Sunday, September 30
I love this paragraph:
These villagers are totally useless people. Look at Jared the Tailor for instance. He refused to sew any clothes for the Jumai family for the last six years just because Pa took five months to pay for our 1994 Christmas outfits. Today, laughing that laughter, that sounds like a tired sewing machine, he brought three expensive robes for me to 'test'. When we were almost naked he won't give us credit. Now that I have cartons of things that I haven't even worn once, see what this creep is doing, this mister that uses the remnants from his customers' materials to sew himself hamdkerchiefs. See how useless this world is?
Actually Calama is a 419 conman (and a kind of Cain figure within the dramatic compostion of the book in a most ironical way). After having received a huge amount of money - the reason of his sudden wealth - the cheated mugu sends a letter to him that made me chuckle out of pleasure.

Dr. Amechi (Calama's fake name)
I can see now that you're a thoroughgoing bastard. You are an illeterate, conniving, pimping bastard. Your relatives are reptiles. You are a snake yourself and I'll see you in hell. Unless that moniey hits my account in ther next twenty-four hours, I'll be on the next planeto your country. Africa's ass isn't deep enough for you to hide from me, you faggot. I'll get INTERPOL on your ass so fast you won't know what hit you. I'll take out a Mafia contract on you. They'll chop you into steaks and pare ribs for zoo dingoes. You think I'm a sucker? Well, you just wait. You have six hours to wire that money into my account, you read me? SIX HOURS. I'm not going to jail for any drauding, may you rot in hell.
Your worst nightmare, Billy (The Blade) Barber

From Diaries of a Dead African, Chuma Nwokolo, 2003

Wednesday, September 19
Sundaynight somebody stole my bicycle. Shit. Since then I've been walking, but I have to get a new one. Maybe, someone who reads my diary, has got one? That's just an attempt. You never know.

Thursday, September 13
About jealousy - It bothers me particularly when people achieve something they don't deserve. Because they are tricky and corrupt.

Wednesday, September 12
At our dinner I overheard the boys repeating: Either she sings or she climbs (climbing in the ambigious sense of being upset - Swiss German). About whom they actually were talking I didn't exactly get.

Sunday, September 9
It's all about travelling - who is the best traveller. Who has collected the most thriliing experiences.

Saturday, September 8
Last Sunday we met an artist friend, who has rebuilt a barge to a wonderful studio. During our conversation she mentioned that for first-born children to grow was more difficult than for those children born after. Subconsciously parents prevent that they out-compete themselves.

Wednesday, September 5
... Neither in India nor in Africa did the English seriously desire to teach their language to the natives. .. In Nigeria, the demand for English was already there in the coastal regions as early as the first half of the nineteenth century. A definitive study of the work of Christian missions in Nigeria from Professor J.F.A. Ajay reports that in the Niger Delta in the 1850s, the missionary teachers were already obliged to cater for demand...for the knowledge of the English language.
In Calabar by 1876, some of the chiefs were not satisfied with the amount of English their children were taught in missionary schools and were hiring private tutors at a very high fee. Nowhere in all this can we see the slightest evidence of the simple scenario painted by Ngugi of European imperialism forcing its language down the throats of unwilling natives. In fact, imperialism's ways with language were extremely complex.
If imperialism was not to blame, or not entirely to blame, for the presence of European languages in Africa today, who then, is the culprit? Ourselves? Our parents? Awkward as it maybe, we should be bold enough to contemplate it and deal with it once and for all, if we can, and move on. We will discover, I am afraid, that the only reason these alien languages are still knocking about is that they serve an actual need.
No African in our recent history fought imperialism more doggedly or presided over a more progressive regime than Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana did. And yet we are told that during the Nkrumah era, political leaders demonstrated considerable concern over the possible divisive impact of a mother tongue policy. Although English is a language alien to Ghana they saw it as the best vehicle for achieving national communication and social and political unification.... But we do not have to falsify our history in the process. That would be playing politics. The words of the Czech novelist Kundera should ring in our ears: Those who seek power passionately do so not to change the present or the future but the past - to rewrite history.
There is no cause for writers to join their ranks. 1989
Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British-Protcted Child, 2009
Politics and Politians of Language in African Literature

Tuesday, September 4
People say that I always would be fighting. But that is not true. No, no, I don't like war at all. On the contrary, I prefer finding solutions by talking to deploying weapons of supremacy. Often people don't want to talk, because they are afraid to lose their status. I just want to be accepted and respected. I got used to not being recognised, but let me live my life.

Sunday, September 2
Billie Holiday Gloomy Sunday
Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless. Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless. Little white flowers will never awaken you. Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you. Angels have no thought of ever returning you. Would they be angry if I thought of joining you? Gloomy Sunday - with shadows I spend it all. My heart and I have decided to end it all. Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know. Let them not weep. Let them know that I'm glad to go. Death is no dream; for in death I'm caressing you. With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you. Dreaming, I was only dreaming. I wake and I find you asleep in the deep of my heart, dear Darling. I hope that my dream never haunted you. My heart is telling you how much I wanted you. (1941)