Staying Young, Growing Up

I have been living through the motions this last couple of days. I have been saturated by both heat and heavy rainfall. It was like been fed to strong unnatural forces who were throwing me around. I fell ill with Africa's most popular disease Malaria plus Typhoid, then got out of it. Recently got some books from the US-You see my life is a scatterbrain mishmash of everything and something. And my relationship just ended. Now I'm in Ibadan. On my way here I was so uncomfortable. You see I had not slept in 2 days and that had somewhat demobilized my creativity. 'I also had a lot of money' like the Yorubas would say. So I just did what had to do and here I am in Ibadan, getting ready for Artmosphere. The road was rough, we had a couple of Lagos traffic that was giving us hell but the conversations in the bus showed a mix of aspirations. An old business woman said she had stayed in Cotonou for years before coming to Lagos. She was Yoruba but had gone there for business and had fallen in love with the place. she didn't finish her story, but I guess she got fed up with Benin Republic and came to Lagos, one of the fastest growing cities in Africa. A semi-Illiterate political thug says ' there so much money in politics and he wishes the elections were around the corner'-big cash for him I guess. But as he was talking he asked me what the book I was reading was about. It was Mukuma Wa Ngugi's Nairobi Heat and he was fascinated about the cover. He ask whether it was a map of America. I had to tell him that it was actually Africa and that Nigerian stood somewhere at the 'horn'. I had a sense of pity for him but I dismissed the feeling and accused myself of pride. I was relatively silent but my mind was traveling faster than the bus. Now I think my growing up years, where I had no prejudices and no concern for security. My parents were there-they were my friends and my arch enemy-all in one. I think of the days when my father used to take time off his busy schedule to take us around the city and we used to marvel at those things that we now feel are utter wastes of emotions. Have I lost my sense of being 'Young' already. Since my sister's passing, I have found death as a common feature of my discourse, it's strong ambivalence to life, living and memories take me to heights of imagination. The happiness that fills me is that I am becoming, I am growing and yet I have been able to keep a part of my youth. That part that feels that a lot of things are possible and achieveable. So I decided it's time to set the ball rolling for another set of adventures. Next month my journey to Ibadan will be on the train. crazy eh! Some people ask me what I do in Ibadan. For me, Ibadan reminds me a little about the several places I have lived with my now retired civil service father. We had to travel like some theatre company then-from Jos, to Owerri, to...(Name it). It does take me a little time to agree with a lot of people that it's 'childishness' to run a project that does not bring in the 'dough' but for me, it keeps me alive. Only those who have stayed 'Young' can think of the future of the crawlers. Next month,Artmosphere, the literary and lifestyle event that came to me as an tiny-weany idea looking like a spermatozoa will be two years. It has grown into a community of creatives and franchise partners and has formed WriteHouse Collective. I look back at the lustre of seedlings and I just marvel. These are the things that will keep me going. When I pass on to the great beyond I will share vodka with Kafka and laugh with James Joyce I will walk on the clouds and ask the angels the way to the library I will meet familiar faces. I guess, I am just ranting again. This month's Artmosphere is today, 18 May, no wonder I found sleep yesterday Night. It's this year's fifth edition which opens with a deliberate attempt to discuss African identity and realistic approach to progress in Africa. There will also be a detailed predisposition, and juxtapositions to personal and continental experiences of growing up. WriteHouse Collective will be using this edition of Artmosphere to question evolving and modern African values consideration to ethics, technological use and education. The foregrounded and fundamental question will be “What are the values and ideals that define our cosmos and what do we do with them in a fast multicultural and constantly changing cross-idealistic world? Award-winning poet and literary scholar, Peter Akinlabi and novelist Omotunde Omole will read from their latest works and also deliver insightful perspectives and experiences relevant to the central theme. Peter Akinlabi was the very first winner of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (October, 2009). This will be followed by panel discussions as well as presentations from traditionally unpublished and emerging voices in Nigerian literature like Yeku James, Biodun Bello and Opeyemi Adeola. There will be music performances to spice the rhythm and jibes of poetry, stories and experiences. Join me