Places

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash ** It feels somewhat trite, given what is afoot in the world, to be riled up about life in my gilded prison corner of the world. The Ukraine and Russia conflict looms large of course, but for all the outpouring of support - and some might say posturing - it feels more like a cause célèbre, than anything else. As others have pointed out thousands more have lost their lives in Yemen,. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were hardly less gruesome for ordinary civilians. Closer home, it seems like Nigeria teeters more on the edge of imploding, with power, security and the general hardship levels all running away in the wrong direction. Of course, concurrent occurrences of bad things does not make any of them less ‘bad’. One can only hope that the energies expended in mobilizing and blanketing the air waves with the plight of Ukrainians is also extended to other (blacker and browner) bodies. ...

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #179: ** The scent of life and of living hangs heavy on this place, Here, where the weight of memory and first things lose themselves in the labyrinth of the mind. First step, first walk, first smile. First words - garbled beyond recognition but finding the connection between the proffered body and sustenance. First leaving, first returning then leaving - the first steps of a lonesome journey to a far country, of seeking the wily welcome of the open world calling - siren-like - from beyond the walls that time has built. ...

Image Copyright Sky News ** Hailing, as I do, from a corner of the world in which colonization has left its mark in more ways than one, I cannot help but see the stark similarities between the Afghanistan story and that of my other country. Two podcast episodes from the Rest is History podcast (a general one and one specifically focused on the First Anglo-Afghan War) provided some context to the history of the country, dotted as it has been with inter-tribal frictions and the burden of being prized as a gateway location. The similarities appear to be more than superficial: both countries have had borders drawn on the back of envelopes splitting tribes between countries, have fairly well established Islamic insurgencies and have significant deposits of natural resources. There is also the British (read East India Company / Royal Niger Company) connection too, the tip of the spear by which both regions were economically exploited. ...