Of Small Dreams: Verses and Melodies

I moved to Ukraine from Nigeria to pursue my love for medicine at Kharkov National Medical University where students from more than seventy countries study. I met a Ukrainian student, Mark Adamsky and wanted to be his friend. He kept running away from me but we would later curate Verses and Melodies together.

Verses and Melodies cultural project was created to help melt cultures to celebrate diversity at the university where we study. Our first event took place in July 2013 at the concert hall of our university and students from many nationalities attended. We wanted to make bold statements. We wanted to show that internationals and locals could achieve dreams by co-operation. We also ran on a near zero-dollar budget because we wanted to harness the talents of students to do things we would ordinarily have to pay huge amounts for. So, by bringing in gifted volunteers, we were able to get things done at no cost. Our montages on YouTube were done for free, the event was covered for free and our posters were designed by us! 

The Verses and Melodies logo designed by Paul Sudhakar of http://www.paulsudhakar.com/

God's grace was the single most important factor as things went bigger than our small dreams. We were able to sell our dream to Indian graphics designer, Paul Sudhakar who has designed projects for the United States'  National Space Society and he gave us design support for free. Also, Kathrin Kaisinger an Austrian who was on an exchange program in our university for some weeks to  improve her Russian (as she volunteered to teach some of our students German) found affinities with us and started joining our rehearsals. We would later find out that she sings in a band in Austria.  Binil Zack, self taught photographer and videographer also volunteered to cover our event for free. So, having those talents, combined with our university based talents helped us achieve a well packaged event and we are thankful for all those who participated. Very importantly, the administrators of our university were very supportive and being satisfied with our first event have even blessed us to continue the project.

Yet, there are things we could have done better. We promised to live-stream to the world and failed. It is also true that there were tensions even in our rehearsals. We take responsibility for everything that could have gone wrong and we have gone back to the drawing board to explore more possibilities. However, one thing we are happy about is that the major reason we started our project was to show other students that they could do such themselves. We are excited by the number of student projects and student co-operations with the university that are springing up in the school because of our example. To this new development, we say the same words Assistant Professor Dimitry Katsapov, Dean of Foreign Students at KNMU  said to us when we visited him aboutVerses and Melodies. He said, "this is very nice!"

LIFE AMONG THE IGBOS: A PEOPLE, HER COMMUNAL ETHOS

…a story told in my own eyes



“If you will not like my story about the Igbos, please simply write your own.”



There is a tribe or [for the sake of avoiding the debate] an ethnic group in Nigeria called the Igbos. For four years, I had the opportunity of living and growing among them.

Some “tribalistic” people generalize that Igbo people like money. However, I am yet to meet an Igbo man who is dishonest because he is an Igbo man. I have met dishonest ones though but I have met dishonest people from other parts of the world too. Dishonesty is not an Igbo problem. It is a human problem. However, the Igbo man hates to be a hypocrite so he does well in business because he keeps his word and puts all his energy to achieve his dreams. So if by chance he happens to enter into a "bad business", he commits havoc too because he puts all his energy to it. Simply put, the Igbos know how to live their dreams.

The community life is supreme among the Igbos. The Igbos believe that together they stand and divided they fall. A strong case can be made that the successes of the Igbos today can be traced to their sense of community. Whether it is about an age-grade coming together to repair a particular road, or in the community scholarship schemes that sent many of their sons abroad to study or even in those 'co-operatives' [where traders contribute money monthly that helps each of them have a chance to get bulk capital once a year for business], Igbos are always looking out for one another.

The Igbos are very philosophical and they have many proverbs to teach and remind themselves of their ethos. They say "egbe bere ugo bere, nke si ibe ya ebena nku kwaa ya (may both the eagle and the kite perch but if one does not want the other to perch, may his wings break)" illustrating their belief that everyone has a place in the society no matter how highly-placed or lowly-placed he might be. They also recognize the need for strong human communities when they say "oko kowa mmadu o gakwuru ibe ya, ma na oko kowa anu ohia o gaa n'akuku osisi (when a human itches, he goes to another human to scratch it, but when an animal itches, it goes to a tree)."

The world has many lessons to learn from the Igbos on how we can build strong human communities. One of the ways, the Igbos do this is by learning to value people and not things. Chinua Achebe portrays this in Things Fall Apart where he writes “a man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

There is a saying in Nigeria that there is no place in the world where there is no Igbo man, but I believe people “lie” when they say that because I have never heard of any Igbo man in Antarctica -but only in Antarctica have I not heard of them. The Igbos are everywhere else.


The Igbos take their sense of community with them when they go abroad. An Igbo friend of mine, a Nigerian writer puts it this way: when you see a group of black people sitting together chilling in your country, the one that greets you in your language is an Igbo man -or maybe words to that effect. That is typical among the Igbos. They are easily assimilated into any society they live in. They come to your country with nothing, maybe only with some little money. They work hard. They are very wise and decent so they save some of the money that they make. They buy properties and invest in your own country, perhaps because they believe that a man should give back to a land that is good to him. So, they rise up the social ladder in your country and then they can conveniently ask for your daughter's hand in marriage without any shame. That writer went on to say, ‘it is not because they are arrogant. It is because they are confident.’ The Igbos have so much faith in human beings [which is borne out in the way they treat other people who live in their own land] so they don’t find it difficult leaving their lands to live in other communities in the world as long as they will be living with human beings. This is because they believe they will be treated like they treat others.

Yet, the Igbos have been hurt too at times because of that nature of theirs. There have been instances when they invested in a community, only to lose everything at the twilight of their lives. Yet that does not stop the Igbos around the world from investing in communities far away from home. It is not that they are stupid. It is just that they are optimistic to a fault. They don't make permanent decisions based on temporary regrets. They always believe the sun will shine once again. They say, "o te aka o di njo, emesie o ga-adi mma (it won't be long, everything that is bad will be good)."

As I wrote pieces of this story on my Facebook wall, some Igbo friends suggested to me that I must marry an Igbo girl. In other words, they want me to marry their sister (every Igbo person calls the other his brother or sister and that was one of my greatest confusions when I started living with them). That is how kind, generous, warm and welcoming the Igbos are. Anyway, whether I will marry an Igbo girl is a case of "Chi ka o di n'aka (everything is in God's hand)" but I want to end this story by talking about marriage among the Igbos. The sense of community of the Igbos is greatly borne out in the way they celebrate marriages. There is a proverb which describes it perfectly. It says,"Nwunye anyi, nwunye anyi: ka ndeli bia ka anyi mara onye o bu nwunye ya (our wife, our wife: come midnight, only then we will know whose wife she really is)." This is the explanation: among the Igbos, marriages are amongst and not between -among families, not between two people. The Igbos see marriages as a way of building bridges and fostering unity among different families in the communities they live in. So, on the wedding night, the whole of the groom's family addresses the new bride as "our wife" to let her know that they all welcome her to their family. As an outsider, you might have to wait till midnight when only one of the men will take his bride home for the honeymoon for you to know who the real groom is...

You cannot help but admire the sense of community displayed among the Igbos.

This saying illustrates what the world needs to learn from the Igbos, "anyuko mmamiri onu, ojia ufufu (when many people urinate together, only then will there be a fume)." Simply put, a people will only do big things when they are united!

I love my Igbo friends and they have been good to me in many ways –so they must love me too…

Umu Ibe, ndioma, I salute you! Igbo Amaka!



Nyikkeabasi Bassey Ekott
Friend of many Igbos
Kharkov, 2013

Anti-watermelon or Anti-American?

Disclaimer: This is just a story that happened to me but  I am just telling it now as a story teller.

I am immediately petrified when a total stranger walks up to me to advise me not to buy something I am used to eating. It is not like I want them to mind their businesses, but I just feel a little embarrassed. I feel convicted of not knowing how to take care of my body.

It happened this evening in the mall that as I picked up a watermelon, a middle age man starts speaking to me in Russian. I do not understand what he is saying but I hear words like hernia, medica… and the man points towards his groin. He is obviously advising me but I don't understand what he is saying. I ask him in Russian, ‘eta ploha’ (is this bad) and he spurts, ‘orchin ploha’ which means very bad. He shakes hands with me, tells me his name and walks away.

For a minute or two, I am just standing in the mall, petrified
.

Maybe I am an inquisitive person, but at this time, I think it is more like worry. I feel my stomach churn as if the watermelon I ate in the morning is affecting me. Thoughts are running in my head:

Is it that chemicals which are not good for health are used to grow watermelon? I don’t think so because watermelon grows on the same soil every other plant I eat here grows on.

Is it that the seeds in watermelon can be trapped in the appendix like guava seeds are said to be? Even if that is the case, I spit out the watermelon seeds. 

I do not know who to ask my question so I have to rush home to ask Google. As I write this story, I am researching about watermelons and the only thing I can see is the old fable that says  'if you swallowed watermelon seeds, a tree will grow from your stomach!’

I am also wondering how bad the man may have felt after he saw me check out my watermelon in spite of his advice. Did he feel the same way I feel when I advise natives not to indulge in cigarettes and vodka?  The other day, a Professor in the Economics school had seen me drinking Coca cola in the bus one miserably hot afternoon. He started advising me about not taking Coca Cola saying it is an American indulgence that was bad for my health. He had recommended water and also beer! Did the man advising me in the store also think of watermelon as a bad American indulgence imported into Eastern Europe from the watermelon capital of the world in America?

Who knows? Perhaps those experiences could have been people showing geniune interests in my good health and nothing more? I don’t really know the answer but it is just that as a foreigner in a country where vodka and cigarettes are abused, your mind immediately sees it as an 'anti-foreign' sentiment when you are advised by natives against taking a bottle of Coca Cola -and even watermelons. It is a convenient thing for your mind to do. It is an easy way to rest your worry and console yourself because you can laugh at them for trying to remove the speck from your eye while leaving the log in theirs.

However, you can decide to keep an open mind, to tell your story and ask for information every where you can. So, does anyone know why watermelons may be bad for me, please tell me...

Kharkov to China by Chop-sticks!

In Kharkov, you do not need to buy tickets to travel the world to learn about cultures. The world is already in Kharkov. At any time, there are always very many foreign nationals in the city.

Now, because of the blood that purchased men for God from every tribe, language, people and nation, I am blessed to bond every Friday with people from different parts of the world. I had my own stereotypes before coming down here, but gradually, I am beginning to see how incomplete my stereotypes were.

The Friday before the last one, we saw an amazing movie together. The movie "Grace Card" is a wonderful story of forgiveness which I will have to tell another day.  Last Friday, we went to China. We had as a special guest a Chinese lady who hosted us to Chinese food.


I had the opportunity of fumbling with chop-sticks!

Before then, I never had the opportunity of having a lengthy conversation with a Chinese. I used to think that the Chinese mindset leaned towards ignoring the world and not caring much about anything around them. I now know that though the Chinese are rarely ever in festival mood compared to Africans, they know how to start a conversation and learn a lot about you in a short while. They are very intelligent. This has been my lot in recent times -learning how incomplete my stereotypes are as I interact with my brethren from different parts of the world. I have been blessed in many ways by interacting with them.

I haven't said anything about the food. I am not sure, it is a case of saving the best for the last.
Well, the Chinese know how to season their meat and they serve you much meat too (as you can see in the picture). The meat is not spicy compared to what most Africans prepare, but it is excellent in its own way. You actually want to eat the meat as the last thing on your plate. You also do not want to drink water after eating it. You want the taste to linger...to linger on your tongue.

They had their own sense of good tasting food too!

Whenever I enter into supermarkets these days to buy condiments, I am easily overwhelmed. I just have too many options to chose from -different things and also varieties of the same stuff differing maybe in colour, smell, hotness or what have you. Once, I had gone to the section of the supermarket where condiments were measured out and sold in weights. I had asked for forty grams of curry. The lady pointed to two different barrels containing things that both looked alike. Actually both of them were curry powder but one actually tasted hotter than the other, the lady later explained to me. I smirked because to me, curry powder was curry powder so I randomly made a choice.

Today, I made one of such trips to the supermarket to buy condiments for my meal tonight. While I cooked the meal, I remembered something that happened many years ago.

Many years ago, as a child I had eaten a delicious meal one evening. Perhaps, there was no power supply that night so I had lots of thoughts running through my head. One of those thoughts persisted. I was wondering about the miserable foods my great grand parents ate because there were obvioulsy no condiments like we have them now then.

I had asked myself, "how did they eat food that had no seasoning cubes added to them?" I pitied my great grand parents and the time they were born in.

This thought persisted until one day I had to ask my parents. My parents were amused and told me that  seasoning cubes actually became popular while they were growing up. They said even my grand parents had very rich natural foods as they had a lot of crustaceans, fishes, sea animals and the rest of such things in their food since they lived in the Delta area of Nigeria. My parents confirmed that their foods were tasty too as they hunted and used bush meat to prepare their meals.

I then began to envy my grand parents. I wished I could taste the kind of food my great grand parents ate, but how can I? The seas and the rivers in the Delta area of Nigeria have been contaminated by crude oil spills over the years. The things my great grand parents found accessible and affordable at that time are now scarce and expensive. So, my great grand parents actually needed no seasoning cubes in their food not to think of different tasting curry powders. Yet, they ate good tasting food.

No matter what any history book may have to tell me about the kind of "darkness" my forebears were in before they brought civilization to them, there is something they cannot tell me. They cannot tell me that they taught my forebears how to cook good tasting food. My forebears in addition to other things had their own sense of good tasting food too!

Learning a New Tongue: A first-hand Experience

"I need the Russian so it is not a case of not having the interest. I have access to a number of resources I can learn with and I live among a people that speak Russian predominantly so it is also not a case of not having enough opportunities to learn."


The art of learning to twist your tongue to say new things is something that is hard to master. Maybe I am considering this now because I am trying to learn Russian and it is not that easy. I need the Russian so it is not a case of not having the interest. I have access to a number of resources I can learn with and I live among a people that speak Russian predominantly so it is also not a case of not having enough opportunities to learn.


Days ago because of my deficiency in Russian, I had to find someone who speaks at least a little English to ask for directions about where I could print a document from a pen drive. From past experiences, I knew most people who speak English here belong to the younger generation. The younger generation sometimes feels that speaking English is cool and they are proud about being able to speak English when they can speak. Also, unlike the older generation, most of them also have an American accent when they speak.

So, I approached a devuska (damsel) who was waiting along the road. I greeted and asked, "do you speak English?". She replied sharply, "of course," in an American accent and I would add, in a way that suggested that my question was unnecessary. I felt sorry that I had started out by asking if she could speak English. So I proceeded to ask her where I could print. While she looked around trying to find any signpost for a computer cafe, I was still feeling sorry about my first question and I must have been thinking of apologizing to her. So she moves her eyes across the street and then focuses her attention on me. She starts out like this "I cannot see such a such."  Immediately, the bomb hit me -I immediately reserved my apologies and acted normal.

I know a little Russian to find my way around town with the underground train and I can also buy in the market. Maybe, I may just be like the devuska in the anecdote above who "of course" can speak English or maybe she is better than me because she might understand everything in English. I am really scared that the little Russian I think I know how to speak might sound like pidgin Russian to native speakers. There have been moments when I learn a new thing in Russian and then I excitedly look for an opportunity to try out my Russian. Sometimes my listeners give an encouraging smile. At other times, I have met listeners who patiently listen to me blab and then they will say to me "can you speak English or not?" I do not think it is always because they understand English well, but maybe it is just that my good English is easier for them to attempt understanding than my bad Russian.

Now, I have practically rambled all through and maybe arrived at nothing. Well, there is something I have been pondering on recently which I am trying to connect to.  For four years, I lived among the Igbos in a town called Nsukka in the South Eastern part of Nigeria. I had some good Ibo friends but I never learnt to make a proper "paragraph" in the Igbo language. I don't know the reason that was the case. Maybe, it was the need for dialectization of the language when one spoke to different people. I am not sure I know the answer, but whatever was the reason, what I do know now is that such must not happen again.

Why I want to speak English like the Queen

I dream of one day speaking English like the English do and Russian like the Russians do since I speak Ibibio like the Ibibios.

If we had a landline in my family home and you were to call to speak to me and my father happens to pick up, chances are that both of you for a while would be in a situation where you do not understand what one person wants from the other.


I know how it feels for a language to be bastardized just because someone wants to learn it. I had to learn to introduce myself using my middle name which in my culture is actually my own father’s name because I did not like the way my non-Ibibio friends unknowingly bastardized my name when they tried to pronounce it. For me “Nnn-ye-ke-aba-see” was quite baby talk. So I decided one day to start introducing myself by my father’s name. My family –immediate and extended do not know that I now answer my father’s name but I had to do that to give my non-Ibibio friends something to call me.
So I resolved that whatever language I learn in the world, I will always try to learn to speak such a language like the natives do.

Recently, there has been this debate  by some intelligent people, saying it is mental slavery when we try to speak English like the British. They even make fun of Nigerians who want to speak English like the British. They ask, "are there Britons that speak Nigerian languages like us?" It is not like I have any answer to the proponents of this debate, I have questions too for them...

I grew up among the Ibibios and I learnt to speak Ibibio like the natives. If I had grown up in the US and learnt Ibibio but spoke it with an American accent, would the Ibibio natives not correct every word I pronounced wrongly when I speak in town hall meetings? Would they not laugh at my pronunciation of their simple words?

Is it not arrogance that makes us to think that we can learn a man’s language and speak it the way we want? Don’t we know that when we are arrogant like that, we destroy the very spiritual tool with which a people relate with each other? Don’t we know that for the not-so strong languages, we make them go extinct? Don’t we know that we can destroy communities and histories when languages become extinct?

It is not as if to say that every one of us must suffer at twisting our tongues to sound like the natives of all the languages we speak. It is hard work I know and usually we don't like hardwork. Yet, we must learn to twist our tongues if we can. Even if we do not want to twist ours because it is hard work, we must not make fun of those who try to twist theirs because this matter should be a thing of ‘to each his own!’

For the preservation of communities and the art of languages, it is necessary that we speak languages like the natives do. But again I say, to each his own…