AJ

Prodigal Benefits and a Reflection on Spring Cleaning…

Cake with I, somewhere on a humid Lagos afternoon

**

Being a prodigal abroad, in a relatively small, close knit expat community has its perks, not least if you are Nigerian. Truth be told, more often than not, there is a risk of private spaces being invaded, but when they come through, they come through spectacularly. The most recent example of this was Easter Sunday, on which after dragging myself home from work my late evening reverie was interrupted by persistent knocking. At the door was M, the matronly mother figure from three streets over, with a bowl of piping hot egusi soup, some swallow and a tub of fried rice in tow. Whatever misgivings simmered beneath the surface at the intrusion vanished very quickly, wafting away as though borne by the steam still rising from the bowls of food.

Speaking of privacy, over the past year I have been slowly migrating my stuff away from Google, having not been on Facebook in years. Older, pre-2020 pictures though still live in Google Photos, which is why form time to time I get a pop up with a collage or the other of pictures from memory lane. Over the past few weeks, pictures from my early days offshore, of returning to Lagos and cathcing up with the guys and more than a few weddings have popped up. On a level, these are things I would not have remembered without the prompting from Google, all of which leaves me very conflicted. Is the value I get from being reminded worth the hassle of giving up my pictures to Google?

Having not been on here a lot of late, I am hoping to restore my practice of writing regularly. To kick tha off I started with a bit of spring cleaning, tons of spam comments and links in my sidebar getting culled. Amidst all the clutter was having to remove links to Al Mohler, to TA and a few others who no longer blog regularly. Particularly interesting was Al Mohler, who in the early 2000s was a fixture alongside Joshua Harris, CJ Mahaney and the Covenant Life crowd before that all went balls up. The very divergent paths they have taken since those days is real food for thought – Al’s doubled down on Trump and the Evangelical right in America, Joshua Harris has become the poster boy for taking deconstruction to the nth degree, whilst CJ became yet another example of the mega church implosion. It hasn’t been twenty five yet but nothing could be more divergent than that erstwhile group of playmates of sorts.

AJ

Sod’s law

I may have waxed lyrical about taxis too soon, and in so doing vexed the taxi demi-gods, which is the only explanation of how on the one day I needed a taxi badly, I ended up with a guy who barely spoke English and whose understanding of Google Maps was minimal at best. Well, that or Sod’s Law. The fault lay, at least partly, with me. It had been my first full day back at work since the beginning of Ramadan and my hunger addled brain failed to register the fact that the bus which would ferry me back from the middle of nowhere which was my work station for that day would arrive 30 minutes earlier than usual. On the phone to the taxi dispatcher, he explained that the earliest he could get someone out to me was an hour and thirty minutes, which seeing as I had no choice I accepted. Although he had my location, he somehow ended up at a site thirty minutes away. There was much hand wringing, and plenty more oohs and ahhs when he finally turned up, a full two hours later than had first been envisaged. I could only sit and fester for the whole of the 45 minute back to semi-civility and the comfort of my couch. Truth me told, umbrage is a luxury only those who have choices can take. I still hold the view that taxi rides are underated delights, the one caveat though is that there isn’t an insurmountable language barrier.

It must be the time of the year. Having gone months without the joys of a party out here, two suddenly came along in quick succession. First was for a 6-year old, for which more adults turned up than kids. I got the call in the late morning inviting me along, and with nothing else to do I hightailed it there directly after work, expecting to be one of a handful of adults. In the end there were close to 8 of us, gate crashing the party and making the most of the opportunity to dig into pepper soup, peppered gizzards and multiple varieties of rice. Proper liquids may or may not have been spotted in what was a proper Nigerian party. A couple of days later it was the turn of the oldies to host a party, L’s missus springing a surprise on him to which we were all invited. A slightly different crowd this this time, things were a tad bit more sedate. Again, the full Nigerian culinary experience was wheeled out, complete with the requirement to be in the know in order to spot some of the prize delicacies. Efo riro, was the special sauce, reserved for those with access to those in the know.

Other less palatable news has had me going back to Christian Wiman’s wonderfully prescient poem, “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs”. A chance conversation with a friend with whom I had schooled near on 25 years ago brought to my notice that yet another school mate had passed on, after the proverbial brief illness. Said friend had also had a fairly significant health scare of her own a few months back which led to reminiscing about just how frail and fragile our once young and sprightly bodies once were.

The times and seasons are a-changing, sods law or not.

AJ

Spring Notes

**

As though in the blink of an eye, winter out here has somehow slipped away, the halcyon days of pleasant twenty-five degree mid-day weather and leisurely late evening walks replaced by mid day temperatures in the low thirties. Whilst not truly hot enough to be unpleasant yet, the days leave one with a sense of borrowed time, a fleeting, finite block of time to be enjoyed before harsh reality hits. To make the most of it, and prepare myself for the long slog ahead, I pack the lightest bag I have and catch a flight back to London. Heathrow seems the same way it has always been – functional, frenetic, and increasingly arranged around minimising human contact. Trying to get cash from the ATMs for my taxi raises the spectre of having to pay a withdrawal fee for my UK debit card. A rude shock, and a first for me, if my memory serves me right. A mix-up with the telephone number they have on file for me means we spend the better part of twenty minutes trying to find each other, the blasts of cold, wet air a reminder of the stark difference between here and there. Several phone calls to the taxi company later, he gets my correct number and we find ourselves for the twenty minute ride home via the M25.

**

Taxi rides for me have always been one of the understated delights of travel. They are simple: two or more people, stuck in a man-made machine and beholden to each other by a transaction for a finite amount of time, have to make small talk, unencumbered by the weight of knowing and being known. Invariably, the driver is an immigrant or visible minority of some sort, which being what I am tends to create a certain element of shared experience. This trip, I get someone of Pakistani extraction who, when he finds out where I am coming from, proceeds to regale me with stories of a year he spent there working. He rode a taxi there too, his days spent ferrying military contractors to and fro airports, bound for Iraq in the days of the surge. I learn he has a daughter who is studying to be a Chemical Engineer, a wife who spends too much on henna and that he is planning to take his son and father on the Umrah next year. For my part, I nod sagely at the daughter who is studying to be an Engineer – I am after all that guy who thinks STEM is everything to an extent – and smile uneasily at the complaint about the wife. I suspect that in any other setting, this is not information that would be shared but being almost perfect strangers bound together for a brief moment, white lies and unverifiable anecdotes help pass the time.

**

The cul-de-sac on the banks of the Wey has changed quite a bit since I was last here. The houses which lay empty along the way now have occupants; a lady with a strong Geordie accent and her Swedish beau – both ex Airline folks, a Ghanaian couple two houses down and a Hong Kong repat amongst others stand out. The days are spent taking in what little sunshine peeks out from behind the clouds as I take leisurely walk along the Wey with podcasts for company, ferry L to and from nursery and catch up on sleep and TV when I get the chance. As with all days spent chilling they pass all too quickly. All too soon I find myself in a taxi speeding back to the airport and the onward journey of return. On the other side of the trip, Ramadan starts, and with that an extra hour of work without trips to the coffee stand to break the monotony.

AJ

The Year in Reading -2022

It’s that time of the year again where I reflect on my reading over the course of the year. For a more wide-ranging review of the year in books, check out the coverage at The Millions here. My previous attempts are linked here.

**

As has been the goal for most of the past few years, at or around two books a month for a total of twenty-four books for the year was the reading target. Unlike previous years, I was open on the subjects, more open than usual to wending my way through the year in books depending on what piqued my fancy at any given time. I’d like to think that shows in the range of subjects and authors covered by my reading this year.

David Epstein’s Range kicked off the year, a fascinating look at the debate around what correlates (or causes) success between being a generalist or a specialist. Not being the unbiased referee – I am after all a purveyor of a niche engineering discipline – I found it hard to swallow the premise that generalists fare better/ triumph. The nuanced view, if there is any, is that the world needs both generalists and specialists, but even specialists would benefit from a broad base of knowledge, delaying specialization to as late as possible.

Carlo Rovelli’s Helgoland was one of several science based history/ biography books I read this year, the others being Helge Kragh’s Simply Dirac and Brian Greene’s Light Falls. Dirac’s Engineering (and Bristol) connections were an interesting subplot as was revisiting Eisenstein’s life as he battled with the theories for which he won a Nobel Prize.

Anyone who has followed me for any length of time on Twitter knows that I am a Pádraig Ó Tuama/ Poetry Unbound fan boy. Having read the hard copy along with inhaling as much of the podcast as I could get, I probably listened to the audio version of the book two or three times in full and several times for specific poems. This genre, of close reads of poetry almost akin to a spiritual practice, is one I have a lot of time for. In addition to the book above, I listened to the audio version of William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy twice at least during the year.

From podcasts I listened to this year came several books from different genres. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand’s Empire led me to the fantastic read that was Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland. The Holy Post led me to John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One which weighed in on the side of a non-literal seven day creation on the origins debate. Football Weekly led me to Calum Jacob’s A New Formation, an attempt to chronicle the influence black footballers have had on the British/ English game. Philip Yancey’s memoir, Where the Light Fell, was also a delightful read. His gift as a writer of a decidedly evangelical bent seem to be an ability to balance difficult issues which have threatened to tear the church apart.

Another blind spot I will admit to have relates to the big oil industrial complex and energy security, seeing as my livelihood depends (for now) on it. Whilst I have gone on record in the past to say that I think the answer lies in nuclear, it was refreshing to read Vaclav Smil’s How The World Really Works, a hard nosed, pragmatic view of the world’s energy challenges and how they might be solved sensibly.

All told it has been yet another interesting year in reading, one in which I think not having a set direction allowed me meander and pivot depending on what was the burning issue in my mind when I sought to pick up a book. Here’s hoping 2023 is as interesting a year in books for me.

AJ

Prayer

For the Sunday Muse prompt #235:

**

Breath by breath, bead by bead,
the prayers of this parched heart rise.
Lips quivering with the yearning of a
thirsty heart, pursed to take the blood
and flesh, blessed, transubstantiated.
Kneaded by hands washed seven times-
stripped of yeast and the things that beguile-
we come to take the bread in hope
to shed our turpitude, arise anew.
In the ritual of rest and reset,
we speak our words into the world,
lingering in the liminal space
between asking and accepting

AJ

Kneeling in the Light

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #234. Image source: Rosie Ann Prosser.:

**

Still, in the silent solitude of repose,
I survey the face that peers back at me.
Three candles flickering in the dark,
a space suffused by a mellow, yellow light
pushing back against the dark.

The ghosts of grief, railing against delight
fight the light, their dissonant sounds
a constant clang. But in light, there is delight
to know this is to rest, here.

AJ

Under the Surrey Sun

Time as a trickster of sorts is a theme I find myself coming back to again and again, the key motif being how in the moment life and time can seem like drudgery, but when viewed from the vantage point of hindsight it can seem compressed, like a video watched at 2x speed. My thoughts as I packed up my bags and began to prepare for the short hop back were very much in that vein, not helped I suspect by the long hard year I had had. Between L, her boundless energy and various work related niggles, I was running on empty for the final few weeks before I left. Awaiting me on the other side – in addition to reintegrating myself back – were a big house move, and the mother of all Nigerian parties on the other side of town. If there was any anticipation, it was hope that I would finally get to sink my teeth into a juicy burger, indulge in all the bacon and sausages I could manage, and hop along to the odd Parkrun. As it turns out, all of my fears – and none of the things I was looking forward to – materialized.As is its wont, Reality and expectation never quite matched up.

Besides the physical reasons (being in places quite some distance from where I needed to be), the disruption to my routine was a key reason for the sense of disconnect between the expectation and reality. A slightly different time, not being able to escape to work, and having to drive quite a few less miles to the shops all differed from my lived reality of the past fourteen months. That was disconcerting in some way I am yet to fully understand.

One of the understated joys of living in this corner of the world where I return to from time to time is the lush greenery, always never more than a few hundred metres away. On previous returns, I have had the time, the space and the energy to take it all in – morning runs, afternoon saunters to the shops and the odd city-centre meet up with a friend. On this occasion however, I found myself perpetually short of time. This is also a theme, I am finding. Life and my time as I know it seems gone away for forever, now permanently centred around S and L and all the things they need to get up to.

The year of being forty-two is slowly winding down. Forty-three needs to come with a big reboot switch.

AJ

Flies, Storms and The Sense of An Ending

Photo by Matthieu Joannon on Unsplash

**

The heat hangs heavy on the head, the way a wet blanket only partially wrung dry after being pounded by feet in a washbasin hangs listlessly in a barely-there breeze. The short afternoon walks to the canteen, to grab some combination of a salad, chicken and rice is beginning to feel like a chore, not helped by the sand which has become a permanent fixture it seems. Some days G and I wonder if the haze is from fog or dust but the loud whirl of my air purifier settles it for me; dust it is – that most irritating kind that finds its way through every tiny crinkle in our armour, covering everything with a fine layer of brown. Not far away in their ubiquity are the flies which flit around everything, their persistent buzz the soundtrack to life in these baking summer months. With Ramadan behind us, it is the season of long vacations and every other day it seems someone else in the wider team disappears for a few weeks. My turn to disappear is in about a month, and for the first time in a long time, I am looking forward to kicking back, waking up at my leisure then sticking L in her stroller and grabbing brunch with real bacon. Adding a few more Parkruns to my total – with maybe one push for a new PB – would be a welcome bonus.

Listening to the news on the odd occasion I catch it, it strikes me just how much of it is prattling on about the unserious stuff – Depp and Heard and Rooney and Vardy are a case in point – but out here amongst fellow prodigals abroad the impacts of the Ukraine-Russia conflict loom large. From the Ukrainian family who persists in spamming a WhatsApp group with images from the war to the Russian chap who can’t send money home to his descendants, the abstractions that are the news of sanctions and bombs falling here or there hit home. An unintended consequence is that Europe has finally gotten their finger out and their heads from being bent down navel-gazing to start thinking about energy security again. Companies which let tons of folk go are back on the market trying to recruit; it is very much boom again, and just how long it will last remains to be seen. I remain bullish on nuclear and carbon capture.

It seems that along with death and taxes, twists and turns worthy of a Stephen King page-turner in Nigerian politics, gun deaths in America and yet another sexual abuse case in bible-belt America are (unwelcome) facts of life. The less said about these the better I suspect, though my inner complex systems enthusiast can’t help but ponder the social and religious interactions which have resulted in the state of affairs these three (not entirely disparate) events represent. Regardless of what one thinks about the benefits of “thoughts and prayers”, there comes a time when they are functionally the equivalent of burying one’s head in the sand (a less charitable reading would be that they are an excuse for permitting the status quo from which we benefit persist).

In reading, a return to catching the bus at a slightly less obscene hour has enabled me to catch up on my plan. In the past month, Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto and John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One have been very good reads. Finally digging into Fola Fagbule and Feyi Fawehinmi’s Formation: has also been an interesting experience; I am finding myself pausing to go google some arcane fact and/or look up a map. I have also reread bits of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prize-winning The Sense of An Ending, from which a very prescient quote jumped out at me:

Time … give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical

Coming up to the two-year mark out here, I can’t shake the feeling that it very much is the beginning of an ending of sorts. Fingers crossed.

AJ

Summertime..

Photo by Il Vagabiondo on Unsplash

**

One day it was wet, slightly windy and the temperature was below 30 degrees C, the next it wasn’t, which is how seemingly out of the blue the semblance of winter bowed out, being replaced by summer in all its fierceness. To be brutally honest, calling ‘it’ winter would be a stretch by all accounts, but for the context of the prospect of 40+ weather over the next few months. Of more personal importance though is that it is the end of Ramadan, and the lengthened hours with little food that was my lot in the period (a quirk of the shift patterns revised for the period was that my work day started an extra hour early, and the food spots at work were all closed). As with last year, I decided it would be a fantastic time to attempt to shift some of the weight, tacking on three morning runs and reduced carbs to the month. The three kilograms which have somehow slid off into the ether suggests there was some value to all that exertion. Whether it was worth it all remains to be seen though.

Casting my mind back to this time last year yields little by way of extant memories, although given what came afterwards, I would guess I spent the month up to my ears in work, trying to clear my desk whilst putting finishing touches to my travel plans, 72-hour PCR tests, quarantine and all. It is not much different this time – being a couple of team members light at work means it promises to be a hectic May and June before I and my contingent ship out to the proper summer of South Yorkshire. A trip up to the ‘Deen definitely beckons also, given it will have been two years, four months and a bit since I last passed through. It will have been two years of being a prodigal abroad then, surviving COVID, having to build networks from the scratch again and welcoming L who never ceases to be a fascinating experiment in reinforcement learning (both for us adults and her), amongst all other things.

Plenty to mull over this summer then; milestones, friends to reconnect with, moments to pause and ponder the directions of the next few years and the odd Parkrun or two, In sha’Allah.