APPRECIATION..... I got inspired to write this while sitting on a toilet, it sounds nasty, I know. Well, the truth is I had a flashback, when I just gained admission into the University of Port Harcourt and a lecturer encouraged to stay in the hostel in my first year. I remember all the nasty tales I heard about the hostel life, how 12 girls would manage one small room, how you have no right to privacy but the one that really sounded nasty was the fact that you had to get a spare bucket to excrete inside. I thought the girl was trying to crack a joke or she was exaggerating. It turned out to be true; we had to do this to prevent diseases. Using the toilet directly was a taboo, you had to empty your system waste in a bucket, and then throw it into the toilet. No wonder, I did not last in the hostel. I packed my stuffs in my 2nd semester and told myself ‘I was satisfied with the experience’’. Moved into an off campus residence. Sitting down on my toilet at home and feeling comfortable made me realize how everything can be appreciated once you know its value. How often do you appreciate what you have? I realize that most people are guilty of this sin “running to God when the chips are down”; I used to be like that. We often don’t appreciate him until we are faced with a near death experience or something far worse. At that gruesome moment, we realize that we can’t do it on our own except we get a divine intervention. This automatically means that our relationship with God is just for benefits. This is wrong. When some people talk about God, you only hear it but it is not seen in their actions. They claim to love God but there is no love in their life, they claim to be lovers of God but only remember him in times of need. Friendship with benefits is selfish, even as humans; we hate this kind of relationship. When you have friends who only stick around because of what they can gain from you, you get hurt. I am sure that is how God feels too but Grace makes him forget that we were selfish. We take his grace for granted and feel we can do anything because at the end, Grace would be there and forgiveness comes easily from heaven. We need to appreciate God always. You don’t have to be in a terrible situation to remember God exists. If you have God in your mouth and the world in your heart, you are a hypocrite. Appreciate him always, in good and in bad times. Extend your appreciation to every human and everything in your life. “You never know what you have till you lose it”, this sounds cliché but it is the truth. If you have ever stayed with people you are not related to in this life and you were maltreated, you would cherish your family. You would understand that they were created especially for you because God does not want you to be lonely and depressed. Appreciate that father who scolds you, appreciate that mother who cares too much, appreciate the sisters who tease you a lot and appreciate the brothers who irritate you a lot. Don’t wait to be in a bad situation before you know their value. If you have good friends, appreciate them, don’t fall back on them only when you need their shoulders to lean on. Don’t make them a second option. Most people have friends but have no true friend. This happens because they get lost in the crowd and lose the person who truly cares. Appreciate your life, appreciate your health, appreciate the air you breathe, appreciate the sun, appreciate the rain, appreciate animals, and appreciate everything. Don’t wait for terrible circumstances to remind you to be grateful. WITH LOVE, CHIOMA OLAMIDE UDOM.

Memory Lane.....Journal entry- My first visit to my state of origin. You can imagine how excited I was when my mom told me to get ready for a trip to my village. I was happy, I have always been curious to know how the state looked like, how the house in the village looked and if there were some distant relations I had not met. Well the d-day came, it was 2009-09-18, and everyone was in the jeep except Funmi and Abidemi who were in school. Somehow I felt the strike had favoured me because I knew this was a rare opportunity. Unlike most families in Nigeria who travelled back home during the Christmas holidays to celebrate as a family. My family was a distant one with family members scattered all over the globe, they never gathered together to do a reunion, and most importantly they know absolutely nothing about their culture or tradition. My grand dad lived his life in the Yoruba speaking states; Lagos and Ibadan to be precise, and married two Yoruba wives. So when he died, my grandmothers groomed their children in the Yoruba culture and it was easy for them since my dad and his siblings lived in Ibadan, my great grandmother was also a Yoruba woman, I guess the Udoms are so in love with the yorubas. Anyway, that is why my dad, uncles and aunties know nothing about Akwa ibom, people would say it is pathetic but they don’t care, they all accepted their mothers’ culture as their own. And it doesn’t matter to them as far as they can identify themselves with one Nigerian culture. So I also imbibed their character, when people seem curious about my name which is a mixture of Ibo, Yoruba and Ibibio, I simply shove in their curiosity and tell them I understand the three major Nigerian languages which is Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba. The journey started with a heated conversation between my dad and mom about a gate, our neighbouring street had fixed at our street. Dad was furious about it and wondered why they would extend their plans to our street, he hated their audacity. I kept quiet at the back seat, looking outside and feeling like a prisoner that had escaped from a routine prison. My life had become a boring routine since the strike started and I was desperate to change my environment, so dad’s anger did not mean anything to me that morning, all that mattered was me, myself and I. I tried to dose off but the bad roads won’t let me. It was a bumper journey all through till we finally left bori, a village in Port Harcourt. Then we zoomed off, we had to stop several times because the bribe collectors who are also called policemen were on the road serving and protecting themselves. At the several stops we made, dad would tip them with a 100 naira or 200 naira note and tell them it was for pure water, it irritated me and vexed my spirit. I mean I was really broke, and it was hard to recharge my phone, and these policemen just get tipped off with a selfish grin on their face. Finally we arrived akwa ibom, and dad did all his best to give me a brief detail about every major place we drove through till I got to my own Nsit Ubium. A sign board welcomed us with bold letters that read “welcome to Nsit Ubium”. Wow, my village rocks I soliloquized, I mean not every village has a sign board to welcome its people home. For starters, my mother’s village doesn’t have a welcome sign board. Our house was not far from the road side, it was the third house. I came out of the jeep and inhaled the fresh breeze of my roots. I was happy to have my feet on the soil of Akwa ibom. I saw udeme with her heavy stomach, it was unbelievable, and so she was truly pregnant. Let me do a brief introduction of Udeme. Udeme also called UD is my father’s cousin, the last child of her father. She use to stay with us but she was a trouble maker stealing, lying and just causing a lot of troubles. So mom ran out of patience and UD was sent back to the village, after 2 months, news came from the village that she was pregnant and after some weeks, her mother passed away. She is just 17 years old, so all I thought about was pity, she looked miserable with eczema all over her neck, her clothes were so dirty, they looked like rags, her hair was unkempt and yet when I reminded her of all the times I tried to advise her to behave herself, she just laughed ignorantly. Just then I started asking myself why some people enjoy poverty. I asked her who the father of the child was. She said he was a village photographer who had denied the pregnancy. Her father, whom we nick named papa meisere because whenever he visited us he was always trying to force the language into us, was a very well to do young man in his hay days. He was a journalist and had a good life; he went to different countries and even dinned with the queen of England, a fact he never fails to leave out when he is telling us the story of his life. He would have been a very wealthy man by now but he spoilt his prosperity by settling in the village without doing anything. He claimed he wanted to learn the language and make his children also learn the language. Over night, he turned into another man and refused his children the right to education, claiming education was a barrier to our culture and traditions. Sounds stupid, right? Well that is what he claimed and so all his children ended up like him. Udeme’s elder brother got a teenage girl pregnant without even having a means to livelihood. I saw the girl, she was really beautiful but poverty had stolen her beauty. If she had a better life, she would be a sweet sixteen. I looked at them and wondered why teenagers now become fathers and mothers; it’s like the order of the day in Akwa Ibom. We brought out the food, mom had made for papa, you needed to have seen the joy on his face, he told us he had not eaten a decent meal since last night, they rushed the food and asked for more. Papa meisere later told me more about my great grandfather. I got to know that he was a pastor who married a woman from a family that practised juju. What an irony! Anyway, we all chatted about a lot of things and then when it clocked two, we said our goodbyes and left. To papa meisere, it felt like his birthday but to me, it felt like Christmas. As they waved us good bye with smiles of satisfaction that would last till the provisions we got them finished, I pondered on their life and many questions was on my mind. Don’t they have dreams? Is this all they want to do with their life? Bringing children into the world to suffer in penury, will they ever come out of the village to experience another world? At that moment, I thanked God that I was sent from heaven to be my dad’s daughter, even though sometimes I wished for more, I was happy; I had my two parents alive to provide for me, we are an average family. Even though sometimes, I wish I could be like other cool kids who travelled all over the globe for an education or holiday tours, I was happy, I had visited some countries and I was always given a free pass to visit any state I wanted to visit, I had parents that could afford to pay my fees and clothe me. I thanked God silently in my heart, as we drove back to Port Harcourt.

Pessimistic monsters

People with negative approach to life scare me. I hate pessimistic attitudes. I hate voices that limit me. I hate fear. I hate voices that persuade me to stay in my comfort zone. I hate voices that make me believe there is no future hope and so, i should not try at all. I hate voices that discourages people from making bold decisions in life. For God sake, if you believe you are a failure, why spread the disease and kill another person's hope with your wicked tongue. Pessimistic people are advised to cut off their tongues or remain mute when they can not handle a hardworking fellow trying to make his or her dreams come true. If you are not supporting a person's dream, then just remain that way instead of possesing the person with the spirit of doubt. I rebuke every pessimitic spirit around all hardworking people around the world.
If you are working really hard to make your dreams come true and things seem hard, just focus, you would definitely get to your peak and above it. If you have a dream you want to make come true, leave your comfort zone and make it happen. A baby step does not hurt. Dare yourself to move, to believe in something, to trust your instincts and hope for the best always. When you fail, try again. Never make failure an excuse. Finally, avoid every pessimistic monster that breeds doubt and fear.
                                                                                                     With love, CHIOMA OLAMIDE UDOM

Why LOVE is COMPLICATED.

Love sounds like a simple word, it is even easy to spell, for some people, they easily feel it and for some, their hearts are far lost and they want nothing to do with love and its siblings. You know the siblings of love, right? Well, they are affection, care, faith, joy, hope, humility and happiness. The world has carelessly destroyed the word “love’’. We all know this, it is a stale gist. I was strolling one day listening to “this is love by THE SCRIPT”. The song was interesting but the words were really captivating. Then I wondered why something so beautiful could be so ugly, something so sweet can suddenly become sour and how friends become strangers over night.  Who makes love complicated? People. In a platonic relationship, the friend who loves and cares more is considered weak and vulnerable. The person who calls or communicates often is too friendly or jobless. You hear people giving excuses like “sorry, I have not returned your calls or replied your messages, I have been so busy”. The caring friend is also a busy person but thinks regularly about his friends. When this person doesn’t get the same affection back, he slowly cares less and begins to appreciate friends who appreciate his existence and forget the ones who don’t. In an intimate relationship, the partner who loves more is equally seen as weak and vulnerable. It is easy to cheat and play games when involved with vulnerable people because they forgive easily. They love deeply. They have no control over their hearts and hardly use common sense. They let their guard down and let their heart control every other sense organ. When such a person gets heartbroken, they hardly appreciate other people who come along later into their lives with good intentions.Why love is complicated? Love is complicated because people fail to take chances with their hearts. One heart break leads to several heart breaks. Leo has his heart broken by Ruth, it takes several months for him to heal and finally let go of all the lovable memories of Ruth. He becomes mean and vows never to fall in love again but this does not stop him from having relationships with girls, it is different this time. He dates girls but never attaches emotions. Ruth was the criminal, Leo was the victim and other girls are the victims of fate. One heart breaks builds a circular flow of bitterness, anger, deception, and hatred. Who suffers when this circular flow is created? The new partner. The wicked emotions are strongly against love and all its siblings. Sometimes, most people get saved and some people end up being lost forever. They are not capable of loving anyone. God made me realise love is not complicated. He told me “I GAVE MY SON TO THE WORLD, HOW HARD CAN IT BE?’’. Jesus Christ loves us even when we go astray, he loves us even when we don’t return the affection back, he gives us even when we are selfish, he protects us even when we deny him, and he sticks around even when we betray him. Now, that is love. The kind of love I am building in my heart and making a way of life. I have been called ‘vulnerable and weak’ so many times because I care and love too much, then I stopped caring but this year, i want to be like Jesus and embrace a selfless love. The only thing I would care less about is the tag people create for True LOVE. Everyone is capable of feeling love and everyone is worthy of the emotion. Appreciate your friends, forgive easily and allow your lessons become blessings.                                                                                                  
  WITH LOVE, CHIOMA OLAMIDE UDOM