FORTUNATE TRAVELLER
Author
I: Morning The world here is open spaces and quiet afternoons. But it is also slow, misty mornings. I sit one early Sunday morning on a bench by a shed made of raffia, charging my phone and waiting for a taxi going to Saki, the first stop on my journey to Ibadan for my place of primary assignment. I take a look at this place. There are noisy weaver birds…
Continue reading
Fortunate Traveller is pleased to call for submissions of creative non-fiction, poetry and photography for the second volume of our National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) themed anthology, Becoming Otondo: An Anthology of NYSC Travels Vol II. Like our first volume, Government Pikin: An Anthology of NYSC Travels Vol I, guest edited by Sami Tunji and SA Sanusi, Becoming Otondo will tell the stories of Nigerians observing, or that have observed,…
Continue reading
Applying for a visa can be a chore with too much paperwork, especially if you are a Nigerian passport holder which is ranked 91st in the passport index. That is, there are not many countries or places you can visit without going through the cumbersome process of applying for a visa apart from the West African countries because of the ECOWAS free movement pact. And applying for one with this…
Continue reading
Pisa It was necessary to escape from the heat to the Ligurian seaso I got back on the train, the Tuscan countrysideunscrolling before me, in time for a quick lunch in Pisa,with the old joke of holding up the tower for a photo.I walked down a side street just off the Piazza del Duomoand ducked into a place where mostly locals were eating.At the end of a very simple but…
Continue reading
I conquered five American cities in five days: Janesville, Milwaukee, Washington DC, Madison and more of Chicago. Janesville was a stranger to me. So was Milwaukee. I barely knew about Madison, save for the University of Wisconsin, which occupies a sizable portion of its beautiful landscape. I had not been to Washington but it was not entirely strange to me. I had read about them in books, seen them in…
Continue reading
Hello Opemipo and Toluwanimi, my beloved children, let me begin in an environment you are more familiar with – America – because you have lived here for some years. At the time I made my first trip to America, you were still in Nigeria and even now that you live here, you have not had the advantage of going around the country as I have. So, I would like to…
Continue reading
We’d spent the weekend in Westerway, Tasmania, a town whose population could fit on a large bus. He was waiting on the main street, one bulging pack strapped to his front, another to his back, seemingly unbothered by the load. He was tall and strong with generic good looks. I took one look at him and I knew his story. I knew the second pack belonged to his girlfriend –…
Continue reading
Title: A Substance of Things Unseen Author: Kay Ugwuede Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 48 Year of publication: 2019 Category: Travel/Nonfiction Kay Ugwuede’s illuminating travel chapbook, A Substance of Things Unseen, begins in the city of Enugu, at the top of a hill. This she translates into the Igbo language as Enu ugwu: a linguistic performance garbed by seemingly measured emphasis. And this presents a sort of manual to the…
Continue reading
Leaving is self-abnegation; something always wants you elsewhere. Once, when I was fifteen, I spent a week away from home. My Mum clutched me tight the afternoon I returned. I’d suffered where I went – starved, wandered, and begged. She knew; I knew; everybody knew. At night, I lay my head on her lap as she popped my pimples. ‘My child has suffered,’ she told my brothers, with her small…
Continue reading
For Benjamin I Walk Talk Walking We had an idea to take a walk, gowalking, not a stroll and not a hike, justa walk, going for a walk, knowing youcan stop, feeling the elements: the earth beneath your feet, the rain waiting, the airmoving, the fire waiting. The walkingworld doesn’t pass you by, it comes with you.You’re not driven and if you’re on the rightbearing, you can always rest. Any placecan…
Continue reading