All quiet but its really quite noisy..
Its been a bit tough blogging the past few days. I haven't had much time to get to the office (meetings meetings). Our home NITEL ISDN connection has been fixed after 3 weeks of zero service. NITEL are now accusing MTN of sabotaging their cables, which has slowed down the 'fixed' ISDN to unusably slow (NITEL are having to use the trunk connection to Lagos to bring in bandwidth apparently). This on top of the fact that the bright new hope for Abujans - local ISP Rosecom's first-access use of SAT-3, seems to have been a complete flop. The local expats email list is full of tales of Rosecom woe - expensive poor service etc etc. So we continue to wait for decent bandwidth..
Meanwhile, a sad/surreal tale of Nollywood proportions has been unfolding to do with work, but I'll tell the tale when its fully resolved. Don't want to be subjudice (is that how you spell it?)
Meanwhile #2, I had another malaria test. After a month of trying different drugs, neem etc etc, I still have malaria, which is a complete bummer. A liver test reveals my poor organ is struggling with those pesky parasites. So now I'm taking a quinine based treatment (for the first time). I hope it zaps it out of my system. We're both drinking mistletoe tea, which is supposed to be amazingly good for you.
In a zonked out state, its time to watch some good films. Bibi and I watched Sunset Boulevard this afternoon which was a treat. Gloria Swanson's swansong. Meanwhile #3, I'm stuck reading The God of Small Things (can't work out why everyone went on about it), while Pankaj Mishra spiritual travelogue on the Buddha sits there looking way more readable. But I hate giving up on books - its always felt like a double betrayal to me - to oneself and to the author.
Posts
2 comments:
Jeremy, I am sure that once you hear my catchphrase you will know who this is. "Revolution.Not evolution." I am back in the UK and severely depressed. Not sure what it is about Naija but there is something in all the madness that stimulates the senses and keeps you on your toes rather than the numbness of knowing that everytime I flick on my light switch, ho hum, a light will come on and whenever I pick up the phone there will be a ring tone. How bloody boring. Thelast time we had a power "outage" which was about a year ago for a whole 30 minutes the whole close was in uproar. I seem to remember that we got a letter of apology from the electricity company and some sort of credit. I mean come on. What is wrong with these people? If Nepa had to write a letter of apology everytime they "took" light and also issue a credit just imagine the state of the rain forests and the Central Bank reserves. I suspect my keenness to return to this madness has something to do with that spray they use on the plane just before you depart Nigeria that they claim is for mosquitoes. I have started to suspect that really it is some sort of juju spray that erases your memory and so you totally forget how awful and frustrating things were in Lagos,Abuja wherever and are dead keen to return as soon as possible. Ah well,I will be back next week. I am sure it will be great fun this time around (my 35th trip in the last 10 years). See what I mean?
Sad to hear you don't like God of Small Things. Then again I won't be caught dead reading any of the books in your profile. Different strokes I guess. But why don't you like it?
Post a Comment