LAGOS PEOPLE: Letter 01
Hi there.
Can you tell that I’m letting procrastination carry me dey go and I should have made this post days ago?
I know what I am supposed to write the moment I make a recent post, but I do not write it until it’s time to post it. I guess that’s the life of a writer; ignore the story until it haunts you in your dream. Am I wrong or just living up to expectation?
Last year, during the strike, in between going to work, fighting depression, boredom and reading fiction, I found writing again or rather it found me. Stories began calling to me and I didn’t respond until they started haunting me. I wrote everything I thought of and one day I started writing to people in Lagos. Why not? I’m a Lagosian. It started as a pastime but grew to become a series, I wrote at least twice a week on my Whatsapp status and people looked forward to it. I thought to write those letters here.
Dear Lagos People,
It’s me. Your favorite person. Yelz, emi ni yen.
Eku ojo meta. it’s been a long time since I wrote to you. I missed writing to you.
Tell me, how have you been? What has been the gist?
Are you still running? No, not the exercise kind of running oh, I mean running running.
One thing all lagosians have in common is that we run. We are always running. We are always in a haste.
Even if you are new to Lagos, in a matter of months, you’ll be running too. It happens like that.
At the market, we walk briskly, so we’ll appear to know where we are going, even if we don’t, and no one will pick our pockets and bags.
When we cross the road, scratch that, we don’t cross, we run across the road in Lagos. Even when you’ve looked right, left and right again, you run because there’ll be a crazy driver who passes one way. So, you run.
At the ATM stand, we are in a haste. We want to dip our hands into the machine and take our money but it isn’t possible, so we are forced to wait.
In Lagos, you run after yellow buses because that’s just the thing to do.
If you are a 9- 5 person, you definitely have mastered the act of running from you barely made bed to work. This is because you can’t afford to get a query for the third time that week. How much is the Salary self?
In Lagos, everyone runs, they just do. It even reflects in our language.
When you say Mo fe sare lo mumi, it loosely translates to, I want to run and drink water. Or when you say, mo fe sare sun, it loosly translates to, I want to run and get some sleep. We are always running,
Lagos People,
I know it is in our blood to always run. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t.
In all things, E ma calm down.
Here’s to more Sare-ing.
Eko Oni baje O.
Till I write you again.
Damzy.