Who Will Tell Me Sorry?

August 11, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 23 Comments

Time stood still.

After she said, “Mummy I bumped my head against the window.”

Then moved slowly like a ticking bomb, tick-tock, tick-tock.

One irritated child, another crying child, an unhappy mother, and a grim-faced driver rode from Ikeja to Victoria Island. I wielded the power to change the sombre atmosphere in the car—one sentence, “Sorry, let me take a look at it,” was the magic wand that could banish sorrow to a faraway land.

Instead, I sat tight-lipped like a woman whose husband had asked, “What is the matter now?” after forgetting her birthday. The word sorry had become as precious to me as Silas Marner’s gold was to him. I did not have any more sorry to spare.

Our day had started innocently enough. The children wanted to visit The Fun Place, and I acquiesced. Undaunted by traffic, their incessant chatter filled the car before they succumbed to the go-slow and dozed off. They woke up just as we approached Opebi and bounced gently in their seats to the rhythm of their melodious voices.

So what went wrong? Nothing. Nothing really, except that from the moment they woke up, they had been running in my direction in ardent search for those precious words.

“Mummy, I stubbed my toe as I was coming down the stairs,” one complained and looked at me as if I conspired with the builder to build steep steps.

“Oh sorry dear, come closer, let me take a look.”

Then I gave the toe a gentle rub to soothe the pain. The pacified child retrieved his toe, announced that he felt better, and disappeared. As the day wore on, both kids took turns to seek this cure-all for life’s little mishaps.

“Mummy, I fell down.”

“Sorry, ….”

“Mummy, I bit my tongue.”

“Sorry, ….”

“Mummy, I cut my arm.”

“Sorry, ….”

“Mummy, my sister won’t play with me, the sun won’t shine, the dog won’t bark, the flowers won’t grow, there’s no light, there’s no water,” and on and on, and on and on.

To these and their array of mounting complaints, I have learnt to either feign concern or inject a sufficient amount of compassion in my voice, as I give an appropriate response by rote while multi-tasking!

It was the same story at The Fun Place. I opened my novel, read one paragraph and then said sorry. A little sorry here, a little sorry there. I read another paragraph before tales of being pushed and hit, tales of being unfairly treated, and tales of falling down, assaulted my ears. A big sorry here, a big sorry there, and in all, I had read four paragraphs of my novel by the time we determined to leave.

I eased into the car, looking forward to closing my eyes and dreaming of my bed. I wiped apple juice from my hands, mildly irritated by my sticky fingers, and dusted popcorn off my jeans. The gaping pothole that rocked the car from side to side, had caused everyone and everything to shift position, including my mood.

It was at this precarious time that my daughter pouted, “Mummy I bumped my head against the window.”

I folded my arms and pursed my lips.

It was time to count to fifty, but I would not.

I sighed.

Who will tell me sorry? Did I not also bump my head against the car window? Had I not also stubbed my toe last night in the NEPA-induced darkness? I had muttered, “ow,” rubbed my toe myself, and continued with life.

Who will tell me sorry for the fact that I could not stretch my monthly chop money to cover the whole month due to inflation?

Who will tell me sorry for my car shaft, which needed replacement because the road to my house had become a river?

I sighed.

No, I did not think I had any free sorry to dole out. Let her tell herself sorry for a change!

Her cries slowed to a whimper. A quick glance confirmed my suspicion—her eyelids were drooping in preparation for sleep. Something stirred within me. I reached out and caressed her head, “Sorry darling, does it feel better?”

She sagged against her seat belt, a contended smile barely breaking through tired lips, as everyone else visibly relaxed.

So, who will tell me sorry?

image design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

I am Not Looking For Love, I am Going to Work

August 4, 2013November 22, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 158 Comments

It began yesterday at the government office, which was saturated with immigrants whose anxious stares alternated between the digital display boards and their tickets, a square piece of paper with a number printed on it. At the sound of the beep, everyone looked at their ticket, and then the display boards. Some sighed. Some continued talking. Others continued sleeping. One person rose to meet an official walled in by glass on the other side of the counter.

My wait was shortened by an acquaintance with whom I chatted until our conversation lulled to a comfortable stop.

“Excuse me, it seems you are from Nigeria.” A tall man sitting a few spaces away from my acquaintance smiled at her.

“No, I am not.”

“Ah, but I thought—”

“I am from Democratic Republic of Congo.”

With her thick Igbo accent, she delivered her last words with a finality that inspired no argument from the man. He fanned himself, and then pretended to read his letter from the belastingdienst.

Because I am slow to change the expression on my face, she saw it. The disbelief. The wonder. The perplexity.

“Don’t mind the idiot. If not for dis yeye tax people, where e for come see me? See as e dey talk as if e be my mate. E nor see im type?” she whispered for my benefit and his.

I nodded like her co-conspirator, as though I had been dissing guys for the last ten years. What else could I do?

Determined to be a better person, this incident is hovering at the back of my mind when a young man approaches me today as I wait for my tram.

“Hello, are you from Nigeria?”

Surely there must be a better opening line? I give nothing away as I nod and he introduces himself. I tell him my name.

“Ah, Timi. Timilehin? You are Yoruba?”

“I am Nigerian.”

“I know, from whose part?”

“We have left Nigeria. Let’s pretend ethnicity does not matter. I am a Nigerian; that is enough.”

He looks at me as though the sky has descended on my head and I am unaware. Undeterred, he forges on in pidgin English. I respond in proper English.

He ditches Pidgin in favour of a kind of English that is interspersed with incorrect tenses and Dutch words. This is a cross some of us bear. The effect of speaking Dutch with non-native proficiency is the tendency to forget English words and to adjust our tenses automatically to match the wrong grammar of English-speaking Dutch people.

I am aware of every mistake he makes. Like the freckles on my neighbour’s face, they are many.

“I saw you at this tramhalte iedere dag, I mean, every day. Are you going to work?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

I tell him. And then I help him because he seems lost, “I haven’t seen you before?”

“I know, but I am seeing you. You are very mooi, beautiful.”

I take in his overalls. He does not look like Idris Elba in Tyler Perry’s Daddy Loves His Girls, but this is real life.

“Thank you, where do you work?”

He talks about his work, links that conversation to how long he has been in The Netherlands—fifteen years, and then ties it to his goals and dreams like a neat bow at the end of a string.

My eyes do not wander from his face while he speaks. But my mind does. I wonder if he can read, understand, discuss, and comment on my blog intelligently.

Then there is silence. The wind dies. The leaves sleep. The seagulls take their leave. It is just me and him. And the silence. Without my help, he stews in it for a while—scratching his chin, brushing dirt from his overalls, staring at something behind me—before he says, “I must goes to my work place. Can I have your number?”

“For what?” Honest words spill out before I can reel them in. What else do we have to say to each other?

“I wan know you.”

I do not know why I did what I did next. Guilt—over what? My resolution to be a better person? Pity? Maybe, my thoughts had roamed to how he must have been eyeing me, calculating his approach. Religious fervour? Hardly.

“I would like to invite you to my church.” I fumble in my bag for the flyers the preacher says we should carry around for opportune moments, moments like this one I suppose.

He looks at me as though The Rapture has occurred and I am unaware.

“Ah, ah! Won’t you know me first before inviting me to your church? I already goes to church.”

It is as if he knows. That I am not very good at this. That church is a cop-out. That it is too late to tell him I am from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That I do not have the heart to tell him he will not understand my blog, and therefore not understand me. He pounces on me like a wounded lion, as if to say, “This is for every man you ever dissed!”

“That’s the problem with you Nigerian girls! Church, church, church! Your mates don marry, you still dey here! Oya go and marry your God!”

He jumps on his bicycle in one swift motion and pedals away.

It is rare that I cannot express myself with words. But I am not writing a dissertation. This is life. This does not call for intellectual prowess.

I imagine that in a few moments, his bicycle chain would jam, forcing him to stop. I imagine him kneeling on the earth, humiliated, rattling the chains, while I watch from the elevated platform of my tram stop. Then the words that abandoned me would force their way out of my mouth, “I am not looking for love, I am going to work!”’

Nothing I imagine happens. He continues to ride and does not look back. But a curious thing happens. As I look, it is not him getting smaller in the distance, it is me!

Bini Girl, Italy for Better Life: Revisiting Human Smuggling

July 28, 2013February 8, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 20 Comments

It doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter how you say it. When I look at your face, I know. I know the years have not been kind to you.

I remember the rejoicing that followed your impending departure all those years ago. Poverty is cruel. Greed is crueller. It makes a man sell his daughter into prostitution and celebrate. The merriment that heralds your return surpasses the one that followed your father’s trek to Western Union in the beginning.

Siwo, siwo. Siwo!

Wokhin? Ọyemwen nor.

Urhuẹse, Baba o!

Urhuẹse Ijesu mwen!

Urhuẹse, urhuẹse,

Urhuẹse, Baba o!

Their celebration is valid for at one time, they did not expect your return. When the news of your neighbour’s daughter’s death reached iye a few years after you left, she clutched iye Osaretin’s blouse as though by so doing, the fear in her eyes would be transferred to iye Osaretin’s heart and not lodge itself in her own.

“Osa sinmwin ovbimwen, ghẹ giẹ wu,” your mother cried.

It was your roommate who told us you had travelled on business. What business could keep you silent for two years they questioned, as if they did not know? As if the money they expected you to send to build your father a house in Upper Sakponba, would be earned in one place. As if they had not heard that competition was fierce. As if baba had not visited the shrine and iye gone for mass, three times a day, when news about Benin girls disappearing in Italy first broke out.

When they finally heard your voice, although iye’s relief was tangible, it did not override her scolding.

“Enough! Come home. Come back. I want to see you again before I die.”

But you could not. You were mortgaged up to the hair on your pubic regions and she knew it.

People said your mum became crazy after that. She carried on like a full-clothed mad woman, lips moving, sounds trapped. But when I stood close to her, I heard her praying for all of us, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” I chorused, amen, in my mind so I would not startle her out of her self-imposed dementia.

Seven years later, having fulfilled your obligations to all, you are free. I do not imagine the bed sheets were pretty pink or the mattresses soft. I cannot believe you are the same—your mind had to have taken a blow many times over.

I do not want your money. I am not proud. But I cannot receive money that you earned while losing your dignity. It would be a bigger crime than the one I committed when they sold you.

I was nineteen then, an object of shame, an ungrateful daughter, because I preferred to study, finish school, get a job, and then support my family. Your mother helped with my school fees. I know you didn’t know. Now you know why I stayed away from my home and why I was always in yours. To my family, I was a corpse, not much to look at, and I stank to Heaven.

That was why I was surprised iye acquiesced to your leaving to do work. That day, I opened my mouth, but her eyes said, “No, hold your peace.” Blackmail is not always explicit and my desire to escape from Benin through education was so strong. My silence was my crime.

And now you say, “It was my choice!” stamping your foot as if truth can enter the cement floor where we are standing.

What does a sixteen year old know about choice? How can you make a choice if there are no options —at least options that you know about? How could you make a choice when I who knew, who could show you how to say no or run away, kept quiet. And when you mingled the blood that flowed from the tiny incision on your hand with theirs, and drank from the calabash, your lack of choice was sealed.

I am glad that you are back. I never stopped chorusing amen to iye’s inaudible prayer, even after I moved to Lagos. I passed by your house in GRA on my way into town. Your younger brother, Lucky, insisted on showing it to me, pride filled his voice, filled the car, he did not hear me when I said, I had seen enough. So, I shook him as he inched the car nearer the gate. Bewilderment covered his face until he remembered I am a corpse, I stink to Heaven, and corpses don’t applaud.

Please don’t leave the money on the table, don’t insult me that way. If your money can erase your past, I would take it. Smile for everyone else. Let the gap in your front teeth show how strong you are. But now we are alone, forgive me and cry with me because in the thick of the night, I hear your tender cries, as I always did, even when distance separated us.

Notes:

1. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

2. According to the Photographer’s Statement on socialdocumentary.net,

“The term trafficking of persons is restricted to instances where people are deceived, threatened, or coerced into situations of exploitation, including prostitution. This contrasts with human smuggling, in which a migrant purchases services to circumvent immigration restrictions, but is not a victim of deception or exploitation.”

View Pablo Patrizi’s documentary photography on the issue here.

3. For more information, watch AlJazeera’s twenty-five-minute documentary, People & Power-The Nigerian Connection II . While I do not endorse the video in its entirety, it touches on some of the relevant issues.

4. Read, The Girls from Benin City, The New Slave Trade from Nigeria to the Streets of Italy, a book from an insider about human trafficking/smuggling.

Photo credit: Girl with Leopard, plaque from Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo people, c. 1600, bronze or brass, De Young Museum by Wmpearl (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A’Girl_with_Leopard’%2C_plaque_from_Nigeria%2C_Court_of_Benin%2C_c._1600.JPG

My Best Friend and I

July 21, 2013August 20, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 22 Comments

I sit down to listen as she talks. Expounding, avoiding the point, a rigmarole that I could tapdance to. Her words come out this way and then that way, like a rolling boulder, gathering sympathy on the way to… to… to a grand destination! She is a conductor who hopes to finish on a high note and with a flourish.

I bury my tired sighs in empathy-filled coos—ah, eh, oh, ewo, nawa, kpele, and if her pause is long enough, I fill it with phrases—you don’t say! It’s a lie! What in the world? My inflections are on point.

I had come home from my eight-hour stint in front of a glass-box. Hands flying over the keyboard, I have made others rich, but it is an honest day’s job. I would have loved to zone out for thirty minutes, but she was already waiting. Although dinner is late, it would be taboo to multitask. Opening cupboards, lifting pots, chopping onions, and letting the tomato sauce simmer while she talks would steal from her moment. Her troubles occupy centre-stage.

Her narrative is a complex equation. It is like her, she is a woman after all. My forty-hour work week is spent making complex things simple. I sift through her words eliminating redundancies, shortening super-long sentences, and knocking out nominalisations. I simplify the equation, I solve the problem, I know the answer, but I listen for another ten minutes. I know the folly of being the child that interrupts the teacher’s question to shout out the answer.

I know she is done, talking that is, because she sighs and leans back in her chair, inviting me to pick the microphone. I know the danger of ignoring reflective listening, so I say the things she has already said in my crisp, brief manner, and then I dangle an option here and another there. After she nods a couple of times, I drop the life-line. I itemise the solution. Her eyes light up as if she is a child who was offered a second round of candy. But like a sugar high, her joy does not last long.

“Who will help me do it?”

“I will.”

Her delight is my reward.

I rise to embrace routine, the mindless things I do when I return home from work. Kicking my shoes off, sifting through mail, I hum a tune, a song from the radio that I didn’t know I knew.

“It is getting late, are you not going to do it?”

Preoccupied, I almost miss her question. I toss my answer carelessly as though sprinkling salt in stew.

“I will do it.”

I open the fridge and stare. It is a game I sometimes play, what will I eat for dinner?

“I thought you said you’d help me.”

“I will.”

My movements are slow. Something is brewing in the air. I lose focus. I forget why I am in the kitchen. I remember and bring out some minced meat.

“When are you going?”

“I’m not sure. But don’t worry, I will sort it out.”

There is a moment, when we are angry, or afraid, or hurt, that rational thinking peeks through the adrenaline rush, a small window of opportunity that lasts maybe thirty seconds. Sometimes I think its sole purpose is to fill us with regret later as we shake our heads, “If only—.”

“If they close before you get there, it will be your fault, and you will have to pay with your money.”

I marvel. I do not respond. Is this why her ex-husband left her—the nagging and the threats? It is a cruel thing for me to think. That is not why he left her, but it is what she has become, beneath the nagging, beneath her threat, she is clingy, fearful, unsure, and unable to trust.

“I said I will do it.”

She is still speaking, making simple things complex.

I will not be bullied with words and won over with guilt. I will not succumb to pity and say yes to desperation.

She is still speaking, making simple things complex.

I stand in front of her, catching her eye. There are many things there—fear, anger, anxiety—things that I did not put there.

“I said I will take care of it. Leave it to me.”

I head for my room, dinner forgotten. When I open the door, the wind rushes in through the window to embrace me. Its force would separate me from the door if I let go of the handle, slamming it. And she’ll think I am angry, but I am not. I only want to regain my sanity and remember why she is my best friend and why I care so much. So I hold the handle and let the door click gently in place.

Photo credit: ©Alexandre Vanier/www.pixabay.com

http://pixabay.com/en/friendship-hands-friends-love-63743/

Policing Ourselves: Imagine That!

July 14, 2013February 21, 2016 ~ livelytwist ~ 15 Comments

Three years ago, I read in a national daily that the sergeants-at-arms of the national and state assemblies were to be trained in crisis management and parliamentary combat control. They were to complete rudimentary physical drills and simulations that are adapted to tempestuous law-making chambers where members freely jab each other and often aim at the symbol of authority, the mace, to disrupt proceedings. I had a good laugh then even though it was a factual report written devoid of humour.

Beyond the hilarity, I wondered why we need to be policed all the time, why voluntary compliance is so lacking. We have thrown self-discipline out the window and need the brutal arms of uniformed men to coerce compliance out of us like malu congo, yama yama congo—a derogatory chant that I cried out as a girl. It was aimed at cows being driven with a stick by a herdsman intent on the cows doing his bidding. LASTMA, for example, has borne the ugly brunt of many-a-jokes, but its existence means the joke is on us.

There is a clarion call for visionary leaders, honest leaders, and accountable leaders. Bad leadership gets the blame for the ills that plague our communities. However, the present crop of leadership is drawn from the current population so, what you have is what you get. Like the computer, garbage in, garbage out. Or was it from watching violent American movies that those legislators learnt how to engage the opposition with punches?

One view of leadership postulates that leadership is ultimately about getting people to contribute to making something great happen. Rallying supporters to violently disrupt proceedings in the House of Assembly while stirring them up with we-no-go-gree-style chants is not what this view of leadership advocates.

Leadership also involves self-discipline. We would do well to imbibe the words of the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu, “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”

The other day, I waited in the crowded hall of a bank to pay in a cheque and there were only two bank tellers at the counter.

Their supervisor sat in a glass-walled office, oblivious to the impatient crowd. Where was initiative? She could have risen from her throne to work out a way to dispel the crowd. But, why should she? It was the same scenario day after day, and the bank was not losing customers on account of it.

A gentleman and I bemoaned our fate. We prayed that the “system” would not “go down” before it was our turn to be served.

He said, “I could have been at the front of the queue. A friend offered me a space in front of him and the man behind him did not mind.”

“Why didn’t you take the offer, you could have been out of here by now?”

“I didn’t want to cause confusion, like that man.”

He drew my attention to a man with swagger.

“Excuse me,” Mr Swagger said to the man on the queue who was next in line to be served, “I just want to ask a question.”

Distrust shone through the other man’s eyes. Suspicion made him move slowly, but he made room for Mr Swagger to stand in front of him. Then wham bam before you could say leadership, cheque and money exchanged hands. Mr Swagger tucked his bundle in his pocket and sauntered casually out of the hall, toothpick in mouth, as if he had just finished eating bush meat. He had taken us for a ride. Tomorrow when he becomes local government champion, I mean chairman, he will take us for a longer ride and maybe outsmart the opposition with his fists.

Barack Obama inspired millions when he said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” In other words, good leadership begins with me and leading others starts today not when I get to Aso Rock.

According to the report in the daily paper, after the police suppress a fracas in the Assembly, lawmakers always point out that the disgraceful event occurs not just in Nigeria alone. So, if I put my hand in the fire, will you too put your hand in the fire? We cannot continue to justify our bad behaviour on the bad behaviour of our neighbours. We are old enough to distinguish between good and bad.

Now, before you and I turn up our noses at the “fighters” for justice, we would do well to consider that the cloak of shame widens to engulf us all, whether living at home or abroad. And as long as we still need WAI, KAI, TimaRiv, LASTMA, and the likes, in addition to regular law enforcement, we will have bad leadership.

Ol boy eh, garbage in garbage out!

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

The original article, Policing Ourselves: Imagine That!, first appeared here on November 4, 2010. Nearly three years later, the contents remain relevant.

People illustrations by Microsoft

Design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Perfect Strangers

June 30, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 23 Comments

That awkward moment when you step into the lift with the colleague you see in the corridor, at the coffee machine, at lunch, and because neither of you acknowledges the other, one of you takes up elevator-door-staring while the other fiddles with a smart phone.

That awkward moment when standing in the lift, each one pretending that the other does not exist, pretending that there isn’t a world where you both coexist, the lift jerks to a stop and the light goes out.

That awkward moment when phones act as torches and your fingers touch as you both reach for the alarm button, apologise and laugh self-consciously, and then make the same mistake again because neither of you can decide who should go first.

That awkward moment when you know you’ve spent too many nights watching Criminal Minds and Crime Scene Investigation, because in the dim light, your colleague looks like Frankenstein’s monster and you expect a switchblade to suddenly appear.

That awkward moment when crisis forces both of you to skip introductions and attempt chitchat that lacks the finesse of children forging new friendships, to manage the silence which otherwise would stretch to infinity.

That awkward moment when like a steam train your chitchat sputters to an unsteady start so you ask, “How’s work in legal?” And silence follows because your colleague responds, “Fine and where do you work?” making you aware that in this game of show me yours and I’ll show you mine, you’ve just been outwitted.

That awkward moment when anger that you mask, masks the hurt you feel because there are no perks in being treated like a wallflower, unnoticed by someone with whom you share 5000 square footage in a twelve-storey office building.

That awkward moment when your colleague clears his throat and admits that he’s seen you over at finance but wasn’t sure as he’d also seen you in sales. His words placed like a winning serve, are honest words that deserve your applause.

That awkward moment when you confirm what you’ve always known: you are not claustrophobic. Trapped for ten minutes in a lift, with a stranger, you have not begun to pull your hair. Instead, you have discovered things about yourself that you can now define.

That awkward moment when the fluorescent bulb flickers to life causing you to blink, but not filling you with relief. You see your colleague as the lift ascends and wonder why you never thought to greet each other in bright, wide, open spaces, as if either of you would lose points for being the first to say hello.

That awkward moment when the lift slows and tings as the display stops at number seven and you look at your colleague, nod and then smile because words would get in the way of the silence that you have both come to accept. A dysfunction in technology has made your world not only smaller but also richer.

That awkward moment when you realise independence is not all its hyped up to be. Although you have been striving for independence all along, interdependence—the union of independent minds in mutually beneficial harmony—is the greater prize.

That awkward moment happened to me.

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

image credit: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Our National Pastime

June 23, 2013April 17, 2016 ~ livelytwist ~ 25 Comments

Returning to live in Nigeria after nearly a decade away, the influence of another culture makes me observe life through a different set of lenses. Like a black face in a sea of white faces, our national pastime immediately stood out to me. In the past, this hobby did not elicit a raised eyebrow from me since it blends seamlessly with the landscape.

On the streets, behind magnificent edifices, under bridges, at the corner of dream castles, and even in front of crude, hand-painted signs that expressly forbid it, men and women, boys and girls, and goats and dogs all rollick in this pastime. I dare say that you or someone you know has been involved in it.

Being a showy people, we engage in this activity openly, without shame, and no thought of decorum. Have you guessed what it is? No, it is not football; it is urinating in public!

Urine pours like libation all across the land and there is no hallowed ground. Any gutter, wall, bush, or piece of land will do. Smart-looking men disembark tinted-glass Lexus jeeps mid-street to relieve themselves beside school-aged boys turned vendors. Women, though in the minority, refuse to be outdone. Whether standing astride, or crouching low with bunched-up skirts, they contribute their quota to this swelling, smelling river that threatens to overflow its banks.

Are people in such dire need that they cannot wait until they get to a toilet? Does a dearth of facilities fuel this activity?

I observed a security guard having a go on a neighbour’s fence, so I made enquiries about the gatehouse in front of the estate where he worked. There was a toilet and yes, there was running water.

Pray tell, what should I conclude? That old habits die-hard? That the satisfaction derived from relieving oneself in the open is out of proportion to that obtained in the confines of a cubicle? That borderline exhibitionism is pervasive? That, that … the, Do Not Urinate Here By Order-sign, which stands at attention in front of the fence, is an open invitation to do so?

All this has given me a new perspective on handshaking. Fortunately or maybe unfortunately, hugs are more commonplace in my setting. Friends, however, remind me that worse things have not yet killed a man.

Sometime ago, my family and I were caught in traffic occasioned by the Lagos Carnival, for several hours. We missed the warnings about roadblocks thanks to our habit of predominantly watching foreign TV channels. Anyway, we killed time by enjoying a hot but decent view from a bridge on Lagos Island. The heat from the sun was momentarily diverted to my brain when my son asked to use the toilet. I calmly explained that there were no nearby facilities all the while crossing my fingers.

After trying to contain his distress for a few moments, he approached me again and again and again. With no alternative in sight, I got off my high horse and encouraged him to just do it on the kerb by the bridge. Reminding me of my stand, he vehemently protested. Nature won the battle eventually, and I escorted him to a less conspicuous corner while eating my humble pie.

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Photo credit: alvez / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA
Original image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvez/4697340832/
Title: nigerianos

Photo credit: Darren Taylor [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANigerian_fans_at_2009_World_Cup_qualifying_match.jpg

Photo credit: nova3web / Foter.com / CC BY-SA
Original image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/niyyie/2212649832/
Title: Ghana 2008: Nigeria Vrs Cote d’Ivoire in Sekondi

Photo credit: shawnleishman / Foter.com / CC BY-SA
Original image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnleishman/2348430420/
Title: Project Nigeria : Day 2 : The Law.

Photo credit: ©Ifeanyi Ukoha Facebook Timeline

Photo credit: Lagos State Government Carnival
http://www.lagoscarnival.com/galleries/index.html

A Father’s Love

June 16, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 26 Comments

My father’s love is different from my mother’s love because my dad is not like my mum, as it should be. He is a thinker, not a talker; his low rumble rarely punctuated the soprano-rich chatter that filled our home.

While I can dig up a dozen memories of my mum the superhero, without knitting my eyebrows and closing my eyes, I can only dig up a few of my dad. However, each memory, etched with a permanent marker in my consciousness, represents a turning point that defined me as a writer.

During my childhood, my father was two things to me: Father Christmas and the man I wanted to please at all cost. Perhaps it was because he lived far away and I did not see him every day; the heart often longs for that which is not near. He returned home at Christmas with lots of praise and presents. He brought us tons of Judy, Mandy, Betty & Veronica, and Archie comics.

He made sure I had one Naira every day so I could go to Challenge Bookshop or Leventis Stores to buy a book. That was how I discovered the enchanted world of Enid Blyton and my imagination soared to distant lands and distant shores. I cut my notebooks to mini squares and wrote the stories I would have loved to tell. That was how I learnt about pace and dialogue without going to writing school. Encouraged by my dad, I read and read and read.

As a teen, we read together because he was home every day. I scanned the newspapers daily, but saved the columns and editorials for weekends. Then I would lounge with him in our veranda, he lost in his world of words, I lost in mine, as the clock ticked away. When night fell and the queen of the night flowers released their scent, we slapped the moths and mosquitoes away, turning the pages of our newspapers faster than we had done in the afternoon.

He indulged my love for reading and there was always money to buy more books, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, The Economist, Times, Newswatch, and Classique magazines. That was how I learnt to argue for what was important to me with my words instead of my voice. Enthralled by the magic of words, my worldview changed one sentence after another. I wrote opinion pieces that enticed people to read and not skim, arranging my stream of thought in a logical flow. That was how I learnt about exposition without going to writing school. Encouraged by my dad, I read and read and read.

Now a young woman, it is my turn to be Mother Christmas, heaping gratitude and gifts, so my father can continue to read. When we talk, I listen. I listen for it. I listen for the lilt in his voice as I imagine the spark in his eyes, because something he read has transported him as it does me, to lands of possibilities.

As I connect the dots of my life, it becomes clearer and clearer still: my father’s love is different from my mother’s love. Her love is loud and the spotlight magnifies her heartbeat in motion. In the periphery, my father’s heart beats too, at a quiet even pace that masks its fervency.

My dad is the mostly unsung hero who in a time of uncertainty wrote me a letter that has frayed at the ends and torn at the fold. Whether soaring or plummeting, whether laughing or crying, his words have remained with me, reminding me of when I first dared to dream. Reading and rereading the letter through the years, his writing style has become my own.

Happy Father’s Day dad. Surely, my ink flows in part because of you.

Photo credit: http://www.creationswap.com/LuisGarcia

Facebook Fraud

June 5, 2013June 5, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 12 Comments

Laurita Laurita, oh Laurita Laurita! Your name has a sing-song and unreal quality to it. I do not know how you found me and why you singled me out. Facebook has made the world smaller, but there are around one billion people in the world’s third-largest country. Ah yes, we have one mutual friend. What you both have in common still baffles me.

I am an editor second, and a nice person first, which is why I refrained from deleting your early morning ungrammatical intrusion into my inbox. I checked your wall and saw that your last and only status update before you changed your profile picture was in Russian. You recently changed your Facebook language to English (US), which may explain why you sound as if you used Google Translate, and then copy and paste.

I am fine, thank you for asking and your marital status is of no consequence to me. So you think Facebook is too small to contain the breadth of a friendship with you. No wonder you barely have anything on your wall since you joined Facebook in October 2012. You prefer to catch your ~~victims~~ friends by email.

Your profile picture is beautiful. Your eyes look photoshopped, but what does that matter when your skin looks like smooth caramel latte. Your hair; was that not how Naomi Campbell styled hers, the beautiful centre-part look that I tried in vain to achieve during my teenage years? But I am neither a voyeur nor model scout so I do not want more photos of you.

There is something you should know about me. I am not as foolish as you suppose I am. Anybody whose name reminds me of Chivita Chivita must have a big head and a small brain. I have therefore written this cease and desist order, Прекратить и порядка, to you.

Laurita oh Laurita

Whether man or woman, I do not know

Whether girl or boy, I do not care

There are many fishes in the sea

Waiting to swallow your bait

But I am not one of them

Laurita oh Laurita

Whether Nigerian 419, it is hard to tell

Whether Russian 419, it is hard to sell

There are many fishes in the sea

Waiting to swallow your bait

But I am not one of them

Laurita oh Laurita

Whether Yahoo Yahoo, na you know

Whether Facebook fraud, na today?

There are many fishes in the sea

Waiting to swallow your bait

But I am not one of them

Laurita oh Laurita

Whether Nigerian or Caucasian, long throat no get colour

Whether Scandinavian or Asian, greed sabi follow follow

There are many fishes in the sea

Waiting to swallow your bait

But I am not one of them

I reject it; I will not be one of them

Laurita oh Laurita

May Facebook delete your account

May our mutual friend wise up and “unfriend” you

May you shudder in apprehension whenever you see my name

May remorse overtake you like a Nigerian politician who did not loot enough before the end of his second term

In this vast global village

Let me not be a victim of identity thief

Let someone not steal my profile picture

And call himself Bournvita Bournvita

Okay can somebody tell me what these Facebook scammers want?

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Image credit: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Naija Movie Night

June 2, 2013February 22, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 62 Comments

I am at The Palms Shopping Mall, Lagos, buying popcorn and a drink before I proceed to the cinema theatre. My popcorn, a warm mixture of sugar, salt, and butter, sends my taste buds to heaven with every crunch. This is the preamble to a wonderful evening.

Friendly and professional staff check our tickets and wave us in. We make our way to the last row at the top of the theatre, a vantage spot for viewing pleasure, and sit mid-row. The easy banter of friends, shuffling feet, and polite excuse-mes, set the mood in the theatre before the lights go out.

Panic erupts from my left side. Stampede follows.

“ Rat! Rat! Big rat!”

We scamper in a radius of confusion. Questions hang like clothes left to dry in the sun: “Where?” “Did you see it?” Eventually we regroup at our row. Some people brave the popcorn-littered floor and the “invisible” rats to collect their belongings, while others take our places. My popcorn sits intact in its paper carton, but I decide to donate it to the rats.

We settle for another row of seats. Governor Fashola’s message hits home. Kate Henshaw tells us to park our cars at home and ride the BRT buses like her. Funke Akindele tells us to pay our taxes so green Lagos can extend beyond Alausa. Eko o ni baje o.

The movie begins. It is fast-paced. I like it. Soon, a bluish light amplified by the darkness, irritates my vision. It emits from the row in front of us. Ping, silence, ping; a BlackBerry in motion. It must be important. Ping, ping, ping. Maybe her mother is dying. Silence at last, but the light keeps harassing my eyes. I ignore the luminescence the way I ignore a stubborn particle in my eye that refuses to leave after a thousand blinks.

A phone rings from the row above us—someone who forgot about silent mode. I commiserate inwardly. My phone has rung at inopportune moments too, like laughter at a funeral service. I imagine him quickly switching off his phone and apologising.

“Tunde! My man, I dey Palms.”

A relaxed conversation ensues, as if he is sitting in his living room drinking Guinness Stout with his mates. I wait for the reprimand that surely must come. Instead, another phone rings from a row several levels below us.

Quiet resumes as the movie draws us into a web of suspense. The actors are clueless. People shout hints so the actors can hear them. I am not perturbed enough to proffer solutions. Don’t they know that the leading actor never dies?

The action scene over, calm replaces the excitement of moments before. A holy hush descends as both the leading actor and all of us recover. A baby’s cry pierces the quiet, followed by a mother’s insistent, “Sssh, sssh!” A baby in the cinema? What were the mother and father thinking? What were the staff at the entrance not thinking?

I expect the Occupy Baby movement to arise. I am not disappointed.

“Madam, abeg give de pickin breast!”

Not long after, the baby’s cry teeters to a stop.

I give up watching the movie on the screen. Real life offers colours and sounds that Technicolor and Dolby Surround cannot match. The sporadic flash of cellphone cameras blinds me. Babies protest against the ludicrousness of being in the cinema theatre. Cell phones ring in programmed sequence, one after another, as when you snooze your alarm, it startles you out of sleep fifteen minutes later. I drown in the conversations and debates floating up from below and drifting down nonchalantly from above.

How can I describe the cooing in sync when the leading actor achieves a milestone? This is it. He typifies our lives, the relief that washes over us when we cross difficult hurdles. It is a Kodak moment. We coo without cue, a sound so tender, goose bumps chase prejudice away. The fantasy that we came to revel in for ninety minutes is over. We applaud, burying our irritation underneath a shared experience.

Outside, my friends apologise for the people’s behaviour. I ponder their apology. Dutch people do not apologise for being Dutch. French people do not apologise for being French. English people do not apologise for being English.

I take their advice and return the next morning to watch the film in peace. The theatre is empty save for about ten other people. A man slips into the seat next to mine.

In the dark, confidence buoys his voice, “Wetin dey happen? Wetin de man talk?”

I smile, “Make you come watch for night; dem dey show de pidgin version for night.”

I watch movies in the morning. Then I return in the night to watch the same movies again because I cannot get enough of the beauty, the diversity, and the insanity that is Nigeria.

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Image credit: curtain vector: zcool.com.cn

font: Carpenter Script: http://fontzone.net/font-details/Carpenter+Script/

font: Disco Diva by annyluswonderland: http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/668749

All people illustrations, animes, avatars, vectors by Microsoft

design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Grow Up Mikey

May 26, 2013February 8, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 13 Comments

The walls have remained the same—off-white walls with the imprint of dirty fingers near the doors. It is five long years since I was in my parent’s home. I mull over my last conversation with you. Sitting across from me at the restaurant, the table shook when you banged it, rattling our glasses, your rage exposing your fragile heart. I did not speak then, but I will speak now. Mikey, this is my story and it could be yours too.

My parents are not responsible for all the problems in my life. Ha! It is true that in a moment of anger, my mum flung her high-heeled peep-toes at me. But for crying out loud, I ducked with the agility of a teenage athlete, and enjoyed the small victory of seeing for a second, the remorse on her face when her shoe hit the wall and rebounded with the broken heel coming in second place. She has paid enough, and the statute of limitations has run its course.

And what if my dad never said, “I love you,” and never attended any prize-giving ceremony where I stood on the podium looking and hoping, from primary school through secondary school and up till my graduation from university? So, he didn’t know how good I was at Scrabble and how deftly I could steal two-hundred-pound notes while playing Monopoly?

For goodness sake, he put a roof over our heads, we ate until our little stomachs protruded like a ball, and our summer dresses, which caught the wind and ballooned when we twirled, had pink flower petals and yellow butterfly patterns. He spelled L.O.V.E. in a different way, and I refuse to let my juvenile fantasies of challenging his authority in a boxing ring follow me into my twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

So your parents expressed their frustration at your (“un”)reasonableness by acting as though you would not amount to much, swearing with their nostrils flared and their breath coming in gasps. Did they not spend time correcting you so you would amount to much, and when they realised that a life sentence in jail for killing you was not worth the trouble, hired the services of a private tutor? Let it go. Grow up and stop holding a grudge.

Do not tell a shrink the stories that you should reserve for your grandchildren and write the shrink a fat cheque afterwards as if you had twenty-five hours in your day and as if you do not have bills to pay.

Dad and mum, you are officially off the hook. My mistakes are my own, born of foolish choices. The things you forgot to warn me about, I could have found out. All those times when we sat (you on the red armchair and I on the cream sofa), and I wondered who taught you to lecture, pretending to listen, so you could congratulate yourself for passing on great wisdom, I should have paid attention to the pain in your voice brought on by the memory of bitter experience. I could have asked and you would have told me more, so much more.

My mistakes are my own. Despite all you did to set me up for a good life, I chose the life that brought me pain, that brought you pain, that brought us pain. I do not blame you and you should not blame you. We have life, we have hope, we have faith, and we have love. You could not buy the sun even if the central bank printed more notes.

Enough already! Everybody stop crying; say, “Cheese,” and face the camera!

Photo credit: ©Lisa Runnels/www.pixabay.com (used with permission)

http://pixabay.com/en/boy-amatuer-boxer-fight-sport-72370/

Open Letter to Akpos

May 19, 2013February 8, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 29 Comments

Dear Akpos,

You do not know me. I am a Nigerian living in the diaspora. I know you unlike my friend who continues to speak funéh after we have left the office. Even Nigerians in Antarctica have heard of you, so great is your renown like Britain’s legendary Mr. Bean. As you yab Nigerians living abroad temper your jokes with mercy because after six months in oyinbo land, we forget that we went to Burukutu Primary School and Agbaridion Secondary School—the winter makes us talk through our noses and freezes brain function.

Since 2012 when I started reading your jokes on BBM and Facebook and Twitter, I have become more convinced that no condition is permanent. The way that you have metamorphosed and become as entrenched in our national consciousness as surely as Nollywood is synonymous to Nigeria is “amazing”. As you increase, may all those elements that want to take us down as a nation decrease!

Talking about BlackBerry, every day, I receive several Akpos jokes on BBM. The coloured text informs me that it is a yet another viral broadcast message. I know that a response beyond LOL is oversabi; however, I cannot restrain myself. I punch my screen to reply and let the sender know that I was the one who sent him the joke first; after all, I am not a goat regurgitating cud!

Akpos, I take God beg you, stop “doing it again and again” because:

One Akpos a day keeps the doctor away

Two Akpos a day chases the blues away

Three Akpos a day causes temporary amnesia

Four Akpos a day is like mosquito bite, sweet to scratch until you bleed

Five Akpos a day is like eating dodo every day; e no go tey before you shout, “Ekaette, na only plantain dey house?”

In spite of this, I want to thank you for the great work you are doing in Nigeria. These days, it seems as if you are the only one working hard to make us forget our problems. Can you imagine that Nigeria was ranked 20^th saddest country in the world on the 2013 Legatum Prosperity Index? Dem dey craze? Even if oil reserves finish, we go laugh. Make dem flare gas troway, we go still laugh. Akpos, don’t mind them jare. If they had met you, we would not have had such a low ranking.

I still do not know who you are Akpos. Everywhere I turn, I see another Akpos, so tey I have headache that only Paracetamol from India can cure. On Facebook, I found: Original Akpos, Akpos The Comedian, Akpos, Akpos (The Comedian), and Akpos Jokes. Space will not allow me list the number of Akposes I found on Twitter and the spin-offs from your vast business empire: Akpos apps for BlackBerry, Akpos android apps on Google Play, Akpos jokes from the Ovi store, and so on.

This proliferation of your brand reminds me of when my mother started Pure Water business. Before we could finish tying all the cellophane bags of our Pure Water, three of our neighbours had sunk their own boreholes and started calling out on the street, “Buy Pure Water, original Pure Water!” Akpos, your enemies shall never succeed! We are counting the days till you go hammer and your Hummer go land.

I will stop here before your eye begin close like newborn pickin. By now you for don release another five hundred jokes.

BTBY (be the best you)

LLNP (long life & prosperity)

OHGSL (Our Hummer go soon land)

BNFKU (Boko Haram no fit kidnap us)

PIND (peace in Niger Delta)

PFE (pray for EFCC)

LKH (love, kisses & hugs)

TGBTG, (to God be the glory)

Timi

So what do you think? Does Akpos symbolise something deeper about our national psyche—perhaps a variant of the freedom songs sung by oppressed people through the centuries? Or is Akpos a platform to show that Naija’s got talent, comic relief, pure and simple?

Image Credits:

Cartoon by Mike Asuquo: http://asukwo.blogspot.com

My Mum the Superhero

May 12, 2013February 8, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 17 Comments

My mum is a woman ahead of her time. Living in a society and a day when having male children was the ultimate sign of fertility and the highest compliment a wife could pay her husband, she did not wring her hands and weep in the maternity ward year after year in quest for a boy child. No, after three girls, she dulled her ears to the murmurs. She dedicated her life to being the best thing that came out of Sapele and poured herself into her daughters so we could be all and more than any male child could ever be.

My mum is big-hearted. She stretched the meaning of nuclear family until it extended to include people with whom we shared no blood connection. As a result, we grew up with more cousins, aunts, and uncles than most. Her seeds of kindness have matured and we are recognised and rewarded for being the children of Aunty Gina.

My mum is beautiful. From her I learnt that I too am beautiful. Whenever people called me little Gina, my heart welled with pride. I wore her oversize clothes and shoes, and opened her trinket box to deck myself with her jewellery. Then I sat on her dressing table and put on her make-up. When I looked at the mirror, I no longer saw a gawky child. I saw my mum, my beautiful mum.

My mum is a planner. If we had to travel, she would sneak into our rooms at 4 a.m., six hours before we needed to leave, and drag our luggage to the veranda where the sleepy-eyed chauffeur would be waiting to put them in the trunk of the car. She would wake us up at 5 a.m. and cajole us to get ready, hollering our names, pulling the bed covers, and yanking our pillows. How we idled away the five hours until departure time is an unsolved mystery. Today, I pack like a pro and my luggage is at the door five hours before I need to leave my house.

My mum is a believer. She told me the sky is the limit; to reach for my dreams, to never give up, to believe in myself, and to believe I could do anything. Yes, I could be anything; as long as I was a doctor or lawyer first, fulfilling her cherished dream. I watched her walk in uncharted territory and bounce back from setbacks. Ever the optimist, even now, she asks, “Timi, do you know what is beyond the sky?”

My mom is an entrepreneur. She has a heap of white play sand in front of her home to tempt the grandchildren into getting dirty and saturating their hair with sand. While we grimace she claps with glee the whiter their hair gets. She encourages them to play in her white sand and repay her when they are older by buying her Land Cruisers and Range Rovers. Although I have tried to explain to the grandkids that they are mortgaging their future by accumulating car debts, they cannot resist the heap of play sand in front of grandma’s house.

My mom is a prayer warrior. She called me recently.

Mom: I hear you started writing on the internet.

Me: Yes.

Mom: Why?

Me (thinking): Well, I’ve always loved writing… it’s a global platform to display my writing and not only reach, but also engage wider audiences. I hope to inspire, entertain, and inform. I want to—

Mom (interrupting): After all that grammar, how much are they paying you?

Me (pausing): Em, nothing.

Mom (after a while): Did you quit your job?

Me: No.

Mom: Good. I will pray for you.

My mum is a supporter, my avid fan. She asked my sister to print my blog posts for her to read. Will she read them? I don’t know, but I know she will make at least four hundred copies. She will paste a few copies on the gate that leads to her home and on her front door. She will litter her living room with several copies and carry the rest in her big bag, evangelising everywhere she goes, “Google Timi, she’s on the internet!” Finally at night she’ll bring one of the copies from her bag and look, and look, and look.

It’s mother’s day in The Netherlands. Happy Mother’s Day mums! Look at you; appreciate how far you’ve come. Honour a woman who has nurtured you. Tell her, she’s your superhero!

Image Credits:

Awesome Mom by Shad Fox: www.creationswap.com

Disco gal by Robot: www.vectorstock.com

Vector backgrounds: http ://all-free-download.com

-European retro pattern background vector 2 by www.zcool.com.cn

-Sun background vector 2 by www.zcool.com.cn

-Beautiful sky theme vector by www.zcool.com.cn

Girls Three by Spike: http://www.clker.com/

Pink 2 Frame author: / inky2010 Glossy Transparent Frames: http ://all-free-download.com

All other people illustrations, animes, avatars and vectors by Microsoft

Sacrifice or no Sacrifice?

May 5, 2013February 8, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 8 Comments

It’s been one humble selfless year of papal resignation and queenly abdication¹ with fixed tenures bumped in favour of well-received successions. So what will you give up to the applause of the world around you? What noble act will cause you royal pains for therein lies the definition of sacrifice? Here in The Netherlands, I needed to see first-hand what sacrifices Queen Beatrix’s legacy and King Willem-Alexander’s enthronement had inspired.

I hit the streets on this last Queen’s Day, to see what my fellow Hagenaars were up to. Mind you, I’m not a journalist, for the official version, watch CNN.

Our national flag stood at attention on masts protruding from the first-floor walls of most houses. The flags caught the wind that brought the change and waved gaily at onlookers and passers-by. Orange buntings completed the look, which stopped short of the madness (oranjegekte) that engulfed the streets during the 2012 UEFA Euro championships. That year, endless lines of orange buntings crisscrossed the streets running from one house to the next.

In support of the royal house of Oranje, everyone donned something orange. Orange wigs, orange hats, orange tees, orange skin, orange leg warmers, orange sun glasses, orange scarves, orange pants, orange balloons, orange inflatable crowns, a sea of orange broken by the green bottles of merry revellers. And they were quite a few, staggering, whistling, and taking a very public pee in honour of King Willem-Alexander. Beer flowed in abundance and although it cost around two Euros a bottle, VAT remained 21%. With solidarity so strong, what else could the new king ask for?

Dancers aka modern-day court jesters. Nothing shows the true state of the heart like the carefree, uninhibited movements of hands, hips, and legs wobbling in tipsy land. Beatrix was a good queen; Willem-Alexander will be a good king the gyrations seemed to say. Perhaps because it was late in the evening, after the controversial koningslied had been sung, street parties showcased English music and foreign dance moves.

Echoes of an inebriated crowd singing Sweet Home Alabama faded in the distance as I walked home and pondered what all this portends for the new king. The sun must approve because it shone until it chased the coolness of a 13ºC spring day away and held the rain at bay.

Now that we’ve packed our Oranje paraphernalia until next year, pray tell me, whether you live in The Netherlands or not, what are you giving up in honour of a greater good that’ll cause you royal pains?

1. Quote from Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu, Facebook Timeline photo, 30/4/2013.

2. Image credits:

Royal family photo: http://www.koninklijkhuis.nl

Undutchables Recruitment photo: https://www.undutchables.nl/

Street Flags photo: http://www.nlplanet.com/

Koninginnedag photo: http://www.holland.com/

A Day in Tolerance

April 28, 2013December 23, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 28 Comments

It is a sunny Friday; half the working population of The Netherlands has the day off. I board the train with ease. Potential Bestfriend is in the cabin. We nod and smile at each other. We ride the same train every morning. We have come a long way, from eye contact, to nods, and now toothed smiles.

The seats are arranged in clusters of four, two sets of seats facing each other. I choose a cluster diagonally opposite from Potential Bestfriend. I sit by the window so I can look at life along the way, and then I create an island. I toss my coat on the seats opposite me and drop my bag on the seat beside me. I litter my island with my iPad, BlackBerry, earphones, and two books. Sometime on this journey, each will receive my attention.

More people enter the cabin.

“Mevrouw?” The man looks at my bag and then me, a universal sign language.

I scan the cabin. There are other seats available, I tell him with my eyes. He waits. I make a big production of putting my iPad, BlackBerry, earphones, and two books in my bag. I flash him an apologetic smile that means, the two seats opposite me are empty, can’t you sit there? He meets my smile with his—if you want your personal space, go buy your own train.

I keep my cool. These are the people that the preacher talked about, turn the other cheek; turn the other cheek.

The ride from Den Haag to Leiden is twelve minutes. Regular Joe fusses and fumbles, and twists and bends to make himself and his enormous rucksack comfortable. His shoulder grazes mine. His elbow jabs me and His hips brush against mine.