Author Archives: Calabarboy

Fiction

THE LIFE IN CALABAR – AN INCONSEQUENTIAL SHORT STORY

I drove out of the airport at about 7:15 pm local time on Sunday and was mindful not to cause any delays in the exit lane from the parking lot. The parking receipt had slipped through the space between the driver’s seat and the fancy hand rest. I struggled to squeeze my fat fingers through to where the coloured paper rested while keeping the car in motion since from the rearview mirror there was a convoy of government officials trailing. I was driving a rental car, a small mini sedan which I often drove home from the airport instead of taking the light rail into town and hissing at every stop of the 45 minutes journey. Luckily, my dear friend Esther was manning the final exit gate and she simply waved me on and reminded me “Bros Bee, I’m still waiting for the trip oh!”. “I will call you”, I shouted in response. Call her fire! Ever since I met her at a restaurant in town and told her of my weekend getaway with my wife and friends to Creek Town holiday resort, she has bugged me severally to take her family along the next time I went.

The 1km road from the airport terminates at the ‘Welcome to Calabar’ roundabout, a massive landmark which unites three major expressways leading to the major districts in the City of Calabar. Beautifully constructed and well maintained, I usually take a deep breath when I get to drive around it to remind myself why I love this town. At nights, the dancing streams of water shot from powerful nozzles are coloured by underground lights and quite spectacular to behold. The water acrobatics from the concentric pools move with the rhythm of the local Efik percussions. At Christmas, tourists are usually treated to some elaborate water displays while driving into the city.
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Health, issues

EBOLA: CLOSER HOME THAN YOU THINK?

The Short Nosed Fruit Bat

The Short Nosed Fruit Bat

Sometimes, when an outbreak of this kind happens we tend to stand off and wonder how the crazies bridged this zoonosis. We never imagine that its origin might be as close home as the Liberian scenes seen through our TVs. However, given that the available best evidence is that Ebola is a “naturally occuring” (endemic) illness among tropical fruit-eating Bats, we might want to be more worried and become even more proactive in dealing with the probability of a standalone outbreak in Nigeria…Yes! Even from Lagos.

For those who have lived in or frequented Lagos Island, particularly the circumference covering Obalende, Race Course, Marina, and Tinubu Square, you should have noted the huge population of the Lagos Fruit Bats. They droop off the high metal railings at Race Course, as well as the huge Almond trees at CMS besides the Lagos State Library building. As a teenager living on the Island, it was usual practice for me to observe the dusk flight of these Bats. At about 5pm everyday, the lower skies of the area is blanketed by thousands of flying animals, echolocating food aggregates.

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issues

Rethinking Pride – For Disciples Only

Adolf-Hitler

  • I’m reposting this because after a recent discussion, some folks wanted me to post it again so they could find it. So here. I have also updated it a bit.

We use the term pride so often that I think we have thoroughly watered down its definition and by extension its implication as well. I am not talking about what many call positive pride, which I think should be given a better description anyway, but I am referring to the negative pride here.

When people make reference to themselves unduly, we call them proud simply because they have tried to highlight their abilities to the disgust of others, for whatever reason. We also make judgments on people about pride from what we see in their appearance or in their actions. I particularly do not like seeing men who wear conspicuous jewelry as I tend to think they are acting like peacocks and attracting too much attention. I would normally call that a form of pride and write off such persons as lacking in self control and hence proud as well. What error. Even though I still do not believe men should wear jewelry (in my infantile opinion), except for their wedding bands or watches (if that is even necessary), but those bling bling by no way or measure tell the state of a man’s heart.

In the same vein, we are quick to point out a proud man by his actions or by his speech. Some people are very conscious of how many times a person uses the first person pronoun in a given conversation or speech. Especially in religious institutions where there is a higher consciousness of character, one becomes sensitive to those who do not ‘humble’ themselves after those preconceived notions of humility.
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