Fabulous Things Happening

Anita Writes....There are Fabulous Things happening.

I have been featured on Diaspora Connex as the Diaspora Person of the Week. Read my candid, profound and often witty interview here and join me in celebrating the good, the bland and not so fabulous icks of a country I haven't been to in 14 years. Plus, it gives you a sneak behind the mask to discover the true identity of Anita Writes.

Anita Writes --- Diaspora Person of the Week

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Have an awesome week Singletons. Go grab some adventure before the week runs out. :-)

A Walk on the Wild Side

Photo courtesy of PTP Productions

Aaah, there she is, my love and she stands several feet tall.

When I first returned to Nigeria with my Western World mindset and my faint memory of Nigeria from the late nineties, when a friend of mine told me he was going jogging I thought he was out of his mind. Jogging in Nigeria? We don't jog on the street, we hardly have sidewalks! He laughed and said, when you come here I'll show you what I mean. And did he ever.

The Lekki-Ikoyi Link bridge (The Connector Bridge) is this wonderful brainwave from the Lagos government that cuts across the waterway connecting Ikoyi to the Lekki corridor from where you can get to the Lekki-Epe area real quick. This is one the best things to happen to Lagos state, in my own opinion. Apart from the convenience of cutting off all the Victoria Island traffic, it's just an amazing well-maintained, secure and well-lit bridge. The bridge itself looks awesome (for lack of a better word). My regards to the engineering design team and whatever local government that keeps it secure with mobile policemen watching it 24/7, and clean (it is swept every morning) and of course, very well-lit, power fluctuations notwithstanding. I've found myself running very early in the morning or late at night feeling very safe in my environment.  Not sure there's any part of Lagos where you can feel this safe.

The climb to the crest of the bridge

The first morning he woke me up at 5am to accompany him jogging on this Connector Bridge I thought surely there's no one else out there. Does he want the bridge all to himself? In fact, there were tons of people, experienced and non-experienced joggers alike. 

Since I hadn't exercised in, well, let's just say forever, on that first day, people were just speeding past me. Of course, there were the occasional girlfriends on a catch-up-with-gossip walk, toasters (suitors) in cars that stop to ask you for your number, the sporty hunk that makes you have to look twice and almost miss your steps, and of course, the Usain Bolt wannabes that run past you with such bvigor glistening from sweat. However, on that first day, I was too stunned by the serene view from the bridge to move that fast. That early in the day, it's so calming walking above the water, you feel so refreshed. The view itself is amazing. You see fishermen with their canoes trying to hurl in early morning catch; you see some men with canoes hopefully not disposing of some bodies (a la every Mobster movie I've ever seen), and then you see lights from the buildings on the Ikoyi end of the bridge. Then there's the moon with its reflection dancing on the water, so bright you can almost touch it as you slowly walk up to the bridge's crest. As the sun comes up you watch the sun rise over the water, this is by far my favorite part of the early morning walk. Watching the sun slowly emerge from the buildings and rise over the water is just a sublime euphoric way to start the day. With time, I've found myself doing sun salutations much to the chagrin of the cars in traffic rushing off to work. It's such a release I tend to miss it when I can't do it for about 2 -3 days.

The dancing lights on the horizon

I asked my friend once if he's ever stopped to just take in this view, any of it - the sunrise, the dancing lights, the waves on the water and the occasional jetty that speeds past. He replied simply No. Because that's not what the jog is about, it's about adrenaline, fat burning and exercise and once he gets that he's done - no time for thinking or looking around.

I see. Lagosians can be very wound up, traffic, heat, hustle for money to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world...it takes a lot of conviction to commit to a city like Lagos. We have all this beauty around us but we never harness or embrace any of it. There's so much water but we never let it ease away all our anger and frustration from the intensity of the hustle. We're always on our way to some hustle or the other, no time for anything else that is not financially motivated. Nature becomes an afterthought, that thing we've been blessed with, that we travel to other countries to experience when it's right here in front of us, just a Connector Bridge away.

If you by chance see some girl doing asanas (sun salutations) on the bridge as you're stuck in traffic trying to make your way in early morning traffic no less to a job you probably hate, know that it is me. Days are long, rough and very balmy in Lagos with many hellacious, often uncomfortable, very frustrating moments along the way, if I stop to breathe and inhale nature's splendor that I'm amazed actually exists in my country, no mind me. I need it to help me get by. And also, please don't stop to toast anyone, or ask for their number. That is really not the proper venue for that!

Have you ever walked on the The Connector Bridge? Tell me what do you like most about it?

Tale of a New City

Throwback Thursday Post Time.

I haven't done one of these on the blog in awhile, so I thought I'd do it for a change of pace from all the heavy stuff as of late. 

Open at 6 a.m. Hmmm...

Throwback to that time in 2011 I vacationed in San Diego but had to go join my family in San Francisco. They checked out a day before my flight was to leave, so this left me with one day free in San Francisco. For some reason (specifically Gay Pride Weekend) all the hotels in the city were booked so I had to find a hotel in the outskirts, someplace called San Bruno. 

The first night was just okay. It was so cold and boring. San Bruno is not known for its city life. The hotel Villa Montes was fabulous though, very upscale, posh living quarters with a spa, sauna and a airport pickup. Knowing that there's not that much entertainment in the area, the hotel room becomes your solace. It was nicer than all the old hotels in San Fran that were two times it's nightly rate. 

The next day, a Saturday, was my checkout day. I checked out of the room but hung around the area, my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until about 6pm. I was on my way to browse the local shops at the historic downtown San Bruno area when I got a call from my bank that my account had experienced some "fraudulent activity". Some thief had gone on a shopping spree with my money shopping at Walgreens and Wal-Mart, racking up a huge bill, just as well as the day before was my payday. The caller advised me to go to the nearest banking center to request a new card and that my money would be returned within 48 hours, in the meantime I couldn't use my card. This was my very first ever fraudulent activity. I was just stunned. I could hardly move. I looked around and there were quite a few banks in the area, luckily for me, my bank was open on a Saturday! I walked in and did as advised. It lasted about an hour and half. What a way to end the vacation. 

Still visibly stunned from the events, I just needed to rest somewhere. I found something to eat but the food didn't make that much difference, I was still shaking. That was when I came across this sign, Newell's Cocktail time, Open at 6am. I walked into this dive bar not thinking much, I just needed a bar that was open that early in the day that would serve me something strong to soothe my nerves. The bar was filled with men, big burly men, older factory worker looking type of men, all of the Caucasian kind. They all stared as I walked in through the door. The only female was the bartender, with her cut off sleeves revealing her multiple tattoos I could tell she fit right in. The place stunk of a pungent mixture of cheap cigarettes, stale armpits, and undiluted alcohol, and everyone looked rather comfortable with this somewhat refreshing aroma. I decided to ask the only female where the restroom was so I could collect my thoughts. She pointed it out and smirked, probably thinking, that explains why she's in here. 

As I stood in the restroom visibly shaken I debated for about a millisecond towards walking out of there and trying another place. But then, they would have beat me. Life beat me earlier by using my money, and now again, my location. I sucked it up and made my way out of there. The bartender offered me a seat at one of the booths but I agreed to sit at the bar, preferably a seat near the door for some fresh air. To my surprise, a few gentlemen quickly got up from their seats to make way for me to sit down. One of those gentlemen turned out to be the owner of the bar. 

I sat there talking and drinking with them for about 3 hours. My flight ended up being delayed and as I sat there I got the alert from Virgin America advising me of the new flight time. As soon as I told them it just encouraged them to invite me to sit some more. We ended up having a very witty, lively and endearing conversation. I told them about my credit card fraud event and they consoled me throughly, secretly glad it had brought me to meeting them. They told me how the bar got its name, and the ungodly hours, it was due to the workers from the factory nearby closing their nightly shift in the wee hours of the morning and needed a place to drink before they head home.  I wondered who would want to drink at 7 in the morning. They finally got the nerve to tell me that I must have some huge balls to walk in here alone, when they saw me head to the restroom they were sure I wouldn't sit down to drink with them. I laughed, you know I almost didn't. 

People often ask me what do I gain from my solo life. I gain life experience, stories you can share with your grandchildren. The courage to experience people from all walks of life and to get to know what makes them tick, what similarities do we have. We're all people, we just look different but we all want to be a part of something. They wanted to chat with a black girl from Africa vacationing in San Bruno, I wanted to just meet them. Till date, it's one of the best endings to a vacation I've had in a long time, and I'm glad I got to experience it. 

Anita Writes - experiencing the Fabulous Solo Life one city at a time. 

The Hotel Room

defeated aphy

I just feel so defeated.

I haven't felt like this in a long time. I've always been able to muster enough faith to get me through whatever I seem to be going through and with time things start to turn around. But this one...it's just continuous, like a rolling mosh pit of unfortunate events that has carried on for almost 2 years at this point. I keep waiting for things to turn around and they don't. I keep waiting for this dread to be over and it's not ending.

With each new month, I think this might be my month. This is the month stuff will turn around. Then nothing happens, instead something bad comes in to send my head on a tailspin. When I moved back to Nigeria, I thought surely God was trying to tell me to come back, surely all signs were leading me back to this place, to find me or a piece of me that I left behind. Since I've been back I've just experienced such extreme coldness and human betrayal, such that I'd never experienced in America and that's the most capitalist country in the world. People just don't want to reach out and touch. The climate's made them so cold, so distant, so tuned to everything financial. Sweet words remain just that, sweet words, as long as they don't materialize into money, people don't care. I've told my friend/lover countless times: I'm hurting, I need you, I'm in a bad state of hurt, I love you. Instead of resulting in a softening of his resolve it instead results in more coldness and weirdness and of course, my personal favorite, distance. 

Today when I woke up after just 3 hours (yes 3 hours) of sleep I thought, this has gotta end somehow. Either this ends or I end it...for me, put myself out of this misery because it obviously doesn't want to seem to want to end. No matter how hard I pray, trust, hope, believe, fast, cry and profess the positive, I never get to see a glimpse, just a dash of that rainbow. I see dark grey billowing clouds instead.

Not sure how much of this I can take any longer? Not sure how much of this I am built for?

What really is a Valentine?

Today, Valentine's Day 2015 was hard, so hard. This weekend was hard. It started from yesterday Friday to today, Saturday, D-Day, Val's day. After going through an emotionally hurtful Christmas of which I am yet to fully recover, I really could have used Valentine being a couple of months further away or cancelled due to the elections like it was supposed to be. But once the elections were postponed, Val's Day became imminent and started looming over my head like a huge cross. 

I just went through this stillness, this quiet. No one calling, no one texting, no one on the other line checking for me. I was as they say, "no longer relevant." The silence was palpable. Almost deafening. Very hurtful. Is this what life is going to be like here in Lagos? 

I'm surrounded by childhood friends, old classmates, relatives, lovers, every one who knew Anita before she became Anita, but yet I couldn't find one person to spare a little of their time to spend Val's day or a portion of it with me. I got so overwhelmed with emotions I just got dressed and left the house and went to church to seek solace with God, maybe He has the answers, because I sure don't.

People don't know that 5 minutes makes a difference. 5 minutes of your undivided attention to ask me about me, and look at me. I don't want your non-personalised gift, I don't want money. I want you to want to be with me. Crazy, childish, delusional, psycho-analyst Anita that I am, but I still want you to be with me, to want to spend time with me. And if you don't, I pray for the strength, seek the Almighty's Hand to give me the strength to walk away from anything or anyone who doesn't appreciate me for who I am, who doesn't want to help me quench this resounding loneliness. Because if you don't want to help me in my time of need then why do I really like you? Why am I punishing myself by liking you? 

Today was exceptionally hard. Almost as hard as Christmas. I pray we can turn things around soon. We have to. 

People act strangely when you're a stranger

I feel like ever since I've been back in Nigeria, the people I knew, or I thought I knew, have been acting rather strange, different, alternatively even. These are people that are even considered family. Everyone just seems so out for money, hounding for it like mercenaries. They ask the age old question, "What's your value add?" And if they determine you have none, they just move on from you so swiftly and hope that the door don't hit you where the good Lord split you. What if my value add is Love. Unconditional Love. The love I will give to you and the love I expected from you, why, because your family, an inevitable part of me (as I am, at least, yours). 

Two examples come to mind:

On December 17th, 2014, I bumped into Negro at church. I was suffering from a very stiff cough which I suspect I got from him because while we had been copulating that weekend he said he had just recovered from his own bout. I asked him to take me to a pharmacy so I could upgrade my cough syrup and get some juice. He hesitated. Nagged even. He asked in between his fumes, "Why do you always have somewhere to go after church?" He said he had to go to a friend's house. He eventually took me to get the medicine and also to a grocers to get the juice but he never stepped out of the car. He was texting fiercely the whole time he was in the car. As he stopped me at home, he refused to come inside the house so we could have a civilised talk about his text that morning promising to do better. He was just in a hurry, fidgety and high strung like a druggie feigning for his next hit. If he could ask me to jump out of his vehicle he would have. He was that jumpy and in a hurry to make a mad dash. He didn't even bother to help me lug my groceries into the house. 

And where was he off to in such a hurry? My investigation later revealed to me he was feigning for The M's house. He was in a hurry to go see her like his pants were on fire. She had even texted him while he was waiting on me from the shops, asking him to bring her charger. So he was a in a mad dash to get himself to her. I just found that so strange for a man of his character. He never shows his emotions that intently, he never ever looses his cool for a woman. But here he was racing with rapid fire to a woman's house. I keep asking myself, "Has he ever asked himself if he was alright and not on speed?" 

This is someone I considered like my family, my insides. He never stopped to think: My girl is ill. I can be late for dinner but right now, my homegirl is ill. That's how you care about someone.

Strange.

Second example is my brother. My only brother. We've been close ever since we were kids. People used to think we were dating or married because we don't look alike but we were always together. My brother used to cry whenever he disappointed me. Cry, a grown ass man would cry. He would cry and apologize profusely for not living up to my expectations. That's the man I remember. 

I come to stay in his house and he's just strange. On July 31st, 2014 a day after his birthday he is packing to go on a 2 week vacation to London. He asks me to leave his house so he can lock it. He would rather his house remain empty and I roam the streets looking for accommodation than he have me in his house with his mother in law for fear we would get into it. He yelled and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Get your stuff out or I'm gonna throw them out."

This is someone that is family. He never stopped to consider, wait a minute this is my sister, my baby sister who I vowed never to disappoint again. I understand this is my mother in law through marriage but this is my sister. I need to make her happy. 

I keep wondering if there was some "other" power at play in these folks lives, messing with their psyche getting them to act so "foul". Then, I remember my faith in Jesus Christ and remember but God is at play in their lives, that's what's most important. Can it be they just succumbed to the "value add" syndrome? I have no value add to their lives thus I am determined henceforth "irrelevant" to their general wellbeing.

Lagos has shown me many things. Many character revelations. I shall remember this time.

The Gender Talk

What a man can do, a woman can do...better?

My dad used to recite this saying at some inopportune times to try and emphasize the power of women to evoke certain sentiments that inevitably gets things done. For example, a woman has a way of using her feminine charm to persuade or convince people especially people in authority to look the other way. Or women's use in a business meeting to try and negotiate a lower/better price.

This week I got to thinking of this statement. I had a nice lazy lunch at a popular 4 star (probably 5 star) hotel in Lagos. It was a business and pleasure meet to discuss my blog and my social media tactics. I took the liberty to indulge in some wine to make the conversation a little fluid. After the lunch, I stayed behind to sit at their lobby for the faint possibility of networking. From my experience in America, some of the biggest deals are brokered in hotel lobbies. Tech start ups that seek funding end up traveling to different cities to meet with bloggers, tech mavens, programmers, etc. None of these folks have offices and the deal cannot be conducted in the individual's hotel room, so where else can they discuss the business, share a laptop with suitable WIFI, in the hotel lobby of course, where they can be served coffee and sandwiches. It's always a very intense but calming atmosphere in a hotel lobby, especially during non vacation season i.e., summer. Most business people just come there to sit and deflate after their high powered meeting, to compose their thoughts and update the business leaders on what just transpired.

I sat there and just soaked it all in, secretly comparing the composure of this hotel lobby to the countless ones I've been to in America. To my right, of course the tech company associates in their casual wear, jamming away at their laptops; opposite me was a couple meeting with a realtor brokering a real estate deal for a time share; and, the large table in front contained some finance folks having a strategy meeting - I could tell based on their stuffy ill-fitting suits. It was all business. In the midst of all this was me, hoping to strike up a conversation where I could share my business card. I took a couple of work related calls to discuss my resume, my area of expertise. I could feel the tech guys perk up their ears to listen intently. I had hoped to arouse their interest so at least I could share my business card with them.

Then, I did the "unthinkable" I shared a shot of my self sitting in the lobby as my status update on Facebook. Captioned: Exhilirating Lunch, #LifeoftheUnemployed.

This is where this story took a different turn. Asides from the likes and comments asking me to enjoy the distinct pleasure of having a casual lunch before the rat race comes in to envelope my brain, I received another response from a close relative. In this private comment, the caring relative urged: I do not support unmarried women going to hotel lobbies to network and post it on social media.

I asked him: Can unmarried men do that? 

If they can, I assure you that women can as well, and I daresay, they can do it better. I don't know what he was most upset about, the fact that I'm unmarried and in a hotel lobby or the fact that I actually posted it on Facebook? I didn't care to find out. He lost me at unmarried woman?

There's always a double standard prevalent in Nigeria that is always laced with gender inequality. Men are the default rule and women especially unmarried women are the exception, very rare, not often referred to exception. In fact, the unmarried women are not even regarded as anything, why, because you're not someone's wife. You're that subclass with no face or identity because you are yet to take on a man's name. It's ridiculous and very ancient. In a world where women have achieved so much, amassed so much, become so much why are we still viewed as the gender who has to remain in the kitchen while the man, goes to his hotel lobbies to make the money?

I didn't notice the marital status of any of the people that sat with me at that lobby. Why should I, it was not relevant. I noticed their line of business because that was immediately relevant to my purpose. Why should their gender or marital status matter? This type of thought process is not evident in the US, even if it is, it is not expressed overtly. Why else would a tech giant company like Yahoo! be headed by a woman? In Nigeria, this position will not only be rare but the so-called big boys would so make her feel unwanted that she would quit soon after. I was surprised to find that our Petroleum and Finance Ministers are women! I thought, one step up. But then, I receive comments like the one above and it just descends my image of Nigeria to rudimentary levels.

I still intend to network first opportunity I get anywhere. Hotel lobby (not hotel room, because there's a difference!), conference room or convention center, anywhere. You go where the business is and if it is good clean business strategy talk and it just so happens to be in a hotel lobby, far be it from me to interrupt the discussion with my business partners to call to their attention the fact that I am unmarried and henceforth unfit to continue the business discussions in the current location. 

Nigeria needs to step out of this forefathers-females-are-inferior mind frame if it's ever going to set itself up to do business with the Western World. Professional educated single women who are not callgirls, ashawos, mercenaries (what have you) exist. You may not notice it because you're too busy being blinded by their lack of wedding ring, or coming to conclusions based on their lack thereof. But they do exist. If they don't, well they do now.

I also need to remember I am no longer in Atlanta, that people do things differently here, not better, not worse, just differently. However, it doesn't mean I'll join them.

The Photo that inspired a gender conversation