Glass, Brillo, Flame & Rock.
Image: Pexels By Kabir Babiotos Glass, Brillo, Flame & Rock. The shortcut to eternal doom they say; the worst of all evil. The fast killer, the baddest bitch; crack! A dance with the devil himself, in a ballroom made of thin glass floors, best to watch your step for you might fall or better yet dare not even get in to begin with. An opulent orchestra with the most majestic tune, it’s like a sweet poison or forbidden fruit, one dares not to taste, because like Adam and Eve in that garden long before you and me, things will never be the same again; probably. In a single moment that didn’t coincidentally occur, I find myself in a parking lot. But I state for reference long before this parking lot I once found myself in a bathroom sitting on a toilet seat with the devil in my hands. All by myself I looked straight into the glass stick and at the time it looked like a long road and at the end of it was a mystic story as white as snow, small but very powerful I knew. And in my other hand was a lighter, the key that would unlock the door and lead me to this story. But this wasn’t just any story, we’ve all heard of fairy tales, fables, fantasy, myths and sagas. This one story seemed to be different, it was cryptic in nature, apart from the murkiness which was more of a cliché and being my own master of seeking pleasure in dark and twisted spaces all in the quest of my never ending savvy for the search of beauty and pleasure in all things both ravishing and grotesque, this story here seemed to be in allied balance of both; Bitter but sweet, Grand but with an abundant sprinkle of a certain kind of grim, but Angelic and Ungodly all at the same time. Adamantly Gemini, being both two sides of the coin, the Twins; zodiacal constellation between Taurus and Cancer containing the bright stars Castor and Pollux, certainly this to me would be a lush treat. And like Hansel and Gretel and the old ugly witch every treat comes with a price; give or take. I ask myself more than once if that price is worth it, trying to find a centre point to hold myself before I slip over the edge down the waterfall or jump up past the clouds above straight to the stars. Waterfall or stars each has an enticing amount of splendour but I certainly know either which way I go as long as I take this road, inevitably I will always fall right back down to the ground where I was before. It’s fast and powerful to break the barrier of time and space; that thrill! For we thrill-seekers that is. But no matter how fast the roller coaster ride is it shall definitely come to a halt, everything ends even life itself. I ask myself if to live is just enough, we’re all selfish in very many different ways, I just wanted to feel alive if only for one moment, to be anything but ordinary, this thirst is my fuel I need it to have a meaning to life, to understand it. At this point I’m beginning my first dance with the devil. To stay alive we must survive and to survive we have to cross all sorts of bridges all in our paths. Some of these plights are probably illusions created in our already messed up heads but we live in our heads most of the time, so to ignore this would take deep inner strength but for the odd ones like us who would rather take the frame of its hinges and look at the wall behind it when told to look beyond the picture, where we know there is either a puzzle, wonder or misfortune, the unknown mystery. At certain points in my life I feel like a David and Goliath comes to me at different points in different forms and proportions. To succeed David had to take Goliath head on with only a slingshot in hand and all he wanted to do was succeed; he had to but what if he didn’t? Little or nothing about him would have gone down in history. DISCLAIMER! I do not intend to go down or up in history like David or Goliath but my life is my story and I have the right to make choices good or bad, but at the end I hope it leads me to a good place. And getting there isn’t necessarily a smooth or easy ride but if the price is worth it everyone just wants to be happy. “Happy” the thought of the word gives me a slight tingle up my spine & my fingers stop trembling. I stare at this devil in my hand straight in the eye, put its lips on mine, my fingers bracing it tight in a stylish embrace that sort of looks like that of a classic waltz, I lift my glass stick upwards towards the sky (or bathroom ceiling) and with a single spark of blue and yellow flame I embark on my journey, my very first dance with this very much harshly talked about devil. At point of ignition my eyes are halfway shot as if an unexpected wind were about to gush on my face not knowing whether to keep them open or closed for this first deadly kiss. Slowly I suck this kiss into me and almost instantly in can see that splendour. It’s vague, fast and I can’t completely comprehend which one it is, the waterfall or the clouds. I can hear my heartbeat like the drums, the sizzle and crackling noise from the rock is like a variance of string instruments, this dance has officially begun and I can’t turn back now. My eyes are fixed on the flame that is burning at the opposite tip of the glass stick
Chrysalis
Image: Discover Magazine By Abe Onche Think of me again as a new creation As the time of rebirth heralds itself And as I contemplate the vast potentials Of a new year, a new life With each new day we are born again As much as the sun’s face Differs from one hour to the next And perhaps we do not feel it But the shadows of change Are seen best at dawn and dusk Rebirth is as real as we choose We reason, recount, repent, resolve To surpass our heroes, our ideals The student who seeks mastery To be a master of oneself It is because we choose to see our fate That we are able to make our destiny So do not take lightly these moments of rebirth Weigh well the life in your years, recount them While it may seem we merely add numbers To a journey toward the inevitable That number is also a birth: moulded, tainted Like the smoothest pottery or the stained glass
Longest Serving African Leaders
Africa is plagued with people who are so intoxicated with power that once they are in a place of leadership, authority or governance, they are unwilling to step down until pushed out. We seem to be the most likely group of people to turn a democracy into a dictatorship and it usually doesn’t matter if it is in the home, office or government. Today, we discuss the longest serving leaders in Africa and why they need to go! Listen to the podcast below! If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element
The Rising Cost of Sanitary Pads
Sanitary Pad Image: Live Strong When you are a team of mainly women, you have to deal with many issues that generally affect you. One of such issues is our menstrual cycle. This affects us at least once every month. Yes, we used the word ‘affects’ because it does and because our cycle is a 28-day cycle, there is always the chance that we ‘see’ our periods twice in one more month. Anyway, we are not here to lecture. We are here to rant. So first question; how many people have had to buy sanitary pads at ₦400 since December, 2016? We can see your hands in the air. Are you as pissed the hell off as we are? Because we are mad! (Okay! Breathe. This post can’t be laced with expletives when you have only begun. So calm the hell down and write). Okay. We are calm now. Let us do this properly. So the price of sanitary pads recently went up by over a hundred percent. We will use Always Sanitary Pad for our example. The premium pads come in packs of seven or eight for small packs and sixteen for big or super packs. The small packs used to be sold for ₦170. It went up to ₦220 and later, a ₦30 increase. Now, it is sold at ₦400. The super packs now go for ₦800 and it is pegged to get to ₦1000. In one sentence, the end is near! For people who do not get it, let us explain a bit. A woman who has light flow can afford to use one small pack during her period if she has a four day flow and uses one pad in the morning and another at night. The ideal is one pad every eight hours but we are assuming that since her flow is light, she may not need to change as much. A lady with normal flow may have to change her pad every six – eight hours, meaning that if she has a four-day flow, she needs to use the super pack for her monthlies. While most women fall into this category, a vast number of women fall into the heavy flow category. These women have to change their pads as often as once every three hours; translating to one small Always Pad per day. Collating that gives four packs if she has a four-day flow. So using the example above, we can infer that women spend the following for their monthly menstrual cycle. TYPE OF FLOW NUMBER OF DAYS DURATION OF PAD USE (HOURS) NUMBER OF PADS/DAY TOTAL NUMBER OF PADS TYPE OF PAD COST (₦) LIGHT 4 12 2 8 ONE 8-IN-1 PACK 400 NORMAL 4 6 4 16 TWO 8-IN-1 PACK 800 HEAVY 4 3 8 32 FOUR 8-IN-1 PACK 1600 Of course these are all estimates as there are women who bleed for more than four days. Why is this an issue? Well simple. Women menstruate every month and for most part, it isn’t a choice. We have to deal with pain or discomfort or the stress of having our hormones go haywire and then between three to seven days, our uterus makes us feel like we were bad for not giving it a baby. The only way out is getting pregnant (which is only a nine month reprieve), using drugs or menopause. You can see that our periods are not a luxury; they are a necessity! Why then should the price of sanitary pads be so expensive? Is our menstruation a thing of luxury now? Is it necessary that the law of demand and supply apply here? And in a country where many girls don’t have access to sanitary pads, is it wise to alienate even more girls and women? We want to know because this rankles. To make matters worse, some men have told us to go back to using rags or clothe pads. Some have even suggested we use banana leaves (we kid you not). While we want to pull our collective shoes and beat the brakes off these men, we will try not to. The general belief is that our mothers did it so why shouldn’t we? First off, our mothers used pads, not clothes. We learned the use of pads from them. However, even if they did, it is no reason to continue to do that now just because. Some of our parents drank camel urine for certain ailments. Do YOU do that now? Some people even went as far as saying it is not a national problem but a women’s problem. My question to such people is this; if something affects half the population of a country, doesn’t that qualify as a national problem? Oh! We forgot. We are Africans. Women don’t matter, right? Anyway, our hygiene during and after our menstrual cycle is very important to us and, it shouldn’t cost us so much to keep ourselves clean when we bleed. We hope that Procter and Gamble, producers of Always Sanitary Pads (Nigeria) can lead the pack and bring the price back down. They are already making a lot of money as it is and it is almost unfair to have to ask for more. We know that almost everything now can be blamed on the recession but we hope that this phase passes quickly. And if they refuse to reduce the price, we should begin to think of an alternative. We heard of reusable cloth pads for the first time yesterday and though the idea sounds yucky, we will be forced to switch if we are forced to. The customer is always king. If we band together to hold Procter and Gamble and other pad producers accountable, they will have to do the right thing. A woman’s sanitary needs are not a luxury. They shouldn’t be treated as such. Reusable and Re-washable pads.Image: AliExpress
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Not Just a Dreamer
Our man crush is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Martin Luther King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. He was an American Baptist minister and human rights activist. He was also a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not just for being a dreamer but for working hard at his dreams. He refused to take the easy route by living as expected. He believed in his (and everyone’s) rights to fairness, justice and equality. He also believed he could achieve this through non-violence and his example is worthy of emulation. Many people do not talk about his weaknesses. We are always peppered with his strengths and wonderful speeches but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was as in touch with the chinks in his armor as he was with his drive for justice. It is worthy of note that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suffered depression for most of his life and even attempted suicide by jumping out of a second story window. He didn’t let what many would have considered ‘failings’ to affect his life. Instead, he pushed harder and gave his all; even his life. He was murdered on April 4, 1968. Fighting for what he believed in led to improvements (generally) in the way black people were treated in the United States of America. His influence spilled into the rest of the world and he is revered globally. Are the lives of African Americans totally without hitches because of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? Not exactly. But we can attest to the fact that it is better; even if only a little. Dr. King fought not to just to win but because it was the RIGHT thing to do. And for that, we celebrate his awesomeness. Take a cue from his life and fight for what you believe in today.
Why Flora Nwapa Matters
The first thing that hit us today when we went online was the Google Doodle showing a black woman in what looked like a field of corn seemingly planting (or harvesting) books. We were piqued. Who was this woman? A further click revealed her to be Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa or the popular short form, Flora Nwapa. She was born January 13, 1931 and is a Nigerian (Igbo) author from Oguta, Imo State. She was the eldest of six children and attended school in Port Harcourt and Lagos. She then went on to earn a BA degree from University College, Ibadan, in I957. In 1958, she headed to Scotland where she earned a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University. When she returned to Nigeria, she became a teacher and grew in the ranks of civil service. By 1974, she had been a registrar at the University of Lagos, a Minister of Health and Social Welfare in East Central State and subsequently, a Minister of Lands, Survey and Urban Development. She has been called the ‘Mother of modern African Literature’ and is famous for her book, Efuru. A forerunner to a generation of African women writers, she is recognized as the first African woman novelist to be published in English Language in Britain. Flora Nwapa wrote from the Igbo woman’s viewpoint by recreating life and traditions of the people. Her first book – Efuru – launched her into international acclaim but didn’t stop her drive. She went on to write Idu, Never Again, One is Enoughand Women are Different. She also published two collections of stories – This is Lagos and Wives at War – and the volume of poems Cassava Song and Rice Song. There are other books credited to her; mainly books for children. Her drive was persistent as she moved from writing to owning her publishing companies; Tana Press and Flora Nwapa Company. She published her own work and firmly pushed the objective of informing and educating women from all over the world about the role of women in Nigeria, their economic independence, their relationships with their husbands and children and other areas of a woman’s life. She continued to teach all through her life and held lectures at various colleges and universities across the world. While never considering herself a feminist, she inspired a generation of writers by daring to pioneer writing and publishing as an African woman. Her need to educate and inform African women on their roles in development is something we will always treasure. She died in Enugu after a bout of pneumonia on October 16, 1993. She was 62 years old. She would have been 86 today. And though she died physically, she lives on! In her books, in every life she has touched, in every heart she inspired and helped ignite a fire for better, she lives on. Thank you Flora Nwapa for refusing to be average at a time where being so was the expected. Thank you for being you! Happy posthumous birthday.
5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know Were Invented by Black People
Credit: All Events Black people are awesome and many times, we don’t get the credit we deserve. All through history, we have always created or contributed to the creation of ingenious inventions for the advancement of human kind. In this podcast, we look at 5 things you probably didn’t know were invented by black people. Find out more in the clip below and share with us other inventions you know were invented by black people. If we don’t celebrate ourselves, who will? If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element
Uduak-Obong Jackson: Writing Against Suicide
Uduak-obong JacksonImage: Uduak’s Facebook Profile We are amazed by the awesomeness that is Uduak-obong Jackson. Uduak-obong is from Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. She is a creative Writer and spoken word Poet. She is a graduate of Nassarawa State University where she studied Sociology. As the first child (and only girl) in a family of six, Uduak learned responsibility and empathy for the struggles that mired the lives of many people. Though her experiences – from family, friends and school – were simple and for the most part, fun, Uduak knew there was more to life than what she was experiencing. As if to reinforce her thoughts, someone in her neighborhood committed suicide. ‘I used to think suicide was something that never happened in this part of the world but to my surprise, sometimes last year, a young guy killed himself in my area. It was really shocking because no one would expect that from an average Nigerian.’ Uduak began to do some research and realized that ‘there has been numerous cases of suicides in the country and most times no one says a thing about it.’ That was when she made up her mind to talk about it. Uduak started the #iWriteAgainst campaign where she discussed varying issues. She has been campaigning about the issues that predispose young people to suicide, with focus on the need to discuss mental health and suicide prevention. She knew that it was a huge task and doing it alone was almost impossible. Uduak then asked friends to support the campaign. The response was massive! People from everywhere – family, friends, acquaintances and even people she didn’t know – quickly joined the campaign and sent out pieces using the hashtags, #iWriteAgainst and #iWriteAgainstSuicide. Her biggest hope was that the campaign would be effective in reaching people who had suicidal thoughts. She hoped someone would read the posts and be inspired not to take their lives. And it did. ‘I’ve gotten messages from people telling me how their close friends who were having suicidal thoughts have been bold enough to open up after coming across some of the write-ups from the campaign. I’ve also had the chance to talk with some who actually attempted suicide.’ Uduak plans to grow the platform into something bigger and more capable of helping people with suicidal thoughts in more ways that writing. Known by her friends as Slimzy Jackson, she maintains her drive by being simply caring. We admire Uduak-obong Jackson for her work. She is a black girl and she rocks! Uduak-obong JacksonImage: Uduak’s Facebook Profile
Turning 28…and Not Repeating My Mistakes
Our founder wrote this to commemorate her birthday and from all of us at SHADES OF US, we want to wish her a wonderful birthday today. Happy Birthday Ramat! And it is here. On this day in 1989, a soon-to-be stubborn and pretty determined queen (read highly opinionated and motivated Zena-the-warrior-princess-like-woman) was born. She grew up to have three personalities, plenty baggage, lots of fire and achievements and a whole long list of things she plans to do until she is 75. But today, this oddly weird woman – AKA all three personalities of mine – is 28 today! Ramat, Remimah and Ada are older today! Whoot whoot. Let’s party and drink…and party and dance…and party…and party…and party. (PS: I am really not doing all that). On a serious note though, I never look forward to celebrating my birthdays and now more than ever, I am not in a celebratory mood. I am more of the celebrate-your-achievements kind of person. What I do is acknowledge that my new year starts on this day and honor my Creator for another year added to my life. This year, I am quite jaded turning 28. The last year took its toll on me and my spirit and I have become a little more subdued. I started 2016 with so much enthusiasm and optimism. While this wasn’t far from my character, I wanted to be quite different in 2016. I made plans to go to school, start a video log and podcast in expanding my platform, get a better job and generally turn my straits around. I believed I could do a whole lot if I only put my mind to it and gave it all I got. Did it work? Well, let me start from the bad parts. I knew I had to leave my old job because I needed to grow. Knowing this, I prepared for my exit by sending out applications to many media firm across the country. I sent hundreds of applications and crossed my fingers in anticipation. Soon enough, the invitations for interview started rolling in. I felt things changed for me when a company (whom I will not name because I will blast their grandmother in this post) reached out me up for an interview. Let me call them ‘Company A’. They were supposed to be a new media firm trying to set up in Nigeria and they needed on-air-personalities. The key players were Nigerian-Americans who were returning home to start a pan-African station to create content Nigeria and the United States of Trump; sorry, America. The founder was going to be in the country for one day to look at prospective employees and I was invited. On the date in question, I could not travel to Lagos so we did the interview over skype. I was grilled and to my credit, I was able to answer most of the questions to the best of my ability. When the interview was over, I was optimistic that I would get the job. A few more follow-up questions happened over the week via social media and finally, I got a letter of appointment. The letter shocked the socks off me. I was offered a position FAR BIGGER than the one I applied for with a salary that was a whopping 1500% increase on what I was earning in Yola! Yeah! I AM NOT EXAGGERATING THE FIGURE. You should have seen me dance! After reading the six page letter for a second time, the number of ‘Santa Maria’s I said should have been enough to bring back Mary from the dead (no offence dear Catholics). I was excited, revved up and thankful to God that my years of ‘chopping Kwakwa’ in Yola finally paid off. There was one catch though; work was to properly resume on June 5, 2016. That should have been my first clue that something was off about the company. But when you REALLY WANT something, you can be blinded by all reason. So I went to film school and kept applying for other jobs. The thing is, I got EVERY job I was interviewed for with the exception of Bellanaija (where I got something better than a job but that is a story for another day). Why didn’t I take the jobs as I waited for June 5? I felt their pay was ‘paltry’ in comparison to what ‘Company A’ had offered me. So here I was with a couple of employment letters that made me feel like my interview game was strong. I felt that my only option was to reject them. Though I was rejecting job offers, I kept sending out applications. Then May came and I rounded up film school. I returned to Yola to get my stuff and prepare for my new job. What a huge mistake that was. June came and I didn’t hear anything. I sent mails and didn’t get responses until the end of June. When I got the mail, I was told the Company was having ‘Licensing Issues’ and as soon as they worked it out, I will be in the know. I must admit that I was a bit naïve and didn’t see anything wrong; even though my friend told me they could have been a fake (read 419) company. I felt my friend didn’t know what she was talking about since I had vetoed the company online before taking the interview. Soon June became July and July became August. By this time, the number of openings in the media sector had dwindled which translated to fewer applications and even fewer invitations for interview. I started getting depressed. It was the 8thmonth of the year and I had not earned a salary since February. I am not business savvy so it meant that I had been dependent on family for ALL my needs; which was the first time in three years that that had happened. I hated depending on ANYONE and worse, I hated that feeling of
SHADES OF US: UNVEILING OUR NEW LOOK
Hey. So we have been making some noise about changes we want to make and the time is finally here. First off, happy New Year! Weird right? We celebrate our new year on our founder’s birthday instead of January 1 like other normal people do. We think that our Founder, Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, is pretty stubborn about her unwillingness to celebrate major events and holidays. We think she is weird but if she is reading this (and we are hoping that she is too tied up with the number of people sending her wishes), we want you to know that we love you! Happy birthday Boss lady! Now that we are done keeping our jobs, we are excited to announce some major changes to our platform. First off, starting from today, we are no longer SHADES OF BROWN NIGERIA. We got married and following tradition, we had to change our names. From now henceforth, we decree and declare that we shall be addressed by our new name; SHADES OF US! (Why thank you. Thank you. No need for the flowers and underwear. It is just a name change). So how did we arrive at this? It was through a very long and windy road. When we started SHADES OF BROWN NIGERIA, we wanted to discuss issues affecting ALL black people; from the lightest albino to the darkest person. We chose to use BROWN instead of BLACK because it was the mid color and because the earth is brown. We wanted to show that we are as beautiful as the earth and we are fertile, supportive, enduring, powerful, angry sometimes and so much more. When we went searching for the name, there were lots of companies bearing SHADES OF BROWN and because we were sure that is the name we wanted, we added Nigeria; even though our scope was bigger than that. But we knew that when we were ready to get our own website (and stop being cheapskates and freeloaders), the name might become a problem. We even got some busybodies people who told us that we were using another’s name and we knew it had to change. So we started cracking our brains to see what could still embody the essence of our platform. After much debate and bouncing the name around, we decided that we like the ‘SHADES OF’ part and wanted to keep it. The last word became the issue. Since we were talking about issues that affected us, we decided to go with the obvious; US. When we decided to pay for our own domain, SHADES OF BROWN was unavailable (as expected) but SHADES OF US was; though we could only get the .co.uk domain. We paid for it and we were ready to go! Another problem came up and we realized that many people were using Shades of Us too. We were like, ‘suck it!’ We were done trying to be the good guys. Moreover, if it was such a problem, we wouldn’t have been allowed to pay for the name. Abegee! Ain’t nobody got time for that! Having done that, we knew we were going to be making some big changes so we proceeded to change our social media handles and design a tentative logo. See, let us start warning you! Don’t laugh at our small design; it will get better jare. Kizzes! Also, having run the podcast and vlog for a year – albeit inconsistently – we came to the conclusion that keeping the podcast on Podbean was not viable and we let our subscription expire. This meant losing all our subscribers and even all the content we put up. Not to worry; from now on, we will feature the podcast on the blog and it will still have the same feel. We are also going to embed our video logs in the blog so all our content can be found on one site. You will also see that our new look is more dynamic and easier for navigation. You will not have to flip page after page to get to a particular post. You know we like you yeah? Eventually, as we develop, we will categorize our posts for even better navigation. We will also bring you more interviews with people who are trying to change the African narrative and whose work are gradually shaping minds for a better Africa and a better world. This year, we are opening the blog up to guest posts. We want to move from being a one-person-idea to a family of shared experiences. We want to see the Africa you see and share the problems that weigh you down. This means that you can send us posts, poems, long read, scripts, quotes, illustrations, pictures, movies and the likes. We know people like to be paid and we have to put this out there now; we cannot pay anyone. What we will do is appreciate consistent contributions with small gifts that wouldn’t break the back of the camel. We also want to be more hands-on with our work this year. We want to move from talking about the issues to solving some of these problems one person at a time. This means that we will create programs for the people we care about the most; women, children, orphans, people from dysfunctional homes, the abused, the disadvantaged in the society, the physically and mentally disabled, the poor and so much more. We believe that it is no longer enough to just talk about the problems that affect us. We MUST do something if we are to create any form of change. The onus lies on us. As a result, we will seek and form partnerships with organizations that have similar goals and core values and we will work towards creating the change we want to see. Right now, we will be working with SAVE OUR WOMEN FOUNDATIONand WOMEN REGAINING VALUE. We will also be glad to work with foundations you think are geared towards changing the narrative
