olaoluwatomi

Thinking about the years gone by, The restlessness of youthful legs, The joyfulness of childish tears, The wistfulness of adult fears, The hope in the gaze of the elders! Thinking about the years to come, The race of love to be won, The joy of friends to keep, The happiness at family reunions, The births of kin and grandkin! Spare no thought for the present, Let the days speed on to the future, Where dreams await their birth, Let the film of life be rewound, So events past can be seen and kept, In that urn called memories! Lets live in the past and the future, Where the real living is done, By the dreamers! (C) Olaoluwatomi, May 2009

Its usually at the end of the year and at the beginning or on some special occasions that we remember to thank God for the things he has done for us but I decided to have my own kind of praisefest in blogsville and list the things for which I am grateful for. 1. LIFE- Im thankful for life, the ability to wake up and get up from my bed each morning, roll over and groan cos I want to sleep some extra minutes. 2.WORK- That I can get up each morning preparing to go and work is something Im grateful for, even if I dont enjoy some parts of my day, God Im thankful that I can work. 3.FOOD- Im not a food freak but Im thankful to God that I have food to eat and I can eat. 4.FRIENDS- This group is one I heartily give thanks for, for the phone calls, text messages, words of encouragements, gifts, prayers, counsel, I certainly thank God for you all! Friendship is not a game to play, It is not a word to say, It doesn't start in March and ends in May, It is tomorrow, yesterday, today and everyday

Was reading the story of the woman caught in adultery who was brought to Jesus to be stoned and I penned down a few thoughts on the story! The woman caught in adultery was one lonely and scared woman who had nowhere to turn to, nowhere to hide, she was out in the open forced to look at her sin as it was and have the whole world make mockery of her. What was running through her mind?, Did she remember her childhood, her parents, her siblings if any? Or was she thinking about the man she had just lain with and the foolishness of such an action? Or did her mind blank out every memory and did she await only the blows to her head from the large rocks she had seen the men pick out from the corner of her eye? Was her mind tuned to only what lay ahead of her D E A T H as sure and as certain as the night and day exchanged time periods? Did she ever think that maybe just maybe she could be delivered from the fate awaiting her, instead of stoning her immediately they were taking her to J E S U S

pix 1. (C) 3M™ The images that come to my mind when Avian Flu is mentioned is that of people streaming through airports or public places with face masks covering their mouths and noses, this image has also been reinforced with the recent pandemic of influenza A H1N1 ( previously referred to as swine flu). What is the risk of us recording cases of 'swine flu' in our country. If it was before the advent of international travel especially by air one would be confident to say that it may be impossible for such a bug to hit us in this country except if the birds of the air transmitted a very similar virus while migrating from coast to coast (a tall extrapolation!). But with the advent of travel which ensures you can go round the world in 5 days compared to Jules Verne's 80days there is no such consolation in assuming we are immune to the ravages of the virus. The pig is the unfortunate mammal that acts as a mixing bowl for this virus and it is said to be more virulent than if i

Pix 1: Dass Mountains! Pix 2: Dass Mountains Pix 3: Dass Mountains! Bauchi State Pix 4. Rocks in Dutse, Jigawa State

Pix A: The Irrigation Pump. Pix B: A view of the farm! Pix C: Harvested Onions! Pix C: Some other parts of the farm! On my last 'tour' of the country, I visited a dry season farm, which means that irrigation is the main source of water for the crops. The farm I visited was owned by someone who I met in Bauchi state. So for those of those who think onions grow on trees, have a look again, they are actually dug up from the ground!

I have finally stopped globe trotting for a while, thankfully no new epidemics have surfaced and the old one is silently but surely receding from the bodies and the memories of the affected. What exactly did I do on my road trips, once again Ill give a brief summary of my daily activities! 0700hr Wake up time! 0800hr Packing treatment packs, donation forms, all other paraphenelia of office into the rugged vehicles which at one time consisted of a toyota hiace bus with no seatbelts, no fuel guage and no speedometer, thankfully it had brakes that worked! 0830hr We are off to some rural locale with part of the journey being on extremely good roads and the other half on cow tracks. The road networks in most parts of the states I visited is pretty good, but roads to some local governments or villages are not actually roads but paths which just happened to be paths for animals and people! 0900hr Still on the road. The journey is either done in silence if there is a language bar

Today I walked my sister-in- law to the busstop so she could get a taxi home. On my way back a car filled with men stopped by me. I am naturally suspicious so I took a step back and made sure that I could escape quickly if the need arose. I thought they were stopping to ask for directions but they apparently had other things on their mind. Their first question was where are you going? That was when I realised they were up to no good! Home I replied and backed away, they must have seen the apprehension on my face for they burst into laughter and asked me if I was afraid of them, I replied in the affirmative. We are civil servants they replied as if that was supossed to allay my fears, Civil sevants what has that got to do with a kettle of fish like my uncle usually exclaims, Did I look like a mugu? In these days of kidnappings and all, why should I trust or listen to anyone solely on the basis of his job! Anyway I walked backwards towards where I could see a few people, the next thing