......

Saw that part of the stretch of Lekki Expressway (very close to the new Addax HQ) has been cleared of all the traders. Maybe it happened a while ago but I just noticed it yesterday. There’s a lot of land-filling going on there. I wonder if there is going to be yet another behemoth of a building is going to be erected there causing even more traffic on the road and cancelling out any benefits of the ongoing road expansion.

Maybe it’ll be a pleasant surprise instead – like a waterside park. Somehow I doubt it.

Take Back the Tech

Last year, APC WNSP (Association for Progressive Communications - Women's Networking Support Programme) started the Take Back the Tech initiative aimed at bringing light to the problem of online violence against women and helping people take a stand against it.

As this year's 16 Days of Activism - November 25 to December 10- against violence against women (VAW) approaches, the Take Back the Tech team is soliciting for ideas for the campaign. Last year's actions included sharing stories and experiences related to VAW, celebrating sheroes, making statements on radio, online (through avatars, icons and email signatures/taglines) and sharing bookmarked websites. Visit the site to learn more.

Also note that November 29th is the International Women Human Rights Defenders Day and December 10 is International Human Rights Day.

David Simon Profile

My brother pointed me to this profile in The New Yorker magazine of David Simon, the creator of The Wire. It's a long juicy read and I have only finished the first page. I thought before I defer reading it to a more suitable time and eventually forget about it, where better to 'bookmark' it than my very own blog?

Doris Lessing Wins the Nobel Prize

Just read on Wordsbody that Doris Lessing has been awarded this year's Nobel prize for Literature. Doris Lessing is my favourite writer so I am very pleased to hear this. I had actually just started reading one of her classics, The Summer Before the Dark last week. Her writing has always spoken to me in a way that no other writer has.

Links:
Wordsbody
BBC News
The Guardian

What do I watch next?

Frivolous post ahoy! I haven't written about my favourite shows in a while, possibly because I didn't have anything new to watch.

Last year, I bought seasons 1 and 2 of Homicide: Life on the Street, which was one of my favourite shows back in the day. I only got around to watching the DVDs this year. On my recent vacation, I bought season 3, which to my intense pleasure was 6 DVDs long. It was to my utter amazement this afternoon to realise that I was on the last disc. How did I get through the entire season so quickly? The addictive plots and wonderful writing undoubtedly have a big role to play in that.

Already in mourning and wondering what I would do after I completed the season, I went online to check on the other seasons. Not only did I see that all season 1 through to 7 are available, I discovered on Amazon.com that the 4th season of my fav, fav, fav show, The Wire will be released on DVD on December 4. Fans of this blog (cough, cough ....), okay regular readers will already know about my love for The Wire and all crime shows. To say that I was ecstatic is a monumental understatement. Now, I know what I want for Christmas and my birthday.

Building Some Discipline

I was telling a friend over the weekend how I had a lot of personal work that I needed to do, but how I seemed to lack the time and space at home to do it. I mentioned that I was considering checking into a hotel for a weekend so that I could get it all done.

My friend burst out in deafening laughter.

- Hehn? You have definitely hit the rock bottom of excuses. If you have so much money to waste, please come and invest in my company.

I protested that I really needed to focus on my work and how I couldn't do it at home.

- Come on, Ore! You just need to be more disciplined.

As I mulled over that startlingly simple but incisive piece of advice, he was still chortling away.

- Check into a hotel indeed!!

Why does it seem sometimes that my focus and discipline comes in ebbs and flows? When I tell people that I really think I would love to be a lady of luxury and do nothing all day, they tell me that I'd be bored out of my mind. But I think I can manage enough focus and discipline to do a good job of that.

The Traffic

Argh! The traffic in Lagos has been so bad. My journey between home and work normally takes about half an hour (and when you consider the physical distance, it shouldn't even take that). Now, if I spend just an hour, I should consider myself extremely lucky. I am far from being the only one suffering from the multiple roadwork taking place all over the city. Everyone I know is complaining. The road expansion work on Lekki Expressway is billed to last 36 months, I think, so we have quite a ways to go.

It's been Bye Bye Gym, as I don't have the energy to work out after battling through traffic, competing with other cars for valuable road space, inching forward in the gridlock and praying that my car does not get scratched or scrapped by okadas and other cars.

9th Lagos Book and Art Festival

I got this a little while ago about the 9th Lagos Book and Art Festival.

Theme: Literacy As Democracy Dividend
Date: November 9 - 11, 2007
Venue: National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos

Arthouse Parties
- Opening Reception - 50 Years Of Things Fall Apart, 10 AM, Friday, November 9, 2007. Groundbreaking ceremony for the series of worldwide anniversary events for Africa's greatest novel-starting January 2008.
- Book Presentation - A Voyage Around Wole Soyinka, by Gerd Meuer, 11AM, Friday, November 9, 2007

Colloqium: 12 Noon, Friday, November 9, 2007
Theme: Constructing a Nation: 40 Years after the first shot in Biafra
Reviews, readings and discussions of novels, drama and non-fiction works including Ekwensi's Divided We Stand, Chimamanda Adichie's Half Of A Yellow Sun, Dulue Mbachu's War Games, Olusegun Obasanjo's My Command, Eddie Iroh's Toads Of War, Chukwuemeka Ike's Sunset At Dawn and Rasheed Gbadamosi's Echoes From The Lagoon.

International Dialogue: 2.30 PM, Friday, November 9, 2007
Theme: Challenges of Liberal Democracy In Africa, William Mervin Gumede, author of Thabo Mbeki and The Battle For The Soul of the ANC spars with Dare Babarinsa, author of House Of War

Panel Discussion : 12 Noon, Saturday, November 10, 2007
Theme: Mending the Damage: Literature and the Niger Delta
A panel discussion on Literatures borne out of the Niger Delta crisis. Discussants include Oronto Douglas (Where Vultures Feast), Ken Wiwa (In the Shadow Of A Saint), Ahmed Yerima (Hard Ground), Nicholas Shaxson (Poisoned Wells), and Kaine Agary (Yellow Yellow)

Arthouse Parties - Part 2: 2 - 3 PM, Saturday, November 10,2007
Music, Wine and Dance For Fatai Rolling Dollar at 80, Bruce Onobrakpeya at 75, Femi Asekun at 75, Tunde Oloyede at 60, Yemi Ogunbiyi at 60.
Bandstand: Fata Rolling Dollar, Seyi Solagbade, Adunni Nefretiti

Symposium: 3 PM, Saturday, November 10, 2007
Theme: Writing In: Tales from the Diaspora
The emerging Nigerian literature outside the borders of Nigeria Features discussions of Segun Afolabi's Caine award winning short story Monday Morning, Biyi Bandele's The Street, Chimamanda Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck, Diana Evans' 26A, Helen Oyeyemi's Icarus Girl and Diran Adebayo's Some Kind Of Black

Art Stampede: 2 PM, Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Myth and Realities Of A Golden Age Of Book Reading
Chair: Uncle Steve Rhodes
Panelists: Rasheed Gbadamosi, *Mobolaji Adenubi, *Akin Adesokan, *Dulue Mbachu
(* Not yet confirmed)

From: Toyin Akinosho, Secretary, Committee For Relevant Art (CORA)

ICT Journalist - Brenda Zulu

Brenda Zulu is a journalist who writes on ICT (information and communication technologies), especially with how it relates to African women.

I like to read her blog whenever I can. She has made a number of recent posts about last month's Digital Citizen Indaba conference, which explored digital media and Internet technologies and their place in Africa. The interviews make for interesting reading.

nGOmobile: Taking Mobile Technology to the Grassroots

Comp time! I received an email from Ken Banks, the founder of the FrontlineSMS system was used to monitor last April's elections.

This time, he's spearheading nGOmobile, a text message-based competition aimed at grassroots non-profit organisations working for positive social and environmental change throughout the developing world.

From the website:
The competition wants to encourage NGOs to think more about how mobile technology could be applied in their work.

NGOs from developing countries are invited to submit a short proposal outlining how text messaging could make their job easier.

The competition closes on the 14th of December 2007. Check the website for info on how to apply.

Battle of the Sexes

I don't seem to write as often as I used to. Ah, I guess it's just cycles in my life. This is one of those busy periods, which will hopefully be followed by an extremely chilled-out couple of months.

I breezed through some of the Sunday papers this afternoon and the Battle of the Sexes column in Guardian's Life magazine caught my eye. The first time I saw it, I just thought "What the hell?"

Basically each week the column poses a question to a group of young men and women (most of them seem to be in university, which might partially explain the high level of inane responses). Men respond, I suppose giving the "male" perspective, while the women respond with the "female" perspective.

First off, I hate, hate, hate things that pitch men against women. It's totally unnecessary and pointless. Secondly, the questions are always incendiary, leading to usually ignorant statements and generalisations. Today's topic questioned whether we really live in a man's world.

Some choice responses from the men include:

"Who wants to compete that it's a man's world. Women are just tools in our hands. They occupy a loop hole that wasn't meant to be there in the first place....."

"If the women have a world, it's certainly underneath the men. Apart from there, I don't see any other space for them in the world."

"It's a man's world, no doubt. We rule in all ramifications and after we're all made and done, we buy up a woman. Well, they call it dowry but in its orginal truth, we just buy them to keep company."

some of the women had this to say:
"The woman is wiser, smarter and more intelligent; plus we've got 'bottom power'"


"Take a look at the world and tell me who you think rules. No musical video makes sense if no babe shakes her buddy (I guess supposed to read 'booty')."

I suppose it's supposed to be a light-hearted debate between the sexes, but the ignorance and chauvinism behind many of the statements (and sorry to say it, but especially the men's) makes it hard to chuckle over. Instead I'm hissing non-stop until I get tired and flip the page.

All in a Weekend's Work

This weekend I have been reminded why I use computers for so long. For a few months now, I've known that I needed to get a new laptop because mine had become excrutiatingly slow. I didn't feel that it was really worth buying more memory for it, especially since it had so many cracks in that people gasped whenever I brought it out in public.

Setting-up a new laptop with all the programs and settings of my old one, while sometimes fun, is not always something I look forward to. This time turned out not to be too painful though. I transferred all my files from my external hard-drive, which I used to back-up my old laptop. I connected my Netcom modem to my my new laptop and my settings were retrieved and I was online in an instant. That meant I could get on with downloading Firefox. I was pleased.

Then I opened iTunes to see all my music displayed, but to my incredible horror, NONE of my playlists!!! This was a travesty. I could not imagine spending hours re-creating the playlists that I had lovingly and thoughtfully put together over several months. In this day and age, there had to be an easier way, I thought. I searched online for possible solutions. On various discussion boards and websites, I found long-winded suggestions. One proposed exporting the source iTunes library as an XML file, replacing the file paths in the XML file with the destination paths, and deleting redundant files. Too long and tedious! There has to be an easier way. Some suggested using your iPod as a hard drive to move all the files. This made sense, but I already had an external drive so why would I want to use my iPod as one.

When I figured it out, it was so easy and obvious. I had moved all my music files from my external hard drive to my new laptop. However on my old laptop, the files were in the My Music folder. On the external drive they were kept in My Documents. By simply moving the files into the corresponding My Music file on my new computer, all my playlists were kept intact.

The next thing I had to tackle was my bookmarks. I love to bookmark and I have so many. I don't really use any of the social bookmarking tools out there - amazing given how I love to track bits of knowledge. I discovered a Firefox add-on that allows you to transfer your bookmarks to a server and synchronise these bookmarks on multiple computers. Lovely! I had problems synching from my old laptop and nearly pulled my hair out figuring what was wrong, until I realised that it was my highly effective (read: annoying) anti-virus software, Norton. Once I switched it off, I was able to upload my bookmarks, after which I switched Norton back on again.

Ah, I can sigh in relief. This was certainly a productive weekend.

Ore in La-La Land

It's definitely nice to be back. A good break leaves you feeling very well rested and ready for more work. Monday was so deceiving. There were no ceiling-high piles of papers on my desk and all seemed to have gone really smoothly while I was out. By Tuesday, forget it! I was snowed under like I typically am. I cannot even complain. As one just returning from a vacation, the thinking is that I would have loads of energy and be raring to go. I think I need another break. Better still, during my next vacation I think I will stay at home and sleep.

Los Angeles was really great. It was my second time visiting. This time I stayed with my friend Funke. She has a really cute apartment in a city?/suburb? of LA called Torrance. There's nothing really special about Torrance, just that it's about 20 minutes from downtown LA (with no traffic). It's also clean and peaceful, which I liked.

The traffic in LA is legendary. I thought NOTHING can be as bad as Lagos traffic and truly LA traffic is nothing like Lagos. Lagos roads are narrow and over-congested. LA freeways are wide and over-congested. Everyone it seems owns a car. Almost no one takes public transport. Everyone drives everywhere - even to a place that is 5 minutes down the road! The freeway typically has 4 lanes: 1 car-pool lane i.e. for cars with more than 1 person inside; the other 3 lanes are for everyone else i.e. for people driving by themselves. Would you believe that with all this space, the usual scenario is that all 3 lanes are chock-full of cars for as far as the eye can see while the car-pool lane is near empty. Those Angelenos love their cars!

My flight into LA arrived late and it took me even longer to clear through immigration, so naturally I expected Funke to be out waiting by the time I got out. I was even half-expecting to see her waving a "Welcome to LA, Ore!" sign. I should be so lucky! The girl wasn't even there when I got out. I switched on my phone and called her. After hurried greetings, she told me that she couldn't find the terminal.

- "What terminal are you at?", she asked.

- How the hell would I know? "Errrr.. arrivals?"

-"I've been looking for the British Airways terminal and driving around and around."

- Okay, whatever! Just get here soon!

Then she checked "What airport are you at?"

Little butterflies of panic started fluttering in my belly.

- LAX. Why? How many airports are there in LA?

- "Like 3! Phew! Okay, I'm at LAX too."

I bought the September issue of Essence magazine (with Jill Scott on the cover) and settled down to read it. Funke got there soon enough. It was great to see her. From the way she'd been going on about how much weight she had put on since moving to the States, I thought she'd be fat, but the girl wasn't exaggerating when she said that she has been seriously working out.

We caught-up on the drive to her apartment. By the time we got to her house I was pretty tired. By the next day however, I was totally wiped out. I couldn't believe it! I planned on going out to get my nails done but it was so hot that I decided to wait until the sun went down a little first. In the meantime, I swanned on the couch watching cable and eating. I found that I just couldn't stop eating or sleeping. When Funke got back from work, she found me in much the same position that she'd left me - on the couch. I managed to drag myself out for dinner. However the next day, the fatigue lingered on.

"What's going on? Why am I so tired?" Well, figuring that I couldn't spend my entire time in LA prostrated on the couch, I hauled my ass (literally) to Hollywood Boulevard.

I probably should have rented a car, but I wanted a laid-back vacation. To get downtown I took a cab. It had always seemed to me that people in LA don't take cabs as frequently as people in New York take cabs. Aside from the fact that everyone in LA owns a car, the traffic means that you are stuck in the cab for a while and the meter keeps ticking away.

Hollywood Boulevard was somewhat of a let-down - kind of less shiny and glamorous than I was expecting. Of course, you do get to see (and walk all over) the famed Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I took a bus tour, which took me down the rest of the Boulevard, into Beverly Hills (through Rodeo Drive), past Paramount and CBS Studios (where many favourite TV shows are filmed). The tour-bus recording (nope, nothing as exotic as an actual tour guide on these buses) pointed out places featured in some famous movies; we also got to see some famous hotels, some famous designer shops; some famous ..... well, you get the idea.

As physically tired (and I guess jet-lagged as I was), I dozed off on the bus. It wasn't a boring tour! I did say that I was tired! And besides, being on a moving vehicle does that to me. I'm actually amazed that I stayed awake for almost the whole thing.

I was slightly worried about driving. After having had to get used to manic Lagos driving, I was anxious about driving in a sane environment. I took the bull by the horns and drove Funke's car to the mall one afternoon and was pleasantly surprised. I only cut-off 1 driver. Her shocked expression quickly reminded me that I wasn't in Lagos anymore.

Okay, this post is getting too long and I don't like overly long posts. Will continue the story of Ore in La-La Land later in another post.

Back Home!

Today was my first day back at work after my much-needed vacation. It was great! It's amazing how a good break can fill you with so much energy. I had started feeling very lethargic (not to mention exhausted) for a minute there. I woke-up this morning well before my alarm went off and was very excited to be returning to work.

On Vacation

I'm enjoying a vacation at the moment. I decided to visit a friend in Los Angeles. I have been here once some years ago, but wanted to check it out again.

The flight here was so long. Yes, I knew that in theory, but experiencing it was another thing entirely. From Lagos to London was okay. That's a fairly short flight (6 hours) and it was night-time, so I slept.

From London to LA was 10 hours. The in-flight entertainment was not working for the first two hours or so. It took me a while to realise when it started working, because the crew member who was working on it (Tim) had made several announcements about it already, re: how he was working on it, what he was planning on doing next, etc. At a point he said in an anguished voice, "I am sure that you are so tired of hearing my voice by now. I will just keep working on it and when it starts to work, you should see it on your screens."

Ten hours in a plane is no mean feat and I kind of under-estimated just how long that journey is. Plus, how disorientating. After traveling for about 24 hours (including time from my house to the airport in Lagos, wait and flight times and finally to my friend's house in LA), it was only about 3PM on Sunday (in Pacific time). I called home and it was Monday already. I have been pretty tired - more than I thought I would be after all I am no traveling novice. It's 4:34AM (Tuesday) here and I am wide-awake. I can see that if I don't force myself to sleep and wake-up at regular times, I could be recovering all week from the flight and time difference (then of course, about the same time I fly back to my familiar time-zone and will have to re-adjust).

Jill Scott is Back

Jill Scott is releasing a new album at the end of next month. Apparently she released one earlier this year - Collaborations. My God! Where have I been that I didn't hear about it? I'm such a big Jill Scott fan and at a point in time I would have made sure that I had the album as soon as it came out. Well, I guess things change and priorities along with them.

Jill's on the cover of the September issue of Essence. Her hair is different. Apparently she has it for a Tyler Perry film she's shooting. Although she looks beautiful as usual, I'm not crazy about the style. Writer, Terry McMillan, who interviews Jill for the magazine states bluntly that she doesn't like it either. I was surprised to read that. It doesn't go with the normal fawning over the celebrities that we see in Essence interviews (having said that, the rest of the interview is par to the course).

Patrick Awuah of Ashesi University

There have been many links posted on many blogs to speeches from last June's TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Global Conference held in Arusha, Tanzania. I was sent this link a few week by Natasha Dantzig, one of the conference staff.

It features Patrick Awuah, co-founder of Ashesi University, small liberal arts college whose mission is to educate leaders of integrity and competence for Africa.

Awuah moved back to Ghana after living in the US for about 10 years to set-up the university. In the video, he talks about his belief that leadership is a major problem in Africa and how today's young people are trained will make all the difference in the continent's future. Ashesi University sets out to do that, offering "a liberal arts education, steeped in critical thinking, idealism, and public service, which is the only way to produce quick-thinking, ethical adults" (from Awuah's bio).

Aside from a focus on ethics and leadership, in the video, Awuah touches on the uncritical mindeset brought about by the rote-learning style of education common on the continent. Having spent time with a group of very intelligent secondary school students and seeing how rote-learning stifles creativity, I feel very strongly about incorporating methods that stimulate critical thinking.

The Travails of Banking

I had to go to the bank today to withdraw some money. Now I really hate going to the bank. Perhaps "hate" is a strong word to describe my feelings. Maybe "detest intensely" might work better.

Alright, so I intensely detest having to go to the bank for anything. When I first moved back home, my first choice of bank to open an account with was GTB. However, as I considered the lack of parking spaces in most of the GTB branches on the island, I decided to look around for a bank that had ample parking spaces. I would not recommend using this as a criteria for selecting a bank, by the way, but it worked for me back then. Or so I thought.

I chose Standard Trust, which was near my home and had a lovely wide open space in front of its premises. It also had very few customers (either a very bad sign or an indication that the staff were deathly efficient), a fact attested to by the near-empty banking hall. Great! A bank where I won't have to hover around looking for somewhere to park and where I will be attended to quickly. What more could one ask for in a bank?

Well, unfortunately for me, Standard Trust became subsumed into United Bank for Africa (UBA), a behemoth of a bank that lumbers along in much the same fashion that you would expect of such a big (and old) organisation. Efficiency does not appear to be a watchword of the bank with simple processes taking forever (I just received my e-banking log-on details after first signing-up for it a year ago).

I've since opened an account with a much newer and efficient bank, but still retain my UBA account. So I still have cause to go to UBA from time to time - albeit as infrequently as I can manage it. So I got there this morning at 8AM so that I could do my business as quickly as possible and leave. I met some fellow customers waiting for the opening of the iron grill. Minutes passed but yet we continued to wait. More customers arrived and hissed loudly on seeing the still shut bank. Some more came and decided to wait outside in the early morning sunshine or in their cars.

"Ah, but it's past 8 now!" one woman exclaimed in dismay.

FINALLY, the UBA staff deigned to open their doors. We heard the keys jingling in the lock and the grill was pulled up. As we trooped in, one of the customers muttered "This is the WRONG bank!". At times like this, I could not agree more. When I asked one of the ladies behind the counter why it took so long for the bank to open, she just smiled in that coy way that people will do when they have absolutely no excuses. I told her that the street was filled with banks and we could just as easily go off to one of their competitors.

"We are very sorry. We will attend to you shortly. We are just getting the money." She gestured to a corner table from where the cashiers fork-lifting arm-loads of tightly-bound wads of cash.

And would you believe that after all that, as another cashier attended to me he looked up at me and apologised that my withdrawal was taking a little while. "Our system is slow."

Lord have mercy! This is truly the WRONG bank.

When the Light is Here to Stay

Being away for the summer camp (and largely away from TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet) over the last week put me in relative isolation from what's been going on. My feeling of coming out of some kind of seclusion was heightened with the realisation that PHCN/NEPA really seems intent on improving its performance.

Over the last 2 or 3 weeks, we've had electricity most of the time. Whereas the old pattern was for PHCN to give us up to 15 minutes of light a day maybe twice a day, with the rest of the day spent in pre-historic like conditions. Now, we have light almost all day. I am so used to returning home from work to no light that it can be slightly unnerving to always have light. Where giving the gateman the key to get diesel to fill-up the generator was a daily occurence, I cannot remember the last time he reminded me that the generator needed diesel.

I discussed it briefly with my mum and she was equally as perturbed. We both wondered if all was well at NEPA.

Don't misunderstand me and think that I am actually complaining about the current state of things. No, no! It's just that when you have been used to coping with certain situations, you need to re-adjust when the situation changes. I just hope that very soon we will not have to return to the dark old days.

The Past Week

It's been such a long time! I hate it that a lot of my recent posts have started off that way. Well, so there are some valid reasons.

My company organised a careers retreat for senior secondary school students last week. For 1 week, I slept in dorms like I was in school again. Okay, I was never actually a boarder when I was in secondary school and this was a pretty nice school by most standards. The boys and girls' common rooms had air-conditioners and a TV with DVD players for the students. The dormitories and dining rooms also had ACs, so we were living quite well.

I don't often get to spend time with young people of the SS1 - 3 age, so it was an interesting refresher of how things were back in the day. At night, I'd be kept up late by the never-ending chattering of the girls. They talked about school, school-work, clothes, parents and boys (well, perhaps that is somewhat similar to what a lot of grown women I know talk about).

In the morning, it was quite hard work to herd the girls to morning exercises. While the girls would struggle to get up at 7 am and eventually schlep out of the school grounds for a run/walk, the boys would have been up apparently since 6 playing football.

The students represented some of the smartest science students in the state and it was very awe-inspiring to be around them. They were outspoken and ferociously intelligent and asked extremely incisive questions of the speakers who came to talk to them about careers. Although I am, in some cases, (ahem) almost twice their age I felt in some ways quite humbled by them. I wish I hard worked harder at school and had more confidence in my abilities. I loved how they viewed life as an open book, with so many pages yet to be written on - in short, filled with unlimited possibilities and a lifetime of adventures. I frequently have to remind myself to look at my life in the same way.