Just in case some of you thought that i was not living up to the title of this blog or shirking on my responsibilities to making this a true adventure, i would like to re-assure u that this is not the case. follow me as we venture into the life of moi, over the last couple of months:

evidence #1: not only am i exploring a brave new world otherwise known as botswana, im also learning some new tricks. for example, i've been forced to learn how to drive a manual/stick shift vehicle. that's right. and if i must say so myself, im a pretty damn fast learner and i'm pretty damn good at it. botswana is mostly flat with few hills, etc, so sure i havent been tested too much, but i've gone thru some rigorous testing and came out alive (more on this later).

evidence #2: while working in botswana, i decided to take up french classes. first logical question: do they speak french in botswana? answer: no, not even close. 2nd logical question: why not take classes on the language spoken in botswana (setswana)? answer: cuz i didnt feel like it. it was an 8 (or so) week course that i kind of started in the middle and went into one of the "high" levels thinking i would struggle...but if i must say so myself, neanmois, je n'ai appris presque rien pendant le cours!..

evidence #3: and this explains the photos u see. this past weekend i went on a mini-holiday/vacation to this tiny town/village somewhere in between gabarone and joburg. it was such an amazing weekend. first, it was the furthest i had driven with my new (rental) manual/stick shift car. plus, i drove it all by myself (my friends were all coming from the joburg side, and i was coming from the gabarone side). this trip included some "major" off-roading, if i must say so myself. and i passed with flying colours. no mishaps, no stalling, no getting stuck. i think i was born to drive a manual...well not really, i still enjoy my automatic when in joburg, especially in traffic. anyway, the rest of the weekedn was excellent. we actually just stayed in a self-catering lodge, saw none of the town (with all its 3 shops), hiked, relaxed, cooked, ate, and drank. there were about a million tangerine (naartjie, in afrikaans) and lemon trees; so we went tangerine- and lemon-picking and sat and ate them and it reminded me of lovely times of long ago...i really don't remember the last time i had such a relaxing and nice weekend. I've been so used to either coming to joburg and trying to fit as many things into 2 days as i can or running errands or seeing people or doing laundry. even while taking vacations, u try to see as many things as u can in the span of a week or 2. this mini-vacation was all about relaxing. i woke up whenever i wanted to, walked where-ever i wanted to whenever i wanted to, ate whenever, read whenever...no tv, no phone. also, not only did i make some amazing fires (i was in charge of the fire and braai-ing the meat for 2 nights), i schooled my friends at scrabble! i sound almost like a hippie, w/o the drugs. anyway, it was super, as the french would say. hope to do it again soon.

galivanting around chi-town and nyc

so my overseas trip is finally over. got back on thursday morning, and still trying to catch up on much needed sleep - today i slept practically the whole day. aside from that tho, i had a blast in the states, got to see my family for a couple hrs and then headed to chicago and new york for good fun with awesome friends. sadly i didnt get a chance to see everyone that i wanted to, but theres always time; i'll try to see more of y'all next time around. i've posted my pics on my picasa page (warning: lots of random pictures). enjoy!

link: http://picasaweb.google.com/okunadef/Chi_NY_0509?authkey=Gv1sRgCOzU0IH9kci7AQ&feat=directlink

in the states

kind of last minute, but i'm in the US for some training and fun. the whole thing came about pretty quickly and i've been too busy to update this blog lately, so i didn't really have a chance to tell a lot of people; so sorry if you didnt hear abuot this. my colleague and i left jo-burg on friday afternoon, got to new york on sat morning, took a taxi from jfk to laguardia to catch the next flight that was leaving in 2 hrs, got on the flight to denver to catch my brother's law school graduation commencement, missed the commencement but got to see my bro, mom, dad, and uncle, enjoyed denver's night life on sat night, got on a plane sun afternoon to chicago, got to chicago and took a car to the training center in st charles. so now im here for the week, until we leave on fri to check out chicago for 2 days and then new york for 2 days, then back to sa. it should be a fun ride, and i'm not sure i'll feel it until a couple days after im back to joburg.

i'm way too tired to write much right now, but if anyone is reading this and is going to be in chicago or new york and i haven't talked to you, please email me or call me (same # as before) and we can chill. the idea is to show my colleague a pretty good time in the states and of course to have a good time myself...i've already introduced him to probly more nigerians than he'll ever meet; he was subjected to watching and listening as the men in my family debated nigerian politics as usual. i wouldve been pretty scared, but he seemed to enjoy it. otherwise, its almost midnight here and im friggin tired. lates.

politics and church

With the south african elections only days away, on wed, this post was supposed to be entirely about politics, sa-stlye. I was supposed to write about how the ruling party, the anc pretty much has this thing wrapped up and only need to make sure that they have a 2/3rds majority to ensure that they can pretty much do whatever it is they wish. Or about how the anc president and soon to be sa president, zuma (or more appropriately 'j-zed') has been on trial for serious charges for the past several years, only to be exonerated of all charges due to some questionable practices performed by the lead investigator/prosecutor. and though there's no pronouncement of guilt or innocence, or even validity of the evidence that led to his exoneration (nor of how it was obtained), we can rest easy cuz - due to proper procedure not being followed in the investigation - the matter has been resolved; justice has been served...Or how the the soon to be president, with his new leash on life, now wants some kind of revenge on the justices that paraded him to court and pronounced these horrible judgements on him. These are the justices that sit on the highest court in the country. he would like to strip them of their powers. according to our soon-to-be prez, the justices are starting to act like god (not like the anc or the prez himself, oh, heavens no! not at all..). therefore they need to be brought down to earth; read: the constitution needs to be changed so that justices sit under and are accountable to the prez. i am NOT making this stuff up. hey 'j-zed', ever heard of separation of powers, checks and balances, or about the independence of the judiciary, which is supposed to be the cornerstone in any democracy? or hey, maybe its me that forgot that its probably much too early to pronounce this country as a true democracy. yes, the vote! wooptie doo!

I was also supposed to write about the 1st lady. who's it going to be? with the soon-to-be president having now 5 wives, the battle of first lady must be well in full swing. wonder who's winning...I was supposed to ponder about how the shower (apparently the #1 cure for hiv, according to j-zed) is working. I was supposed to write about the 'new' party, which is actually a spin off, breakaway faction, of the anc, which actually includes many of the same old leaders from years past who have left the country as is today. this party's slogan is lovely: "choose hope. vote cope". hope for what? change? in what way? its the same people. ok, theres a former minister at the top. but hes a minister, not a politician. as much as i don't like politicians, their's is an art; and no ordinary person or minister can aspire to achieve great things without knowing how to play the game. in my view anyway. i was supposed to write about race politics, still the name of the game in sa politics. I think i was also going to write about all this complaining that I and a lot of my colleagues are doing. how in a way its good because this means that people are engaged and thinking, but also how we must all have a bit of patience, realising that 'change' and evolution does not happen overnight. it took the US 200+ years to have a black president. south african democracy as we know it has been around for 15years. its a new teenager. ever tried to get anything across a teenager's mind? or expected the teenager to act in a rational, forward thinking manner? there is progress in sa; but people, myself included, are so impatiently ready for more; to see this country speed up the process, grab hold of this promise of a rainbow nation, take the baton of beacon on a hill and guide other african nations on the path of true democracy. our liberal idealist tendencies may have to do some waiting.

well, like i said, those were some of the things i was going to write about, but nope, i'm not going to do that. decided to write about something else instead. this blog post will be about church.

yep, church. so, i go to church today, like i often do on sundays, mostly. kinda feeling bleh...the last few ______(fill in the blank, weeks, months, years...) i think i've been generally burnt out. and not necessarily with work. just at best running on fumes. last week, easter sunday was not that different. the preacher preached something. i listened to some of it, tho most times my mind wonders off. then he gets to the last portion and it really grabbed my attention. this was the re-affirmation of peter, where jesus "re-instates" him, 3 times. i learned something new: apparently the first 2 times that jesus asked peter if he loved him, jesus used the greek word, referring to agape love (the highest form of love), and peter replies saying of course u know i love you, using philia (i believe, more of a brotherly type love). so then when jesus asked the 3rd time, what hurt peter was not only that jesus was asking him a 3rd time, but also, now jesus uses the word philia when he asked the question instead of agape, essentially saying, i know that agape love may be too much to ask from you right now, but lets start with something. thought that was interesting. so fast forward to today, we were singing some song that ends with "jesus, i love you, i love you". the guy leading the worship, just kept repeating that line. and i kept singing, until all of a sudden i started listening to myself. and when i did that i realised that if jesus were asking me today what he aked peter a couple thousand years ago - folu, do you love me? - would i really be saying what i was singing? i couldnt answer that. or maybe i was afraid to answer that. so i sat down.

fast forward to the end of service. we had the head of the vineyard churches in south (or southern) africa come speak today. never met the guy. just know that he's preached at our church a couple times. our church believes very much in the practice of the fruits of the spirit. so every once in a while, those that have the gifts of prophecy, will speak up and tell the church what they believe they are hearing from god about a generic situation or sometimes about a specific person. usually they do this after a lot of prayer and thought. and when the preacher does it, its usually pretty powerful. and here i am, just getting used to this kind of thing, usually trying to avoid getting caught up in it, and definitely making sure that i hide myself so that no one will specifically pick on me. i dont like to be embarrassed or to think that someone has a view into my life when i havent specifically given them the appropriate rights and security codes. so the preacher ends his thing by doing a bit of prophecy. he pointed at a guy (first time visitor) and noted that he had been fighting with god and he felt like god wanted to tell him that he's here for a reason and about to show him what he's been asking. turns out true. he points at another lady and says, "please let me know if i'm completely wrong here, but..." (they like to do this!) he could feel a pain on the left side of his back and felt that somehow that related to this lady and god wants to heal her. yep, true. then he points at me! maybe it was the bright blue shirt i was wearing. by now it was surreal; me? really? i thought i was doing such a good job of being inconspicuous. he goes on to say that he's feeling something that telling him that i'm a soldier, and god wants me to take a hold of that and do great things for him, and that, this is what got me, ugly things have been getting in the way, such as guilt, that make me feel inadequate and start doubting. yoh! that was pretty powerful, on a couple fronts. first i was filled with guilt, first for not being able to answer the "peter question" and for a few other reasons. and was definitely starting to doubt and settle more soundly in my blah stage, where i was no longer running on fumes, but perhaps now at best walking, leisurely strolling. the other reason it was powerful was because i had recently asked god to show me what i should do (in terms of everything). but i didnt want him to give me a hint, or to whisper it to me softly while i was in bed, deep in sleep. no, i wanted something loud and clear. i believe my exact words were, "im dense, knock me over the head". so i'm pretty sure that being singled out amongst 200 people counts as a knock-me-over-the-head moment, right? ok, so maybe god does listen to prayers. again i was pretty shocked and stunned, having never personally met or spoken to this guy and him knowing this about me. i had to sit down. while i was sitting, i could hear something telling me to simply "fiyin fun olu wa, iwo okon mi, ma se gba-gbe gbo-gbo ore re..." (psalms 103)

Wedding

I'm finally getting around to posting these! anyway, toyin and fiyin's wedding was lovely. i can say that now that i'm sitting down and looking at the pics and remembering the good times. i'm not so sure how much of that i could have said when we were running around like headless chicken tryin to pick up the right people, grabbing one of the mothers who was left behind at the church, tryin to organise the 2 mercs (thats right, we rode around in style!) while tryin not to clobber the ridiculously stupid agents at the car rental place, etc etc. in the end, the most important thing happened: they got married. the other stuff that led to us getting about 4hrs of sleep in 4 days just kept things interesting! and now theyre living happily ever after. fiyin and toyin are 2 of my best friends here and 2 of my best friends ever, so i wish them nothing but the absolute best of luck and god's grace, speed, joy. i couldnt be happier. follow the link to the pics. enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/okunadef/Fiyin_ToyinWed?feat=directlink

bachelor partyin' (like its 1999)

this past weekend, i threw my first bachelor party, complete with strippers jumping out of cakes, drinking till we couldnt speak our names, and u name it, we did it. ok, just in case my lame attempt at sarcasm fell through, things didn't exactly happen like that. actually it didnt happen like that at all. this was a nice, well-behaved (mostly) bachelor party. tho, even without strippers or cakes, it was still ssssssssmokin'. i mean, actually, literally, on fire. we went go-carting for the 1st leg and one of our carts bursted in flames. luckily no one was hurt, just a few lynched body hairs and a watch band. anyway, makes for a good story.

the rest of the night was pretty cool, complete with a braai, couple drinks, wise words of wisdom from yours truly and others, and lots of chatting (no pics). i also re-enforced my amazing knowledge of cars. the groom asked me for my advice on whether to hire a c-class, e-class, s-class, whatever-class. so, of course, i responded how any reasonable guy would have and asked if i could see pictures. honestly, it seriously took me a couple seconds to even know what the hell he was talking about. anyway, apparently that disqualifies me from being a nigerian (cuz what nigerian doesnt dream of owning a c-class, right??). well, at least now i know. my life is now worth it!

back to the wedding. my name-sake is getting married; a guy that i've only known for about a yr, but it feels like we've known each other for a lifetime. and his bride-to-be is one of the loveliest people i know; someone who was more of a friend to me even before we met each other. i think the wedding is really gonna be touching; hopefully i dont have too many duties/chores and i can take a few moments to just observe and enjoy. speaking of duties, the guy asked all the groomsmen to wear beige shoes. what kind of person owns beige shoes??! so i spent all of sunday morning before my flight looking for beige shoes and finally gave up and bought a way too expensive off-white pair of shoes, which the ladies at the store assured me would work. im not so sure of that, but as long as the wedding couple don't hate me for wearing non-beige shoes, i'll live. im counting on them being wayy to busy to notice!

also, wedding's in cape town, so it should be lovely. also being a nigerian wedding, it goes on for 2 days, so im taking 2 days off work for it and aint no complaints from my side. i'll try to take some pics.

final note: i stumbled on the AMAZING website the other day. not like i know the designer or that i think she's an incredible person; nope, not anything like that...but, i gotta say, everyone should check it out. and then buy whatever she's selling, and then become *paying* clients, and then be happy. that pretty much how i've heard it goes. anyway, she's really talented; check it out; u wont be disappointed: http://www.nvision-design.com/.

botswana and the elusive search

quick question: what is the most difficult commodity to find in botswana? [answer below]

so i'm now stationed in botswana on a project. and it looks like i'll be here for a long time. its only been a week now and im enjoying it for the most part, aside from my endless search for the rare commodity. facts about botswana:

- its hot. its really hot. like houston. just not as humid. but still really hot. and the people (batswana, not botswanans) love the heat. i have to fight to keep the air conditioner on in the office. literally. i think im gonna suggest an arm-wrestling battle for the room temperature from now on.

- i was told that there would be lots of goats. and i was desperately looking forward to be mauled by goats and having them direct traffic, but up until now, i seriously have not seen 1 goat. i have my camera ready and waiting and nothing. no goats. i feel cheated. i am in gaborone, the capital city, so maybe i just need to venture further out into the countryside. we'll see. ill keep searching. and NO, this is not the rare, elusive commodity.

- this country is really beautiful. especially the house that they put us up in. much better than the hotel; pretty much a spacious 3 bedroom flat in a posh golf estates (where you'll find the only white people (and to be fair a bunch of rich blackies too), peacefully staked away in botswana). but the people are very nice. but i think wayyy toooo nice. and things move at botswana-speed. which is not very fast most of the time. this is why im starting to think that this would make a terrific vacation spot, but for work, its a bit slower than things should be. quick lunch? forget about it. quick service at the hotel lobby? nope. quick convo? please.

- and finally, the country is in serious shortage of IRONS. and no, im not talking about one of the most abundant metals on earth, nor the food group including most seafoods, beans, and egg yolk. Nope, im talking about the stupid thing that you plug in and it makes your clothes look straight and smart (supposedly). btw, i hate those things. they are a necessary evil. kind of like political parties. well, im almost positive that there is a serious shortage of them in botswana. we were staying at a hotel last week and they had exactly ONE iron for the entire hotel. one day, i waited ONE hour for THE iron to arrive. So then this week, i thought, since we moved to a lodge, things would get better (maybe they would have at least a couple). Well i was wrong. they, too, have exactly ONE iron for the whole place. So the plan now is that I will get my own iron and i, too, will have exactly ONE iron which i will take with me everywhere. EISH!


anyway, things look to be interesting for the next year. i'm very excited about the project and i hope its as interesting and challenging as i'm anticipating. its also a pretty public project (highly visible) so there are lots of opportunities for this to have huge effects. hopefully they're good, huge effects.


i'll keep people updated on my travails in botswana as well as my iron-adventures!

Kruger, finally

[First, big thank you's to those who sent kind and encouraging notes regarding my last post; i extremely appreicated it. every time something like this happens, i tend to go into one of my existentialist slumps and i typically make it out alright within a wk or a couple or a few, realising that this world doesnt revolve around me and because of that, there's not much to do but to simply trust and obey the grand, intelligent designer. yea, and also pray for/help the suffering.]

on a completely different note, i finally made it to kruger national park a couple weeks ago, thanks to my friend visiting from the states. it was incredibly beautiful, not simply the animals, but the scenery as well. Check out a couple pics below...the rest can be found following the link at the bottom to my picasa page. I apologise in advance: these pics aren't really that great cuz i was busy experimenting on my camera, so you'll see a lot of weird shots and plenty of lions (and then my camera battery died)! enjoy!

More Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/okunadef/Kruger_Feb09?feat=directlink

i want to be angry

[i don't really know if this is appropriate or not. i apologise to anyone i offend by this post; just how i feel]

the handsome, bubbly kid in the pics above. his name is emma (short for emmanuel. short for god with us). he's the only child of one of the most courageous and god-fearing missionaries i know in uganda. he's dead. car accident. along with his mom and his grandma.

i want to be angry. very angry. i really do. i need to be angry. and i want to stay angry. i don't know who/what to be angry at. i don't know what to do.

i'm praying for his father and uncle and rest of his family; can't imaging what theyre going thru. is that really all i can do? why did this have to happen? why am i filled with so much emotion? don't these things happen all the time? will i, in a few days or weeks, go back to my normal life and only think of emma and gorretti every once in a while?

last week i saw a man who had just been hit by a car, lying, face to the ground, in the middle of the street. i didn't see the hit, but it mustve been absolutely brutal. the guy attempted to raise his head (thank god he wasn't dead). he may have wished he was. i could see his face completely covered in blood. all the limbs were still in place, as far as i could tell. but judging from the writhing look on his face, his moans, and the crowds surrounding him, it mustve been a sizable hit. i drove away. shocked. barely able to drive. a few days latter, i only seldom think of it.

couple weeks ago, the theme around was failing relationships. people really close to me. people in my church. everywhere, there was news of troubled families and failing relationships. the hurt in people's eyes, whether directly impacted or not, was/is enough to break ones heart. a couple weeks later, i only sometimes pray for them. even when i do, is that really all? pray and wait? hope and pray? trust and obey?

i wanna go to a place where i can hold the intangibles and let go of the pain with all my mind;
i wanna go to a place where i'm suspending in ecstasy;

somewhere, between dark and light;

where wrong becomes right; i wanna go to beautiful...

after the tears subside, i'm gonna drown myself in music.

happy new year, like woah!

alright i'm a bit late, but thats something i can live with so tough. better late than never. i just got back from my lengthy vacation to the states a couple days ago and just now getting back to work, catching up on sleep, and acclimating back to sa.

before i go any further, i would just like to pay my dues to the Charles de Gaulle airport in paris (disclaimer: i am an ardent france lover). at the risk of drawing the wrath of my french friends, i would just like to say that cdg is likely the worst airport ever put together (and i choose my words carefully). sure, the french gave us the lovely statue of liberty, and Tour Eiffel; however, when it comes to putting together something that is supposed to be functional and useful, they seem to be lacking. I am sure to put together this airport, they took over a village with small huts, renovated these huts with airport looking signs, then decided they were going to put together an elaborate system of trains and buses and link-rail thingies to connect everything. bottom line, it takes forever to get anywhere, especially cuz u cannot simply run or walk, but must wait for 3 or 4 connectors and sit in these connectors while it goes 30 minutes to get from terminal 2A, for example, to terminal 2B. To illustrate what i mean, i have summoned my creative juices and provided this exquisite view of Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle airport:

you may think that there is no terminal 2D...but thats what they want you to think...look harder, o young padawan.

moving on, my christmas/new years break was really nice. nice, though, does not describe the crazy, freezing weather i was greeted with in chicago and for a few days in st louis. i think sa has seriously softened my skin when it comes to the weather cuz i was not happy. tho, as one friend rightly put it, thats probly countered by the fact that sa has seriously toughened my skin when it comes to violence! luckily, i learned the ancient art of the blanket/heater mix! thanks friend.

if there was a theme to my holiday time this year, it was marriage, dating and love. sounds super soft, hey?! well, weather it was in relation to me, my family, friends, etc, i think i found myself talking about these topics more often than i usually do. and i mean serious discussions. seriously. and long. i can't say that any decisions were made or ground breaking answers found, but lots of questions were asked and interesting points taken. you can't really get to answers until you've correctly defined the questions, right? so what were some of those questions?

- when should one get married?

- how do you know you're ready to be married?

- what does it mean to be ready? and is not being ready really a valid excuse?

- is it worth risking being with the woman/man of ur dreams just cuz u think ur not ready?

- is it worth risking being with the woman/man of ur dreams if u push her/him to be ready when they aren't?

- why does it seem that women are more likely to be ready faster than men?

- what is the role of love? and what does it look like?

- how does one move from that to the much bigger step of marriage?

- can you love someone so much, but not feel like they are a good partner for marriage?

- what role does dating play? what does dating look like? what does dating in the christian context look like?

- what are people's must-have's and deal breakers?

- how is it that 2 seemingly "perfect for each other" people find it difficult to start or engage in a relationship?

- can 2 people who don't quite fit each others' checklists completely, be compatible?

- what role do parents and family play in the decision?

- why are so many people eager to get married, when we hear horror stories all the time, especially about the first couple, few yrs?

- whats all the hassle about?

it may seem like those are a lot of questions, but i was at home for 3 weeks and those only scratch the surface of the discussions i had. so the resolution is really that i will continue to ponder these. no, they will probably not overwhelm me (don't worry, mom and dad, i'm not getting married anytime soon), but its interesting to think about such things every once in a while. i would say one thing that i think i think, is there is no use rushing into things. for something as important as marriage, the process of getting to know someone, taking your time, asking the right questions, and allowing love to fester is far more important than the decision to get married. thats what i think i think, for now.

one of my buddies put up a note that kind of relates to this. one of his lessons from 2008 was: "You don't get second chances. Never act like you can do your best to get another chance. If it happens, it's the exception, not the status quo. If you get a shot, take it. Don't wait." Not sure I completely agree with that, perhaps due to my non-type A characteristic. I think we get second chances all the time; however, i agree that we cannot count on getting these 2nd chances in order to make our move, but we also shouldnt be overly discourage because there is a strong possibility that we'll get another chance.

finally, new new years resolution (inspired by the friend from above, and others): use more similes and metaphors (ex: comparing woah to new years). yep, working on that one.