Elizabeth's Daughter: In Words and Pictures is a volume of essays and photos from my memoir about a would-be nun in post-war Nigeria who became my mother, and my experiences as her daughter, an artist, and Nigerian-American woman. 

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(Pictured here, L-R: My mother Elizabeth and her friend Philomena as Girl Guides)

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yes, 'filmmaking in akwa ibom' is in fact the title of this post. as i write this, one mr. paul frank--an akwa ibomite and university of utah-trained filmmaker--is shooting a trailer for his feature film in uyo. he sourced the 45-person cast with locals--drawing from the 400-person strong ibom actors forum--and the crew from locals too--some of whom were trained in india and south africa. he will edit the film in uyo, too, and plans to submit the final feature to sundance.

it was a chance meeting after i stopped by the national gallery to visit with ani udosen, a wonderful sculptor i met last year, who gave me paul's contact info. i called, and paul stopped by the house just hours before i left for the airport headed back to lagos. he was younger than i thought he'd be, optimistic, excited, with a delicate balance of ego and humility that is the trademark of a successful filmmaker. we had one of those filmie conversations--fast, run-on sentences with heavy jargon--at the end of which i was convinced we had to work together somehow. if i weren't presently broke and headed back to nyu in the fall, i would simply stay behind and work on his film.

paul also told me that the tropicana entertainment complex is finally open, supposedly the largest cinema in africa. they had been building it for some years, and finally launched in may before the gubernatorial election. political stunt? maybe, but it seems that the governor is a film fan, since we've been waiting even longer for the library to open. paul hopes the good governor will help finance his film, as he's done for a few others in the past.

"when you're ready to come back, we're here," paul said, and, with a warm handshake, drove away. i stood there a minute, stunned, wondering how i could possibly then go to the airport and leave. how i could pass up an opportunity to help jumpstart the akwa ibom feature film industry. i am too broke and confused right now, i thought. i'll be back--prepared.

at any rate, i did apply for an all roads seed grant to shoot a documentary this year at my late mother's secondary school in afaha oku. i also have a feature film idea, set at that same school, that would be my dream to make.

i meet so many diasporans who dream of revolutionizing cinema in their native countries, many of whom learn and labor in the international system without setting foot on ground back home to see what's going on. a part of me knows that can't possibly work in practice. you have to be on ground. you have to know what's going on. you have to stay current and relevant. place does matter. learn what you need to abroad, if you like, but go home and do some good. really.

i hope to join paul soon. meeting him helped to crystallize the yearnings i've been having these past few years. nevertheless, this blog still took a very long time to write. --AL.

concerned citizens of akwa ibom state of nigeria are organizing anti-kidnapping demonstrations to take place tomorrow, saturday, february 26, around the world. the marches are geared toward urging president goodluck jonathan and akwa ibom state governor godswill akpabio to take action against a host of politically-motivated kidnappings and assassinations that have plagued the state in recent years.

visit the link for more info on the campaign and a letter you can send to your congresspeople. keep in mind that the ideas and opinions expressed in the letter do not necessarily reflect my own (particularly those stating that ibibios have suffered the most; although i am ibibio, i think it's dangerous and divisive to bring up ethnicity at a time like this).

the campaign comes on the heels of liberation movements in tunisia/egypt/algeria/bahrain/jordan/libya. i didn't intend my first blog on the matter to involve nigerians jumping on the bandwagon, as they say, tho a friend of mine warned that something like this might happen. i honestly thought nigerians were far too apathetic for such a thing. and i'm still not sure what to make of it, since i've never seen a gathering of concerned nigerians do more than spout baseless political slogans. will have to wait and see what happens.

i support a movement toward greater accountability and good governance in akwa ibom and nigeria as a whole. i'm not sure that i would stake my life on it, but i can certainly spread the word. --AL.

i am finally leaving akwa ibom. i can't say that i'm ready to go, only that i need to go, have reached that place where i've gone as far as i can along a particular path and must find another road. to be perfectly honest, i never quite got over the nuns of my previous post. writers are very fragile people and my inner child ran very far away (i'm still trying to coax her back).

regardless, i have gone a lot further than i thought i would have by now. going back through my pictures i see trips to my mother's old school, to her village, to ikot ekpene to visit the old cardinal's house (he is late, my mother took us to meet him when we were girls). i can't imagine what i've been doing here all this time. the audacity of trying to wrap my arms around the history of a place, a time, a person. i also can't imagine what took me so long to get here.

i have loved and lost; found my voice; my dreadlocks have grown; and i've added not less than five pounds of fried plaintain weight. it will probably take me a while to process all this, but i would like to thank sister mildred, sister ekerete, mrs. usanga, justice philomena, uncle adam, aunty valerie, uncle felix, aunty nyong, my cousins and friends, my driver ekemini, my grandmother, my grandfather (may he rest in perfect peace), and my mother (may she rest in perfect peace). i am forgetting too many; please forgive me. lagos is waiting. --AL.

Update: I had a dream last night that I won a prestigious writers' residency. Wish me luck. :)

stopped by the akwa ibom state council for arts & culture a couple days ago to see what's good. akwa ibom's cultural dance troupe placed second at the abuja carnival this year and have been grabbing up awards all over the country. i met council director mrs. jessey ekpo, who says they would have gotten more awards if it weren't so political--the power sits in abuja and, frankly, they don't want akwa ibom outshining them.

i asked her why traditional dance isn't seen as much as it used to be, in those days when people would go from compound to compound performing for whatever people would dash them. she said that 'people don't dance for nothing' anymore, but are looking for ways to package and sell a product for revenue, particularly in the realm of tourism. i was both heartened and disheartened by that revelation--happy that folks are stepping up their game, but sad that i'll never see those good old days again.

the cultural troupe's latest music/dance project is about good governance in anticipation of the 2011 election. i was thrilled to hear the men's choir perform/practice a beautiful song about nigeria and akwa ibom. if not for their angelic voices, i probably would have tuned out all the propaganda about good roads, an international airport etc. (eish, that stuff weirds me out, makes me think of chairman mao.) the women performers i saw were a lot less thrilling and a lot more pop without the substance.

sorry no pictures, i wasn't allowed; all i've got is the building. and why don't they have a website? all i found was this listing. --AL.

yesterday i took a visit to my mother's village of mbak etoi looking for my great uncle. i called and called his phone to no avail, hearing that he'd gone to a chieftancy meeting--the kind of affair that commoners dare not interrupt. it was only after finding a chief on his way to the meeting, and persuading him to pass along a message, that my great uncle finally got wind that i was around.

he appeared suddenly and practically dragged me from the car into a nearby clearing, shaded by palm trees, where the entire body of the etoi clan council of chiefs was assembled in regal attire.

i thought maybe he'd slip me into a seat in the back, but instead he brought me to the high table and introduced me to the clan head. the latter graciously offered me a seat to his left before launching into a speech about my family's history. my grandfather, late chief paul bassey okon, was the first clan head of etoi. though i never got to meet him, i felt his presence richly yesterday as the council allowed me to sit in their midst and take this picture as a memento.

an overwhelming and surreal experience. --AL.

enjoyed last night's christmas carol concert at the stadium immensely. part political rally, part gospel concert, akwa ibom state governor godswill akpabio invited the soweto spiritual singers--most famous for backing the ubiquitous r. kelly in 'sign of a victory' for the 2010 fifa world cup--to perform alongside several others including the aks government choir, fadabasi, and the 9300 choristers (yes, that's right, 9300 singers strong, composed entirely of akwa ibomites).

the soweto group performed so many tunes that reminded me of my college a cappella days, when we toured cape town and sang with the soweto gospel choir. but i seemed to be the only one in the stadium really showing appreciation, on my feet the entire time, while the rest stared blankly waiting for the choir to sing 'jingle bells' or 'we wish you a merry christmas'. the freedom songs were mostly lost on the audience. i might be so bold as to say that akwa ibomites in particular, and nigerians in general, should become more exposed to what's going on culturally in other parts of africa. we make for a very tough audience.

unbeknownst to most of the crowd, a major celestial event was taking place simultaneously with last night's concert. i suspect that the total lunar eclipse my compatriots saw in nyc earlier this week finally made its way across the ocean. from what i could see, the moon changed from red to orange to white in an arc across the night sky, quite dwarfing the brilliance of the firework display ending the show. i can't be one hundred percent sure, of course, because for the first half of the eclipse i thought the moon was a blimp.

at any rate, i am calabar bound tomorrow for carnival along with the rest of the country. hope to find better seats this year. merry christmas! --AL.

spent the afternoon at the national gallery of art in uyo, sampling some of the best the town has to offer in painting, sculpture, ceramics, and wood carving. near the end of the tour, spent over an hour at the studio observing lead sculptor ani udosen instruct a handful of apprentices, all fine arts students from the university of uyo, on fiberglass sculpting technique.

udosen, one of ben ekanem's former students, is the artist behind a number of roundabout sculptures in town and at UniUyo, the giant "reading lady" in front of Akpabio's famed e-Library (pictured below)--which, after two years of construction, has yet to be launched--and a handful of other sculptures throughout Calabar. it was serendipitous that we met since i've been trying to determine the artist(s) behind many of these works.



i asked a lot of questions and he was very accommodating. even shared his flash drive full of pictures. i was amazed to see the eight-meter-tall metal frame he and his crew erected before molding the "reading lady" out of cement. i'm itching for a bust of myself--bronzed. :) --AL.

Statue of Chief Nyong Essien, by Ben Ekanem

after snapping this photo, my cousin told me that my grandfather--late chief paul bassey okon--was great friends with chief essien. in fact, he added, there is a street named after your grandfather not far from here. somehow i'm not surprised that i never knew this. the street is not marked with any signs, except for the one outside an apostolic church, and filled with dusty old buildings and houses. except for a solar power conversion company, which makes me feel as though things are really moving forward there.

in a town where seemingly so few appreciate art (although there's a branch of the national gallery here, which I'll have to check out soon), it's ever astounding to drive by the public sculptures centered at most roundabouts. so i took a short roundabout tour of uyo today with camera in tow, hoping to find out the identities of the sculptors.

unsurprisingly, most sculptures have no attribution. and they are regularly covered up with political banners and slogans that literally wear away the paint, so that future akwa ibomites will not have the pleasure of enjoying their beauty. so let me preserve at least one here for posterity, commissioned by babangida in april 1991. my apologies, but it's difficult to get a clear picture of how impressively tall this thing is with my meager camera! enjoy. --AL.


Untitled sculpture at Babangida Circle, Secretariat Junction, Uyo

They did excellent PR for the AKISAN Convention this year (see the clip below). If only the convention itself had been just as good. There were the cultural dances and food, the speeches and planning sessions. And so much pomp, or should I say pop, meaning that the lead attraction was a Michael Jackson impersonator (true story).

I must formally air my complaint about the omission of the Miss Akwa Ibom 2010 pageant. No contestants? Really? I saw about 50 young women who fit the bill. And the officials spent so much time talking and fundraising that the closing night gala had only 30 minutes of dancing. Boo.

I only hope that the incoming president makes good on his vow to improve 180 degrees next year (now what exactly does that mean?). Jokes for days! --AL.

i'm in baltimore for the akisan convention. most come to find a mate, but i think i'm just here to have a good time and take a break from a very hot and hectic nyc.

yesterday was one of the most emotionally draining days i've ever had. my boss fired me. by e-mail. effective immediately. i saw the door and could have walked through it, but instead i found myself ramping up that naija charm and by the end of it all he "un"fired me.

at times i'm not sure whether i'm my own best friend or worst enemy. i have never been too keen on abusive relationships and i find myself, suddenly, in a very dangerous one. serenity, serenity, serenity.