FROM SURBUB TO URBAN

Next was the food seller.
The food seller didn't start the journey with us. He was picked up somewhere along the journey. Actually I was hungry before he got on board. I have been hungry ever since my father approved my one week holiday in Lagos. My hunger was greater than the craving for food. It was a hunger and thirst for newness and discovery. An enthusiasm and desire to see, to feel and to adapt.

After the charlatan drug seller concluded his business, the hanging TV came to live. I was visibly overjoyed. I have seen and watched television before but i have never sat to watch a colored television. As children we watched colored television through our neighbors windows. So when the television was switched on, something in me was also switched on. My reaction through hindsight was similar to my reactions whenever Messi scores a breather. But I recalled what Izunna told us when he first came back from Lagos: " in Lagos, when Aeroplane is flying above, no one looks at it. Even small children will be busy with their plays and house chores. Unlike in our suburb, where on hearing the vibrations from an aircraft, we would abandon everything else, rush out to our balconies screaming and waving 'bye bye' to the tiny flying object. When we heard that helicopter landed in our public secondary school in our neighborhood, we all ran to see the wonder, most of us didn't see it. The few that saw it before it took off became local celebrities. They felt advantaged, we felt more local. So i looked around the bus to observe the general attitude towards the television display. I was gladdened when I noticed everyone was looking up.

I can't really recall the name of the movie we watched but i do remember it featured some of those 'celebs' I was hopeful to see at the National Theatre. It was a movie above Emeka Ike and Genevieve Nnaji. Either it was Emeka Ike dying in love for Genevieve or vice versa for that was the summary of all the nollywood movies of that time. I still recall their most popular movie then: NOT MAN ENOUGH.

I didn't enjoy the movie as I would have wanted. A woman was carrying a crying child just directly adjacent to our seat.

TO BE CONTINUED FOR THE LAST EPISODE