i have a thing for museums. in new york, i spend a good deal of time in the brooklyn museum, bronx museum, moma, the guggenheim, the museum for african art, even the exhibits at the schomburg and the schwartzman libraries. in nigeria, however, museums are not big business like they are in the states. doesn't stop me from going in and seeing what there is to offer.

if you pick up a copy of teju cole's everyday is for the thief, he has a great chapter on visiting the museum in lagos. how poorly maintained and patronized it was, the nation's history preserved almost as an afterthought. i'm glad i don't have to say the same about the old residency museum in calabar. it was my second visit, and i was slightly more impressed this time around. the museum has a wealth of information available on slavery, colonialism, missionaries, and independence; a gift shop and restaurant; and some preserved artifacts--not least of which is the residence itself, the original building used by the colonial government that was made into a national monument in 1986.

what was missing, though, were the precolonial artifacts. what i found were mostly photocopied images and descriptions of these items. i think it's rather telling that western museums tend to have more of these than museums on the continent. to reference the recent controversy over the proposed sale of a stolen benin mask at sotheby's, it's not as if these artifacts don't exist. in fact, many are either buried in the ground or sitting on display in the western world.

we should take our history back. i'm not sure when that day will come, or even if the impetus exists in the culture. maybe it's a psychological issue, a willingness to excavate and reclaim the past that is largely absent in the nigerian national psyche. as a woman with naija roots who grew up in the west, i have always been obsessed with the past, trying to understand a history that is hazy at best. i am often alone in that endeavor. and i wonder, will we ever interrogate the past? will we ever demand more of ourselves in the present?

i can't remember the philosopher who spoke of the unexamined life as not worth living, but i certainly believe in the folly of the unexamined past. doomed to repeat itself again and again, in perpetuity. --AL.

I finally booked my ticket to Nigeria yesterday for holiday vacation. The agent informed me that, even though I booked a two week ticket, I can stay up to six months. The universe is apparently on the side of my defection from NYC. LOL! I bought the ticket not without much gnashing of teeth over the astronomical prices around the holidays. I think that the supply/demand curve should take into account people's emotional needs, ie, the curve inverts when people's demand is also matched by a profound benefit to their emotional/spiritual/relational wellbeing. I'm dubbing it the "W" factor. I am not sure who in the Obama administration can make it happen, but I'll look into it. :)

My cousin is in town visiting from Akwa Ibom/Uyo, a rare treat, so I am doubly excited as he's already catching me up on what's been going on. I have to spend some qt in Lagos, Uyo, and mostly Calabar where my grandmother lives and the legendary Christmas Carnival will be happening. I will likely be sitting in the kitchen watching her cook most of the time (I'm simple that way), but it brings me so much joy. I was hoping to take a videocamera with me to document her a little bit while I'm there, but I don't know that I can afford one at this point. She will probably hate it too, though like all documentary subjects, she will eventually forget the camera's there.

I also need to make some theater/film contacts in preparation for my Fulbright application next fall. And I need to do some research at the National Archives (can NG please get up to speed on the whole digital archives thing? their web search function is malfunctioning). I also wanted to visit Abuja, but it seems a distant dream given my two week time frame!

It has been six years since I last went home and in that time I have grown dreadlocks halfway down my back. I am not entirely sure how my hair will be received. Last time I had a short afro and my aunt dispatched me to the salon for extensions ("You can't wear your hair that way here!").

I hope I don't get too many "Ras Empress!" shouts. I get so tired hearing that in NYC.