Hello Y’All!
It’s good to be here once again!
Here’s this month edition of my life in Las Giddy! I’ve been accused of not updating regularly anymore! Its not that, I just felt a monthly update might be more appropriate now especially after clocking over one year of being here!
Not to worry sha, I will continue to blog o! I can’t let you down, habi!
Happy Reading! Happy Laffing!
1. I was opportuned to attend a ‘Personal Mastery’ course a few weeks back. It was led by Fela Durotoye! Do you know him? It was life changing I must say. It was quite good, refreshing, enlightening, motivating etc. People are making big bucks in 9ja for talking. This guy told us of how he makes like N2m from a 45minute talking session. Person dey make money just from yakking! Make me sef begin make money o from writing. Nbi, yakking and writing na from de same family!
Ok, on a more serious note, I heard words like Life is Time; History means His Story; Impossible means I’m Possible; Until you assume responsibility for an impossibility, it will not become a possibility; Watched ‘The Law of Attraction’, check it out online; Imagination is Everything!; Energy Flows Where Attention Goes!; Excuses are tools for building monuments of nothing!; Evidence Terminates Arguments!; ‘Do what you love, Or love what you do’!; Are you making a living or making a difference?; Who are you paying to make your dream / passion come through?; ‘You cannot feature in a future that you do not picture’!
2. Don’t Picture this! I go catch ‘Candida’! Hmm, I no go tell you de familiar name! Haya, e no funny o! Na so de thing go grip person when person dey for meeting or somewhere important! I think sey na de heat wey dey dat time cause am! But my bigger suspect na de loo wey person go use! I com tell myself sey all de frog perching wey person dey do no work o. All it takes is one upward splash and you are done for! Luckily, I still remembered good ol’ Canesten, so I rushed to an authentic chemist and so I didn’t have to suffer for long!
3. Picture this! I go enter cab one afternoon. As soon as I enter am, e be like sey, dey strip de interior comot. De way I take enter am, na de same way I comot quick, quick! It was really crappy!
After waiting another 20minutes or so, I got another one! As I enter dis one, I come dey see ‘eshinshin’ (flies). I com dey wonder why flies dey inside. But aspey, I don stand outside for so long, I tell myself to manage am sha. Suddenly, my hand just rest on de seat, de seat was wet. I com smell my hand! Chei, my people, e be like say na fish dey put on de seat. I com feel my skirt, haya, it was damp! I became instantly irritated, angry etc. Na so, I tell de driver make im park make I comot! I open de door sharp, sharp to jump out. As I jump out, na so I just hear ‘prer’ (I no no how I go take spell dis one jare)! Na de lining for my skirt make dat noise as e tear!
At least thank God say, no be de outer layer tear! In Las Giddy, for as long as you commute one way or the other, just forget about recycling your clothes a few times before laundering them!
Still on the said day, I finally got a cab sha! At a point during the journey, the cabbie decided to turn off his ignition because we’d been stopped by a set of traffic lights. When the light turned green, his car wouldn’t start. I just whispered ‘Chineke me e’ to myself. With no help around the cabbie started his lil’ drama class to kick-start the car! So, he would push the car a bit and hurriedly jump in to kick-start it! After a few rounds of this, he finally got lucky! By this time, my head was neatly tucked down to prevent myself being spotted by anyone at this embarrassing scene!
Oh what a cabbie day!
4. I attended a wedding and saw a ‘shpanking’ (not spanking) brand new Rolls Royce with a personalised number plate. I was so gob smacked at seeing the brand new Rolls that I couldn’t recollect the full plate number! Started with ‘BOLU’ sha! Bros J, habi na yours?
Just wondering who / what / why / whose of the RR! Nawa o, RR for 9ja!
5. Picture this! Debut road-side snack purchase! I buy plantain chips (Igbekere) from hawker for traffic. After my posh friend wey move down from jand too tell me say she don buy plenty times from traffic, na dat one give me courage to try am out. I com buy one pack first. After I taste a few, de thing sweet o! For me, ‘dodo’ is my worst meal – never eaten the thing for as far back as I remember myself, but I enjoy the crunchy, salted unripe version (weird isn’t it!). So for me this is a breakthrough, to be able to add this to my diet! Though I had to wipe and over wipe the pack before opening it. Anyway sha, even though the thing no get NAFDAC number, I don buy 15 to date!
6. Picture this: On my way to the Island recently, I saw a manual labour scene! It was a school in Ikoyi (not to worry, no be Corona or any such, ‘twas a Jakande school!). There were a few school boys in their uniform cutting grass outside in the scorching heat, with a cane-master in sight! Just didn’t think such discipline still existed after our own school days! Jand government go say na child abuse!
7. The heavens have began to open up in 9ja. There was a downpour recently that turned daytime to night time at 6pm! Within an hour, the entire vicinity was flooded. I couldn’t even set out from the office at the start of the rain. I had to wait for it to subside! On doing this, I was met with severe flooding that I hadn’t witnessed in 15months of being in Las Giddy. But hey, my car sailed through – thank God! Its everyone’s nightmare to have their cars stuck on a flooded road especially at night!
You need wellies here o! Anyway, I don buy my own put for house a few months ago! Wellies, here I come!
8. I have come to a conclusion that buying newspapers in 9ja is a waste of money! Why, you might ask! Because, only about 25% of the pages carry news, the other 75% carry adverts of banks and felicitations of birthdays and deaths! Can you imagine felicitations of deaths! Na only 9ja people dey take do dat kin party when person die! Any headlines you read about on the front page certainly don’t continue on Page 2 or Page 3, instead what you will see is a continuation referral to Page 10 or Page 12 etc!
Saw this also in a newspaper – names of political parties: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Democratic Peoples Party (DPP)! This is what I call confusion of the highest order and political palindrome!
9. In my last report, I mentioned my landlord not footing the bill for the shabby job that was done regarding the electrical supply to the house. Anyway, the guy decided to do the honourable thing and refund us all. Only he refunded just 70% of the cost to each of us claiming that we were the ones that decided to over-pay the electrician. My own theory of the motive behind the refund was that he probably was beginning to feel some darts of curses on him! Being a ‘Pastor’ I believe he understood the principle of ‘A curse without a cause will not alight’! But in his case, there was utmost reason for a curse(s) from us! Do you think this is cruel? I think not! Wait till you hear what the effect of rain does to my place because of leaking roof and the effects of wood –eating insects!
10. Las Giddy don get emergency number o! Hallelujah! De number na 767 and e dey work! Na free of charge too! When you call de number, de agents go take your details and quickly forward to dem RRS - Rapid Response Squad people! The question be, how many situations have been remedied by virtue of the RRS service?
11. I went for a meeting somewhere and by the time I was done; my ‘Christian Dior’ Sunglasses had taken a walk to eternity! No comment!
12. You wan buy Versace? You fit buy Versace ‘Sokoto’ (Trousers) from wheelbarrow sellers in VI for ‘gbanjo’ price! How is that for creative designer selling? Genuine? Fake? Your guess!
13. Someone at the office got a brand new official car on a Friday and the car walked into oblivion on Saturday! Code phrase for ‘car was stolen’! Here today, gone tomorrow!
14. I saw a lady this morning on my way to work! She was stark naked and roaming the streets! Her hair was texturised and still looking pretty neat. She had a mobile phone or so on her! She would dance occasionally, and I mean really dance as she heard music playing around her! It was a sad sight. I was just shocked and moved to tears. It seemed like she’d just gone insane that morning!
Talking about sad sights in Las Giddy, I’ve never seen as much disfigured people in my entire life as I’ve seen here. I’ve seen people whose skins have peeled off; people with half faces; people with burnt bodies (living people o); people with all sorts of abnormal enlargements here and there; people with no limbs; in fact this list is just endless!
15. Did you know that Las Giddy streets and major roads have been sign-posted? Wonderful work I must say! However, we are still a bit far from getting the ‘sat nav’ technology 100% accurate. Was opportune to ride in a car where one was being trialled sometime back, my take – just ensure you know where you are going before entrusting your navigation to automation!
Still on our dear ‘ol Las Giddy sign-posting, it suddenly occurred to me the other day that streets in Ikoyi have posh names like Gerrard, Thompson, Bourdillon, 2nd Avenue etc; and even the local names remain posh too like Awolowo Way, Keffi; but certainly nothing like ‘Moshalashi’ Avenue! Wonder why?
16. Must watch Nollywood movies: ‘White Waters’ – blockbuster; ‘Gbajumo’ – really humourous! There’s a host of others making the rounds too.
17. Bought some DVDs from ‘Nu Metro’ and was quite pleased with myself that I went to a reputable store to purchase them. The DVDs security was of international standard! They even had listening workstations too! Going price was N500 each as compared to the other places of N200 – N300 per DVD. I didn’t so much mind the difference initially on the basis that I was purchasing A1 quality goods, until I got home and the pictures were not so A1! I guess our production still has much room for improvement! The good thing however is that you can always return them if dissatisfied – wow, customer service!
18. I got stopped by a policewoman one afternoon for no reason. She literally just walked up to my window and asked what I could do for her. I reached into my ‘loose change storage’ and gave her N200. It was like a light-bulb got ignited as soon as she saw the N200 bill! I couldn’t believe how happy and intrigued someone would be over N200. Poverty, no doubt! It’s a real shame!
19. Picture this: was caught by LASTMA over a supposedly one-way violation. In truth, I had looked well at the sign and there was no indication that it was one-way street! When accosted, I told them I hadn’t violated any sign and they started arguing with me and ready to deflate my tyre blah, blah. In defence, I told them I saw the sign and it didn’t indicate otherwise. By now, I was out of the car to go and show them where the sign was and what I saw. On getting there, it truly was a one-way sign. What had happened was that the sign indicating a right-turn was boldly painted in black but the sign to negate it had faded; so what strikes you is the black showing the right-turn.
So I went back to my car. When they saw the genuineness of my error and in the misleading of the sign, they let me off! I didn’t pay them a dime of bribe!
For all you ‘Islander’ holiday makers, beware of taking one-way! They are getting stricter and meaner by the day! I hear you may even get sent to a ‘mentalo hozy’ to get you checked out!
20. Anyone looking for the next Olympic athletes? Have you ever considered the running strength of Las Giddy street hawkers? Just a thought, people; just a thought!
21. Picture this: Tailor A La Butcher! Due to some unintended weight-loss, I found myself having to look for the services of a tailor to keep some of my clothes in check! Alongside the amendments, I decided to use this opportunity to sew a few textiles I’ve had for a while. So off went all my clothes! After 3 weeks of anxiously waiting for the finished products, the tailor returns!
What was presented to me was unimaginable! For someone that had taken all the necessary measurements, nothing made sense except the iro & buba she made – as in only 1 thing came out right out of so many!
She had butchered my beloved ‘Karen Millen’, my ‘INC’, my ‘Tahari’, my ‘Next’ etc. The sown textiles could not even be tried on as I just couldn’t fit into them! It was a total disaster! I was livid and pained at the same time.
She has since attempted ‘service recovery’ but my clothes remain butchered! Either they come back too loose or too tight but just never right! The service recovery remains ongoing after almost 2months!
So if you know any absolutely brilliant seamstresses out there, do let me know otherwise I will be giving up this idea of sewing forever!
And that’s it for this season until the next one. Please note that my blog site is changing / has changed to
http://www.lola-life-in-lagos.blogspot.com/ OR http://lagosdiary.com/!
Take care everyone and keep the comments flowing!
Always & Always,
Moi (Still Keeping It Real)
