water water everywhere, not a drop to drink

this phrase has been written about for many years, and from my little knowledge appears to be a rhyme i must have learnt many years ago. for me, it simply reflects the irony of nature that sometimes we can have excess of a natural resource but none good enough for any useful purpose.

well, the phrase is apt for the pictures i have been inundated with since the rains of sunday 9th july in lagos.

and then you wonder why many children hate going to school and drop out at the slightest opportunity. if i had to go through this just to sit through hours of (what used to be) boring noisy and crap mathematics class, i probably would have dropped out ages ago too.

sad. picture 2 just kills me. i don't want to think of ringworm infestation cos i'm about to go and have lunch but imagine if these children get home to non-challant parents who dont get back home till night time anyways. its just a matter of time. and imagine if one of those kids falls into, and gulps some of that water, as kids are wont to do when they play...i think i'll just skip lunch.

lagos state government is requesting for 20BN from the federal government to check flooding in the state, i don't know if that will stop it altogether, but we're way past a 20BN naira problem now, if you ask me.

i'm hearing some good news that there may be a strike action by the labour congress tomorrow...well, i need a break desperately so i will only think about the merits of the strike action from friday morning.

have a good one peeps.

Comments

doll (retired blogger) said…

the rains eh! here people even died!!!!

I wish it would stop already!!!!!

1:08 PM, July 19, 2011

Of #MoreThanPlatitudes

Look at this picture. That's one of the children being rescued from a collapsed school building in Lagos, Nigeria. You don't have a be a parent and I won't pander to your better instincts. Tell me this is acceptable or should be allowed to occur again. The President sent condolence messages and the Governor visited the site then said the state emergency services will do all they can cliched response. the end. and people moved on. The heartbreaking pictures of the children pulled out half dazed with cement dust all over their little noses (Exhibit A) did not let me sleep last night. I have gone to drop a comment on the governor's pages on all social media platforms that we need #MoreThanPlatitudes 🚫❌ We need to hear what policy changes are triggered by the death of these babies. The Commissioner of Education must address Lagosians and set up a project team with the Commissioner for Works or Town Planning etc to undertake an immediate structural integrity test...

of the world through their eyes

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of those days

i love the phrase "in those days". for a long time in my life, i never felt qualified to use it though, but everyone older than me seemed to use with such pride that it made the phrase itself assume greater meaning than the sum of its words. it was not only used to reminisce, but also used condescendingly. whenever you said something factual yet unpalatable to someone who was older than you, and they lacked the authority to slap you across the face, they would resort to trying to sting you by starting the next sentence with "i don't blame you, in those days...". unlike many people around me, i had the good fortune of starting school early and never failing a single class. which meant that compared to many of my peers, i was often quite young for my class later in life. by the time i finished law school i was 24 and my dad could not stop oggling at all the other classmates during my call to bar ceremony. i vaguely remember him telling my mum and i on the drive ho...

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