I failed a whole generation. What of you?

On 22nd of July, I entered a public primary school for the first time in my life! And it was all mixed feelings. As you might know, I am one of the ambassadors for the Child Campaign, which is an initiative of Beyond the Classroom foundation. BTC has many projects, but one of the things they do is go to primary schools, and educate kids, renovate schools, organise child empowerment events, repair uniforms, stock up sick bays, have after-school classes, etc.

At the moment, they 'adopted' a school, as their model school. This is where they would do all their projects, and measure its impact. They would leave after about two years, and adopt another school. Their currently adopted school is Ladi-Lak primary school in Bariga, which is where I went. As at now, they teach the students, renovate classrooms, sick bay, library, provide educational materials like books, bags, socks, sandals, etc., and so many other things I can't begin to count.

The children were having a graduation party, which BTC foundation organised. It was their first ever graduation party ever. BTC rented gowns for them, gave them photo books, food, party, basically every single thing. Immediately I got to the front of the school, a foul stench hit me, and I felt like throwing. The environment was distasteful, and no child should have to learn in such an environment, with classes without windows, chair, etc. I quickly adjusted myself, and acclimatised.

The kids were doing their thing, and having fun. At a point, I wanted to cry. I felt the government had failed this set of kids. I felt for most of them, their future looked very bleak. They were from a class of society I have never really had anything to do with, but I know God brings out treasure out of trash, so who am I to say what will happen to them? These kids were not dumb or anything, but it was obvious they weren't living up to their potentials, just because of lack of facilities.

I can only doff my hat to Raquel Jacobs and her team. They are so selfless, going up and down impacting lives, sourcing funds from ordinary Nigerians like you and I. Don't underestimate the power of the ordinary Nigerian, and the impact you can make with that your N500 or N5000. Someone will sleep well tonight because of it.

See some pictures of the event below.

Over 100 bags below were given to the graduands. In each bag were mathematical set, socks, books, etc.

BTC volunteers trying to finish up the photobook

Kids love to play

Headmistress giving a speech

Some of the BTC volunteers

Choreography team swag

And then the drama team below, basically doing their regular heaven and hell primary school drama. Good wears white, and black wears black. Normal cliche, but fun for the kids.

They seemed happy to get the role of people
to eat the apple and chicken

The devil, lol.

Head boy, reading his speech

Head girl, reading her speech

Me, admonishing the kids

Ruby, Nigerian musician, signed
under MI,  admonishing the kids.
She's a fellow ambassador

Some members of the BTC team

Raquel Jacobs. The convener of the program,
and head of BTC Foundation

Some of us who volunteered, after
sharing gifts to the graduands

And so, what can I say? Life is more than the cocoon we live in. Maybe a day out of our regular social class will open our eyes to the fact that we can do some very little things that would make a big difference in someone else's life, especially the failed generation in Nigeria.

Raquel Jacobs and her team are impacting lives in primary schools across Lagos, you can do something too. In case you are too busy, and just want to drop a little thing like N1000, N5000, or even N5 million for the BTC team to brush up more lives, mail me, and I will hook you up with them ASAP.

Remember... it is cascaded little things that make the big effect in the end.

Cascaded Little Things

My cousins came to visit us in Nigeria, after 15 years of being away. A total of 5 siblings left, the youngest being 2, and the oldest, 13. Three of them came to visit, and they ranged from 17 years old to 26 years old. It was really fun hanging out with them, but that I am not ready to bore you with the details of our fun, in this post. I want to mention one or two lessons I learnt from hanging out with them.

Of course, they were shocked about how much Nigeria had changed, positively and negatively. Immediately they came, I started feeling for them because NIDs receive their welcoming shockers right from the international airport, talk less of those that have no idea of what Nigeria looks like.

We went to Genesis Deluxe cinemas to catch a movie, in order to avoid the Jakande-Ajah week day traffic. After the movie ended, the youngest one looked around, and told her brothers “I don’t think we are supposed to take that.”

Apparently, my three cousins, out of habit, carried their bottles and popcorn packs to go and dump in the trash, while every single person in the hall, including me, left ours where we had sat during the movie. One of the boys said “We are the only ones packing up. Everyone will know we are not from around here,” in his American accent. They started looking around for trash cans as we walked out of the viewing room, but they did not find and until we got out, towards the ticket sales stand.

I tried to cover it up with smiles and senseless talk of how the cleaners will come and pack it all up, and they shouldn’t have bothered packing up, but inside of me, I was ashamed. These guys were sticking out like sore thumbs, just because they conducted themselves properly in a system where chaos is normal.

Two days later, we went to ice cream factory, again to avoid the Jakande-Ajah traffic. We sat outside, under the shade. Three of us had cones, while one had cup. When we were about to leave, instinctively, my cousin took his cup, went into the restaurant, searched for a trash can, dumped it, and came out. It was very instinctive. It had become part of him, so much so that he was not even thinking when he did it. It was quite robotic. I didn’t say anything this time. I just watched and observed him.

Earlier that day, we were in front of yellow chilli, and waiting in line to park inside, for about 30 seconds, and then the security guy beckoned on me to drive into the compound, and one car behind us just swerved, and wanted to take my space. Like seriously? He wasn’t even hiding his senselessness. My cousins observed what happened, and couldn’t believe their eyes. To say they were shocked was an understatement. They couldn’t believe a human being with a human brain, and not a goat brain, just did that.

I mumbled something like ‘that’s how many people do here o. They said if it happened in the US, everyone will get down from their car, and fish the guy out, lol.

At Genesis Deluxe cinemas, two of my cousins waited in line to get our drink and popcorn for the four of us, cos we didn’t think all four of us had to queue. Then a girl came out of nowhere to beg my cousin to get her own drink and popcorn, because her movie was showing. The thing is our movie too was already showing. He, being the Mr nice guy of them all, agreed, and then she brought out like three popcorn and drink tickets. Seriously? He realised she just wanted to use him to cheat her way through the queue, and he was already getting stuff for us anyway. He respectfully declined, and told her point blank that it wasn’t fair for everyone that was on the queue. He didn’t tell me about it until two days later.

I then realised that it is little actions like these that form a cascaded effect in setting apart countries like Nigeria from developed countries. Largely, we lack the culture of responsibility, being responsible for things as minor as your trash, staying in line, and respecting other people’s time. In my opinion, this is not a government or leadership problem. This is a system issue. The government doesn’t tell us not to pick our trash, but the system supports litter. We are even encouraged to litter cinema halls and restaurants, while our servants pack up after us.

The thing is we all know this is wrong. We travel out a lot, and see things being done properly, and even do things properly ourselves. So we know we have the ability to do things properly. But it sometimes takes us observing people like my cousins to come into this same system, do things different, and watch them stick out like a sore thumb, for us to know that what we are doing is not normal.

Even though I bring you no big solution, we can start small by doing little things right, things we don’t need anyone to tell us, things like not jumping queues, not littering roads or public places, not trying to be too smart, not being impatient, not running red lights, etc.

If each and every one of us can do this, you will be shocked at how much these little things will go a long way in making a big difference in restoring order to this chaotic system.

All kids of two sisters. Same blood, different mindsets.

Inside Wole Soyinka's Forest and other fun events

So I had the privilege to be one of the 70 spoken word artists/poets to perform at the WS80 project, Wole Soyinka's 80th birthday celebration, which took place at Lagos and Abeokuta between July 11 and 18, 2014. It was a real fun and eye-opening event, which culminated in some real sturves that looked like a scene from an Abija Awara movie, lol.

I did not really take pictures of the Day 1, which took place in Lagos, as I was too busy thinking of my performance. We moved to Abeokuta two days later, and enjoy the pictures below. And yea Wole Soyinka really lives in a forest, probably for spiritual inspiration from the heavenlies. Ijegba forest, to be exact. And no, you cannot go and visit him there. You will soon find out why, from one of the pictures below.

Day 2

I'm small. I know. No need to rub it in, lol

Wole Soyinka's birthday cake

Professor Niyi Osundare

Important people cutting the cake... where is the celebrant?

 Day 3

Famzing with Muta Baruka, a world-renowned legendary poet

Kuto cultural centre, Abeokuta where most of
the events took place

As we got to the movie reception, the first thing that greeted us were the faces of many important people in Nigeria, actors, actresses, corporate bodies, etc, (excluding politicians. I don't think they like Wole Soyinka or vice versa, lol). Unfortunately, I was too shy to go around and ask for pictures. The only drink was palmwine, which you had to drink with calabash. Even water was absent. And the snacks were kokoro and Adun, made with Epo pupa. It was at this point we knew we were in for some serious different stuff,

See this traditional centre mat

Yemi Sodimu: If you are one of those Nigerians who
wear Oleku, and you don't know this man, please
return our cloth to Tunde Kelani,

Do you remember the man on the right from
 all the Mount Zion movies you watch

And this picture below was the first message that greeted us at Wole Soyinka's forest residence.

Of course, since we are not trespassers, we all snapped pictures, and proceeded with confidence. And then...

Efun Worshippers started greeting us, and kneeling down for us. A lot of people were scared, saying "Hee, what is this?" lol. I even heard there was a lady around me speaking in tongues. As for me, I wasn't scared. Since I understand yoruba, I know there were just saying "You will live long, you will not die young, you will grow old..." basically traditional greetings they pass on to people who come to celebrate with the old. I was greeting the back with my simple "Ekale ma."

The below picture looks like I was transported into a scene of a babalawo shrine in a 1985 yoruba movie on NTA channel 7, lol.

Traditional lanterns. Forgotten what they are called.

We finally got to where we were to be seated, after walking through the forest for a while. The stage theatre was set up right in the middle of the forest. It was built my Zmirage. You would know that millions went down in setting up the whole drama. Colourful stage, colourful costume, excellent actors. Who said gret things don't happen in Nigeria.

I kid you not, Wole Soyinka was seated two rows behind me, watching his own drama, but you don't need the Holy Spirit to tell you not to approach him in such a setting, so I just pretended to be gentle, and not even allow the thought cross my mind.

Enjoy pictures of the stage drama, Dance of the Forest, written by Wole Soyinka at the age of 26 (@ilola, see your life). I wonder how he felt watching the drama. The drama was staged in the forest, as you know by now, and ran for about three hours

The actors ran away when the car drove in.
Don't be scared, it was part of the act

Can you see the tree spirit? lol

I tried to get a shot of the whole cast. They
were 203 renowned stage actors

Fireworks after the event was over

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State.
The only politician who would not be eaten up in the forest

The governor and the people that put the drama together

We all got this gift bag by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism when we were about to leave the hotel for Lagos the next day. Guess what it contained... A calabash to drink palmwine, a traditional wrist bead, and a clay bowl lantern, that you would light up with Epo Pupa (called Fitila in Yoruba). I passed them all to my mum, lol. I was thinking I would get an iPhone.

I stayed at Green Legacy, Obasanjo's hotel, and actually saw him and his entourage walking around the premises, inspecting some things. I'd have taken his picture if he weren't too far from me. Oh well...

It was really a great event, despite the whole Efun stuff, babalawo scenes and all. I am glad I was part of this, and exposed me more the yoruba culture.