...its been too serious in this blog so on a lighter note so welcome on Board Proudly Nigerian Airways ..;)))

Hello and Welcome to this blog, pleased you stopped by and hope you enjoy what you read enough to leave a comment..or if you have a blog, a link toyour blog so I can follow you and read from you too....
*Found this on those fwd fwd mails...enjoy :))*

Welcome onboard flight.....
------------------------
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.

This is your captain Boneyface welcoming you on board of Nigeria
Airways.
We apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad
weather and some overtime I had to put in at the bakery.

This is flight 126 to Lagos. Landing in Lagos is not guaranteed, but we
will end up somewhere in the South. If luck is in our favour, we may
even be landing on your village!

Nigeria Airways has an excellent safety-record. In fact our safety
standards are so high that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us!

It is with pleasure, I announce that starting this year over 50% of our
passengers have reached their destination. If our engines are too noisy
for you, on passenger request, we can arrange to turn them off! To make
your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve complimentary
Bongo tea and Okin biscuits!

For our not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can
help you find out if there really is a God!

We regret to inform you, that today's in-flight movie will not be shown
as we forgot to record it from the television. But for our movie buffs,
we will be flying right next to Air Barka, where their movie will be
visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the
cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow
down!

In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as
possible for the best view. If however, we go a little too close, do let
us know. Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the
landmark!

Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for take-off and
fasten your seat-belt.
For those of you who can't find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt
to the arm of your seat ... and for those of you who can't find a seat,
do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how
to fasten yourself to your suitcase."

Wishing yall loads of Love and Laughter
Mena

YOU ARE WELL FED, WHY CANT YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYE

Hi Peeps, thanks for all the responses, i solemnly swear to reply everyone tomorrow, thanks for your patience xxxx. Enjoy this story...

Hello you don't know my name, where I'm from and where I'm going but the one thing you know is I'm just like you. All you have to do is look me in the eye and you will see.

I'm a grandmother way past retirement age struggling to take care of my grandkids. You see my daughter, their mother abandoned them years ago. Business today is slow, kerosene does'nt sell as much as it used to. I'm tired and hungry that even the mosquitoes feasting on me are a welcome distraction. Rent is way past due, so my grandson will not be resuming school when the new term starts tommorow. I know its hopeless staying a little longer, a little longer waiting here trying to sell when it seems like I'm invincible , a little less time of trying to sleep without electricity. I'm too old for all of this and as terrified as I am that I might not be able to provide my grandkids the bare necessities, I'm more terrified of not waking up one day, in which case they would be left with no one to care for them.
Fear. Who gave it to me. Life gave it to me.

Good evening ma, I can see its a young lady. I must have dosed off.
Mama what are you selling. Na kerosene, small bottle, 100 naira, big one 250, she does'nt like a kerosene customer. Mama, night don reach, wetin you dey do outside this kind time. Abeg, how much for all. I mentally calculated what was left, which was not so easy these days. I would never admit to anyone that my elementary maths was slowly eluding me. My pikin, pay 650. She just stared at me. For a moment sensing my desperation, so I turned away, bring am, she opened her purse and handed me a bundle of 500 naira notes. Mama go house. Night don reach. I dey see you everyday for here. Use this money, then she handed me her card. My house dey near here. Call me next week. I could'nt believe it. Thank you my pikin. God go bless you. I was already choking on my voice. Mama no thank me. I get grandmama too and I no like as I dey see you like this. Make sure say you call me o. She rushed off waving goodbye. I waited until she left before I counted the money. Unbelievable, I quickly picked up my tray, I had to get home. I did'nt want dele to be late for school tommorow. As I hurried home, I wondered why someone I did'nt know would do something like that for me, then I realised that she saw me. I might have thought I was invincible, but there was someone watching. She looked me in the eye and Without speaking, she knew my story.

Beautifully written by Barbara Okojie

WHAT LORD LUGARD AND MAHATMA GHANDI .THOUGHT ABOUT BLACKS/AFRICANS (oh and Happy Independence day) (Part 2)

Kaf·fir also Kaf·ir (kfr)
n. pl. Kaffir or Kaf·firs also Kafir or Kaf·irs
1. Offensive
a. A Xhosa.
b. often kaffir Used especially in southern Africa as a disparaging term for a Black person.
2. Kafir A Nuristani.
3. also kaffir Islam An infidel source

Hi

This is a continuation of my last blog which focused on Lord Lugard

Today is the turn of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948). He is known as 'Mahatma' (great soul), Gandhi was the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, and is widely considered the father of his country. His doctrine of non-violent protest to achieve political and social progress has been hugely influential. After university, he went to London to train as a barrister. He returned to India in 1891 and in 1893 accepted a job at an Indian law firm in Durban, South Africa. Gandhi was appalled by the treatment of Indian immigrants there, and joined the struggle to obtain basic rights for them. During his 20 years in South Africa he was sent to prison many times. Source BBC

I will stop there as I am more interested in Gandhi and South African Blacks: Gandhi wrote extensively about his experiences with the blacks of South Africa. He always termed them “Kaffirs” (refer to first paragraph on this blog) and his writings reveal a deep-seated disdain for these African natives Here are a few of his quotes along with their sources.

“A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150)

Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: “One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105)

May 22, 1906
“It was a gross injustice to seek to place Indians in the same class as the Kaffirs.” ~ Vol. V, p. 226

“Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245)

His description of black inmates: “Only a degree removed from the animal.” Also, “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” - Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136)

The Durban Post Office: One of Gandhi’s major “achievements” in South Africa was to promote racial segregation by refusing to share a post office door with the black natives.

Sept. 26, 1896
“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” ~ Vol. I, pp. 409-410

I will stop here, see more here, at your leisure

To conclude I will write the same words as I used in the first paragraph of part one;
In primary school it was part of the school curriculum to teach us about great leaders of our past. However as an adult I did some more research on these 'Great Leaders' and what i found out certainly was not part of the school curriculum.

Just saying...
Thanks for reading through...
Mena

WHAT LORD LUGARD AND MAHATMA GHANDI .THOUGHT ABOUT BLACKS/AFRICANS (oh and Happy Independence day) (Part 1)

Hi

In primary it was part of the school curriculum to teach us about great leaders of our past. However as an adult I did some more research on these 'Great Leaders' and what i found out certainly was not part of the school curriculum.

Today I introduce you to articles written about two great figures of history Mahatma Ghandi and Lord Lugard and thought to myself at least they had the balls to have it written down and stored forever for people like myself to find out what *possibly* could be the cause of intolerance, rejection and violent crimes all down to the racial structure of a person.

While many Arabs experience 'it' by being automatcally profiled as a terrorist, Africans experience it in all sorts of ways, the latest being a subliminal attempt to erase 'blackness for more acceptable mixed race' from most mainstream channels..I digress... as thats an argument for another day...Lets starts with Lugard, and continue with Ghandi in the second part.
Enjoy the thoughts and words of Lord Lugard

First a brief history; Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard GCMG, CB, DSO, PC (22 January 1858 – 11 April 1945), known as Sir Frederick Lugard Governor of the two protectorates. His main mission was to complete the amalgamation into one colony. Although controversial in Lagos, where it was opposed by a large section of the political class and the media, the amalgamation did not arouse passion in the rest of the country. From 1914 to 1919, Lugard was made Governor General of the now combined Colony of Nigeria.

Well one day he woke up, eat his two slice of bread served with english breakfast tea,and while sipping got the inspiration to write the following:

"In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural"


“He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility ....he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue...... In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.......Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future."

Source: Lord Frederick John Dealty Lugard, The Dual Mandate, pg.70 (1926)"

Watch out for part 2