I LOVE ANKARA BUT…

I’ve always been a fashion enthusiast. Ok, I know you don’t believe me but it is true.

I may not be able to tell apart a Mai Atafo  or Ituen Basi design. Or a Bridget Awosika. Tifanny Amber. Adebayo Jones or  Lanre Da-Silva but I love what I see particularly when it comes to African print designs. Especially Ankara.

And the Vlisco ads just ‘killed’ it for me. I love Ankara! (Though, I pass on with 'kain' things I see on the back cover of some soft sells!)

But then I got inquisitive.  Where exactly is Ankara from? Did we (Africans) really create this beautiful wax print that is proudly celebrated globally as our ‘thing’? Why do I see “Dutch Wax” labels at the tip of my Ankaras?

Well, i did a bit of research to satisfy my curiosity and what I discovered blew my mind oh. Let me spare you the long history lesson and give you a short but true story.

Ankara originally came from Java (No, not that Java on your BB). It was then one of the Dutch’s colonies so I guess that gave the Dutch the license to dub the local textile industry, improve on it, and mass produced it across Europe. (Yes, na Oyinbo first wear Ankara o… deal with it, hehehe!).  

And in the process of globalizing it, they tried to sell it across the world particularly in Asia but were disappointed in Indonesia but somehow West Africa was a ready market. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, one of the people involved in selling Ankara around then was a family by the name, Van Vlinssingers in 1846, established their company-Vlisco. I’m sure that rang a bell.

Today, Vlisco is grooving about town with their Ankara, and they are doing a damn good job. I’m yet to see an Oyinbo version of their Ads. They have successfully built a premium brand, which is now a status symbol.

I hope you know the 2 leading ‘African wax print’ manufacturing companies in West Africa is based in Ghana and is owned by Vlisco and the British respectively. Well, until China came along. China bought into the market, booting the British out of the game.

I also hope you know Woodin in Ghana is a subsidiary of Vlisco. Yeah.

Likewise  Da Viva. In case you can’t connect the dots, Da Viva is a China high-end wax print textile brand for Africans.

Don’t get me wrong o, I like Oyinbos o and trade. I just felt this Ankara thing isn't "By Africans, for Africans" as we are made to think. It's just another marketing gimmik!

Having said all, I have  an "owambe" wedding this weekend, guess what I’m wearing!

#1 Do Not Try This At Home.

As a writer, my day job is to create make believe TV commercials with twists of humors and surprises. One of the numerous ideas that once featured was using Lagos bus conductors to sell energy drinks. 

Well besides other things that make Lagos bus conductors high, (sorry did I just say high?), yeah or what do you think would make a normal person jump off a fast moving car? It beats me too.

It was always a sight to behold when bus conductors do their many antics (really, nobody wants to have one have as an Uncle or cousin, "Hey, i saw your Uncle Lagbaja conducting along Ipaja!" hehehe!).

 Anyway, these men have perfected the art of jumping off and catching on fast moving vehicles. Many of them will tell you it wasn't something they mastered in a day or a week and they'll probably flash scars to authenticate their stories.

For the conductors, this art is also a tool of the trade.

You either get it or you get out. Bus conducting isnt for slackers. This skill is a high criterion to be an upward moving bus conductor. This stunt, usually performed on smoothly paved highways, is a skill needed to avoid the exorbitant levy collecting touts who parade most bus stops.

It's always humorous when commuters, especially the posing graduates of Motion and Mechanics, still prove bus conductors are smarter in this area of physics. They jump off the moving bus, expecting the road to move along with them.

It is also amazing to see Lagosians adapt this act over time and by compulsion, they had to learn to leap with the crowd or forever wait at the bus stops. I’ve seen pregnant women, olb Babas, school pupils even the Sisi Ekos, struggle to catch the ever elusive Lagos bus.

It’s a show of guts and courage, and you have to eliminate doubt totally believing you can do it. One tiny winy doubt you are a goner! Your mind and your feet must work in perfect synchronized pace. Getting on is one thing, jumping off is another.

As part of the showmanship, some Conductors put on floppy bathroom slippers to enhance their landing sound effect. They land with a "floppy boom" of rapid successive steps that bangs like a trailer tire on top speed. 

Unfortunately, as the days of molue and "Fanagon" buses are fading into oblivion, so are these exhilarating bus stunts becoming a lost art. No more exciting bus rides now that we all queue like zombies and drag our feet waiting for government buses.

Eko ba je tiii!

STORIES OF OUR LIVES.

Everyday I see stories walk or drive past me on the road. Every soul I
meet or see is a walking bestseller.  Rich with stories of triumph
over evil; love over contempt; success over failure.

Our streets are filled with lifelong tales of twists and thrillers;
suspense and romance.

Whether from the dark one-room apartment somewhere in a dense slum
grid or a posh penthouse at the tip end of VGC.

Sadly many will be wasted, if untold.

However its not just having a story. It's  how they are told.

Stories, if well told, could beat Jeffery Archers archive or make
Harold Robbins turn in his grave.

Wise people tell their stories that's how they cheat death. That's how
they remain alive long after they are dead and gone.

Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables in 1862 and come 2013, 151 years
later, it will grab Oscars.

J.R.R. Tolkien of the famed Lord of the Rings fantasy, wrote The
Hobbit in 1925 and his stories will be Box Office hits in the next
three years, raking in billions of dollars and making him one of the
highest earning DEAD celebrities today.

Abraham Lincoln story is one of the most told stories ever. Little
wonder he remains ever fresh in the memory of the world.

You've got a story to tell. No matter how short. You've got a script
the world unborn would want to read.

Better still, there's a story in you. Biting, gnawing, scratching;
keeping you restless in the day, sleepless at night. Set it free. Let
it fly.

Maybe you have more pains than gains. Be rest assured, today's mess is
the manure for tomorrow's harvest. Don't waste your story.

If well told, it can reap you millions, better still, it can grant you
the gift of immortality.

Make 2013 a story worth reading.

Scoundrels Without Uniform – 

Lessons from Mayflower.



It was one of the many midterm breaks. 

Long after watching myriad of cars pick up your class mates, your friends, your best friend, your bunkmate...

Long after you've cried your eyes out, having realized no one was coming to pick you up.

The hopefuls still hang out at the Car park, positive that the next car sound would be their Dad or the driver, and have mentally rehearsed countless times, how they’ll scream, rush into the hostel and drag out their packed iron box into the waiting car.

By nightfall, we ‘left behinds’ know ourselves and gather together.

You’ll agree with me times like these, mischief abounds.

It was one of these periods; some of us conceived this ingenious idea of converting our hostel water reservoir into an Olympic sized swimming pool. After all, there was nobody around to use all the body of water anyway.

Let me help your imagination here if you are not an Ex-May.

The male ‘bathrooms’ were more like yards fenced round with high
walls to keep out peeping Toms. Somewhere in the yards were moulded large concrete reservoirs, with metal pipes sticking out at one end (wouldn't really call it a tap) that supplies water.

So you go to there with bucket to draw water, 'park' somewhere at an available space near the wall and have your bath. (It was an open ended affair!)

So come midterm breaks, we would dash into the yard, strip off our clothes and head bare into the inviting water. We would splash around and holler like we don't have a care.

Some of us had our first swimming classes in those shallow waters and many times, we got away with it until this particular day.

I have been perfecting my swimming. I've learnt how to hold my breath and to float without aid. I was learning to do the ‘Sub’. That is, going underwater from one end and coming out at the other end, undetected.

On this fateful day, I had dived underwater, my head was definitely submerged, because I could not see or hear anything happening outside.

The next thing I knew was a sharp sting across my buttocks.

(It was later I learnt that, my head was indeed inside the water but my backside was shooting out, making it a 'perfect target' for the cane).

Impulsively I cried out and swallowed water. I shot up and struggled to get up. As I did, I came face to face with my House master (we called them Warden, now you know why). I could almost feel the heat of his seething anger on my cold body.

With the help of another stroke, I scaled the reservoir wall and scrambled for my green short. Apparently I was the last to know what had happened, the others were already out, and lined up against the wall as if at a firing squad.

I sheepishly joined them trembling not from the cold water but
at the thought of the wrath to come.

All I can tell you now is that I couldn't sit for the next few days. Just picture the impact of a bum in wet shorts against six strong, anger-induced strokes of the cane.

All I can say is that I paid heavily for my swimming classes!