Grandma's Magical Remedies

I happened to have spent the first 2 yrs of my life with my grandmother and great grandmother. Although I am not the first child, I guess it was a convenient arrangement for me and my ‘then young’ parents. I was later removed form my grandmother’s custody when my parents moved into her neighbourhood but I still spent time with her like Christmas and Easter holidays including lots of weekends. After so many years, some other cousins of mine took her away saying I and my siblings had monopolized her for too long (as if it is my fault that we live near each other).
All through my accumulated stay with my grandmother, she taught me so many unorthodox way of solving physical problems and since I did not pay for these useful knowledge, I have decided to share some of them with you.
1. Brushing your teeth with charcoal actually makes it whiter. I don’t know the explanation for this but maybe dentist can explain to us what element is in charcoal that actually makes the teeth whiter, all I know is that it works and my grandmother used it on my cousins and I when we were kids. We had to this before proceeding to use fluoride toothpaste every morning.
2. If your nose is blocked, rub your nose ridge with palm oil, leave the palm oil on for 20 minutes, and then pour cold water on your nose. Let the water slide on your nose ridge right form your fore head in a downward slope. Guess what? All the mucus in your nose will come out. It sounds unbelievable but it really works.
The funny thing is that the highest form of education my grandmother has is the secondary education yet she knows so many things people of our generation don’t. I think if we have access to elder ones, let’s go and learn from them before they take their tricks to the grave.

I will give you more of my grandmother’s tricks later but you will have to pay for it then because I (and my grandmother) need money. You really have to agree with me that I just gave you a whiter smile, also, you don’t have to buy that inhaler next time you nose is blocked.

Afterwhile

How can I forget
The times you held my hand
And wiped the tears from my eyes
How can I forget
That when I needed someone
You were right by my side
I know you had to be an angel in disguise
Sent from God to bring joy to my life
And now you are gone back home
And I want you to know

I still hear your voice
I still feel your touch
And when I close my eyes
I can see your smile
Though you are gone away
To a better place
I can’t wait to be with you
Afterwhile… Afterwhile

Sometimes, I break down
But I accept God’s will
In spite of the way I feel
Sometimes, I wish that
I can take your place
You should not have gone that way
But I know that you were an angel in disguise
Sent from God to bring joy to my life
And now you are gone back home
And I want you to know

I still hear your voice
I still feel your touch
And when I close my eyes
I can see your smile
Though you are gone away
To a better place
I can’t wait to be with you
Afterwhile… Afterwhile

- Deitrick Haddon

Christian or Yam?

The word ‘born again’ has caused one of the greatest havocs in this world. What is the meaning of ‘born again christian’? In fact, it is now a general opinion that there are two types of Christians namely, ordinary Christians and born again Christians and the latter are on a higher spiritual plane than the former.
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but if you are really conversant with your bible like you should be, you will agree with me that there is no where from genesis to revelation that anything like born again Christian was mentioned. The term ‘born again’ was used just once as an illustration when Jesus was trying to explain the process of salvation, please note the word 'illustration'.
Its either you are a Christian or not and just in case you are confused, to be a Christian means to live a life that portrays Christ in all aspects. We do not have types and species of Christians (this is not yam and beans). Christian is Christian.
One more thing, Christianity is not a religion, it is the way to eternity. Religion says there are many ways, choose one, Christianity says there is just one way. Thank you!

Africa Magic

This post is just for people whose minds are very creative and think right, not just average thinking minds. With this said………….

Have you ever been forced to watch Africa magic (which really should be called Nigerian magic because everything about it is Nigerian.) for about 2 weeks? Well, I am sure that for the people I described above, it sure is a very disturbing experience. I stayed in my uncle’s house recently for 2 weeks and before he goes out, he would tune the decoder in his room to Africa magic and the lock his door. He did this because he assumed the people in the house love Africa magic (actually, they do). Unfortunately for me, I went there without books because I wanted to travel light. Because of this, I was regularly forced to watch Africa magic all day till my uncle got back. It was actually a very painful experience for me as I couldn’t switch off the TV because I was not the only one watching, I would sometimes turn my face away from the TV. I got annoyed at the shallow mindedness of the Nigerian film industry form the producers to the directors and a few actors. Well, I must commend most of the actors, they try their best but some of the just annoying and not talented which makes me wonder how they landed such roles. It is no wonder many intelligent Nigerians do not watch Nigerian films. Sometimes, I even wonder what kind of people carry their money to but these films. On the other hand, very few of the films I watched impressed me but majority was messed up.

I think it is time for fellow right thinking Nigerians to rise up to the occasion and show these half-baked directors, producers and writers what a movie should be like (note: I am only talking to creative minded people). Let us take the Nigerian movie industry to the next level and show the world that Nigerians are not actually as shallow minded as our movie industry has portrayed us to be. This is why I respect directors like Tade Ogidan, Amaka Igwe, Tunde Kelani, as far as I am concerned, most of the others are jokers.

Thumbs up to Funke Akindele (aka jenifa), it’s your time to shine and please, do not join the jokers.