olaoluwatomi

What exactly is this enigma called death that reduces grown men to babies. There is one phrase that is repeated often in my country-Who wants to die? And the answer is no one. My earliest recollections of the concept, was when I was abour five years old, I remember being in a car going over a bridge and feeling a strange sensation and thinking I had died and for a long time after that I thought I had started life afresh. When did I actually know what death was, I can't tell but I remember the death of someone I met when I was about 8 or 9 shook me up badly. I had only met her once, she was in her final year in university and had offered us drinks when we went on a visit to her family. She struck me as a very nice person. When the news of her death came I was inconsolable, I cried until my head hurt and had to be comforted over and over again. Death came calling in family circles when I was in my second year of medical school, my experience with cadavers in no way prepared me for th...

I went for a walk through my neighbourhood yesterday and I can tell you it affected me more than I can describe. I live in an estate about ten minutes away from the central business district in the country's capital. Right next to all the beautiful houses is a motor park, its about a ten minute walk from my house and I had never gone through it as my daily commute to and from work or church or any of the places I go to gives me no reason to walk through the park! Well yesterday something took me through the park and it was not a very pleasant experience. The park from the entrance looks like a typical market, cars and buses parked all around the periphery with traders and their stalls spattered like a paints on a collage. Once we began our trek through the streets (they are really just footpaths) it was another picture entirely, the paths were filled with (non-degradable)plastic products, pure water, human excrement, cow dung, my people it was horrible. Between the criss-crossin...

I spent the last two weeks at home in Lagos thanks to my accumulated leave days and the absence of any major disease outbreaks or disasters! And I spent some days looking after my niece whose crèche had closed for the Xmas holidays. Only one day spent with her convinced me that looking after children is no small matter and of course I can better appreciate my mum who had the good fortune of looking after two of us at the same time. Its not like I had never spent time with my niece, its only that in the past I could put her down in front of a TV screen and rush to the bathroom because she could not crawl or walk. Now she has mini dynamos in both legs, before you can shout her name she has raced past you to play with the pots in the kitchen or she is in the bathroom trying to get into the bath or she refuses to let you sit down as she wants to continue dancing or playing games where she is a rider and you are a horse! My people it was no easy matter at the end of the first day my arms a...