Metamorphosis - a.k.a responding to the environment

It is a momentous day today: after a month and a half in Lagos my television is finally supposed to be fixed tomorrow and ready to entertain me with Nollywood dramas! I reckon it’s about time, particularly since I am way down on electronic gadgets that actually work as they have chosen to join the ranks of items I in my evil moments call ‘of Nigerian quality’. My iPod has packed up and my flash memory stick has become corrupted (this I think is particularly hilarious – I do hope it is making big buxx out of defrauding Nigeria out of its oil wealth or sending 419 letters to gullible Internet users) and my darling laptop’s wireless slot is no longer responding. I cannot help but wonder – is it so that these electronics are trying to adjust to their new circumstance just like me and sort of don’t want to stick out too much from the general level of quality? Like for example, I bought some light bulbs that exploded the first thing they did as I unpacked them, screwed them into the fixture and tried turning the light on. I have also learnt about fake ink toners you can buy, which look like the real thing, but certainly ain’t, so they mess up good printers (this happened in the office) and lets not even start on the generator that has a new life-threatening condition every day.

Then again, maybe it is just what my darling friend Liz used to say “It’s mercury retrograde”, which I still don’t know what it means… Was it something to do with my aura causing havoc in whatever it gets close to? Liz feel free to comment on this. By the way, I received an email from Liz yesterday and she just returned from her honeymoon! Gosh, it seems like yesterday we practiced our rusty driving skills on the one-way streets of San Francisco (course going the wrong way) and now you are married with kittens – and I am in Nigeria. Dearest Liz, congratulations to you and Martin – I really wish I could have been at your wedding, sporting a frilly, lacey Nigerian creation with headtie and all!

I do like the Nigerian fabrics and dresses. And secretly I giggle at the patriarchal ogas who are all so macho but proudly wear layers of pink gowns, mostly reminiscent of festive curtains or wedding cakes. The loose kaftans are my favourite: they are ideal to potter around the house in. And what of the beautiful ever-imaginative hairdos! Shock and horror, they are oh-so-fake. This to me was complete news. The fact that women and men use hair supplements and extensions, if not wigs, for their elaborate hair creations may have been obvious to others but I completely missed it. And yet another hair-raising fact! Afros are really hard to maintain and super hard work, whereas I in my ignorance thought it was the default hairdo.

Lately there’s been quite a few recreational and culture highlights: I attended a networking event for young professionals where the crème de la crème of Lagos’ well-heeled entrepreneurs caught up with each other, saw a fantastic play on apartheid at the Muson Center and went to a film screening about one of Fela’s album cover designer’s trip to New York. The artist was present at the screening and gave a very vibrant talk on his work life philosophy, and his relationship with the granddaddy of afrobeat. Unfortunately the Q&A part of the event was hijacked by two pretentious art-wannabees who proceeded to have a monologue about their own achievements. On the way to VI I got the lowdown from my colleagues on the meaning of ‘shakara’, the title of one of Fela’s songs and the Yoruba word for a wannabe, con-artist, wise-guy… Well apparently there is no proper translation, shakara is just shakara. Fair enough – I love the word anyway. And I think Yoruba is a very beautiful language. Tongue twisting, very hard to remember, but beautiful. Here’s a sample of Yoruba names: Foyinsola, Abimbola, Ombolaji, Temitope, Olaotan, Olayinka, and Bisola. I have been told I have a good pronunciation, but that could just be the Nigerian friendliness.

Oooh, and the real highlight (or lowlight depending on which way you look at it) was the solar eclipse! I missed it a few years back in London and I would have put it down as an annoying tropical storm with the sky going dark if it was not for the whole office running out into our garden to peer up towards the cloud-enshrouded sun. It was spectacular. A sort of apocalyptical dark light emerged and large, sinister black clouds hovered around the dish of the sun, obstructing but from time to time scattering to reveal the brightest of sun slivers. Pictures will be on Flickr soon.

Tomorrow I am going to a hardcore market on Lagos Island with a new acquaintance, Zyna. It is going to be an adventure. We met at the bank: she complemented my self-made earrings and it turned out she was a striving jewelry designer and now she is taking me to the labyrinth of bead sellers buried in the most chaotic of West African markets. I better get some sleep to be fit for fight in the morning.