West Africa is not A country!

READ AND GET BACK TO ME

I want you to patiently read this offer. I am Mrs.Aminata Abdullahi, the wife to the deceased former Head of Delegation to the World Bank in West Africa. My husband was the linkman between the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries – OPEC and the petroleum sector in a West African country. He also attend OPEC meetings constantly in Geneva before his death caused by cardiac arrest in our home town.

Through the sale of our allocated oil quota in OPEC, he was able to make S$8.million.(EIGHT MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS)I want you to assist me to claim this money as i cannot claim it directly because he made the deposit as a fund belonging to his business associate in order not to raise eyebrow since he was a civil servant during that time, and the code of conduct bureau forbids him or his wife to acquire such amount of money.
It is on this basis that I am contacting you for assistance, if you will be interested, claim documents will been processed and sent to you. The documents with which the fund is deposited will be amended to reflect you as the beneficiary so that you will be eligible to collect the fund as his business associate.
You shall be entitled to 30% of the total funds while the rest will be given to me on arrival in your country for the up keeping of my only son and for further investment under your kind control there in your country as I can not be able to do any investment here in West Africa due to the origin of the said fund.
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this business is risk free and doesn’t have any negative implication. You should not entertain any fear as all modalities for the smooth and easy transfer of this fund have been finalized. If you can conveniently assure me of your ability to keep this business very secret and confidential, you can write back to me for further details.
Expecting your urgent response.
Best regards,
Mrs.Aminata Abdullahi

I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE PLEASE

Good Day,

How are you and your family? I hope all is well, It’s just my urgent need for foreign partner that made me to contact you for assistance. I am a banker by profession in west Africa and currently holding the post of Director Auditing and Accounting unit of the bank.

I have the opportunity of transferring the left over funds ($11.5 million) of one of our bank clients who died in crash since seven years ago and none of his family member or relation has come for the claim, and now the bank is planning how to confiscate the fund since no one has come for the claim. Please with out wasting time I need your honest and humanity to execute this transaction under your kind control for the benefit of our both families.

Hence, I am inviting you for this deal I will offer you 40% of the amount mentioned above as my patina and the rest will be for me, please if you are sure that you are capable to handle this transaction and you are ready to assist me to execute this business with trust and honest than the further details of the transfer will be forwarded to you as soon as i receive your return mail,have a great day.

For more clarification reply me back and please note that the claims is 100% free.

Thanks.

time and planning

Its one year since Osama’s death. And that’s not the issue for me as much as the length of time that has passed! ONE YEAR! It was this time 12 months ago – what am I doing? what have I done in times past? Where is time going? Jeez! This is how we get old and we don’t even know it. Tick tock, so much time going past. So many plans, not so much time to execute. This quote below reminds me of that:

“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of shore.” Admiral Rickover

a little background … why i do this

So I have been going through a week (OK a few actually) of posting short little things and running. And this is no different! I know why I started to blog, many moons ago – because I had read so many blogs and some I loved so much and felt like the writer and I were friends, some had witty writing and I figured I could do the same, others, were just a peep show and who doesn’t love to have front row seats to someone else’s life? But then, I also wanted to start a blog coz there were some blogs that I didn’t wanna be like.

• I don’t like photography blogs at all. I oddly enough read blogs for the writing as well.
• I don’t like blogs that have graphics telling the story. Just tell the story. Occasionally it works, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.
• I don’t like blogs that are arranged in newspaper style as opposed to one with two/three columns

This has sparked a little idea in my mind and I will try and share about the blogs that I love to read.

Added:  I also don’t like blogs written by more than one person. I can tell both voices apart but its always harder to get into!

Pet peeves

Just a few things that are grating on my nerves at the mo’.

1. The gross impersonation of the African accent that Europeans occasionally dabble in a la Kerry Washington in The Last King of Scotland and Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamonds.We do not sound like that, nowhere on the continent. I recently listened to an audiobook – A guide to the birds of East Africa (its fiction ) and the readers Kenyan accent made the peoples sound like blithering fools.
2. Drivers who do not indicate when they are going to turn left or right. I have no other driving concerns except the guy who won’t indicate especially  when you are at a T-junction and want to know if they are turning onto your road or going past you ….
3. Reading blogs (that I understand are people’s personal biz) that detail pets in great detail. Any blog that has fur babies, details vet trips …. puke!

link love

Make me smile Monday

Stuff I’ve looked at and liked or made me thought.

Parenting in the Noughties.

Paying more at high school, than uni.

Drama on the Big Brother Brazil show.

Happy birthday Oprah!

Brain dump … reality TV ed.

1. Its a sad day when Ice and Coco have their own reality show. I mean, what do we wanna know from them?
2. I oddly totally like Khloe and Lamar. I think they are a lovely (TV) couple. Very chilled and believable.
3. Please don’t let Kim and her man have a spin-off reality show? Please?
4. I am not a parent, but, Kimora Lee’s kids are all you need not to mix parenting and any sort of money or privilege. They are such spoilt little so and so’s.
5. Please DSTV could you bring a new season of Whose Wedding is it anyway.
6. And the original one, not the spin off: surprising the bride or bride v groom. Nah, just the original edition please.
7. Masterchef Australia! YUMMY Don’t know about the South African one, but I hope they continue with the third season of it!
8. My new secret love like is Come dine with me. But as I don’t feel too passionately about it, I actually can’t wait for the local version and snoop on people’s homes!

Wanted to hit ten, but 8’s just as perfect, yeah. The sad thing about reality TV is that its inane, mindless and sometimes un-inspired but day after day or each week, we tune in and feed on it some more. Eeek!

Something’s bubbling inside ….

Something’s creative is brewing inside and though I’m still mulling over things, this is a little taster of the inspiration.

And something else …

 

after the weekend

Something I read today.

Something I will watch later today.

Make me smile Monday

Just, for just

Always wished I could be an illustrator and draw such whimsical things. But all these prints are available from Nidhi Chanani all available here. Her work is also reviewed here.

419 scam letter

The number “419” refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud. This just arrived in my inbox …

Hello
How are you? i traveled to wales for a conference at the imperial college gallery section, Wales) and unfortunately for me the hotel i lodged got razed by fire.all my valuables including cash, cell phones and my traveling documents were destroyed during the inferno. but luckily for me i still have my passport with me.i have contacted the police but they are not responding to the matter effectively they only asked me to write a statement about the incident and referred me to the embassy which is over there in London please i really need your assistance for me to go to the embassy and also to the airline office so i can start processing a new flight ticket.i am also having problems settling outstanding hotel bills and the hotel management are not helping matters at all please let me know if you can help me out.

Waiting for your mail.
insert name of person genuinely known to me.

 

 

Guest post

Andy Shaw is a 28-year-old comedian from Pennsylvania who has been writing the WildARSChase blog for three years, now at http://andyshawcomedy.com. He loves 90s pop culture, is a vegetarian, and would love to travel the world if someone would be kind enough to loan him some money. He’s also on Twitter @wildarschase.

I’ve been a lot of things in my 20s.

* A college graduate

* A fiance

* An ex-fiance

* A new employee, twice

* An amateur, then a paid comedian

* A reality show blogger

* An uncle

But I’ve never been a father. Sure, some might count owning a puppy as being a dad, but since you can put a puppy in a cage and not a baby, I’ll assume it’s different.

Being a father is something many of my friends have experienced in their 20s. And by many, I mean all. Or at least it seems that way. Just recently, there was a rash of people I know announcing pregnancies – on Facebook, naturally – with the same frequency that a bank teller announced “Next customer in line.” It was like God was handing out pregnancies like free checking accounts.

I will assume one day I will get that life lesson of being a father. Hopefully, it’s when I’m ready and not when I say, “You’re HOW late?”

And when it’s time, I hope there’s a handbook. I mean, there is a daddy handbook right?

Because I have no idea how to fix plumbing or teach a kid to ride a bike or yell at my daughter’s boyfriend for keeping her past curfew. If there’s not a how-to book, then all these dad friends of mine must be really good at on-the-job training.

As much as people in their 20s think they know everything and have experienced everything, it’s so very far from the truth. The only truth is that it’s the first extended period of doing things on your own.

I can’t say anything really prepares you for being a parent, other than watching reality TV and thinking “OK, I’ll just do the opposite of all that.”

The strangest thought, though, is this: Our parents worried about the same exact thing. They had no idea what they were doing, and did it anyway (which may explain a few things).

So for now, I’ll ride out the twilight years of my 20s, wait until that stork arrives, and until then, pretend my puppy just broke curfew.

Editors note: Find my post over at: http://andyshawcomedy.com/2011/08/blog-swap-thoughts-from-arabo-in-kenya.html

2010 in review AKA lets change the numbers-2011

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has 296 steps to reach the top. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2010. If those were steps, it would have climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa 4 times

In 2010, there were 48 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 201 posts. There were 30 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 8mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was October 14th with 70 views. The most popular post that day was milestone.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were kenyaunlimited.com, memoirsofunique.blogspot.com, en.wordpress.com, alphainventions.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for happy birthday, japanese babies, buried life bus, whititude a s bukenya poem, and 20 birthday.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

milestone October 2010
2 comments

2

Dreams at 21 December 2009
1 comment

3

what is? February 2010
5 comments

4

About January 2008
1 comment

5

day 3 March 2010
3 comments

appropriately broken

A friend of mine recently split up with her boyfriend and  this is not about the why and all that. It is about the etiquette surrounding break-ups. For instance in this case,  he recently un-friended her and stopped following her on Facebook and Twitter respectively. Within hours of the actual break-up.  And this got me to thinking, why so soon? But then, immediately after I asked  myself that, it hit me, that there is no right or wrong answer and it does not matter when its done, whether immediately or days after. The other party will always feel slighted and it will always be open to being mis-read. So what then should you do? This got me to thinking of some dos and donts around this unfortunate part of life.

Don’t publicise it until one/both of you is ready to deal with it. Often at break-ups there is still some good feeling and great memories of the past and so whatever the circumstances that led to the final break-up does not totally write off the good past you had.

Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Who knows, you might go a day (hours, even), a week, months or sometimes, a year and never speak to each other and get over the angst and then after some time, find that you can overlook those differences and get back together. Even if you never get back together, you might need the other party at another point in your life and this might be to fulfill another role in your life, and then what? While its important to acknowledge your heart feelings, do contain yourself. Some.

Don’t bad-mouth the other to common pals and other people that you suspect might not  know them. And then to top it off in such colourful and descriptive language that should they meet your ex, they can clearly put the facts to their face. (PS: It is a small world and with technology, a virtual village, they will meet and they will know each other). Tempting as it might be, don’t hound common friends with requests for information and make a total mess and bother of yourself and them.

Easier said than done, I guess….

This doesn’t answer the question, how soon after the split-up is it acceptable to take them off your friend or followers list?

curveballs

Very random post this one is. A mish-mash of so many things.

Came across these guys, of the MTV series, the Buried life. And it raises the question, what is that thing that we would do if we didn’t have to work for money?  Sometimes we bury these things in pursuit of life’s great answers and that is a sad thing. I would work in a library/ bookstore and give more of my time to help the disadvantaged women and girls in our society. And I don’t know whats stopping me from doing the second thing because I certainly have a lot more time on my hands now..

Was listening to a podcast this morning and some of the trends or stuff they were discussing was quite mind-opening:

Apparently surrogacy (baby outsourcing)  in India is big business and the government is coming in now to regulate this area. It’s not so much an ethical question for me as much as the fact that desperation drives these women to do this, because the returns are fairly high. The government came in to set an upper limit of five kids per surrogate mother.

Apparently the new trend in Nairobi is to not breastfeed after delivery. Apparently, the fear is largely of saggy breasts and looking unattractive for your partner. What struck me is the rational and the choice between the child and the mate and clearly I have no idea but, the choices are just odd! The dietitian involved urged women to breastfeed for the benefit to their children and also because it helps you lose weight. I must admit that part of what shocked me is the knowledge that I breastfed until I was four and a half years old!

My other obsession, is Urban Dictionary. Today’s word:

FOOD BABY: when you eat so much, that your stomach looks pregnant

My ultimate favourite:

PEEGRET: When you regret not going to pee before leaving a given place!

So what random thoughts are swirling through your mind?

what is?

alpha

birth

commencement

dawn

formation

origin

outset

root

source

start

2.5

Its my birthday today… I am finally 25, wuhoooooooo!

Brad and Angelina split up! Its been in the news for a long time now but it has finally been confirmed. I was so hurt when he split up with Jeniffer Aniston, I know they aren’t my family but when a marriage ends, it’s always so sad. And then, they have six kids together , both biological and adopted and you just think of the impact on them too. On the one hand, you don’t want to prescribe that the two unhappy people stay together and raise these kids, is it always so clear cut that when it’s not working,  just up and go? Very tough that solution, I guess at the end of it you just have to think things through TOTALLY before you say ‘ I do’ because even then, there is no guarantee. But I think, if you are gonna divorce or split up, rather do it early on in the relationship than after ten, fifteen or more years….My two cents.

Sometimes, when you have the incomplete facts about something, its very easy to make certain sweeping assumptions and to justify those. Case in point, interracial relationships. I often wonder so many things: why do you rarely find two people (of different race) of the same age and interests? Both of whom are resident in that country and not the case that one of them is on holiday? But then again, I am not the Lord of who falls in love with who and why and so I shall walk away from this one pretty fast. But I have learnt, I dont always know all the facts, so I won’t begin to make presumptious comments about the two individuals.

Happy birthday to me, tra la la la…..

good news day

little pill on the hilltop

two things I do that I know I ought to stop: One, is looking at disgusting things over and over and having to commit it to my mind, the gross-ER it is, the greater the fixation! Two is feeling sad and making sure I play music that makes me feel worse about it or replaying things past that made me feel worse! And then look at what I stumbles upon! not on but I do…..so what fixation have you got?

BZZZ!

My sister told me about this really shocking study that’s got everyone talking here in South Africa. What does this mean? Really?  The study was conducted in regions that traditionally have these elaborate practices about coming of age and it just begs the question: HOW manly do you feel after you rape a woman? Like on a scale of one to ten, what are the marginal benefits and here these comments are dripping with sarcasm!

i now know

the loneliest place ever to be is at a low point in your life and to  to know that where you are God aint with you as you embark on that path.

that to lose a friend is the worst, to lose a friend over something trivial is the worst feeling ever.

to have balancing tears and try as you might, nothing. its a toughy:-(

to have had the best thing all along and not know until its ripped away from you, not on!