The One About Immigration Policy (I'm not buying the shit you're selling)

12:25:00
There’s no other way to do this but David Cameron should take his entire administration to a fucking Bukakke party. They should choke on some massive mandingo cock while they’re at it as well. Why am I being so vulgar? Well, when I get mad I get vulgar. Confusing people make me mad as hell!

So, it’s no news that I spent 6 years getting an English education. No, I don’t hold an English passport, but I’d kind of like to. I’ll be honest getting treated like a second class citizen just because my passport is green grinds my fucking gears. I’d like to go somewhere that’s not in ECOWAS without having to go through the bother of getting a damn visa. Don’t look at me like that! You’re saying Visas are the natural order of things, but I’ve got news for you, THEY ARE NOT WHEN YOU’RE FUCKING NIGERIAN!! But I get it. Nigeria’s a little bit of a shithole or whatever. I’ll get over it. I’ll work hard, and I’ll get rich so that I’ll have thousands and thousands of naira/dollars/pounds in my many bank accounts, so that when they ask me for my bank statements they’ll see that there’s no way I’d ever want to overstay, when I’m doing so well in Nigeria. Maybe I’ll even steal it, because fuck knows that until recently they didn’t give a flying fuck about where the money was coming from. I’m only telling you that I’m Nigerian so that you’ll see that my fees were more expensive than yours. When you were paying £3,000 per year for a degree, I was paying £10,800. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m a rambler. I will never be direct about anything.

Yesterday I read that Vince Cable and David Willets intend to launch a drive to recruit more international students. They want to recruit 90,000 students over the next five years. Vince Cable said, "We have created an attractive environment and we should sell this in a positive way. We are anxious to reassure you we welcome overseas students and there is no cap on numbers." Is this a joke. Did they not see this?


I’m sorry, nothing about that says that anybody that’s not English is welcome. That says, “Get the FUCK OUT!!” That says, “We see the damn deadline on your visa, you better get out as soon as possible or else we’ll arrest you, and beat you and then we’ll deport you.” I’ve still got a couple of months left on my visa, but I don’t want to go back. I’m even skeptical about going back for a Masters. Even if you aren’t illegal, these vans are giving the impression that immigration is a serious problem, and when you get there with your black skin, yellow skin or brown skin and that different or tropical sounding name (Chukwuemeka, or OluBunmi, or Danladi) some people that you run into will sort of, kind of, immediately assume that you’re illegal, and treat you as such.

If this was the only thing going on, maybe you could say it’s still alright, it’s not that bad. But let’s imagine that I was a clear eyed and very green 17 year old, who had just been accepted into an independent school. Say my parents weren’t very rich but they pulled money from God knows where to send me to England. And say my half term was in November and my mum had never been out of the country before. She might be labeled as high risk and then she’d have to pay £3,000 for nothing. Yes. I know she’ll get it back, but what if she doesn’t have £3,000 lying on the damn floor or growing on the money tree. Are you insane?

And let’s say you hustle and you work hard and your parents, they hustle and they work hard, and you make it through university, and you get a job that pays over £20,000 a year, with an employer with a valid tier 2 sponsorship license, then just hope you’re within the 20,700 visa cap that they put in place in 2010. And they say they want 20,000 more international students over the next five years?

And then let’s talk about the society itself! Is it welcoming? No. I know the whole world is looking at the Trayvon Martin tragedy and saying America’s so terrible, but some countries should shut up and look at themselves properly. In England, the racism is so covert it’s overt. Like when the lady next to you on the tube repositions her bag so that you can’t get to it, or when you’re trying to flag a black cab down in London at night and they pretend that you blend into the darkness, or when you try to get a job and you don’t because your name is as tropical sounding as mine, or when there’s an incident at a club and you run for your life because you know that if they get you, you won’t get off with a warning.


So be real, be consistent, and be honest, or go suck on a million knobs because at the moment, I’m not buying the shit you’re selling.
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the worst night of my life so far (Why so Unchristianly?)

16:21:00
Last night was quite literally the worst night I've ever had in my rather short life. No, that's a lie. The actual worst night of my life so far happened when I was 13, after a day when I was foolhardy enough to watch The Poltergeist, The Exorcist and God Bless The Child within a few hours of each other. All of those movies feature the sort of demonic activity that is often the exclusive right of the very cute, very young and impossibly innocent in film. At 13, I thought myself to be the cutest, most innocent thing in all the world. Pictures of the time show me that I was deluded. The teenage years were severely unkind. My body didn't make sense and it is ridiculously difficult to be cute with braces, glasses and no front teeth (I lost those when I was 7). Come nightfall, I was convinced that I would be visited by a demonic hoard so evil that I would find myself transformed into a vivid green projectile vomiting, self mutilating, television confined gremlin of epic proportions. I, Afam, cried, "MUMMY!" in a dormitory filled with 16 boys between the ages of 11 and 17. I never lived that down. 
Yes. I sleep like that. 

Last night, as I lay my head down on my impossibly thin pillow to sleep, I found that I couldn't because of a night vigil/rehearsal session at a Redeemed Church across the road. If it had been from any other building in the neighbourhood, I would have stormed down there in my jalabia and yelled myself hoarse. I don't joke with my sleep. My boss expects me to be like the energiser bunny for at least 12 hours and this isn't possible without a good 8 hours of sleep. As this was a church I couldn't. If I did that, I'd probably have been accused of interrupting the work of God or being possessed by a legion, for only one infiltrated by an army of Spirits would dare attempt to stop a service in motion, and it wouldn't have ended there, they would probably have forcefully exorcised me or given me the slap of divine providence usually reserved for young girls who claim to be witches for Jesus Christ. 
 Even though I could, I won't launch into an informative journalistic piece that decries the "more church than people" society I've found myself in (Papa Afam, I judge you for usurping one Afam from his comfortable and messy studio in Student Castle before his lease was up). I'm far too tired for that. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that. It is a little curious that Churches could be so unChristianly in their activities but Lagos brings all paradoxes to life, so I'm not surprised. What do you think I should do? What would you do?

 Happy Days, 
Afam

 ps. I will curse the first person who writes grin and bear it out of existence because I'm a member of the illuminati and we have powers and shit. That was a joke. Laugh. Please? 
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Huffington Post Student Blogger of the Week

12:37:00
That's how the blog used to look. 
My dear Famzers, friends, foes and everything else inbetween, I am delighted to inform you that I, Afam of many monikers, am the Huffington Post's student blogger of the week. There's some other stuff in the works that I don't want to jinx by telling you, but keep your fingers crossed will you?

Anyway, I'm incredibly happy about this achievement, and I'd like to thank you all for reading, commenting, tweeting, liking and sharing. So thanks for famzing.

What the Devil is famzer? What could he possibly mean by famzing?

Find out here: http://www.theramblingsofamadman-afam.com/2013/01/notes-on-metal-garrurumon-famz-and.html

and you can read about my award here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/uk-students


Happy Days,
Afam



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Notes on Feminism (How to be a terrible feminist)

12:07:00
I don't usually do this, and by this, I mean I don't usually write blog posts about other blog posts I have written one that was apparently quite controversial so I feel I must explain myself.

I wrote this here: http://www.bellanaija.com/2013/07/25/my-name-is-afam-i-am-the-traditional-feminist/

I am a feminist. I believe that there should be economic, social and political equality between men and women, however my brand of feminism is tarnished. Quite remarkably, it is tarnished by the very thing that makes me a feminist in the first place; my history. There seems to be an unbreachable gap between the way I see the world and how it actually is. The human mind is so great that everything I encounter is filtered by my incredibly myopic and astigmatic lenses until it supports whatever delusions I entertain. For instance, it is widely known that the higher up you go in society the fewer women you find, and this is a little odd because there are slightly more women than there are men. 52% of the world’s population is female.

Traditional feminists will declare that this is evidence of the oppression and suppression of women by men.  In my mind this isn’t the case. In my mind, the only reason why women are not as well represented in the higher echelons of society is that they must not want to, for if they did, they would. I know this sounds like the most bizarre, most biased thing in all the world but bear with me, this is going somewhere. If you have already branded me a chauvinist twat then feel free to leave, or call me worse names. Both are equally acceptable, but I’d rather you stayed.

The reason I think like this finds itself in my upbringing. Like all of our upbringings mine strikes me as impossibly unique, that is not to say that it was in fact unique, but I impose my individuality on every experience I live through. It is important to me that it is completely differentiable from an identical experience, experienced by someone else. I realise that I used the word experience consecutively but I don’t think it can be said any better. My paternal grandmother was a single parent for most of her life. She had six children, and though my father very rarely speaks of his childhood, I can tell that it wasn’t very easy but that the only reason he and his siblings survived was her hard work. She was rewarded with his unwavering devotion. If there was anything she needed he got it, and every major decision he took went through her. Can you imagine what this must have looked like to me when I was 5 years old? The man I beheld as the incarnation of a Greek god deferred almost completely to his mother, my grandmother, a woman.

My mother, on the other hand had, and still has both her parents. Her father was a University professor and her mother worked in Chevron. Anyone who knows anything at all about academia, must know that people do not go into it for the money. And if you know anything about Nigerian oil, or even just oil and the seventies, it will be pretty simple for us to assume that she was the bread winner. My mother married my father, and they weren’t very wealthy. He worked out of their one bedroom apartment and she worked at an insurance company. They had my older brother, and she kept on working at the insurance company and my father moved to an office a few minutes away from their one bedroom apartment. They had me and she quit her job at the insurance company and started selling flowers, and designing gardens. From what I gather she didn’t like the long inflexible hours, and she wasn’t too comfortable with us being raised by the nanny. She wanted to be able to drop us off and pick us up from school. She wanted to be at PTA meetings and Sports days and open days. Over the years, her little flower arranging and garden designing business grew. While my father is still the breadwinner, my siblings and I know that everything that we could possibly need can be serviced by either parent. They both have the power.

If in my family, it was only my mother that had some sort of power maybe my views would be different; maybe I would have seen the world as some sort of machine that naturally places women underfoot and lobs men high into the skies but this isn’t the case. Her sister, and her cousins all stand as matriarchs in their own right. This is what I grew up with. As a result, I can say with complete certainty that it is not in my nature to think that women are any less than men, as I have seen several instances when they have been more.

Because of my seemingly unique upbringing (it must be unique for if it wasn’t everyone else would be like me) I believe in feminism, and I am a feminist, but when presented with examples of injustice I am not only genuinely surprised that these things happen but I am also quick to present other reasons why the perceived injustices may occur. If you say to me, “Afam, women are penalized in the work place because employers see them as baby bombs. If they get knocked up, you have to pay them during their maternity leave as well as pay for a replacement worker.” My mind literally looks for a reason why this could not possibly be the case before it grudgingly settles on the possibility that there may be some discrimination going on.

I fear that I am so feminist, that I have imposed my own version of equality on a world that remains unequal, thereby making me complicit in the inequity.

The Bellanaijarians didn't really get it, and that's my fault. Maybe I could have said what I meant better, or maybe I couldn't. I stand by it. It's my baby, I like it, I liked writing it even more. I suppose, the first problem can be found with the title: "My Name is Afam & I am the Traditional Feminist". While my name is indeed Afam, I am not the traditional feminist. I don't even know that there is such a thing as the traditional feminist. If you read it, and I mean really read it, you would be able to tell that my version of feminism isn't very feminist at all. In fact it's horrible. 

"my brand of feminism is tarnished"

The article could easily have been called how to be a rubbish feminist or how to be a chauvinist prick, but I said that. 

"If you have already branded me a chauvinist twat then feel free to leave, or call me worse names. Both are equally acceptable, but I’d rather you stayed."

I went on to describe my upbringing, and how it is that I have come to think the way I do. Reading it, you must have thought, "but he doesn't actually support women's rights. He's a doubting Thomas!!" Yes, I don't, and I am a doubting Thomas, but that was the point too. Now you're thinking, "What a delusional arse!!" and yes, I agree with you, but I also called myself that in the article.

"The human mind is so great that everything I encounter is filtered by my incredibly myopic and astigmatic lenses until it supports whatever delusions I entertain."

Finally, I ended the article by saying,

"I fear that I am so feminist, that I have imposed my own version of equality on a world that remains unequal, thereby making me complicit in the inequity."


That's me saying how bad I am. I cannot explain that sentence without repeating it. I'll only say that I used inequity and not inequality at the end because the inequality is also unfair. That was my way of saying, I'm wrong. My take on the issue isn't right, and that if you are like me, believing that you support women's rights and equality while doing nothing, questioning and rationalising every bit of evidence that proves it, then you are actually not in support of women's rights.


Yes, the women in my family did work incredibly hard to become matriarchs in their own right, but that's not the same for every woman. I would be crazy, to assume that it was the same for every woman, but then again, I run a blog called "The Ramblings of a Madman" so I suppose it fits. 

I believe that a thorough examination of your stance on any issue is vital. This is an examination of my current position on feminism. I have identified that it isn't a very good stance on feminism, but that's okay. It's okay because stances are incredibly ephemeral in nature. I have identified the problem, and I will fix the problem. Is this your problem too? If it is then fix it. 

Happy Days,
Afam


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Don't go shopping with your parents! (First World/Privileged Twat Problem)

13:30:00
Beginnings will be the death of me. I know exactly what I want to write but I'm just looking at the page. I think I delete more than I actually write, but I've only got ten minutes for this one so ALL SYSTEMS GO!!

In theory shopping with your parents is a rather attractive prospect. You've got two adults who are genetically inclined to love you and fulfil your every wish, desire and command. They are genies trapped in your bottle of wavering affections. I don't know what it is about youth that makes the line between adoration and deadly hatred so blurry but I find myself dangling between the two extremes where my parents are concerned. 

Did you catch the blurred lines reference in there? You didn't? Well you've got it now.

Furthermore, when you're a young graduate saddled with overdrafts, credit card payments, and student loan repayments, your parents are almost always guaranteed to have more cash on the side than you. When you add these things to the fact that all parents have a little bit of a prince/princess fetish (i.e Let's dress ________ up like a prince/princess and admire the unbelievable combination of our genes) you've struck theoretical gold. However, the moment you consider the fact that their idea of princely or princessly was manufactured somewhere in the depths of hell (probably right next to where Satan sleeps) you'll realise that your studenty theoretical ideals do not apply in the real world. 

Take my parents for instance. They are perfectly good parents I think, but they've got this idea that I am bigger than I am. I'm not talking about the, "Oh! I'm so sorry i got you a medium instead of a small" kind of big, I'm talking about the, "Holy Shit! The clothes you bought me when I was ten still don't fit me, and I'm 23! You should have saved that cash" kind of big. 

The other day, they took me out for a shop and we ended up in the Gap. How we ended up in the Gap I do not know. I don't mind the Gap particularly. It's just that, if I, Afam the broke can afford to shop in the Gap, then why should my Parents, Mama and Papa Afam, the relatively minted shop for me in the Gap? My logic was lost on them.


Look at this! I would understand if they bought it for me while I was in the hospital with cholera (because people with cholera generally tend to lose a lot of weight), but they had me put it on right in front of them and they still thought it suitable for my stylish self. 

I couldn't deal then and I'm not dealing very well now. There's a party. It's happening in my pants. You must bring your friends, there's more than enough food for everybody. I need two guns, one for the left cheek and another for the right. That's the only way these trousers make sense. I guess I need a tailor and if this keeps up I'll need a tailor till the end of my life!

Lesson?

Don't go shopping with your parents.


Happy Days,
Afam
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I Graduated

17:48:00


I graduated! I know that it is perfectly natural to expect that I be pleased by this, but you cannot possibly understand how happy this makes me. I know pictures are said to be worth a thousand words, and if they are, moving pictures must be worth a thousand more, but the sentence and phrase, “I graduated” is worth a book. At least it is when I say it.

I got a 2:2. For those who do not know, that’s a second class lower. It’s pretty much a thank you for coming and not completely failing, but I don’t mind. You mustn’t think that I’m some sort of chronic underachiever who’s perfectly satisfied with mediocrity. I know that if some of you got a 2:2 you’d shoot yourselves, hang yourselves, or check yourself into the nearest masters program to mask your disappointment. However I am not you. I am Afam. And I am very very happy with my 2:2. I will do a Masters eventually but for the time being I just want to hold my degree. No, I want to do more than just hold it. I want to frame it, kiss it, cuddle with it and hug it.

Before I started the year, Papa Afam sat me down and asked me what I had done with my time at University.

I said, “Well dad, I went to classes, and I went drinking and clubbing with friends, and I played Squash but never for very long.”

“and that’s all you did?”

“Yes… Isn’t that all you do?”

He looked a little perplexed and I don't blame him. My answer was pathetic. He took the opportunity to assume the manner of a Jedi.

He said, “The opportunities I’ve given you are not opportunities I had. I think I’d have liked to have had the same, but there’s nothing I can do about that and I turned out alright anyway. I like my kids to do things. I may not always approve of them but I like them to do things regardless. When you went sailing in Plymouth while you were at school I was proud. I’ve never been sailing, heck I can’t even swim but it made me happy. You’d done something I never got the chance to. I’d hate to think that I sent you to University and all you came out with was a degree and a damaged liver.”

This resonated with me. There were so many things I could have done. There were so many things I wanted to do, but for some reason or the other I hadn't done. I didn't like this. I hated it. I was, and am to young for such profound regret. Thinking, "I should have done more with my life" is the preserve of the middle aged and the old. If the young were to think the same nothing would be achieved for we would lie in bed all day berating ourselves for fucking up our lives when we should have been out fucking up our lives, or living our lives... you know what I mean. So come September, I went back to the University of Manchester and had the best year of my life so far. 
How did I do this you wonder? 

I blogged


I got naked for charity
I went blonde for charity



I swam



I saw Walk The Moon (and then I lost my shit)



These guys called me stylish (sort of)


And while all of this was going on (even though you must know that this wasn't all that was going on. You'll have to scour the blog for the rest of it) I somehow did well enough to graduate.






I suppose this is the part where I say thanks. Thanks to the Afam Household for coming through (#afamily). Thanks to the many societies that made the year so brilliant. Thanks to the University of Manchester for entertaining my shit. Thanks to the friends that made the entire experience so legendary. And most importantly Ese Baba God oh!! Without you I'd probably be rotting somewhere in the ocean, or in a coffin or at the bottom of a well... you get the picture. Afam out!!

Happy Days,
Afam



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What's your Side hustle? Premium Economy is Infinitely better than Economy

14:38:00
Last week I boarded a British Airways flight from Lagos to London. It could not have come sooner. I was fed up with the struggle struggle, hustle hustle vibe that permeates the Lagos air so thoroughly. I do not believe that there is another place like it. Where else will you find a practising lawyer that spends her nights blogging and her weekends making custom wigs? Welcome to the concept of the side hustle. If you don't have one, you're a wastrel, a layabout, and a scoundrel. It is not unconventional for a nosy adult to ask, "What are you doing?" and when furnished with a very respectable answer, follow with "what else are you doing?" 



This flight was different from all the others I'd been on over the past 6 years. I sat in premium economy. Now, some idiots among you are probably thinking, "So you sat in premium economy, what's the big deal?" Shut Up!! I'm a writer, not a nabob. Money doesn't fall from the sky in plumes of brown neither does it spring from the ground like black gold. In my experience it must be drawn from Papa Afam with a chain saw and a score of daggers. So believe it or not, when I made my way to my seat on that BA flight I felt like a King. And while I wasn't treated like a King by the British Airways staff, I was definitely treated better than cattle feed. That's how they treat the unfortunate buggers in economy. They only tolerate you because you're necessary for their sustenance. I could not believe that I was provided with silver cutlery to eat. I didn't know that planes carried silver cutlery you see, I thought they only carried plastic cutlery. 

Papa Afam on the other hand was incredibly unhappy with the services in Premium Economy and I do not blame him. Papa Afam has flown British Airways exclusively for at least 23 years. I'm also fairly sure that he hasn't sat in a seat that wasn't a Business Class seat since 1993. You would think that the British Airways staff would be crawling over themselves to reward him for his consistent custom, but you would be wrong. Papa Afam found himself downgraded to Premium Economy. As you can expect, this made him extremely unhappy. He was so unhappy that he sat sullenly and refused to partake of any refreshments brought by the crew. I wouldn't have minded, if he hadn't been seated beside me. A dark miasma poured off him like plumes of smoke, drawing all happiness and delight from the atmosphere. His unhappiness was so profound that it gained body leaping qualities. I soon found myself just as unhappy as he. 

However, I learned an important lesson: The next time British Airways deems it fit to downgrade Papa Afam because of their rampant and unabashed incompetence, I will insist that they deplane me. I'm far too young to deal with anyone's stroppiness but mine.

Happy Days,
Afam Odi

As much as I complain about British Airways, you mustn't think that I'm ready to ditch them and fly away with the folks at Virgin Atlantic. The one time I flew with Virgin, I found myself irrevocably scarred. During the flight, a mother of a particularly loud baby saw it fit to change her baby's sodden nappy 4 feet away from me. The baby had done the biggest shit it'll probably ever do in its life. I don't even think that I've done a shit that big. So there I was, strapped in and staring at the baby's arse which was completely covered with shit. I took that as an omen. 

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What's there to do in Lagos: Part deaux

10:52:00


I love Lagos to bits. As a result I get fiercely protective when anyone is even a little bit critical of it. Especially if the criticisms are largely unfounded. A little while ago a blogger that I now call friend blogged that there wasn't anything to do in Lagos but, drink overpriced drinks, eat overpriced food, see films in the cinema, and go clubbing. His article made me livid. I was positively mad with rage. I was so mad that even though I was knee deep in dissertation writing, I etched out a brief response. However, I fear that I did not go far enough.

I love myself. Over the past year I've come to the realisation that there's no one in the world that's more important to me than me. There's no one who's more responsible for my welfare than me. My happiness isn't anyone's responsibility but mine. As such I cannot afford to take the back seat in any and all matters that concern my welfare. I am lucky enough that I have never lacked for anything. I am lucky because my parents, Mama and Papa Afam have done well enough that I am yet to come across a passion of mine that they cannot afford or will not support. I am not ashamed of this privilege but I am not so ignorant as to assume that everyone is as lucky as I. Because I am so privileged, there exist no excuses that could justify my boredom or idleness. To be bored and idle given everything that I have would be disrespectful to those that do not have as much. The only thing worse than that would be to complain about boredom and idleness to someone who isn't as privileged as I. How can you complain about a faulty windshield wiper to a man that cannot even dream about owning a car? Wouldn't you feel foolish if you did?

I do not pretend to know everyone's situation, but I'll go by certain indicators. If you went to boarding school in England before you went on to an English or American University and your parents did not starve or sell their house to afford the privilege, then shut up. You are not the average Nigerian. You cannot pretend to have the problems of the average Nigerian. I do not even know that a lack of things to do is the problem of the average Nigerian. I see the boys who play football by the beach on weekends. I see the boys who play football in Osborne phase 2. I know that they can boast of a diverse group especially where income and opportunities are concerned. I do not play with them, because I do not like football. I do not like team sports because I find the movements of the other players confusing. But the sports I do like, squash, swimming, and tennis, I do.

Ayanam wrote that he met his first girlfriend over a game of basketball, but because the same opportunity does not exist here it is likely that he'll be single forever. I do not play basketball. I detest basketball even more than I do football. I have never played a sport that highlighted so many of my physical inadequacies but just by running a search for basketball courts through google, I can tell you that there are basketball courts in Opebi and Ilupeju. I cannot comment about their condition as I haven't been but they're a good place to start. You must remember that your opinions are not valid when there are facts that prove otherwise.

For example:

Opinion:
There are no basketball courts in Lagos.

Fact:
There are basketball courts in Lagos.

So what good was your opinion? Was it not a wasted thought?

 One of my favourite things to say about Lagos, is it is what it is. There is no reason to expect it to be anything other than what it is. In Lagos, the heat is sweltering, the clubs are loud and smoky, the people are materialistic and driven, the power can be anything from inconsistent to non-existent, the traffic is terrible, but what good will it do us to sit down and complain? We must do what we can to be as comfortable as we can in our present environment. That's not saying that I do not want things to change, but do we sit in darkness until there is power? Do we quit our jobs because the commute from the mainland to the island is unbearable?  

 In all things we must remember that the facts trump our renditions of events every time. Find me something that you do, that you simply cannot do in Nigeria, then we might talk. Don't talk about the things that are quite easily done like basketball and golf. It is unfortunate that the bowling centre in the Palms shopping mall closed, but Economics and good sense tell me that it would not have closed if it was a profitable endeavour.

In his article he asks, "what are the fun things to do in Lagos?" and I answer, "fuck loads! tell me what it is you want to do and I'll find it for you but I'm not your employee, and it isn't my job, not yet anyway. When attempting to do anything even remotely journalistic, one must never fail to do some research."

Happy Days,
Afam

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Onward and Upward!!!

16:30:00
The one thing I love and hate about the blogging/freelancing profession is that you never know what exactly it is that you'll be doing next. There's no end game and the opportunities are boundless. Because I enjoy it so much I've taken on a number of positions that I am quite excited about. You should be excited too because there's no such thing as too much Afam.

I'm now a columnist for the Urbane Mix. It's an online magazine that's very very clever. The editors are very good too, and anyone who knows anything about writing knows that bad editors are the stuff of nightmares. I wrote my first piece for them the other day. It's about the £3000 bond that the United Kingdom is thinking about starting in November.

http://www.theurbanemix.com/2013/07/3000-2-by-afam-odi/

It's worth a read if I do say so myself.

Also, I'm the Lifestyle and Health editor for a new Online Magazine called Voix. Our first issue comes out in September, but in the meanwhile you can follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/Voix_Mag
or  check out our tumblr: http://voixmagazine.tumblr.com/

If you would like to be a contributor, then drop me an email. My email address is afam.a.o@hotmail.com

Happy Days,
Afam



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The Blonde Experience: How far will you go for charity?

14:51:00


The numbers sat there contentedly, with an air that reeked of permanence. They worried me. The fact that they sat there so comfortably, filled me with dread. I didn’t expect a lot, but I expected more. I have always expected more. I’m not one to set my sights on lofty goals, and spend my days and nights working till they are accomplished. I set paltry ones that are quite easily accomplished, and at the moment of their completion I utter one word, “more”. It’s a heavy word. More is never satisfied or cool, calm and collected, more is hungry, lustful, and greedy. So even though the numbers sat at £300, five times greater than my initial goal, the only word I could think to say was “more”.

I stared at my laptop screen with a look of such concentration that if you had seen me, you would have thought me capable of increasing the figure with my mind. However, the numbers, like my bank account, were immune to my mental persuasions. Without donations, they would be stuck there forever. That was something I didn’t want to consider. I wasn’t fund raising for pandas or dolphins. Raising money for a charity that you are almost completely disconnected from cannot possibly inspire the same sense of urgency that fundraising for a charity that fires a missile straight into the centre of your life does.  

On the 29th of January, at 2:55pm, my friend, Emeka Mbakwe, ventured into the land that no man has seen, but all have heard of. We expected that he would make the journey. He had been terminal for a few months, but we still thought it possible that by some stroke of luck or divine intervention he would pull through. He was only twenty and two. I hadn’t considered that we had grown old enough to die, not from cancer. Before he died he went sailing with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer trust. I always imagined that he would captain a yacht some day. He had the build for it. Everything he did was coloured with an ease that sailors seem to share. And even if you didn’t know this about him, his full, scruffy beard corrected your ignorance.

I looked at my fundraising page on justgiving.co.uk and wondered what I could do to raise money and awareness, for the The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust really is a fantastic charity. The trips provide an invaluable escape from the hospitals and the chemotherapy. As an occasional sailor, no one can attest to the healing powers of the British sea side better than I. It was then that it occurred to me that I could sell my hair. Without any hesitation I posted the following message on my facebook and twitter accounts.

“If the lot of you contribute £150 more to my fund raising effort, I will do whatever it is the bulk of you want to my hair. I will shave it, dye it, bleach it, or plait it. This isn’t restricted to the hair on my head, but I beg restraint. If you’ve ever wondered what I would look like blonde, or ginger, or with a Balotelli style Mohawk, you know what to do.”

I have no words. Should I ever get a proper job, I will delete the blog. There's far too much evidence of my idiocy on the internet. 


I imagine that my friends thought it more than a little bit silly, but as with most silly things they thought it interesting enough to talk about. There was this question about my sincerity to the pledge, since they had no guarantee that I would be true to my word, but it kick started the broken down engine of my campaign. The money rolled in, with some chipping in as little as a pound just to have a say in what it was that I should do to my locks. I achieved my goal about five days after I put the word out. The vast majority just wanted me blonde, but I decided that it would be very peculiar if I sported a yellow head and a very black scruffy beard, so I bleached that too. At the end of it I was vaguely reminiscent of a lion. Truth be told I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror after I did it and it didn’t look as terrible as I thought it would before hand. It didn’t look bad at all. The only thing that changed was that I suddenly felt inclined to walk straight to a music studio to record the song of the summer. It didn’t feel right that I was walking to Politics lectures with my hair the colour of dry wheat field. I’d previously thought that blondeness was restricted to musicians and footballers and not the more conventional among us. With my new mop of hair, I was a conversation starter and a commander of attention. The conversations I started, and the attention I commanded may not have been entirely positive, but for the most part I didn’t care. I had a cause. I didn’t just randomly wake up in the morning and decide that the colour granted to me by genetics was wholly unsuitable for my current existence. And even if I had, I didn’t see what that had to do with anyone.

After performing my charity event, a 55 mile walk around Manchester, I made my way to London for the weekend. My aunt was turning fifty, and I thought it the perfect opportunity to provide my donors with the chance to see my blondeness in person. Upon my arrival in London, my mum looked at me with a look that showed me that a parent’s true role is to endure the dalliances of their children and said, “When are you cutting it?” I laughed the question away, because I quite liked the new look. My aunt’s fiftieth displayed more of the same grudging acceptance, until one of the guests decided to needle me in the way only a Nigerian parent can. I was making the greeting rounds when he gestured to a friend of his and said, “it is obvious that this one doesn’t plan to be a medical doctor, or a lawyer or even accountant.” He continued on a tangent that was witty in its derisiveness, for while there was no word in his speech that was even remotely negative, the whole thing was a more convincing attack on my perceived layaboutishness than any I’d ever heard. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I told him of my reasons for offending good society and his guilt inspired him to donate a hundred pounds.


I’m no longer blonde, and my fund raising campaign has ended. Would I go blonde again? I could, I think, but I feel that if I did, it would diminish the reasons why I did it in the first place.  I suppose this begs the question, how far would you go for charity? I’ve given my time, my money, my hair, and my body but I think I could do more.

Happy Days,
Afam



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