LOST AND FOUND

LOST AND FOUND

Silence

Can you hear yourself breathe?

Can you hear your heart beat?

You are alone

In a cold room

You check for injuries, there are none

 Your senses tell you there are trees around

How?  You can hear the breeze through them

The birds are chirping

That says its morning

There’s no light whatsoever

But, are you breathing?

Yes, you are sure of it

There must be air coming in

From someplace, somewhere

You here footsteps

Fear

Just the right amount of adrenaline pumps through your veins

You are a little shaky

Your heart beats faster

You are hyperventilating

You look in that direction

It wasn’t a footstep

It was a piece of paper that brushed the floor

You are calm

You tell yourself everything is going to be alright

You look around you

Your pupils have adjusted to the darkness

The room is made of metal

That says why it’s cold

“Thank God”, you sigh

You search for cameras

Anyone could be watching you as a lab rat

There’s is none

At least none that is visible

You remove the bolts and nuts with your fingers

They are bleeding

You continue

You have to get out of here

And then, the last one clicks open

“Praise Go”, you sigh

You are really bleeding

You tear some pieces of clothing

You tie your fingers

To suppress the blood from oozing through the broken vessels

You don’t want to die because you lost so much blood

You go through the vent there’s a lot more

You have to find a way out of the maze

You get to a tunnel

You see industrial waste

But it’s too late to go back

You are jumping in midair

 You enter and swim

Oh boy

Everything is just sticky

Like in quick sand, you are sinking

“You have to get out of here alive”, your brain tells you

You get to the other side

Its valley

Full of houses

You get down the hill

You call 911, at least you remember that

“This is 911 state your emergency”, a voice calls out

You go,”Em I don’t know who I am and where I am”

They trace your call

They take you to the hospital

You are a Jane Doe

They run tests on you

They say you are normal

You are human

You are female

You ask to check the tags on clothing

They say it’s a designer’s

“Then I’m not homeless”, you tell yourself

A homeless person doesn’t wear GUCCI

“It’s too expensive”, you remember that

The police officers come to ask you “a few question“

You don’t know the answer to most of it

“Hello”

You remember nothing relevant

They call the psychologist

No matter how hard you both try, you remember nothing still

A lot of questions stream through your mind

“How did I get there?”

“Who put me there?”

“Who am I?”

Another nobody on the face of the earth

THE ABJECT OF TEENAGE PREGNANCY

THE ABJECT OF TEENAGE PREGNANCY

The truth is that the average Nigerian woman has her first child before the age of twenty. The rate at which teenage pregnancy thrives especially at the grassroots’ level states that Nigeria is still a third world country and the term of ‘developing country’ doesn’t apply to her yet. These ladies or should I say girls that get pregnant before they can take care of themselves are either dropouts from secondary schools or primary schools. Some have never even seen the four walls of a school. Others just got the primary education alone. It only leaves me to wonder what the Millennium Development Goals aka Vision 2020 has achieved in Nigeria since one of the goals is to promote gender equality and empower women.                      
The issue is I’m afraid that some parents still don’t see the reason why a girl-child should be sent to school and get educated since they still believe the place of the woman is in the kitchen. The girl-child who in turn gets so much time on her path ends up doing the most feared. As the saying goes, “The idle hand is the devil’s workshop”. The girl-child who doesn’t know the left from the right also dates the person like herself an uneducated man who is suffering from poverty. The man in her life is most probably a lowlife who is a cabby or butcher. There is little or no hope for the child that comes out from the unfortunate union since the mother and father just got unlucky with the pleasures of sex.

These children in turn suffer death due to low education on or from the mother’s side, low coverage of immunization, primary health care system in some areas of the country are weak, high poverty rate and inequality and poor household practices. Maternal mortality also is a discouraging challenge to Nigeria. These girls have their vaginas to little to accommodate the size of a baby’s head. They also have too little revenue to support the procedure of Caesarian Sections. Some even lose their lives and the child due to complications during the birth of the child. The children that do survive all these hurdles are not better off. They end up reliving their parent’s life in the path of education. They don’t go to school to get educated rather they sell oranges and sachet water to feed themselves and their aged parents. The parents aged not due to age but due to their hustle and bustle to make their living comfortable enough. These children end up not being satisfied with their fundamental human rights. They also suffer child abuse which is one of the most unacceptable things to do to a child.

In conclusion, the abject of teenage pregnancy is not too far to see today in our everyday lives especially at the grassroots level.

hurt

HURT

I love you, Daddy

You are my hero

I love you, Daddy

Oh Daddy

You are my number one

But,

I never knew

Did I?

Not even a vague memory

Mum said you left when I was six months old

Who separates a marriage with a six months old baby?

I have your pictures

You were always in glasses

I wear your clothes sometimes

Mum tells me to stop

She gets too upset when I ask of you

So I stopped asking

Would you tell me I was wrong?

Would you take the pain away?

Sometimes I want to hold you

But I knew you won’t be there

Oh I’m sorry for crying in the middle of the night and making you and Mum quarrel

For everything I just couldn’t do

And I hurt so bad

Do you know how it feels to know,

To know when your friends tell you

“Dad’s making barbecue today”

I miss you so badly

I wish you to tell you things

You know, that father figure to have

I wish to tell you about my bad days

And the good days too

The time of pain from bullies

To have someone tell me

“I love you, Mike”

But,

Its never going to happen

I miss you Daddy

And I love you

Forever and for always

Your son,

Mike

I THOUGHT I KNEW

I THOUGHT I KNEW

I thought I knew what I would feel when I saw her again. I thought I’ll feel something. I’ll feel something of worth. I thought I’ll feel pain or anger, joy or gratitude but I felt none of these. I never thought I’ll get so attached to anything. I guess I did for her. But when I did saw her I felt nothing. In fact I pitied her.

            A few months ago she left me. I felt it was the end of the world. She just left like the wind. I was so sure I felt it but there was nothing left to show she existed but memories. Memories don’t help much too. They fade away with time. Later it became vague. Then you try to convince yourself that it existed. But you can hardly remember though. Remember what she looked like or felt like. How you looked at her like some priced jewel.         

            I was in love with her. I think I still am. She was just perfect for me. There was no day I forgot her. I always remembered her. I thought of her more than I thought of myself. She was my all in all. A day without her was with something missing. Like the essence of life itself was missing. The truth is I really don’t know why she left me. I guess she had to. Or maybe she just got tired of me. Yes, when she left I missed her. I wanted her back so much. That didn’t bring her back either. I had to settle for less.

 It happened like they say “When the preferable becomes unavailable, then the available becomes the preferable”. The other thought I loved her too. But it wasn’t that kind of love I felt for my Nokia N75. The other was a Nokia 3310. I think I know why she had to leave now. We were coming back home together one night and she fell in water. I thought it was just a minor accident but I guess it wasn’t. She didn’t come on again. Like I said, she was my all in all. We played games together and yes I never forgot her in a day. So, she had to go to the repairer. She was with the repairer for months. He had to diagnose what was wrong with her exactly. I guessed she was encrypted just like me. I guess that’s why she was perfect for me. She just got back, my Nokia N75. I mean but I’m unto something better now. I’m with a Samsung C5212 Dual GPRS Band phone. Not bad for someone who had to settle for Nokia 3310.

I thought I knew what I would feel when I saw her again. I thought I’ll feel something. I’ll feel something of worth. I thought I’ll feel pain or anger, joy or gratitude but I felt none of these. I. But when I did saw her I felt nothing. In fact I pitied her.

THE END

“THEY CRY BOO HOO, WE GO HOME, END OF STORY”

“THEY CRY BOO HOO, WE GO HOME, END OF STORY”

What if you woke tomorrow and found out that everything you believed in was a lie.  I said everything not something but everything. That your whole life was some kind of projection from a screen and the only thing that was actually living was you. What would you do? Would you pinch yourself countless number of times just to make sure you were awake? Would you pray to God to just stop the nightmare so you could just wake up into your real life? Well, I did nothing of this nature. I just decided it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I would tell you how it happened to me.

            I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be a beautiful day just like every other day. Then I found myself in a room with no one and nothing. But if I could remember correctly, I slept on my bed with my roommate Electra. I said to myself that it was just a dream. I tried to open the windows and from the windows all I saw was nothing. It was just the colour white dancing around me. The room looked really big but from my knowledge of physics I knew that the colour white deflects light from itself meaning the room wasn’t as big as it appeared to be.

            So what happens now I say to myself? I also thought I was someone’s lab rat in some classified experiment of some sort. Then I man came with another. He addressed me calmly like he was sure everything he spoke of was of the truth. The other he said was like me. ”A confused human”, he called him. I know me. I know I’m not confused in fact, I am the sanest of the sane but from what I have learnt the more to try to prove that you are sane, the more insane you look. So I play his game and by his rules so as to know what he actually really wants. He wanted me to believe everything I ever believed in was a lie. The colour white wasn’t even white. But if he was right at least let’s pretend he was he wouldn’t have address the other as “a confused human”. Or would he? I guess so as to confuse us more.

He left us to think but I know them well. The walls of the room appear like walls to those inside but to those outside it’s a glass; a see through glass in fact. The other just sat there. For all I know, he might be one of them. It might be another one just to make me more confused. I watched him closely. He knew I was looking so he met my eyes. When I saw his face, I saw fear. He wasn’t one of them. He was like me a human. In all the human history I have read there has always been one thing consistent. Humans don’t give up easily. It still marvels me today that even when the dinosaurs died the humans didn’t. We survived. We might have been another Genus and Specie for all I cared but we did survive.

So even I die here today, I’m going to die fighting. I approached him. He did seclude himself. He was one scared rat. I tried to talk to him but he won’t listen. He just sat there mute. If he was one of them, he would have loved to talk. I told him I had a plan to get us out of there and he looked at me. For the first time I saw hope in his eyes. He said he was going to listen to the plan. The plan was simple. We lay down; we closed our eyes and slept. He thought then said, “They cry boo hoo, we go home, end of story” and I affirmed a yes. Then we followed my plan. When I opened my eyes I saw my roommate Elektra beside me. And it was a just a dream.She said, “Welcome back” and I couldn’t agree more.

The end

the BlackBerry craze

the BlackBerry craze

You know it and I know you know it too but that don’t mean I don’t know it too because you are not sure I know it. Don’t get yourself confused. It’s nothing you’ve not seen or heard before. It’s the thing about the BlackBerry phones. The BlackBerry phones have stormed the Nigerian market in full force this decade. I knew the BB phones first in Nigeria early in the last decade. I say a billboard advertising the phones and I said to myself that no one would patronise them. I guess I was right the billboard was put down only to be replaced by another advert for Nokia phones. Then it almost dawned on me when sometime last year everyone was into the BlackBerry phones.            

If you wanted to be termed as a “big boy” or “big girl” all you have to do is have a BlackBerry phone with or without using the properties of the expensive phone. The phone which has its least price (I have ever seen) to be N20,000 is suppose to perform the following functions. The functions include pushing e-mails, 24/7 internet connection, functioning as a personal digital assistant with calendar, memo pad, address book, and task list capabilities also a powerful phone for messaging   and a lot more. Like the fact that the phone has the ability to use wireless data efficiently while using less power than other phones it has also be proven that  three BlackBerrys use the same wireless spectrum as only one other Smartphone (imagine that).

            Since 1999, BlackBerry, a line of phones just like Nokia and Samsung but of mobile e-mail and Smartphone devices have been developed and designed by a Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM). BlackBerry commands a 14.8% share of worldwide Smartphone sales which makes it the fifth most popular device manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Apple. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies. The first BlackBerry device, the Blackberry 850, was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager. In 2002, the more commonly known Smartphone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, and Internet faxing. To first make headway in the marketplace, BlackBerry started by concentrating on e-mail.

            Here is another interesting thing out of all the BlackBerry features. It’s the BlackBerry Messenger. The newer BlackBerry devices use the proprietary BlackBerry Messenger, also known as BBM, software for sending and receiving instant messages (I.Ms) through BlackBerry PIN. BlackBerry PIN is an eight character hexadecimal identification number allocated to every BlackBerry device. PINs cannot be changed manually on the device but though BlackBerry technicians are able to reset or update a PIN server-side, and are locked to each specific BlackBerry. BlackBerrys can send messages to each other using the PIN directly or by using the BlackBerry Messenger application like I mentioned earlier.

The BlackBerry Messenger as so been a thing of craziness in the Nigerian Market. No wonder the nick name "CrackBerry”. I think it’s because of its addictive personality it gives to its users. They always seem to be doing something on the phone whether it is the messaging or the mail. Something always has them hooked and glued to their phones.

 The BlackBerry Bold

The primary competitors of the BlackBerry are Smartphones running Android, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, and the iPhone respectively.

The reason I’m actually writing this excerpt is because I saw of for myself that people actually have more than one blackberry phones. On Sunday the 17^th of February I hitched a ride from church (please don’t judge me) with a couple of friends only to find out that one of them had two blackberry phones. I was perplexed and asked him if he was sick. He answered quite well to tell me he wasn’t. I asked him how he managed it and he said how easy it was for him. In his story he had a friend working in each of the networks he used. The two networks according to him are the MTN network and etisalat. Each ‘friend’ provides him with at least 1500 naira credit every month so at the end of the day, he only spend at most 3,000 naira which is the same as the amount of money he’ll spend on one of the phones. I more than surprised and not too happy about the fact that he spend that amount of money every month just to have access to key properties on the phone like the internet, the B.B messenger and so on. And so is the blackberry craze oooohhhhhhh!!!

MY FAMILY

My family’s name is the Odekanmi Family. My family consist of seven persons. These persons include my Dad, Mr A.A. Odekanmi, and my Mum, Mrs. E.F. Odekanmi. The others are my siblings; Odekanmi Dillon, Odekanmi Deji, Odekanmi Taiwo, Odekanmi Kehinde. This paper contains the family structure and type my family has, the type of family we have, the roles of the members of the family, communication type in my family and so on.

FAMILY TYPE

As said earlier, my family name is Odekanmi. My family type is a Moslem Marriage but the whole family has now converted to Christianity and, I myself am a Roman Catholic. The indigenous form of marriage too was contracted as the culture and tradition of the Yoruba people.

STRUCTURE

The structure of the family also refers to its composition. The composition of family is the nuclear family. My family consists of my father, Mr. Odekanmi A.A, my mother, Mrs. Odekanmi E.F and the children Odekanmi Billion, Odekanmi Dillon, Odekanmi Deji, Odekanmi Taiwo, Odekanmi Kehinde. Another structure that my family practises is the Monogamous family. This is because the marriage is between one man and one woman. 

Since the composition of the family means those who is included and what roles they play within the family. Those who are included have been said earlier. The roles played within the family by my family members include reproduction, affection, socialization, economic corporation and religious upbringing.

KINSHIP AND DESCENT

Descent is traced through the father’s line in my family like other parts ofNigeria. This type of descent is called Patrilinear descent.

FEATURES OF MY FAMILY

1.      There is importance of children to my family. This is very important in Africa as it is seen as a way for continuity.

2.       Care and respect for the elderly.

3.      Lack of public display of affection. This is seen as a sign of weakness.

4.      Marriage ceremony.

5.      There’s patrilocal residence.

6.      Family membership includes those that have died, those that are living and those that are yet to be born.

7.      The interest of the family includes continuity and solidarity.

And so on.

ROLES

FATHER: My father is known as the head of the family. He is the bread-winner of the family. To my mother, he is her husband.

MOTHER: My mother is known as the partner of the head of the head of the family. She is a wife to my father. To us children, she is our mother. She is a home maker, a child bearer. She also is part of the labour force so she is a working mother.

CHILDREN: The children are considered a source of joy to any family. Children are expected to carter for their parent when they are aged. To help send on errands. Children are also expected for us to help our parents in home making and so on.

COMMUNICATION STYLE

The three types of the communication styles are practised in my family.

1.      Complementary communication style: this when one person may be dominant, talkative, passive and quiet- at least on the subject of discussion at least at that time.

2.       Symmetrical communication style: this is when both people are trying to send messages that are directed toward controlling or influencing the behaviours of others and neither of us is ready to influence the other.

3.      Parallel communication style: this style of communication is flexible in interaction and no one is dominant nor passive either is anyone trying to send messages that are directed toward controlling or influencing the behaviours of others and neither of us is ready to influence the other.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

As it has been taught in lectures, conflict can be constructive or destructive. Destructive conflict however results because the right conflict management strategies have not been applied. The conflict management strategies used in my family are:

1.      Prevention Strategies: To prevent destructive conflict by maintaining high level of mutual understanding. This is achieved by observing the elements of interpersonal communication. These include Self-awareness, Empathy, Non-verbal language, Self disclosure and Listening. This prevention strategy is also done by preventing the development of confrontations.

2.      Negotiation Strategies: it is known that not all conflicts can be prevented. There are times when these conflicts are better confronted and resolved.

LIKES

There are a lot of things I like about my family. One of the things is that my family is not too traditional in its dealings. It is true we greet our parents when we wake and other mandatory things are also done. My family doesn’t believe a girl is not a child unlike some cultures in Nigeria. My father believes in the education of girl children, believes they are intelligent and smart and that their specialty isn’t just in the kitchen. My family also believes a woman should join the labour force and not be a full time housewife. My family appreciates birthday celebrations. My family believes in togetherness. The children are allowed to share their views about certain topic for discussion. It is believed that children have voices and should be listened. Even the 5 year olds for example pick their clothes themselves.

DISLIKES

            It is known that not all families are perfect. My family for example isn’t perfect. One of the things I wouldn’t like to be continued when I have my own nuclear family(family of procreation) is this. I would be a woman who knows what the family income is. If the family income is enough or not I would love to know. This will help in budgeting of spending money, investments and savings. I know my family is doing well despite the current inflation in the prices and economic meltdown i would still like to be involved in this aspect of my family’s life.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I think my family is better off than most average families because of the togetherness we have disciplined ourselves with.