the cake that looked like a train

I was talking to my sister, Emily, on her birthday the other day. I brought up that I didn't remember anything about my 30th birthday (it was her 30th birthday) and it got me thinking. I generally don't remember my birthdays. I've never been the kind of person to celebrate birthdays (I told my family that this year, the only thing I wanted for my birthday, is nothing), so birthdays never stick out for me. I've spent the last few days trying to remember birthdays past, and this is what I remember.

34 - I remember this birthday only because I spent it traveling from Edinburgh to Towson, by trains, planes, and automobiles. I forgot it was my birthday, until I landed in JFK that night and the immigration guy wished me a happy birthday. I spent the last minutes of my 34th wandering around Reagan National Airport, trying to find a place where I could sleep on the floor.

33 - I remember 33 because it was the first day in what was the worst year of my life. The day itself was not particularly memorable. Lauren and I went to Stacks, and I was again disappointed by what I got there (I know people love that place, but it's never done much for me). We also saw 'Up'.

28 - I decided to fast on my 28th birthday - no food for 24 hours. Some people are gluttonous on their birthdays; I decided to be the opposite. Of course, this lack of food gave me a migraine and I ended up feeling really crappy.

25 - The third of what I like to think of my international birthday trilogy. I was in Vancouver. The highlight of the day was dinner. I was in a class and a number of us went to dinner that night. There was a sexist/racist guy in our class, who acted like he wasn't either of those things. After a few stories from him that were filled with racist and sexist comments, we all attacked him for his comments - he dropped out of the class.

24 - I woke up in Barcelona on that day, and went to the beach very early. I climbed up a lifeguard tower and looked over the quiet Mediterranean. I called my parents that evening from a pay phone at the base of Las Ramblas, and talked to my mother (my dad wasn't home from work yet).

23 - I spent the day getting from Tikal to Antigua, Guatemala. I called home on a rainy night in Antigua and made my first of three international birthday calls to Towson.

18 - I actually don't remember my 18th birthday, just that it was the day before my high school graduation and so it was completely overshadowed.

13 - We lived in De Kalb when I turned 13, but happened to be in Towson on my 13th birthday, checking out the city we would be moving to. My family ate ice cream in the Kenilworth Mall. To this day, every time I go into the Kenilworth Mall, I remember that - I'm glad the ice cream store is still there.

You get an idea of how excited I am about birthdays

(I remember nothing of my 7th, not even that I had a party)

5 - I turned 5, five days after Emily was born. I remember feeling kind of jealous. I was going to have a special Superman cake (a blue cake with the Superman logo on it) that my mom and aunt had worked on. I still got the cake, but my mom was in the hospital still. There is this picture of me, wearing a Superman t-shirt, next to my cake. It's my favorite birthday picture.

3 - I don't remember my third birthday, but I remember it through pictures. It was one of the few birthday parties I've had. My mom made a cake that looked like a 3-car train, with cookies for wheels. There are these pictures of me with the cake, where I look like I don't quite know what's going on exactly.

Emily mentioned on her birthday that, every important day in her life these days, reminds her of our mother. I think that's why I just want my next birthday to pass, uneventfully. On my last birthday, I was so busy in transit that it never really struck me that it was my first birthday without my mother. I know that won't happen this year. I plan on calling Towson, as I've always done, but I probably will not be calling the house on Bosley Avenue this year, but my dad's office. And I won't hear that familiar Ghanaian accent wishing me a happy birthday, reminding me of birthdays past, and that cake that looked like a train.

please let the sun go down on me

Back in late October, I wrote a blog post about the limited sun we got in the sky back then. Now, in late April, we have quite the opposite. A couple of days ago, Lauren said to me ‘it’s light so late in the evenings’; it was 8:36 pm. I regularly hang clothes out to dry at ‘night’, even though it’s still light outside; after the hour-long washing cycle, after I took a shower, after I rode the ½ hour home from work, after I left work at 5:30 pm. You get the idea, I’m hanging clothes outside at 8 or 9 pm, to dry. I’m the odd guy in our building who hangs clothes outside overnight, but I know that, come 6 or 7 am, the sun will be out again, and the clothes will get dry while I’m at work.

Of course, there is the downside to the light. I’ve had problems sleeping for 20 years, since I was a teenager. I’ve had problems falling asleep, problems with waking up in the middle of the night, and the problem I have had over the last several weeks - waking up too early.

For most days over the last 3-4 weeks, I have woken up at about 5:30 am, after sleeping about 6-6½ hours. I can usually get by on 6 hours sleep for a few days in a row, but a few weeks is starting to take it’s toll on me. What is the cause of this lack of sleep? The light. I’ve never been able to sleep when it’s light outside. Even when I have experienced my worst jet-lag, I’m only able muster an hour, or so, during daylight hours.

So I wake up at 5:30, lay there for a while, and usually get up at 6, not sure what to do with myself - no papers to grade, no exam questions to write, no student emails to respond to. It’s during these early morning hours that I miss teaching the most.

I am able to get through the day without feeling particularly tired, although my body tells me that I am, with an eye twitch that lasts for days, or sore muscles that didn’t get enough rest. I get home and feel fine, but in an hour or two, I’m exhausted. I often feel like I could go to bed at 8 pm, but I don’t. I worry that if I go to bed at 8, I’ll wake up at 3, and who wants that, really? Instead, get through the evening in a tired stupor, going to bed at 11 or 11:30, and get my 6 ½ hours for the night. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep because I’m worried I won’t be able to sleep - lack of sleep caused by thinking about lack of sleep.

I’ve been told it will get to the point where it is light at 4:30, and dark at about 11:30. I’m sure many people like the idea of having 19 hours of daylight, I’m dreading it, much like I dreaded getting only 6 hours of light back in December. Oh, to live on the equator.

the worst performance ever?

it's interesting to see what words people search that lead them to my blog. if you search "put on track pants" "didn't have any", a blog post of mine is the first to come up. why someone would search those two quotes together, is beyond me.

in an effort to not offend people in my city, who are members of a certain non-conservative church, that starts with U, i'm going to be a little careful with my words here. i would hate for them to come across this blog post in a search.

a couple of months ago, i had this feeling i've had in times past, when i feel like i should do something to improve my spiritual life. i did what i've done in the past; i found a place to go on a sunday morning. i told lauren about this and we went to the U's church. as i have in the past, i didn't get out of it what i had hoped. i would kind of zone out during the sermon, not remembering anything about it, and didn't get much of the socializing i attempted to do with people afterwards. lauren seemed to get more out of it than i did.

a couple of weeks ago, the minister invited people to attend a dinner and movie viewing, that was scheduled for the next friday. sitting there, i got the impression that the movie was a documentary about a famous scottish poet, whose first name is robert and whose last name rhymes with 'ferns'. did i mention that i zone out during the service? it was presented at the fringe festival a few years ago, so it must be reasonably good, right?

we got to the U on friday evening, and the dinner wasn't bad, considering it was free. we ate, had awkward socializing moments - including being told we couldn't sit in some seats, because some people knew some people who 'might' want to leave early - didn't seem very welcoming.

after dinner, the movie started. very early on, i could see it was not a very professional movie - there was a shot of the building we were sitting in, a zoom in to a pigeon walking on a sidewalk, the quality was at about the level of my flip camera - i would've thought a fringe movie would have better quality, but i would give it a chance.

soon after the pigeon shot, i realized it was not a documentary, it was a recording of a play that was done at the U, about the famous poet. the next shot was the cast 'behind the scenes' as the show was about to start. this seemed unnecessary to me as a viewer, because they were not saying anything backstage that seemed all that relevant - this lasted for about 5 minutes.

then they started walking out of the room, into the main performance room, which was the main hall of the U. ok, i thought, but why is the camera just following them, hand-held style, but not in a good way.

the play started. i thought the camera would be placed in a position centered, so the viewer would get a good view of the stage. instead, it was at the far right or left of the first pew - the only fancy tech thing of the recording was switching from one horrible angle to another.

now, the actual performance. picture a bunch of 11 year olds doing a play, where lines are forgotten, scripts are read on stage by cast members, and you have an idea of the performance. add to it the poor sound quality of the recording, the bad camera work, and we have a winner - the worst performance i've ever seen. i've seen my sister do performances when she was 8, i've worked at summer camps where kids put on performances, i've seen 'showgirls', but this was, by far, the worst performance i've ever seen.

after sitting through this for about 1 1/2 hours, watching a number of people doze off, the minister of the U looking bored/shocked with how bad it was, the woman in front of me take off her glasses for long stretches of the film, i started reading the program. the group was an inclusive one - no one is turned away. if you don't turn anyone away from your performance group, can you really expect strangers to pay to watch you perform (there was a £6 charge when they performed during the festival)?

the play came to an end. a sense of relief came over me, thinking the dvd would stop; it didn't. we then were given the opportunity to hear the thank yous from the director, from the performance on the dvd. to top it off, at the point, the camera was pointing at the director's knees. the dvd continued, the thank yous continued, i leaned into lauren - "i think we should leave". we got up, walked out, being the first people to leave.

walking out, lauren said something that made me laugh on the inside. she wasn't in the best of moods, so i didn't. she said "i can't believe i missed 'american idol' for this" - i should mention, this was the 'american idol' results show, shown 20 hours after the results are out because UK t.v. shows 'american idol' the day after it airs in the US.

so, if missing a show that is not particularly great to begin with, that you can probably find online, showing results you can definitely find online, that happened nearly 24 hours before. if this is something you regret missing, the thing you are missing it for, probably sucks.

i'm not sure if we'll be going back to the U.

525,600 minutes

my mother and I, at my wedding reception

I really thought I would be further along in the grieving process by now, a year since my mother's death - however, I feel like I'm in the same place I was last April, a month after she died.

I attempt to put on a good face when I talk to to people in my life, but they don't see me in my times of sadness and frustration, wondering why I'm 'stuck'. I do that alone, feeling like they have all moved to a place I haven't yet.

I live in a constant state of sadness, anger, and guilt over what I should have done for the sake of my mother before she died and what I should have done for my sake, in the year since.

Several months after she passed away I decided to write about what I was going through around the time of her death. I thought this would help in the grieving process, but it didn't.

I'm hoping in this post, that sharing a small piece of what I wrote will do more for me than writing it did. Below is the story of one day, the day I went home to see my mother, for the last time.....

March 18, 2010

As I was waiting to get onto the bus, Lauren asked me what my mother's full name was; Lauren wanted to dedicate the Twi book she was working on to my mother. I teared up, as I had done a number of times in the previous few weeks, knowing that I would be going back to Towson on March 18; knowing that this would be the last time I was going home to see my mother.

I don't remember much about the bus ride to the airport, or boarding the plane, or what movies were playing on the flight, and what movies I may have watched. I do remember that the flight was delayed for an hour in Heathrow, because of some kind of technical problem.

Two things stick out for me on this flight. I had developed a fear of flying at some point in my 20's, but had no fear as I sat on the plane. I remember thinking that no amount of turbulence on this flight would even begin to compare to what my mother had been going through over the last few months. I remember thinking that I was so much luckier than so many people who, like my mother, were suffering in that moment as I buckled in to fly across the Atlantic.

The other thing I remember is the guy from Kenya I was seated next to. He had no bags with him, which worried me a little - who doesn't carry anything on a transatlantic flight. After we were in the air, he borrowed a pen from me, and we started talking. He showed me an old picture of him with dreadlocks, which he no longer had; he told me about his turbulent flight from Nairobi to London, and how he had lived in Baltimore for a few years, but wanted to move back to Kenya.

He seemed like a nice guy, and when he asked if he could get a ride into the city after we landed, I didn't think much of it, and said I would ask my sister after we landed. He used my phone once we were on the ground, and then we both went through customs. After we met up again, we both complained about the treatment we got from the customs officers at BWI - they took a bunch of spices he had hoped to bring from Kenya; I was asked "How did that happen?" to my being born in Nigeria - I considered going through an explanation of how it happens that children are born to the officer, but I was nervous about seeing my mother, knowing she was in bad shape.

I talked to my dad soon after landing. He seemed to want to talk about everything but my mother - the flight, the customs people, the delay we had in Heathrow. To this day, I don't know if he was doing this because he didn't feel comfortable talking about it, or if he was trying to shield me, for one last time, from the shape my mother was in. Part of me would have liked it if he would have been a little bit more graphic about her condition; a bigger part of me is glad he never did. I can't imagine what the experience was like for my father to go through that with my mother, and in the months since I have grown to admire my father more than anyone I know. We've always kind of teased my dad about his geekiness/nerdiness but, because of what he went through, I have come to see my father as the toughest man I know.

Emily picked me and the Kenyan guy up, and we dropped him off at a parking garage his cousin worked at. We then headed to Towson. Emily had not said anything about our mother until after we dropped him off. She tried to prepare me for what I would see, and said she was worried about me, because I hadn't seen the slow deteriation of our mother. She said she would rather be in her position than my own, because she had seen my mother on a daily basis, slowly get worse - I hadn't seen our mother in two months.

I now think of Emily much the same way I think of my dad. I wrote a blog once on how, even though she was the youngest of our clan, during the last months of my mother's life, you would've guessed she was older than her big brother and sister, who are 5 and 16 years older than her, respectively. I remember thinking on that drive back how much I admired my little sister, and how much braver and tougher she was than me. I don't think I could've handled taking care of my mother the way Emily did and for that, the rest of my family will be eternally grateful.

I got home, but I didn't want to go upstairs. I was scared to see my mother in the condition she was in. I talked briefly to my dad, but then had to go up there, to see my mother. I went upstairs, not sure what what to expect. It was not good; she was lying on the bed in an L shape on her side, mumbling incoherently, her eyes were somewhat glazed over, kind of staring into nowhere. She was tiny compared to the person she was last Summer, the last time I saw her completely healthy. She was lying in the bed, seemingly unable to move much.

Emily and my dad said "Jeff is here, Jeff is here". Her sister, Mary, who had arrived from New York that same day, said to her in Twi "Jeff is here, Jeff is here." My mother, in the midst of her mumbling, then said the last word I would ever here her say in English - she said "Jeff".

Many people have said to me over the months since she died "remember the good times you had with her", and I do, and remembering those times bring some level of comfort. But every single day, I see what I saw that night, sitting on the edge of my parents' bed, my mother, not the person she was, and we, unable to do anything about it. I hear her saying my name that last time. And every time I remember that night, I am filled with unbelievable sadness.

my mom and my niece, Maya - Summer 2009

It's hard for me to think it's been more than 525,600 minutes since my mother took her last breath. I still feel her around me all the time, hearing her voice in my head multiple times a day, when I'm doing something in the kitchen that's not the best idea, or when I'm feeling alone in the world. It's a nice feeling, but it's also a reminder that I won't hear her actual voice again, just her voice in my head - that feeling is not so nice.

In the past year, music has affected me more than it ever used to and I've been brought to tears every time I've heard this song. It makes me miss the nearly 34 seasons of love I had with my mother, but also makes me happy. When the soloist breaks out her powerful voice, I think of my mother. No one would call my mother a powerful gospel singer, not by any means, trust me. But she shared love, gave love, and spread love - she always wanted everyone around her to be happy; to be loved. If lives are measured in love, Alberta Ohenwah Shirley lived longer than anyone I know.

The Hearse

The man stood there on the sidewalk of the street, blowing his nose with a napkin from the restaurant he had just walked out of. "Woman's Work" by Kate Bush was playing, as it muffled out the street sound and the sniffling of his nose. Although there were a lot of cars driving by at high speeds, there was almost no one on the sidewalk, and he tried to get across the street when he saw someone coming his way, as to not make eye contact with the person.

On closer look, he was not just blowing his nose, he was crying, tears slowly coming down his cheek, him wiping them off of his face before they dropped to the ground. He didn't want to be asked if he was okay or to explain why he, a grown man, was standing there, crying on a street after just walking out of a restaurant. He made his way to the other side of the street before a man, talking on his phone, made it too close to him.

As he crossed the street and composed himself, Aimee Mann's “Wise Up” could be heard. As he was walking down the street he saw a Mercedes hearse drive by. He didn't remember the last time he saw a hearse, and thought it was odd that on this day, of all days, was the day he saw one. It had clear windows, so he could see the light brown coffin in it, yellow flowers on the top.

10 minutes earlier, I was sitting in that restaurant, eating an Egg McMuffin. I don't remember the last time I had an Egg McMuffin. Sarah McLachlan's "Do What You Have To Do" was playing in my ears.

I listen to that song every 21st of the month, as I sit in McDonald's, remembering my mother, doing what I have to do. The song always makes me cry, and it usually takes a song or two after it ends on my itunes genius, to recover. As I start to tear up in the restaurant, I get up and walk out, sometimes before I'm done eating, and I become that man, standing on the sidewalk of the street, blowing my nose with a napkin from McDonald's, missing my mother.

Hibs

A few months ago I was reading "Why England Lose?" a pop-economics/psychology book about the beautiful game.

One part of the book (I can't remember if it was an entire chapter or just part of one) focused on how people become fans of a specific team. There were a number of reasons - family, friends, community, following the crowd. The one that stuck with me is the person who becomes a fan of a team because that team is the first exposure they have to the sport, or the league, even if this happens after they are adults.

Before I moved to Edinburgh, I knew almost nothing about the Scottish Premier League. If you ask an average American soccer fan to name two teams in the SPL, and they'll probably say Rangers and Celtic. If you ask them to name three, I'll bet most can't. If you would have asked me last summer what European league Hibernian and Motherwell were in, I wouldn't have had the foggiest idea. I now know, as do you, that they are in the Scottish Premier League.

The SPL gets completely overshadowed by the English Premier League in the UK, and with good reason - the teams aren't particularly good. Other than Rangers or Celtic, I doubt any of the SPL teams could win more than 1 or 2 games out of 10, played against an average EPL team.

In moving to Edinburgh, one thing I wanted to do was support a local team. Rangers and Celtic were out, because they're both in Glasgow, the football hotbed of Scotland. With my lack of SPL knowledge, I wasn't even sure there was a team in Edinburgh that was in the SPL - turns out there are two. Hearts and Hibernian (or Hibs for short). I wasn't thrilled at the thought of supporting a team I had never heard of, and didn't really pursue becoming a fan before I got here.

On one of my early bike rides/getting lost episodes, in my first few weeks in Edinburgh, I ended up on the eastern end of town and saw that a lot of things were painted green - pubs, and other buildings in general. It wasn't the dark Michigan State green (which I bleed, by the way), but more of a lighter green. I learned on that day, that I was in Hibs country. I became one of those people who become a fan of a team because of 1st exposure. I was about a block from an SPL stadium for the first time, surrounded by the team's color, and I became a Hibs fan - sort of.

I don't know if it's because the team's color is green, reminding me of my beloved MSU, or if it was that first exposure, but I now care about Hibs. I'm as big a fan as one could be who has never been to game, never watched a game on TV, and doesn't know a single player on the team. I still care about Hibs, even though just about the only things I know about them is their team color, where their stadium is, and the fact that they stink this year. I cringe and think "damn you Hibs" every time I see they have lost another game, and fall lower and lower in the league table.

The thing is, if I had happened to be riding my bike on the west side of town that day, near the stadium of the "other team" in Edinburgh, I'd be excited. Hearts are in third place in the SPL right now, which is a big deal. In the 12 years of the SPL, Rangers or Celtic have won every single season, and only once did one of them not come in second. If your team is not from Glasgow, you're hoping for third place, where Hearts sits right now.

I can't bring myself to be a Hearts fan, and cringe just as much when I see them continuing to win games and I do when Hibs loses. I don't like watching Hearts climb up the league table, holding on, very comfortably, to third in the league.

Instead, I support lowly Hibs. I'm a Hibs fan; I've said it. We stink, we may get relegated, but dammit, we're Hibs!

A Long December

I've always liked the song "A Long December" by Counting Crows. The line 'maybe this year will be better than the last' is sung several times, looking ahead to a better tomorrow, a better year to come.

2010 was a memorable year for me. I moved to the UK - twice, saw a lot of family, was an extra in a movie, traveled across the Atlantic six times, and ended the year a wiser person. I wish 2010 never happened.

The year began by me going on leave from my job, moving to Oxford. This was my first move to the UK. The second was the move from the US to Edinburgh in late August. In both cases, I felt like a complete outsider, a lonely man in a lonely place, with no sense of belonging. I still feel that way, several months after moving to Edinburgh. I've moved a lot in my life, but these moves have been among toughest for me (moving from Nigeria to the US as a 12 year old was tougher).

I saw a lot of family over the past year, but how I wish the circumstances were different. With my mother passing away in March and having funerals in the US and in Ghana, I interacted with more family in 2010 than in any other year of my life. Unfortunately, most if this interaction was filled with sadness for the small, powerful, and well-respected, woman my mother was, to everyone in our extended family.

I was happy to be cast as an extra in a movie only a few weeks after my mother died. It was a distraction from the pain I was going through and took up many hours of my day, for a week. The thought of seeing myself on screen, even for a movie so bad I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, pepped me up a little. The movie ran out of money and was never finished; the money I was owed for a week of being an extra never came to me. My chance to be in the big screen vanished.

I traveled a lot in 2010, but not by choice. Between moving, my mother's passing, Lauren graduating, and my mother's Ghana funeral, I racked up more air miles than I have in any other year. I also contracted the chickenpox in the midst of one of these trips. I now have permanent scars on my body, and still don't feel like the person I see in the mirror is me.

All this travel not only led to illness, but bad travel experiences. Two of my six transatlantic flights were canceled, leaving me in a tough spot to get to where I was trying to go.

I was talking to someone a few years ago, shortly after their mother had died. They said that they felt like a wiser person after the passing of their mother. I didn't get it at the time, but now I do. When my mother died people tried to compare what I was going through to them losing a grandparent; those two things are not at all similar, and I felt somewhat insulted when someone tried to use that to relate to what I was going through.

With my mother's passing, I've lost that protector that mothers are - the mother bear protecting her cub. Even though I'm an adult, I now feel like I have to fend for myself more, pick up some of the wiseness that only a mother has. I feel like I've become a wiser person.

I'm looking ahead to 2011, not because I have anything great on the horizon, but because, to paraphrase my dad from a conversation we had in mid-December, 2011 couldn't possibly be any worse than 2010. That's something to look forward to, I guess.

I want to end this blog by hoping that 'maybe this year will be better than the last' and wrap up my last 2010 blog post with something I wrote shortly after my 34th birthday, looking ahead to, what I thought, would be a better future...

"It didn't immediately occur to me on my birthday that it was my birthday. I had to get from Edinburgh to Towson over the next 30 hours, so more pressing things were on my mind. When it did occur to me, at some point along the trip, I was tired and wanted to get home, which in this instance was Towson. Even though I was tired when my birthday crossed my mind, I was happy; 33 was over. The year that took me from the job I loved and took the person I loved more than earth from me. The year where I never felt settled was over. I looked ahead to the new life that lay ahead of me. The life without my mother, the life where I would keep trying, for my mother's sake, to be the best person I could be."

Edinburgh Snow (or Edinbro Snow or Edinburgh Snurgh)

picture I took from the top of Calton Hill, looking over Edinburgh

I've lived in cold winter climates for about 40% of my life, having lived in De Kalb, Illinois for one winter, Towson, Maryland for five, and East Lansing, Michigan for seven. This winter is my first "cold" winter in a city outside the United States. My readers in California might think they have a cold winter, but trust me, you don't. If the phrase "salting the sidewalk" doesn't mean anything to you, or creates an odd image in your head, you've never lived through a cold winter.

That being said, I am left to wonder if the people of Scotland know what it means to salt the sidewalk, because getting through the snow we had here a couple weeks ago left me thinking; this country has a long way to go, when it comes to winter preparedness.

The snow started on a Saturday night, less than an inch came down by my estimation. Nothing was done at that point, in terms of clearing the streets. Understandable, I thought - this kind of snow fall basically clears itself by people moving around in it. Then, the big storm came.

I would guess about 7-9 inches (I'm using odd numbers here, because I find that snow measurements are almost always in terms of even numbers, which has always bothered me). At this point, I began to wonder why nothing was being done to clear the snow - no plows anywhere to be seen, so one shoveling their walkways, and yes, no salting of sidewalks was going on. In fact, I didn't see a shovel for the next several days. I did get a lot of beautiful pictures though, as I walked around town, through the uncleared streets and sidewalks; you can see them here.

The snow fell for several days, a few hours each day. The airport closed (actually the airport was open for part of that time, but the runways were closed - the airport wanted all of us to know this). Lauren had a flight that was cancelled, and over the weekend, it was said that on Monday, things would be better.

Still no shovels. Still no plows, but somehow, things would be better. It wasn't.

The forecast changed, and even though schools opened on Monday morning, they were closed a few hours later. Snow fell on that Monday like it had not fallen during the entire storm. People were stuck on the major freeway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for many, many hours. The freeway was eventually closed for 40 hours.

Still no shovels. Apparently there were plows somewhere (I would hope on that freeway), but I didn't see any.

What I did see was lots of people pulling around their kids in sleds. How is it that people can be prepared enough to have pull-sleds for their kids, but not a shovel? People were using brooms to try and clear the now frozen snow on their walkways and cars; a woman across the street was attempting to use a dustpan as a shovel.

Getting around was impossible because none of the streets has been cleared, and, of course, no salting of sidewalks had happened. The city was now covered with a 6-inch coat of ice. The city was virtually shut down for a week.

People were mad now; they were calling for the transport minister to step down (he did a few days later), they were complaining how there were not enough grit bins in neighborhoods so people could put grit on the sidewalk (I've learned that gritting sidewalks is done here, as opposed to salting them). The army was called in to Edinburgh, to help deal with the ice-coated city. The only ones who didn't seem to care were the neighborhood cats, who continued to be around as they had when there wasn't any snow, continued to walk along their "cat path" in our front garden, except now the path was through snow.

the cat path, after the snow started melting

I sat at home and thought to myself, why didn't anyone start clearing the snow as it was falling? Why was there this wait to start to do anything?

When the snow started to melt, it melted quickly. Slush filled the streets, big pools of water everywhere. The snow cat someone made in our back yard turned into nothing more than a clump of snow, and our front garden was green again within a couple of days.

In the days when the snow was melting, I was talking to someone. I said I didn't understand why no one tried clearing the streets earlier, why there was this wait for the snow to stop before doing anything. She looked at me in this way; in a way of someone hearing about something amazing for the first time, and said "I hadn't thought about that. That would have been a really good idea".

Maybe I should become the transport minister because Edinburgh has a ways to go, when it comes to dealing with snow.

Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

the sun over Edinburgh, at one of it's highest points, on 21 October

It hit me the other day - I've never been as far north as I am now. I remember being in Amsterdam in the summer of 2000, feeling like I was so far north that the sun would never set. Amsterdam has a latitude of about 52 degrees North; Edinburgh's latitude is almost 56 degrees North.

I've lived in many places, but never with latitudes even close to where I am now. Zaria (11° N) was close enough to the equator that I don't think I ever realized there was any difference to the length of days during the year. De Kalb (42° N), Towson (39.5° N), East Lansing (43° N), Oakland (38° N), and Mountain View (37.5° N), while having latitudes that span over less than 6 degrees, don't have vastly differing lengths of days in the winter. Edinburgh however, is going to be a new experience for me.

Over the past few weeks, we have been getting less and less sun. We get about 4.5 less minutes of sun each day over the last week, which may not seem like a lot, but when that translates to over 30 minutes of sun is lost in a week, it's something to think about. Today, we are scheduled to have a little over 10 hours between sunrise and sunset; in a week, it will be just over 9 hours and 30 minutes.

The sun makes it's way across the southern sky, seeming to move very fast, as shadows change a lot in a matter of minutes. The sun never comes close close to being "overhead", and it looks like perpetual morning or evening with the long shadows cast all day.

my long shadow at 12:30 on 21 October

the low-hanging sun casting long shadows at 1pm on 21 October

When we moved into this flat, the landlord told us that most of the windows faces the south, like it was a selling point. At the time, I thought "so what?". Now, I know. If our flat has a northern view we would never see the sun. Instead though, we get bright rays of sun (for a few precious hours, and only when it's not cloudy) in our flat.

I remember moving to De Kalb from Nigeria. I was prepared cold, as much as a 12 year old from Nigeria could be, I was not prepared for the darkness. I have the same feeling now; people say "are you worried about getting through the cold winter?" (not knowing I lived in Michigan for 7 years), and I say "not at all; I'm worried about getting through the darkness". I knew winter was coming when Lauren made the purchase I was dreading- she bought a SAD lamp. The darkness was coming.

According to this site, on December 21, the shortest day of the year, Edinburgh will have just under 7 hours between sunrise and sunset, from about 8:45 AM to 3:45 PM. That's kind of scary to me, and I'm not planning on being here on that day, but will be in town close enough to that day to wake up to darkness, lunch with a low lying sun, and dinner with darkness.

I'm already looking forward to the day when I start to dread summer, when the sun will never seem to set.

The Nigeria I Knew

The Nigerian Coat of Arms

Nigeria and I have this odd relationship. I was born there, and lived there until I was a little over 12.

The thing is, I feel like I have no real connection to Nigeria anymore. Neither of my parents are Nigerian, so there is no Nigerian cultural tradition, or food, that we would partake in, after we moved to the US. I don't look Nigerian, and have even had to defend that I lived there a couple of times to Ghanaians, who refused to believe that I, the Obroni with dreadlocks, would have ever lived in the most populous country in Africa, the nemesis of Ghana.

I also don't speak with a Nigerian accent (although my West African accent comes out when I speak to Africans). I often get this surprised look from people when they ask where I am from, after I tell them I spent the first 12 years of my life in Nigeria.

I haven't been to Nigeria since 1991, 19 years ago. Much more time has passed since the last time I was in the country than the time I spent there, but I still feel an intense nostalgia about the country, the Nigeria I knew.

I remember the songs we sang in elementary school, about independence day, about the bad shape of the economy in the early 1980s (my dad still chuckles at the thought of having 8-year olds sing about the bad economy). I can still feel my bare feet running along, playing football with a half-inflated ball, or anything round we could find, the feel of the bike I got when I was three and rode until it was unridable (it was, literally, broken in 1/2 by twins I knew). I can still hear the sound of the call to prayer from the Mosques, and the excitement of getting out of school early on Fridays, because the muslim kids had to go to Mosque that afternoon. I remember being called a Fulani, because of my skin tone, and how I felt that was more insulting that calling me Oyimbo (white person).

Unfortunately, Nigeria rarely gets positive stories about it in the media these days; it's looked at for its corruption, the oil industry, the crazy terrorist. It's negative stories have affected me, because of the place of birth listed in my passport, being questioned about my Nigerian-ness by security officials as I pass through airports.

That's not the Nigeria I knew. The Nigeria I knew was a place where I could run around and play all day, where my parents never had to worry about my safety when I was outside, even at night. The Nigeria I knew is where mothers were called "Mama so-and-so" - my mother was "Mama Kodwo".

So I hope that today, the day Nigeria turns 50, people don't see Nigeria as the place they read about in the news, but, for at least one day, see Nigeria as the Nigeria I knew.

Happy Independence Day!!!