Abuja's Poor Customer Service Culture

Courtesy of: The Africa Cafe.

We often complain that Nigeria lacks a service culture and it's true. Who hasn't had to endure long waits at a restaurant, bank or supermarket while a crowd of seemingly unoccupied staff members pointedly ignore you until the one person assigned to that desk or cash register finally shows up? But as a young, single woman in this city - arguably at the bottom of the city's social totem pole - such bad service can be taken to absurd extremes. There are a number of places that I have simply stopped going to because I am tired of being insulted.

Now before you rush to call me sensitive, let me make my case: why should I spend my hard-earned money on your establishment if you or your staff treat me like a second-class citizen or make me feel in any way inadequate because of my gender, age or my perceived social class? If you can’t be bothered to smile or greet me when you render a service, or if you treat my requests with contempt or indifference, or if you’re going to argue with me when you've made a mistake instead of apologising, why should I still dip my hands into my pocket to pay you?

What am I waiting for?

I'm a procrastinator. There, I've admitted it. Whenever I am faced with something that seems difficult, complex, time-consuming or just plain scary, I ignore it for as long as I can and hope it goes away. The consequences of this strategy vary. Sometimes the problem will go away, only to return twice as large later on. More commonly, I will be forced to deal with it due to something beyond my control – a looming deadline, for instance. And usually I will end up doing a poorer, more rushed job than I would have if I had simply dealt with the problem on time.

A friend recently pointed out that my chronic procrastination might have deeper implications than just a reluctance to do things I might find unpleasant. After all, I procrastinate on things I enjoy doing too, like reading, writing my fiction and even shopping (I haven’t bought a pair of jeans in years). He might be right; I have lots of spiral-bound notebooks filled with things I’m going to do and year after year many of those things – French lessons, sewing classes, volunteering to work with kids – remain stubbornly undone. I keep meaning to call people; I am always intending to fix things – and I never do. What am I waiting for?

The thing is, I get overwhelmed. I look at the enormity of what is before me and I grow terrified of ever being able to do it – more importantly, I become terrified of doing it wrong. Yes, I could simply hammer a nail into the wall and hang up the mirror, but what if I hammer the nail and it’s too high or too low or worse, I end up chipping the cement and leaving an ugly hole in the wall? (Not that that’s what happened when I finally ended up doing it – I'm just saying...) I think I don’t do because I am afraid of failing.

I am trapped by an all-or-nothing mindset that insists that unless I can do it perfectly, I shouldn't do it at all. Thus, it is so much easier to leave a deed in the pristine imagined state of perfection in my mind than have to deal with the messy realities of actually going through with it. When I imagine myself taking French lessons, my grammar is perfect, my pronunciation flawless, and that’s much more preferable than the reality of having to stumble through the language sounding like an inebriated two-year-old. It’s easier to imagine myself dating that amazing guy that I've had a crush on for years than risk asking him out and getting shot down.

The problem with this is that my imagination is getting me nowhere. I've been imagining all these perfect scenarios and in the meantime my body is slowly disintegrating right out from under me. Every year I don’t write that novel or put together that short story collection is one more year where I remain unpublished. Every day I avoid learning that skill is one more day that passes while my physical ability to learn and absorb new things continues to diminish. Each time I put off calling that person, my relationship with them grows more tenuous. Every act of procrastination has consequences and they can only be measured in the accumulation of all the wasted hours that stretch into a lifetime of unfulfilled potential and possibility.

They say that to act is thing of will, of volition that comes from inside. Those who do – for good or bad – will always have the advantage over those who do not. To them will come the knowledge, the wealth, the recognition, and the accomplishment, and those of us who only dream will be forced to step aside. Somewhere inside me, I must find the will to do. I may do it imperfectly, or I may fail entirely. But I do I must. I can’t afford any more excuses.

Maybe I'll start tomorrow...

Men and the Masculine Identity

Ghanaian contestant DKB slaps a female housemate on the MNET show Big  Brother Africa in June 2012.

I spent the last week in the city of Accra, Ghana, where I went to attend the Yari Yari Ntoaso Conference of Writers of African Ancestry. I had a wonderful time meeting new people and discovering all kinds of fascinating information about writing, history and the struggles of black women everywhere. In fact, I enjoyed my stay in the city so much that I decided to stay for another two days. I had planned to spend those days in Lagos anyway, but I was charmed by the beautiful simplicity of the city and it’s friendly, open people.

Yet, Accra has a dark side. On the last day of our stay, my friend who had joined me on the last leg of the trip, rented a car from a local company named Ghana Car Rentals. The trip itself was wonderful until the driver, Ken, physically assaulted me – ripping my clothing and breaking my glasses – over what was essentially a cultural misunderstanding.

The Power of Inadequacy

Earlier this week, I found myself in a room filled with some of my childhood idols. Women whose books and words helped shape my consciousness and informed my writing. I had the opportunity to walk up to them and let them know how much their work meant to me – to converse and engage them on questions that had haunted me all my life. Yet I couldn't.

I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy – I was not successful enough, not published enough, not accomplished enough, not worthy of being in the same room with them. Instead, I sat in a corner and bowed my head, and tried to make myself as small as possible. I tried to disappear. I had a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I could not take advantage of it because my sense of inferiority held me back.

Staying Positive in Negative Spaces

I have struggled all my life with depression, yet I have come to realise that I am – at my core – an open and optimistic person. I have learned that life is easier when you focus on the positive in me and in others. I approach the world with a spirit of openness and honesty and I tend to expect the same from others.

But I live in a country which – at its core – has a jungle mentality. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. Here every social, moral and institutional structure has been stripped away, leaving only the most basic instincts of survival. It’s like the Zombie Apocalypse out here: There is no law, there is no order, no morality beyond what we can present to others, there is only might and who has the most gets the most.

Perhaps that is why we are so critical of each other. If the world is a zero sum game where the winners take all and the losers end up with nothing, then in order for one to get ahead others must be taken down. If you need to go to war, fine. But if you can avoid open battle and win through subtle sniping designed to erode the self esteem and self confidence of the other, even better.

The Editorial Lie

A common complaint I often hear among the Nigerian literati is that there are no good editors in Nigeria. We say this because our markets are flooded with too many poorly-written tomes that move straight from a writer’s pen directly to a printer’s press. These would-be authors are in such a rush to publish that they barely sit down long enough to properly punctuate their work. When taken to task many of these writers will complain that they couldn't find a decent editor. And our literati – the critics, authors and intellectuals – have jumped on this bandwagon.

It is true that traditional editorial structures don’t exist in Nigeria. In the West, a brilliant author could submit their manuscript (through an agent) to a publishing house and find themselves assigned to a brilliant editor. Together, the author and the editor would work to make the manuscript shine. This would take months of bickering and rewriting. It would be hard and it would be painful – for both parties – but in the end the final book would be the best book it could be. In Nigeria, most publishing houses are no better than one-man operators with printing presses. Those that aren't are under enormous pressure, and often can’t afford the time or the cost of an in-house editor. A writer looking for important editorial feedback doesn't have a lot of places to go.

However, I think the bigger problem is the attitude of many writers themselves. Too many Nigerian authors are going into the world of letters with dreams of instant stardom. For them, it is more important to see their book published than to make sure it is a quality product. They are approaching writing the same way one would approach the selling of second-hand shoes – with an eye to quick profits and a big launch with lots of deep-pocket donors. They have no desire to go through the pain and hassle of a thorough editorial process.

Speculative fiction spreads its wings

I got the loveliest Christmas/birthday present this year: A bound volume of the three books of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogy by Stephen R. Donaldson. I haven't read Donaldson since I was in high school when I read the first three books of his Thomas Covenant series as well as the two books of his Mordant’s Need series and it was a real treat to be taken back. He represented my first real introduction to fantasy that sought to go beyond genre conventions.

Now, mind you it hasn't been quite the same. I find his language a little too florid and his plot a bit too plodding for my current tastes, but reading him again, I realise that he was always more interested in characters – in their struggle for redemption and acceptance – than in the magic of the world. And I think that as I get older, I am too.

See, I believe good literature cannot be circumscribed by genre. Even though right now literary fiction tends to win the biggest prizes, Some of the best speculative fiction I've read recently didn't rely on a special “hook” to drive their stories forward. In fact,  some of it – like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas – would be indistinguishable from the best literary fiction.

And it’s nice to know that I'm not the only one who thinks this. In a Guardian article last month, Damien Walter predicted that Science fiction would continue to move into the mainstream, an acceleration of a phenomenon that caught the Guardian’s attention in 2011 as well.

I'm going to jump on Damien’s bandwagon and predict that speculative fiction will also continue to get “browner” as well. More non-Western writers are showing a growing interest in the genre, challenging the notion that it is the home of the “bearded white male”. In December, I was privileged to be featured in the first anthology of African Science fiction, AfroSF, a collection put together by writer and editor, Ivor Hartmann. And as an editor, I'm seeing some exciting science fiction and fantasy coming out of Africa and the Middle East that’s making me super excited.  Blogs like indi-gene-nous.blogspot.co.uk just warm my heart.

It’s going to be an exciting 2013 – I can’t wait to read all about it!

Do talented people have an obligation to success?

It's been a tough, crazy 2012 and many of us, including me, will be looking at making hard decisions in 2013. As I stand poised to reshuffle my career I have started to wonder about the nature of drive, passion, decision and destiny. It all came down to one question: Do those who are talented in some way have an obligation to use their talent? 

I suppose most of us would say yes. It would be selfish of a man who could be a gifted doctor to turn down the opportunity to save lives to learn to stilt-walk instead. What if Beethoven had decided to go be a fisherman or Thomas Edison had remained at his job at the patent office? That is a good point. But what if despite his talent for music, the piano bored Beethoven? Or if Edison had been immensely happy at his job?

You see, to me, it doesn't matter that Beethoven was a musical genius. Without a genuine love for music he would have found himself able to compose pieces with technical perfection but his music would have lacked the soul, grace and passion that turn the good into the great. People often forget that it’s not enough to be talented at something. One has to enjoy doing it as well.

Breaking The Cycle of Abuse

Today I woke up to the sound of a child crying. It wasn't the whiny moan of an over-indulged child throwing a tantrum. This was genuine pain punctuated by the sound of flesh slapping flesh and the angry voice of an adult. If this were a once-in-a-while phenomenon I wouldn't be writing this post. But since I moved into my apartment almost two weeks ago, this is the sound that has woken me up nearly single every day. This is not right. No child is so badly-behaved that it needs to be beaten every single morning.  This is not a problem with the child it is a problem with the parent and it is abuse.

Now, I don’t know where this family lives – they are close enough for me to hear through my second-floor window, but a walk-through of my compound today told me they are not my immediate neighbours. I don’t know the circumstances they are going through – maybe there’s financial trouble or perhaps it’s a struggling single mother or maybe it’s a mixed family who haven’t learned each other’s rhythms yet – but whatever the reason there is no excuse for what they are doing to that child.

A lot of you may not see a problem with this scenario. After all, you may have had a similar childhood and come out no worse for it. You may even be doing the same (or intend to) to your children. Don’t. The legacy of abuse is a crippling one. And as Nigerians, we are all trapped in it.

The Trials and Tribulations of Making New Friends

My high school posse then.

Making new friends has always been difficult for me. I’ve long suffered from a crippling social anxiety that makes it difficult for me to enter into unfamiliar social situations. Close friends say that once I relax I’m bubbly and enthusiastic, but getting there is like pulling teeth – especially when it comes to meeting men. Going to parties can be hell for me. All that small talk is torture. I really want to launch into discussions of philosophy, art, literature and anthropology, but I am forced to feign interest in what you do or where you grew up. And I’m sure that people can see through the mask. I mean, no one is that enthusiastic about presidential airplane pilots, or Bavaria. That’s why I drink!

Over the last few years I’ve been through a series of personal misfortunes: I lost my job, moved to a new country, my income fell (drastically) and I went through a painful break-up. The resulting depression was awful, and I used it as an excuse to simply stay home. Not only was I socially awkward, I was socially awkward and mildly suicidal – not a good combination for lively conversation.

My high school posse now.

Recently I’ve been feeling good enough to try and get back in the game. Had some lunches, met for a few drinks and attended a few parties. I’ve met a couple of interesting people, but I haven’t really found the connection I’ve been looking for. Until recently I thought I had some sort of social deficiency – and don’t get me wrong I’m awkward as hell. I laugh inappropriately, I often drop the ball in conversations because I can never think of the next “small talk” topic quickly enough, and I often forget what’s just been said (partly because I’m too busy worrying about how awkward I am) – but thankfully, I’m not the only one having problems making friends.

An Inconvenient Prejudice

I’ll admit something I’m not proud to say: I have a prejudice against fat people. I’m a fattist. I have many excuses for my judgemental attitude. For a long time I felt that the obese were simply people who lacked my discipline. Why couldn’t they just get up every morning at 6 am and run several miles? Why couldn’t they just limit their breakfast to a single slice of buttered toast, lunch to one sandwich and dinner to water and a piece of chicken? I did.

It was many years before I realised that I struggled with disordered eating, but that never quite removed the taint of moral superiority that I had about my weight. Even in the times during my childhood when I lived in Nigeria and was derided for being too skinny (the traditional beauty ideal in many African countries is bigger and curvier than in the West) I could never quite shake the feeling that I was still better off.

But times they are a-changing. As looking well-fed is becoming easier to achieve in Nigeria, it’s becoming more socially desirable for women to be slim. The slang word Leppa, which used to be a derogatory term for a skinny woman when I was growing up, is now used positively. Women now talk of going on diets, and mornings in middle-class and affluent neighbourhoods are awash with potbellied residents marching about in jogging suits - exercising. And for the first time, I’m seeing obese children.

I have come to understand that obesity is not a lack of moral fibre. It’s an addiction. But unlike narcotics like cigarettes and heroin, its users don’t even know that they are junkies.

The Incomplete Revolution

As a woman of a certain age, I have started thinking about how I will navigate the delicate balance between family and career. I’m not married yet, nor do I have children, but I hope to soon. And the question of whether I can "do it  all" has been bothering me.

I have long been attracted to the bright side of academia – the lectures, the conferences, the prestige that comes with being called “Dr.” But I was always daunted by the amount of time getting a PhD required (5-7 years for a humanities degree) and the long tortuous road to tenure. Beyond personal fears of intellectual adequacy and sustainable interest in my chosen field of scholarship, there was also the problem of how I would balance having children.

Success: Redefined

Since I returned to Nigeria at the tail end of 2009, I’ve been preoccupied with the notion of success. How to get it, how to keep it and most importantly, how to grow it. For me, success was having a job that paid me lots of money, owning lots of nice things, living in a nice place and being in a relationship with someone who also had a lucrative job and lots of nice things. And, success was synonymous with happiness – once I was successful, I’d be happy and I could only be happy if I was successful. The problem was, I hadn’t taken much time to figure out what either “happiness” or “success” meant.

For most of us, success is synonymous with material wealth. You can tell a person is successful by their possessions – the kind of car they drive, the house they live in and the amount of money in their bank accounts. While happiness is usually measured by whether one has a significant other in their lives. And the assumption is that those who are successful and happy are superior to those who aren’t. That’s why there’s a billion-dollar industry in self-help literature that promises (usually in easy steps) to show people the paths to success and happiness.

But what if our definition of happiness and success is fundamentally distorted? What if, it is actually completely wrong?

In Japan, the Magical is Mundane

Japanese literature

I am fascinated by Japanese pop culture. Ever since I realised some of my favourite cartoons growing up were Japanese Anime, I was hooked. That fascination has since grown to encompass other parts of Japanese culture from movies to clothing, food and now literature.

I think the first work I read by a Japanese author was The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami in college. It drew me in with its haunting atmosphere and delicate tension. In it, we follow a man who is  looking for lost a cat, but at the same time considering questions of philosophy, religion and physics in an unpredictible world where anything can - and does - happen.

I recently read two more works by Murakami - Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood - and three novellas by Banana Yoshimoto compiled into a collection called Asleep. They were all wonderful. Though they were written by very different authors about very different subjects, they all contained the same elements of mystery amid the mundane that kept me compulsively turning each page. I came away with the sense of clean, spare spaces, uncluttered lines, haunting sadness and endearing weirdness that I have come to associate with Japan.

What I loved most about all these works, though, is that in them the the lines between fantasy and reality don't quite match up. There is a comfortable blurring between the here and there, the past and present, the living and dead. In each of the novels I read, characters confront alternate worlds, ghosts, spirits and all sorts of supernatural phenomena with superb aplomb. They don't make a big deal out of it; it happens and life goes on.

And that, to me, is absolutely refreshing. So often in Western writing characters are defined by their struggle to understand and accept their encounter with the supernatural. But in many cultures, including my own, the supernatural is a given. Magic is real. Witches, spells, spirits and ghosts exist.

To read works that treat the magical with as much gravity as buying a loaf of bread actually heightens my sense of wonder. It makes me feel that there might be more dimensions to my own quotidian existence as well - like I too might be able to open my front door and step into another world. 

Black Science Fiction Movie Script Contest

On Wretches and Kings

Last year I read Alaa Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building about the residents in an aging building in Cairo, Egypt. What struck me about this book was how similar Egyptian and Nigerian societies – as portrayed in Blackbird by Jude Dibia – were. The same rigid class structures, the same juxtaposition of extreme poverty and wealth side by side, the same corrupt government systems. It was eerie.

Then last week I read White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, an amazingly well-written book about how a servant manages to rise to riches and power – by murdering his employer, only to see all the same issues mirrored there. That got me worried. How was it that three very different books about three very different parts of the world seemed to reflect the same depressing realities?

The Right to Racism

April was a weird month for me. I got some devastating news that sent me to some dark places inside myself for a while. And it didn’t help that April was also the month that several race-related news stories hit the airwaves (or at least broke into my conciousness). From the murder of Trayvon Martin, to the Swedish Golliwog cake scandal, the expulsion of Nigerians from South Africa, and racist reactions to a black character in the Hunger Games movie, it just seemed like a bad time to be black in the world.

It is easy to attribute the racism that spawned these issues to a few bad eggs, but that’s not the problem. There will always be racists. The real problem is that racism is not just individuals who don’t like other individuals because of the colour of their skin. Racism is built into systems of power and privilege. Systems that allow some people – because of the colour of their skin – to have more opportunities than others.

Some people – because of the colour of their skin – have the opportunity to live in nicer homes, grow up in safer neighbourhoods, attend better-resourced schools, and live richer, more fulfilling lifestyles than others. Some people always get the benefit of the doubt – if they mess up, it’s not automatically assumed that it’s because of a “cultural” or racial pathology. Some people – because of the colour of their skins – can turn on the television and always see themselves reflected back. For them, race is not something they ever have to think about, if they don’t want to.

And the problem I have with too many of these people is that, because they don’t have to live their lives circumscribed by their race, too often, they dismiss the experiences of people who do.

Calling for submissions

Art by Olisa Onwualu

I don't know if its the season or something, but suddenly I'm seeing all these calls for speculative fiction about women and Africans and I'm excited.

Crossed Genres is a cool a small press publisher of speculative fiction. They also publish Crossed Genres Magazine. They're accepting submissions for two publications: an anthology of short science fiction stories about skilled labour called Menial. For complete guidelines and to submit, click here. Deadline is end of May.

Their second call is for Winter Well: Speculative Novellas of Older Women. They are looking for sci-fi and fantasy novellas featuring women of advancing age (late middle age and older) who are smart, tough, and have wills of their own. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2012. Click here for more information.

Both CG calls strongly encourage under-represented characters such as characters of color, LGBTQ characters, and female characters.

Also, TU Books, publishers of speculative fiction for children and young adults featuring people of color and set in worlds inspired by non-Western folklore or culture. In particular, they want: Asian steampunk, any African culture, Latino/a stories, Native American/Aboriginal fantasy or science fiction, original postapocalyptic worlds, or historical fantasies or mysteries set in a non-Western setting. For more information check out their submissions page.

Then there's the Kwani? Manuscript Project which is a one-off literary prize for African writing from the Kwani Trust. They are calling for submissions of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The deadline is open until the 20th of August, 2012. More information about guidelines and prizes can be found here.

Finally, there's the Golden Baobab Prize for children's literature. Their tagline is: "an African literary award whose goal is to inspire the creation of African stories that children and young adults the world over will love!" And they're open to all genres, including speculative fiction. In fact, two years ago, their winning entry was a sci-fi story set in a future Zimbabwe called Mr Goop by Ivor Hartmann. Their deadline is June 24, 2012.

I'm sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it really gave me hope that there are places to publish the weird mish-mash of Afro-spec fic that I love. Now all I've got to do is start writing.

Women and Modern Misogyny

So I just finished watching Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo. The original Swedish one – not the Daniel Craig version. While I enjoyed the film, I found it strange that a film that is ostensibly about fighting against misogyny lingered almost lovingly on scenes of rape and violence against the main female character, Lisbeth Salander. And even though she kicks ass, in the end, she still needs the approval of her male lover (which was confusing to me, as earlier in the movie we see her waking up naked next to a female companion) to sanction her act of self-defence and defiance. The whole thing got me thinking about modern misogyny. Why do so many men hate women?

An Interview with Akumbu Uche

I don't know why I never put this up, but over the Christmas break I did an interview with the lovely Akumbu Uche, a blogger and writer in Abuja. She's one of those amazingly productive people who make you realize how much potential this country has. 

The original can be found here, but you can also read it below: