st of October – Nigeria’s Independence Day

Nigeria is independent, her independence already 51 years long.

And still….a distance to go

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Green and White Pattern on 'Wax' Print Dress

I’d love to share two poems: one written by me and the other, shared with my daughter’s class (full credits to come)

#1 – ‘Nigerian Green’ with Angry Pride, Oz
Today, I am green
Green with anger
Longing for the Nigeria of old
And green with pride
Seeing Nigeria as it soon will be
 
The streets are lined with men and women
Storefronts festooned with bales of green satin
and draped with white banners
Green-white-green flags flail in the air
Stripes that promise loyalty
And honor, faith and peace
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