VAL: Win a #1,500 Airtime/the Money in Cash!!!

Read this short post and find the How-To Win a #1500 recharge card (or the money in cash) below it. Enjoy the season.

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You think you wouldn’t love again, your heart is broken and you are a scum. You think this season isn’t for you; no one to express it to, and you just might have been deceived. Forget about the Valentine charade, disabuse your mind of the usual; if no one would take you out, give a hand to that helpless individual on the street beating the wheel barrow metal-sheet, shouting: ‘E ko ile bo’ta o!’

Accept this; love isn’t love when those needing your bits still suffer, when what your home-woofers go for will well put a boy through a Term in school. A low-school? Yeah, but it is still a school anyway.

You are capable to be loved, you must love too. Shun the fake brothers now, spite the over-pretentious ladies anyhow and love the few people around waiting for cares, the ones in your strengths. Okay, don’t think about those. You aren’t given to a large-scale charity, I know. But presently, try this: you know your friend took a long walk to work this morning. And you didn’t even ask yourself, who would walk mileages to work if Adenle is in his pocket?  Express this season to such a friend and tomorrow, he wouldn’t have to do a sweaty leisured walk to work. Try #500 and he would be saved. Take it down more, give him #100 and he wouldn’t skip lunch in a rush.

Let’s launch this season now. But before that, I must tell you a story. It is about Titi. I used to know Titi as a classmate. I knew Titi as a crush. I know Titi now, she is a friend. On the 14^th of February, 2005, Titi gave me a chocolate cake. She marvelled me. That day I began to see love in another way.

Years later, I would look back at that very moment and would take a cue from it, that as little as we were then and pure, Titi could sacrifice the conventional and give a mischievous boy like me a big chocolate cake as a gift. Recently, we had the opportunity to chat in our adult selves and I asked her what prompted her action years ago and she replied; I knew you to always silently grovel on my small chops during break time and I thought a large big cake on that day will buy me a break from your discreet covetousness. Funny, right?  It wouldn’t be if I told you that I didn’t only eat that cake, the little ants in our refrigerator ate it too. Every morning of the day, I would take a look at it, fearing that if I ate it too quickly, I may soon stop seeing the beauty of the big black chocolate cake and I left it there for days, only momentarily chipping out of it until ants took away the largest portion of the cake. In my case, Titi cared and the ants got it too.

Forget my sermon joor and let’s get to the How-To-Win proper.

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TrueTalk is celebrating the Valentine Season with a #1500 airtime recharge or the money in cash. TrueTalk is appreciating its readers this season. An average post on this blog gets 300 pageviews in few hours and that’s a lot to be thankful for. The winning amount could get you a book or a monthly subscription on your BB or a nice meal in an average restaurant this season. To win the #1500 recharge card (of any Nigerian network of your choice) or the money in cash, follow the instructions below:

1. Follow this blog with your Google/Yahoo/Twitter/AIM/Netlog/Open ID. (Do so through the “Join this Site” button at the left side of the blog)
2. Follow me @omotayome on Twitter.
3. In the comment box below, write your Best Love Message in 100 words (without TextSpeak/SMS short words, please). So, get creative!
4. Put your phone number below the message to be contacted if you happen to be the winner, include the Twitter handle you are following me with on Twitter and the ID you are following the blog with.
5. You must reside in Nigeria.

(Instructions 1,2,4 & 5 are only requirements for the main Instruction 4. The winner will emerge from skillful use of words in the 100 words Best Love Message)

Note: If you happen to be the winner, you could ask the recharge card to be converted to cash and sent to your bank account. Giveaway closes on Thursday 14^th February, at 22:00 GMT, Nigerian time. Thank you and enjoy the season! Yippee!

--- GIVEAWAY CLOSED ---

#LagosTraffic: Many Voices, One Memory (1)

There is creativity in unifying our pains; our memories. I have always found collective reminiscences quite interesting. It is in them you realize that there is nothing as the monopoly of experiences; nothing is personal. Our experiences are all unified as humanity is. We only need to share them and hear others’ stories to know that.

In this first series of a multi-guest post, enjoy the humourous encounters of the #LagosTraffic. However, the humour in this multi-written post does not smudge the realities in them. Read them and you would see your stories being told. Remember, nothing is personal. Your story is not. This is Lagos.

*****

©Adeola Opeyemi, Olisakwe Ukamaka Evelyn and Myne Whitman

Adeola Opeyemi

“Abeg, go return the car to your Sugar Daddy if you no fit drive am joor!” a driver called out.

“Oloshi! O de lo ku s’ile father e” a bus conductor shouted at a biker who was trying to wiggle his way out of the endless ocean of cars, lorries, tricycles, motorcycles and busses that was the norm on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.

 It was 7:30 pm and I couldn’t help but notice that I had wasted four useful hours in the stand-still traffic. Sandwiched between a woman who couldn’t weigh anything less than a hundred and thirty kilograms and a confused man who had spent the first two hours preaching ‘End time’ and the remaining hours staring at my cleavage.

“Lord!” I closed my eyes with a sigh and I must have slept off when it happened. I heard the crashing sounds as a bus hit my bus from behind and caused my bus to hit the small Nissan in front of it.

Murmuring and hissing, the passengers started filing out of the bus and that was when I noticed.  My purse, my wristwatch, my sister’s ring; the one I had borrowed from her room without her permission. It was pure gold, and I had worn it to impress my date. Everything was gone, vanished into thin air.

“My purse!” I screamed but my voice was drowned by the numerous voices throwing curses and abusive words at one another as heads popped out of car windows and people gathered around the accident scene.

                                               

Olisakwe Ukamaka Evelyn

One fine morning in December 2012, Lagos paid back in her coin.

I was on my way to Debonair Bookstore at Yaba. At Dopemu Roundabout, I stood under the bridge, waiting for a bus, after I had failed to beat a good price with the taxis. Buses that rolled by were either filled up or I wasn’t fast enough to get into one. I was shoved and pushed, as we fought to get in. once, I was almost successful but was jostled by the waist of a faster woman. And when the next bus came by, even before it rolled to where I stood on edge like a sprinter, I raced to it, jumped on, but met a tragedy: my handbag was stuck somewhere in between the frenzied bodies.

Someone screamed “mumu, commot for road!” and before I could catch my breath, I was pulled by a force that left me wobbling. My dress ripped, something bit into my side. I was falling, but was caught by the deft hands of a man who said “pele” profusely.

My face burned. I patted down my dress, thanked him. The strap of my dress was torn and my bra-strap stood out on my right shoulder. I thought of cancelling the trip as another bus appeared, but someone said “Sister, enter.” There was no rush. I climbed in, thanked them. My eyes burned. A lady behind me said “let me hold that strap for you.” She got out one of those safety pins.

Though the heat rose in seconds as we sat like fishes in a can, I tried to understand this new Lagos. I would sit in that bus for the next two hours, sweating and wiping with my handkerchief, as Whizkid yelled “I love my baby” from the radio.

Myne Whitman

My latest experience of traffic in Lagos was during my last visit in July/August 2012. I was staying at the family house in Festac, and I had to meet some people for my book business in VI. Now I know about the traffic situation, especially seeing that the expressway between Festac and most parts of the city was under construction.

But before this time, I had always made it to where I was going within 2 hours, no matter how horrible. On this day, it was different. The car I was using was sandwiched between a rock and a hard place, and I mean that almost literarily. We had a truck in front of us, dishing out dirty grey and sometimes black fumes. Behind us was a Hummer Jeep, it had a steel grill guarding its front. On both sides of us were long lines of other cars, trailing forwards and backwards as far as the eye could see. The driver debated routes, ones he should’ve taken, and others he shouldn’t have.

But those were like crying over spilt milk. We were well and truly stuck. I wish I could tell you we were beamed away like the Captain in the Star Trek Movie Franchises, or that the car suddenly developed invisible wings and took off, like in Ayodele Arigbabu’s sci-fi tale, but those would be lies. We managed to crawl slower than a snail in that jam for about 3 hours before we took the first exit we saw and made a bolt for it. The only thing I can say is, “Thank God for mobile phones”. I called the people who were expecting me and cancelled so they weren’t stuck waiting for me, like I was in the traffic.

*****

Adeola Opeyemi hopes to publish a book someday. But for now, she will read and write everything she can.

Olisakwe Ukamaka Evelyn is the author of the book: “Eyes of a Goddess”

Myne Whitman is the author of two books: “A Heart to Mend” and “A Love Rekindled”

The series continues. Do you have any #LagosTraffic experience you would like sharing with us? Please, do so in the comment box. Let’s know your LagosTraffic pattern. *winks*

Revealing: The BBC Booklist Tag

When I got the information that @ilola had tagged me in this post, I began thinking hard. I was thinking; will this BBC booklist now serve as a yardstick to measuring how much books I have read; will this open up a new frustration at the numbers of books I had been shoving away on my hard drive; will there ever be enough time to catch up on all these books even if I had them now? All these questions almost ruffled me and set me on edge.

In the meantime, I have only come to have a fresh understanding about it all. If BBC’s booklist underrepresents my versed reading, that’s BBC’s. Other lists may shine off my little deepness with books too. One thing is sure nonetheless, these classics list does not contain African Lit and that’s a pity. Maybe, if there had been few African books on the list, I’d have had more to put in bold font, more to have boasted of reading.

Enjoy the post.

Instructions: Copy and do a blog post on it. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Asterisks mean I've read the book over and over again.  Tag 25 (book loving) bloggers, and inform them on their blog about the tag.

I am not tagging anybody, or I should say most of those I had in mind had been tagged already, leaving me with less than 25 book loving bloggers to tag. You are totally at liberty to tag yourself now.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (this counts are three books, as it is a trilogy)

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (also counts as three books, as it is a trilogy)

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell  

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

95. Katherine, Anya Seton

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie