African... Western...

I got to the saloon, my hair loosed, uncombed and standing up straight. I greeted my hairdresser, he took a look at me and my hair and a frown crossed he face. To say that he was pissed would be an understatement. I did not need anyone to tell me that he was tired of my natural (virgin) hair. He always ‘begged’ me to relax it but I disagreed.

All the hair stylists were praying to God not to be assigned the task of weaving my hair. Number 1, it is too full, Number 2, it is unrelaxed. They say that it takes about three times the time you would take to weave a relaxed hair to weave a virgin hair because of its elastic texture.

Ever since I started keeping natural have, I have hardly received words of encouragement from people, especially haridressers, but truthfully, I have never been tempted to go back on my decision. It all started when I decided to cut off my dreadlocks (that my irresponsible hair) of two years. I just could not imagine myself going back to the whole relaxing thing. And since then, I haven’t had rest from hair stylists.

I just want to know, why are we so eager to fix the hair that the Asians and Brazilians cut off and can't wait to crucify those that have chosen to go the African way? Why are we so eager to pour relaxer on our kids’ hair, such that they do not really know what a true African hair looks like? If we would really take time to consider, we will realize that the Black African hair is really unique. When unrelaxed, it has lovely spring like curls that no other race can boast of. Many white people wished they could weave their hair, some even weave it and tie the ends so it won’t loose.

What about in physique, they want to be so curvy like Africans that they do breast and butt enlargement, some of them even wear padded pants. Yet we so badly want to be like them that we starve ourselves just to become that desired 'lepa' that the new age society has termed beautiful. What an irony? They try so hard to look like us and we try so hard to look like them

For the next few years at least, I have chosen to go the natural way. So please, From henceforth, let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of a true African.

Gone... Gone... Gone!!!

Image from the-malaysian.blogspot.com

You have your dreams, you will impact the world in a great way. Generations yet unborn will hear about you long after you are gone. He has his dreams, he will impact the world in a great way. Generations yet unborn will hear about him long after he is gone.

Your paths cross, the attraction is there, you tell each other about your dreams and aspirations. Ooooh, this must be a match made in heaven, you are actually going to help birth each others dreams. You decide to take the next step and you become one with him.

You find out that everything is going against you and your aspirations. You both decide to enter the labour market and work. ‘Just for a while’, you tell yourself. ‘I will raise capital and go and achieve my dreams’. You go out there, you get lost in the rat race, you cannot think anymore because of the deadlines and time constraint. You loose the ability to see. Dreams... Gone! Vision... Gone!

You realize it but it’s too late. You find out that you and your spouse are just like every other person out there. There is really nothing special about you people. You also find out that everyone in the labour market had dreams, just like you. In fact, some had the exact dreams you had but they all fell for the same trick you fell for. How disappointing to find out that you and your spouse are not that different after all. Your great ambition to impact the world is gone.

Now you are almost close to retirement. Nobody knows you, nobody has heard about you. Even your dream does not know your name. You have your spouse, you have your children, you have your success, the one that the rat race got you, but what of your youthful dream? It is gone, gone, gone… Never to return to you again.

Selah

Naija Hostesses

I have to complain and rant about this o, I will talk even if no one else will. Somebody please tell me, why do Airlines now go out of their way to use ‘not so good looking’ girls as Air Hostesses? I happened to be at the local airport for a while and all through my stay there, I did not come across one smashingly beautiful Air Hostess like we used to have before. It is either they are too short or too fat or one other unusual characteristic. When I say short, I don’t mean my own kind of 5’ 5 short, I mean really shooorrrt!

Recently, I saw one that had the ‘lion claw’ kind of tribal marks, you know the kind that Ibadan and Ogbomoso people used to have in those days, I was really dumbfounded. The really short one I talked about in the aforementioned paragraph wore a very short and tight skirt which was bad because she had thin legs which were a bit bow shaped. I thought to myself, if the airline wanted her to look good, they shouldn’t have allowed her wear that skirt, which is what made me to start suspecting something. To cap it all up, they will colour their face with paint, calling it makeup. This now spoils the already bad package and makes them look like masquerades.

After considering all the Air Hostesses I had been seeing, I was tempted to wonder whether the airlines were not doing it on purpose. Is it because they want to reduce the rate at which male flyers patronize Air Hostesses for affairs? Or maybe they don’t want the men to get serious with them and give them better jobs, which will result in high staff turnover? Or maybe the smashingly beautiful air hostesses are just too ‘high maintenance’ for them and they will not be able to pay them what will keep up their dazzling beauty. I have thought of this very well but I still cannot fathom the reason but what I know is this, I spent about two months at the local airport and the air hostesses I sore were an eyesore, not an eyesight!

Image courtsey of Time out Dubai

I am...

I am he
I am made in his image, a true reflection
I am unique just as his word tells me
I am filled with his spirit
I am washed of the blood of the lamb
I am not only a christian but
I am born again
I am sold out for christ, totally

I am man,
I am not a perfect being but I strive for it
I am not immune to a fall but I get up stronger
I am industrious
I am a cultivator
I am a visionary
I am the provider
I am the head, not the tail
I am a lover, not a hater
I am a friend, not an enemy
I am father, not a figure head
I am a husband, not "the father of the kids"
I am a brother that cares
I am a leader, not a follower
I am the Olori ebi

I am sharp
I am cool
I am the boss
I am swagger itself
I am the best
I am the "koko"
I am invaluable

I am patriotic
I am black and proud
I am African
I am Nigerian
I am rich in culture and resources

I am all these cos he blessed me
I am OkunrinMetaPlusOne!


'Dare Oladeji

Should I have done that?

I was making my hair in a salon on a fateful day and I had some bars of chocolate with me. I took them along because I knew that I was going to stay long at the salon and I did not have time to eat before going there. After about two hours in the salon, I started munching on the chocolates but I felt selfish because I did not offer anyone, not even the hairdresser’s daughter who was about six years old. I felt like calling the girl to me but I did not know how her parents (both mother and father were present) will react.

I stopped eating them for a while and the girl later came to stand by me, just to see what her mother was doing to my hair. Instinctively, I brought out one bar of chocolate and gave the girl, she collected it and said ‘thank you’, and then she left to meet her dad. I don’t know what she did to the bar I gave her, I want to believe that she handed it to her dad or kept it somewhere to eat later. Immediately after, I asked myself why I gave it to her because I know for a fact that parents always warn their children not to collect anything from strangers. Also, in Africa where the belief in witchcraft is so strong, they could believe that there’s a possibility that I could use the chocolates to initiate their daughter into ‘my’ coven. After all these thoughts passed through my mind, I really wished I did not give it to her but the deed was already done.

Just to mention, all the while when I was making my hair, the woman was begging all the familiar passersby for her sallah gift, because it was a celebration day for the Muslims (they had just ended their 40 day fast). Even when her husband came, she kept asking people for her sallah gift unashamedly, I could count her doing this for about 15 times. This made me to understand that the woman liked collecting things (food, money, etc) from people. So I thought to myself again, ‘if the woman likes collecting things from random people, then she won’t mind me handing her daughter a bar of chocolate’. It was just a point of consolation for me.

Regaining my Fingerprints

Some months back, a sharp bone from a frozen raw meat pierced my thumb deeply. Failure to take care of the injury immediately led to more complications and sharper pains. After a week and suspicion of possible infection, I finally decided to cover the hand with plaster. About another week later, I got rid of the plaster because the wound had healed and my thumb was itching me. The consequence of this is that I lost a large part of my finger print because the surface peeled off, skin deep. It really looked strange because it was very smooth.

I later asked my friend, 'do you think I will gain these prints back?' to which he answered in the affirmative. I agreed with him, since I have not heard about people losing their fingerprints permanently. If that were the case, criminals would have started removing their prints, though I cannot fathom how exactly they will achieve that. Lo and behold, about five weeks after this incident, I looked at my finger and I saw my prints surface. Though they were still faint, but they were strong enough to make an impression on a paper and on my heart. Marvelous of all, they are exactly the same way, form and size of what used to be there. God is just sooo awesome. It only proves the fact that my fingerprints have nothing to do with the finger on which I can view them but they are deeply immersed in my blood line which carry my DNA. So, as long as I have blood flowing through my veins, I will never lose my fingerprints.

How do we translate this to things happening in our lives? You might think that you have lost some things in life and that you will never regain them. As long as you have the Blood of Jesus, the one He shed on the cross for you, flowing through your ‘veins’, you can regain all that you lost. The only thing is that you have to wait for time to do its part. What some of us try to do is to look at the ‘printless finger’ and start trying to draw our own prints on it with a pen or pencil, not realizing that the print has nothing to do with the skin surface but with the blood. Some of us even get frustrated and keep on tearing at the skin or even cutting the thumb off all together. Needless to say, if this happens, we will never ever regain those prints because the medium for God to bless us is gone.

This is a message of hope for anyone who thinks he/she has lost something. Don’t lose hope, you will regain all you have lost, just be patient and remain connected to the source of the ‘fingerprint restoring’ DNA, the Blood of Jesus Christ!

Differences

Why are we all different? Some are rich while some are poor. Some are intelligent while some are not. Some are athletic while some are fat slobs. Some are eloquent while some are stammers.

The book of Genesis made it very CLEAR that we were made in the image of God. As we all know, God is ever present and all knowing, in other words, He is perfect. God pointed out that man needed help and are therefore not perfect, that is why he created Eve (the helper). Coupled with the fall of man, this made our imperfections obvious and glaring. That Gap was however bridged by the sending of his only begotten son (Jesus).

After reading my devotional guide this morning, I got a clear picture in my mind about why we all are different. The Bible says we are all part of the same body, we all have different roles to play. 1Cor 12:21 explains that one part of the body can't do without the other irrespective of the level of importance or attractiveness of each part.

Personally, I think the reason we are all somewhat different is because God made it so. He recognized man’s deficiency and made up for it by making a help meet for Adam. After the fall of man, a gap was created between God and man and Jesus Christ, as earlier said, came to bridge that gap. If we as Christians follow the Christ wholly, our imperfection will be made perfect.

'Dare Oladeji

Emotional Cheaters

I put up a post last year about crossing the line between fantasy and cheating. There has been a trend of emotional cheating in many marriages lately. This is rampant among both Christians and non-Christians marriages. We have people that we bond with in different ways and this is most common in the workplace. Some get into it intentionally and others just find themselves in such situations.


First case scenario

Healthy marriage, but there is this beautiful lady at work, they are ‘just friends’ and they do every single thing together. He now looks forward to being with her, weekends are now boring because they don’t have the excuse to do things together. He is not cheating on his wife sexually but he is no longer enthusiastic about her company.

Second case scenario

Unhappy, almost destroyed marriage. Wife is always pretending to be happy at work, but not enough to fool her close male colleague. She starts to confide in him, and they both develop a soft spot for each other. They bond on all levels and he becomes a way of escape out of her abusive marriage. Now she is happier and she has a reason to live again. She can now enjoy d sessions of love making with her husband so far she is picturing the face of her colleague at that time. She has not yet slept with him but she has been seriously fantasizing about the act, they are both waiting for the ‘right’ opportunity and they know that it is just a matter of time before it happens.

What we should ask is where exactly our marriage is right now and where we want it to be. Will emotional cheating on our spouse get us to that desired destination or take us far away from it? Ponder on this question.