Reflections.

The room is suffused with a soft orange light.

There is music playing somewhere in the background. It echoes around the walls.

I’m sitting on a chair. It’s a high-seat chair, like a bar stool.

I’m sipping on a glass of chilled white whine. I poured it myself from the table up front.

There is no one else in the room. It’s just me, walking around, trying to piece together the happenings that recently took place here.

I’m taking slow steps around- walking between the tables, taking things in. There are half-filled wine glasses here and there. Bits and pieces of unfinished cake. Chairs turned at an angle so their occupant could leave.

I’m slowly nodding to the music as I head towards the cake stand. There are a good number of untouched pieces of cake. I help myself to them.

I catch a glimpse of someone who I think is the janitor. He’s wearing some sort of a black janitor apron. He popped in through a swinging door by the right of the cake and wine tables. I think there’s a store out back or something.

The janitor guy appears to have something of a frown on his face. I don’t know if the frown is for me. I don’t know what he’s frowning at.

I keep helping myself to the cake.

There’s an interesting looking single-sofa chair at one end of the room. It’s got an upholstered back and armrests, with smooth wooden legs. I think it looks cool. Fancy.

I walk towards it and sit down. It’s soft and firm at the same time. Soft enough that you feel relaxed, but firm enough to make you sit up straight at the same time.

I bite some more cake and sip some more chilled wine. I’m feeling pretty fancy.

---

I was one of the last people to arrive at the art exhibition.

Or you know what, no. I was the last person to arrive- I had to be. When I got here, a good number of people had already left. The artist was giving like the brief speech at the end where she was appreciating everyone for coming.

That was when I walked in.

It took a while to locate the place, I had to walk a considerable distance after getting out of the U-Bahn station. When I walked into the compound, I realized I had been here before.

I was here a few months ago. The college I’m enrolled at, was having an event. It was upstairs, in the hall on the first floor. There was dancing and brief speeches and talking and pictures and general fun.

At some point I was in a conversation with a classmate and her friend who had travelled in from the US. We were talking about something- something random.

And then my girlfriend came in from nowhere and grabbed me like “OoOhhH! So this is where you are! I leave you for five minutes, and this is what you’re doing- chatting excitedly with girls!”

Haha.

Later she’d be dancing with someone who used to be my roommate in freshman year. Jake. In between spins she’d glance at my face, searching for signs of jealousy.

Hah.

Later we’d be talking in a corner, taking in the interesting aesthetics of the room- the glossy wooden floors and ornate furnishings. She’d be telling me about how the room reminded her of an old couple she met somewhere. How it reminded her of their house, and how talking with them in that house made her begin to dream about growing old with a partner in such a cozy space.

I thought that was interesting.

At the same time I was contemplating putting a hand up her skirt. Or down her trousers- whatever she was wearing at the time. We were in a somewhat private corner. There were a number of sofas, and the area was separated from the rest of the room by a thick soft velvet curtain.

It was very possible no one would notice us there. I took some time to think about it, while she talked on about the old couple.

Hm hm hm, should I try to be responsible, or should I just go for it — Hm —

---

I’m still sitting on the interesting soft-but-firm sofa. I think this general kind of chair is called a Charlotte chair.

I’m sipping some more on the glass of white wine.

From my perch on the chair, I stare at the art pieces that line the wall.

I think they’re interesting pictures. The theme of the exhibition is “Reflections”, and the artist was exploring that idea in her photographs. Exploring edges and contrast in buildings and a number of other objects. Interesting pictures.

I’m a little surprised that the pictures are here on the wall, even after everyone has left. I’m not entirely sure how art exhibitions work. Is someone going to come pack them up later? I don’t know.

I also don’t know if this room is an actual art gallery. It doesn’t really feel like it. It feels more like a general-purpose room what was decorated and furnished for the purpose of the event. That’s why it feels strange to have the pictures still all be here.

I keep sipping on the wine, and enjoying the dreamy ambience of the vacated exhibition.

The room is still echoing with the music playing in the background.

The German janitor is probably still frowning.

---

Image: A different exhibition. A different continent.

PS: I’m running out of Berlin pictures. I need to plan towards some new trips.

San Francisco: Walking about in an Art Exhibition.

I’m at an Art exhibition in San Francisco.

It’s an interesting room. There are photographs, sculptures, fabric, Interesting stuff.

It was an impromptu thing. I didn’t plan to be here. I was probably skateboarding my way to some cafe to do some work. And as I whizzed by on the sidewalk this exhibition caught my eye.

It is an interesting room.

The glow of the room is mostly yellowish – warm lighting from overhead bulbs.

There’s punch being passed around. I get myself a cup. It’s purple – like some sort of blackcurrant flavour. There’s some fluffy jelly-ey stuff at the bottom of the drink. Chewy. I have no idea what it is. I didn’t know people put chewy stuff inside punch. But it feels like an interesting addition to the drink.

To the right of the entrance there are photographs on the wall. One of them looks like a picture of a subterraneous church in a desert. Like, a literal underground church. Like they dug a hole in the dry brown desert ground, and built a church in the hole.

I don’t get the idea behind the church, but it looks like a really interesting picture. If I had some spare money I would probably buy it.

I’ve been buying a few things here and there.

I bought this really cool ball at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art one random evening. I was walking behind the AMC Matreon building, thinking of cool dark spots to stop and steal some kisses while out on a date.

And then I saw the SF MOMA space. They were moving to a new location, and they had this Discount Sale thing going on. I spent over an hour just going through the very exciting things they had on sale. And at the end I bought the ball. It wasn’t too large to constitute any logistical headache. I also felt it was very financially accessible, for something that interesting.

It’s a small transparent ball you can hold in your hand, but inside it there are like twenty tiny coloured beads that float around in the viscous liquid the transparent ball is infused with. I think it looks super interesting.

I bought two other balls at the Exploratorium. Two smaller squishy balls. One pinkish and the other light light-green.

You know, now I’m not sure which balls I bought where. Did I buy the two squishy balls at SF MOMA? Hm, now I’m not quite sure.

I put the three balls in a wine glass I place on the work desk in my dorm room. It’s really interesting seeing the sunlight hit the glass and the balls, and having that complement the view of the San Francisco Bay I have from the desk. Cool stuff.

I really like my room.

I’ll be changing cities soon as part of the school program. I’ll need to think about how to move around with these things I set up.

I’m not taking any wine glasses along on international flights, that’s for sure.

---

I’m walking around the room, taking in the art and conversing with people.

I’m talking with the lady pouring the punch.

I think she’s very pretty. She says she’s from Senegal.

She’s very light skinned. I think that’s unusual for someone from Senegal. Usually I would think Senegalese people were very dark. Her pupils look greenish somehow. I don’t know if they’re contact lenses, but either way I think they’re super hot.

I think she flies around with the other lady – a dark-skinned one standing not too far off – she looks like the manager of the operation or something.

We talk for a bit. I entertain thoughts about collecting say a phone number, keeping in touch, possibly planning something. She’s friendly, and she looks like she might be open to it.

I don’t know. These days I have a good number of interesting people I’m unable to follow-up with. My life these days is school assignments and pre-planned travel itineraries mapped out by the school administration. So much is outside my control.

Ugh.

I get some more punch as we keep talking.

Their lives must be so cool though, travelling around and trading art halfway around the world from where they were purchased.

Seems like a really interesting sort of life. Mmm.

---

I’m talking with the dark-skinned woman a few feet away. The one who has an air of being “the boss of the operation”.

I mention that I find what they’re doing extremely interesting. They’ve got really colourful fabric that reminds me of traditional attire from Nigeria.

We talk about the artwork.

There’s this class I’m taking in college – Multimodal Communications.

Recently we’ve been studying art. Studying Picasso’s artwork and analysing the subliminal messages and undertones in the different pieces. Stuff like that. The classes have been making me feel especially sophisticated.

Like, Professor I definitely agree with Shajara on that. This particular campaign poster was really tapping into the anti-colonial sentiment at the time. And if we take a look at the generous use of the colour red, it was really intended as an allusion to the overbearing presence of the Spanish occupiers...

Please give me second while I take a sip of my 1923 Sauvignon ..

Aha, as I was saying….

Hahaha.

I’m talking with the manager, drawing on some of the concepts I’ve been learning in Multimodal Communications class.

She doesn’t seem to share my enthusiasm.

She gives me a very matter-of-factly stare and emphasises that she’s running a business.

In that second I get a sense of the anxiety that comes with such an entrepreneurial situation. She probably rented out this space for the exhibition. She’s most likely thinking about the wages of the people working with her, how many art pieces have been sold, and how all of this will result in a profitable venture at the end of the day. Those are probably the calculations running through her mind. Not the entrancing use of vibrant colours on West African traditional fabric.

Hahaha. Good to know.

---

I keep walking around the room, taking in the interesting pieces on display. There’s a couple not far off. An interracial couple. They look like they’re in their mid-thirties. They both have relatively pronounced statures. The man looks like a Black-American, a bit on the fleshy side- just a bit, and his partner is a thick white woman with blond hair.

They look through the art, exchanging smiles and light kisses every now and then.

I watch them with a level of admiration.

They look very comfortable and established in life. I can tell that just from looking at them.

Like mm look at us, we have absolutely no problems in life. Lets go peruse some artwork and enjoy each other’s company on this random Wednesday morning. Mwah mwah. Mwah mwah mwah.

Mm, babe this one is three thousand dollars, how would you like that for the kitchen?

Oh you think it’ll be better along the staircase?

Hm you know, I think I agree with you. It really complements the rug.

Let’s get it. Mwah mwah.

Haha.

---

I’m in a different corner of the room.

I’m in conversation with a guy. He kinda looks like Harold Perineau. Like a Harold Perineau in his late twenties/early thirties with a pronounced crew cut.

I think he’s an interesting guy. He speaks with a very soft and calm voice.

We’re talking about random stuff. At some point we talk about music.

He says something about analog music and how it represents the highest-fidelity form of audio. He says digital technology chops up the sound into a discrete form amenable to computer processing. And that there could come a time in the evolution of music where the world would revert to audio for its uncompromised fidelity. So it would be a strange trend – Usually transitioning from analog to digital is seen as the very hallmark of technological progression. But at some point it could be the other way around.

Hmm. Wow.

I think that is an extremely brilliant argument. Wow. Just wow.

We keep talking.

At this point I’ve probably read somewhere about the Nyquist-Shannon theorem. I’m probably just not familiar enough with its implications to understand how it relates to his perspective. The theorem says something about the relationship between the information capacity of corresponding digital and analog signals – something like that.

We keep talking.

At some point I realise that he’s a photographer. He was actually the one who took the super-interesting pictures of the underground church. Woah.

He says he took the pictures on a recent trip to Africa. Somewhere in Ethiopia. Or Eritrea, something like that.

We keep talking.

At some point he introduces me to his sister. They live together somewhere in San Francisco. We talk.

Every now and then I bring up something about the super cool college programme I’m enrolled in, and all of the immensely interesting stuff we’re learning. It something I’m extremely excited about, and usually it just comes up at some point whenever I’m in conversation with people.

Haha. All of this stuff I’m so excited about right now, will make my life unthinkably complicated and difficult in about a year.

Haha.

I don’t know any of that now though. I don’t know any of that now.

We keep talking.

At some point the super interesting photographer guy gives me his card.

He says I’m going to be an extremely successful scientific person. I thank him for the massive compliment and say Haha I hope.

His sister wishes me the best of luck with my endeavours.

He says I don’t need luck.

Hahahahahaha. Tell that to me this time next year. I’ m going to need all the freaking luck I can get Bro.

Hahahaha.

I think he’s such a cool guy.

I keep walking around the room.

---

Image: Random rainy day in Downtown San Francisco.

Government Policies vs Pregnant Women.

“Abdulmalik! Jo ba mi gbe iyawo mi si inu Marwa e! Ki o ma gbe lo si hospital!

Abdulmalik, please take my wife to the hospital in your commercial tricycle!”

The driver is expressing his overflowing agitation into his mobile phone.

He repeatedly slams his palms against the steering wheel in frustration.

“Oh my God! What sort of situation is this?”

He very visibly panics as he inches the car forward through the unyielding traffic. Our view through the windshield is illuminated with an agonisingly dense population of brake lights. The night is full of troubling red and the exasperated blaring of horns.

We are at Victoria Island. I am on the way to Ikoyi. I learnt about an Art Exhibition taking place somewhere on Norman Williams street about fifteen minutes earlier while scrolling through Eventbrite. Something about a commemoration of Women’s Day with a group of all female artists. It sounded interesting. Plus, I was free.

I’ve been experiencing issues with the Uber app since I changed my phone, so I hailed a Taxify driver.

We have been in the traffic for about thirty minutes now, but we have not made any respectable progress. My dissatisfaction with the situation keeps threatening to spill over, but whenever the car moves forward a few feet the annoyance diminishes a little. With every of these dishearteningly widely-spaced lunges, I experience a relieving influx of hope in vehicular transportation as a workable means of getting me to Ikoyi this night.

The driver is evidently annoyed at something other than the traffic. There seems to be an emergency of some sort.

“Please, what’s the problem? I can see you’re concerned about something.”

“It’s my wife!”

Now I’m wondering what’s happening to his wife.

“She is about to go into labour! And she is at home! We do not know how to get her to the hospital!”

“Ahhhh!” I was not expecting that at all.

A few weeks ago, the Lagos state government banned the operations of commercial motorcycles and tricycles (known as Keke Marwa). This has led to considerable transportation problems in the state, because those vehicles are a pivotal means of transportation for the vast majority of people. And there is currently no real replacement for them.

“I’m talking with my neighbour who owns a tricycle to take my wife to the hospital, but he is worried the police will disturb him on the way.”

“Hm, and the hospital doesn’t have like an option where they can arrange for one of their vehicles to transport a woman in labour to the hospital?” I ask.

I can tell he finds it somewhat absurd that I would think a hospital in Surulere (a town on the Lagos mainland) would have such services. However he is too disturbed by the situation with his wife and unborn child to express his bemusement.

He quickly shakes his head. “No they do not. Plus there is also a traffic jam at Surulere!” He bangs on the steering wheel some more.

“Ahhh!!” I cannot even begin to imagine the intensity of his anguish.

The infuriated horns keep blaring. The unsettling brake lights keep glaring at us in red. Our vehicle has still not gone anywhere.

I find myself beginning to do some arithmetic.

“If it took thirty minutes to get here (which is nowhere), how long is it going to take to get to my destination? And how much is Taxify going to bill me for the journey?”

I open up Google Maps on my phone. It says Norman Williams is about two miles away- an hour and thirty two minutes by foot.

“Alright”, I think to myself. “If I run for some of those two miles, the entire trip shouldn’t take me all that long.”

Vehicular transportation is not that workable after-all.

I turn to the driver. “Sir, it seems we’ll have to end the trip here.”

“Noo!! Ma lo si ita!! Don’t go out! It’s not safe! Don’t go anywhere please!”

He is not talking to me.

“Bi si ile! Jo, bi si ile! Give birth to the child at home please! Give birth to the baby at home!”

Ah.

I don’t really know what to say. I have no experience with women in labour, so I do not really know what to think of the safety of delivering a baby at home. From our earlier conversation I know the driver has like two or three kids so he probably has some sort of emboldening experience with childbirth that is guiding his decision.

He ends the trip, and I hand him his money.

I head out of the passenger’s door.

“Thank you very much Sir! All the best with the baby situation! And congratulations in advance!”

“Haha thank you very much!” He very briefly turns his head towards me and smiles.

I head out into the traffic. It is drizzling. The air is a mixture of water vapour and the bitter exhaust of frustrated vehicles.

I slowly transition into a jogging pace. Time to get to Ikoyi.

 

Government Policies vs Pregnant Women.

 

Image Credits: Me! 🙂

View from Falomo Bridge, between Ikoyi and Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria. (The next morning)