ktravula – a travelogue!

To the East and Back

Travel, at conception, usually seems like a quick movement from one inch of earth to the other. In reality – at least as was the case with my just-concluded return to East Africa – it is a whole mental, emotional, and psychological trip, tremors from which can last a life time. A few hours ago, I returned from a visit to Kenya to attend the CNN/Multichoice African Journalist Awards 2015, in company of other finalists and nominees, as the first blogger to have been shortlisted for the prize in its 20 year history – a great feat in itself – for this story I wrote last year, in the “Culture” category.

From Wednesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 11th, invited guests (which also included past winners of the prize in its 20 year history), nominees, and the prize judges, were taken around places in Nairobi, from the famous Karura Forest to the Nairobi National Museum, among other places, for networking sessions and a chance to bond over conversations around journalism in Africa. At the final gala on the night of Saturday, October 10th, the winners were announced and the final prize given to the winner by the president of Kenya, Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta.

The tremors that remain however are more than that of a grateful writer whose vocation, done typically as a way of passing time away from the real grit of daily preoccupation, has taken him towards the pinnacle of a noble profession. They are also of a reuniting with a country – once visited before nevertheless – which holds a host of fascinating interests for a linguist and curious traveller. One week was not enough, and it never pretended to be, to explore the pleasures of a country of over 47 million people, covering about 582,650 km². But it was sufficient to meet up with colleagues from Moi University (Eldoret) where I had spent some time in 2005 with three other students from the University in Ibadan on a soci0-cultural exchange programme, to visit the Strathmore School (which is the first multi-racial school in the country, founded in 1961) as well as the African Nazarene School where a fellow Fulbright FLTA from 2009 now works in administration, to see the Giraffe Centre at Karen and a number of other places of significance to me as a writer and to Kenyan literature, and world history. Karen Blixen also features prominently. Making friends, seeing new places, and winning recognition for one’s work never felt so normal, ordinary, and exhilarating at the same time, especially when it was, for the most part, unexpected.

In the next couple of blog posts, over several weeks, I will be publishing – here on this blog that got me into all of this in the first place – a report of some of my most memorable encounters in Kenya, with pictures, and with perhaps enough restraint to avoid negatively contrasting Nigeria with her in the process, as I’ve done publicly and privately in the last couple of days. I can say, however, for a fact, that this is one of my most personally fulfilling travel experiences, made more significant by how short it actually was.

Habari, Kenya!

I’m currently in Kenya again, after an absence of ten whole years! And how time flies! Last night, the city of Nairobi welcomed me back into its breezy arms like a long-lost friend. I am here for the CNN/Multichoice African Journalist of the Year 2015 Awards, along with journalists from around the continent some of who, like me, have been nominated for this year’s awards, and some who have just been invited to participate in this year’s edition, which is the 20th anniversary.

Whenever I can, I will post updates on my trip here. By some luck, there will also be a couple of significant blog-worthy experiences around Nairobi for which I will be able to write a few long-form travel reports for you, the reader, and possibly for a few other publications. For now, in the comfort of my reunion hug with East Africa, let me go explore.

Saworoidẹ Again

Yesterday, at the Lights Camera Africa Film Festival at the Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos, this movie, Saworoidẹ, from the stable of Mainframe Opómúléró, was screened.

It is not a new film. It was released in 1999 (and, according to the director, was premiered during the inauguration ceremony of at least one state government in Nigeria during the transition to civil rule in 1999). It was however a fresh intervention both as a way to look back at the country and where we’ve been, and as a way to contrast today’s movie production to where the industry had been. That was not the stated objective, of course, of the showing. This is my conjecture, purely. The film was screened as part of an exhibition of films at the annual film festival.

For me seeing the movie again for the umpteenth time, and for my family members who were watching the show for the first time, it was a a trip back into a familiar cultural resource. From the regular folk songs strategically placed into parts of the movie to reinforce particular didactic points, to the copious but tasteful use of proverbs and aphorisms, Saworoidẹ delights in ways that can’t be successfully described to a non-Yorùbá speaker. Even for Yorùbá speakers not fully versed in the oral literature, some appreciation of the work might lack in depth, but never completely. The story is well told, well shot, and very well portrayed by the seasoned actors. It’s sad to imagine native speakers of Yorùbá not being able to fully appreciate all of what the work serves to the viewer.

For someone familiar with some of the actors in the film, the showing was also a drive through memory lane. Now deceased Dr. Lárìnde Akinlẹ̀yẹ‘s efficient portrayal of a corrupt chief was and remains a bitter-sweet treasure. The actor and professor died at 56 from injuries sustained in a motor accident in Ibadan in 2004, but not before appearing in a couple of films by Mainframe, including Ó Le Kú (1998), Thunderbolt Magun (2001), among many others.

One question I forgot to ask the director Túndé Kèlání during the Q&A session at the end was how the casting process was like which resulted in a presence of some of the biggest veterans in Nigerian media in many of his movies. Saworoidẹ was written by Professor Akínwùnmí Iṣọ̀lá, and stars as big as names like Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, Tóyọ̀sí Arígbábuwó, Lérè Pàímọ, Akínwùnmí Iṣọ̀lá, Bukky Wright, a young Kúnlé Afọláyan and a young Kabirat Káfidípẹ̀, among others.

Jeremy and the Boys

A reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Jeremy Grange, stopped by my workplace earlier in the week to talk about literature and linguistics, and the writing environment in Nigeria today. He is in town interviewing a number of Nigerian writers about the current state of the writing industry today. He was referred to me by a mutual colleague who thought that he would be interested in my work particularly the angle of the Nigerian language.

We met at my workplace, Whitesands School, talked for over half an hour about my writing, my childhood influences, my other work in promoting the use of indigenous languages on the internet, and other related topics. It was a lively and stimulating conversation. He mentioned, in the end, that my description of the language environment in Nigeria reminds him of Wales and the despair that many people felt about the language dying off. What the Welsh people did, he said, was to create an aggressive campaign to increase the use of the language in all spheres of life, and it worked. Welsh is now being spoken by more people than before. This is one incentive for me to visit the United Kingdom in the near future.

Pictures courtesy of Whitesands School

Talk eventually led to the literary work done by my students whose creative writing and art works were published earlier in the year in an anthology that we called The Sail. A second edition is in the works. The journalist wanted to speak with some of the boys whose work appeared in the book to get an idea of their literary influences and writing purpose. Five of those boys gladly obliged, taking some time out of class to talk about the books they read, what influenced their work in the anthology, and even reading excerpts from the book. In short, it was a hugely productive encounter. He has now invited me over to Wales to check out the teaching of Welsh which is enjoying a renewed attention after decades of neglect. I intend to take him up on the invitation whenever I’m in the UK.

I am grateful to Jeremy for stopping by, and to Emma Shercliff for connecting us. The radio programme, to be narrated by Nigerian writer Wana Udobang, will air in late October to early November, 2015. As soon as it airs on the BBC World Service (and posted on their website), I will put up the links here.

Attempted Speech & Other Poems

Some good news! This morning, my first (adult*) chapbook of poems was published on Saraba Magazine. It is a collection of 15 (mostly*) never-before published poems. It is titled Attempted Speech & Other Fatherhood Poems.

Most of the poems centre around the birth of my child, my contemplations of the fatherhood process, and other ruminations about him, children in general, and surrounding experiences. Please head here and download it. It is free to download and to read.

The publication also features an interview with the magazine, along with readings of three of the poems in the chapbook, uploaded to Soundcloud. I hope you enjoy the package as much as I did writing it. Special thanks to Emmanuel Iduma, Dami Ajayi, and Adebiyi Olasope for their work in bringing this to life.

_____

* I say “adult” only because I find it necessary to give a hat tip to my first (and altogether ill-fated) outing from ten years ago in a collection called Headfirst into the Meddle (2005). I say “mostly” because a few of the poems in this current collection, in a different form or another, have been featured/workshopped on my social media pages at some point in the past. In any case, ignoring occasional outing of one or two other poems in LitMags across the world, this is my first major literary debut in ten years.

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