FORTUNATE TRAVELLER
Welcome to the travel theatre/ where transition is key. — Dami Ajayi, 'On Airports I'
On this raging hot Friday afternoon, I am in a rickety bus traveling along the Ile-Ife – Ibadan express way. By express, one would expect the journey to be quick and smooth. But no. It looks like a scene from Mad Max: Fury Road. The road is a combination of long stretches, and series of bends, thereby occasionally causing an angry driver to slow down as the road now reveals…
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Coming to Lagos The landscape is first within. But the stream of crab buses makes calls into spaces, perches for gregarious birds. One laying on you as awareness. The bodies are hurried motion, blending through distance. The metrics on a dioptra are found vocabularies, motioned eloquence articulating the depths and meters; hoary metals troubling through a climb: the arcing ebb towards the Island. Then he is welcomed by the…
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Sweetheart, I am still in Santiago. I have travelled round this beautiful country called Chile in the hope of discovering, or should I say, rediscovering the secret of my forgotten passion – poetry. I came in search of that well of inspiration, to drink from it, and hope that somehow it would nourish me and make me set pen to paper once more. In that respect I have failed. I…
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Dawn in Istanbul. The skyline, save for a few domes and minarets, could have been that of any old European city. Going through Immigration, I felt a bit overdressed but was grateful for the warmth of the jacket. During my last trip abroad, I wore a scruffy top and faded pair of jeans. I felt my identity was constantly being questioned. This time I chose to wear a smart grey…
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