The Ferret

Earlier in the year my husband and I had a huge disagreement over putting my name and other details on Facebook. He, naturally, wanted to introduce his wife to friends, most of whom are scattered all over the globe. I, on the other hand, am paranoid about having my personal details out there. Imagine someone gaining access to your name, picture, emails, phone number and other such details. On top of that they’ll also have access to who your friends are. I kept thinking if someone wanted to round up my entire family and friends they’d have no problem doing that.

I’m not suspicious about Facebook being used as a tool to monitor and gather information about people for commercial purposes (whatever that means). I’m not even concerned about who or what organizations are behind the company. What I’m suspicioius about are the numerous applications that you allow to have access to your personal information when you download them. Anyone can set up an application on Facebook. What sort of measures are put in place to ensure they don’t sell them to third parties? I was even more worried when my sister in-law came across a website that claims to be able to dig up information about anybody, with a fee.

Things like this keep me awake at night. That’s really why I deleted all my pictures and abbreviated my name. Although I’m aware if someone is intent on finding me, there are means. For now I’m content knowing I won’t make it too easy for them.

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Today was tortuous. I woke up with major pains on my left shoulder which I only felt when I bent down to sew. What a rotten way to feel when you’re pumped up and ready to go. I must have slept on it or something. It’s so bad I can barely move my arm around. The smallest movement reminded me of the pain. I still managed to get through the day, hunched over the sewing machine like a Quasimoto.

I hope to feel better tomorrow if not I’ll stay home and recuperate. There’s nothing I hate more than hanging around doing nothing while others carry on with their various businesses. Sure you can learn a few things by watching; but the best way to learn is by doing. When you get the ‘feel’ you’ll automatically understand the whys and hows.

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I got the housing for the snails today. For now it’ll be a basket. I have to keep it elevated in a tray of water to prevent ants from getting to them. The basket also keeps rats and other predators away. Not sure about those that can fly though… I sure hope cocroaches don’t eat snail!

I’ve started knitting the covering for the basket. I figured with wool it’ll keep the basket moist because of it’s capacity to hold water. It’ll be like having a roof of cotton wool soaked in water. Plus it gets pretty hot here in the afternoons so they’ll need all the cool they can get.

I’m moderating comments on my blog because I don’t want errant bloggers using it to score cheap points. These days everyone seems to have something to say about Islam and Muslims. If you are itchy to get it out of your system, do it on your own blog. Don’t wait for me to blog about it then invade my space with opinionated drivel!

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I had my first lesson in dress making today. With directions from my mentor, I actually sewed two cute little pieces, what might be called a baby blouse and a gown. The first one she showed me how, the second I did entirely on my own – except for the cutting, that is.

FYI, it’s easier to sew in straight lines than it is to sew in curves. All through my practice I was trying to get it straight, literally. Now I know the curves are the tricky part.

Since I’m officially learning the profession, I’ve decided the word tailor is too archaic. Dress maker sounds more dignified modern.

I’ve been reading a lot on starting small businesses. In Nigeria you can’t afford to wait for someone to hand you a job. When you find yourself and a thousand others competing for one job, without the necessary connection you’ll naturally find your level. Many have found wealth and success in various businesses. I intend to join them in tapping into the immense consumer potential our large population has to offer. There’s just not enough out there even though it seems everyone is doing the same thing.

Barring my sewing classes, I want to adopt a few snails and rear them just to get a feel of what it’ll be like when I eventually go large scale. I was to get the soil for the bed and sterilize it this evening, but I had to rush to the market to buy sewing chalk and some extra needles. By the time I got back I was knackered.

My mum said a big snail today goes for about N250. They used to cost between N70 and N90 barely three years ago! The rate of inflation is phenomenal, with the impending strike by tanker drivers, food prices are destined to soar again. And we all know once it goes up, it rarely ever comes down. What a shitty country… but it’s ours none the less. We have to make the best of what we have. No use sitting around complaining about how wrong everything else is.

I still haven’t abandoned my recycled water bag idea. It’ll be my weekend project. I’m sure if I employ my cousin we can gather a sizable number, enough to experiment with this saturday. Good thing schools on vac. I’ll teach her how to be enterprising by rewarding her effort.

Aaaah, so much to do…. this is the life!

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My sister finally called me this evening. Apparently she’s been in and out of the hospital with my nephew who has been down with either malaria or the shits. For such a young child, it’s frightening the frequency of his ailments. The last time I saw him he was all head. Poor baby! I pray he’ll get better.

I know there’s always the thought that the mother isn’t doing her job properly when one hears things like this. It’s so easy to blame her… yet in this case it’s actually my sisters fault. If your child is falling sick all the time, something should tell you to check your environment. You can’t try enough for your child, you just have to do whatever it takes to not make them vulnerable to the elements.

I’m going to give her a call tomorrow.

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The main problem with most Muslims is they feel they are right and everyone else is wrong.

One of the reasons I opted for a ‘closed’ blog was because of the hypocricy I observed amongst Muslim bloggers. Like all communities, we have our own fair share of the bad apples, however, the anonymity of the internet seems to give some people the green light to trample on others.

I am not going to make refferals here because I don’t want to get embroiled in the drama, but there have been several sisters who’ve had to close down their blogs because of rude, and downright abusive comments left on their pages. Bloggers attack other bloggers across the fora in slanderous entries meant specifically to impugn their character. Others could be seen fending off the ‘attacks’ in lenghty blog entries meant to assert their integrity. One even went to the extent of posting pictures of her house simply because some nonentity claimed she was being a popinjay about where she lived and boasting about a life of affluence she wasn’t really living. I didn’t bother reading every gritty detail of the long rebuttal, but I couldn’t help but ask her why she indulged them.

There will always be people who for some reason or another will never agree with not only what you say, but who you are. And since you can’t do anything about that, why entertain them? Why give them the pleasure of knowing they got to you when you can ignore them, knowing that hurts them more.

Most shocking of all is that most of those malicious comments come from fellow women; so called sisters of the Faith. I’ve concluded that there are a lot of bitter Muslim women out there masking their bitterness under the kind of bliss that only comes from the contentment of Faith. They talk as if they are so ‘up there’, believing they are the morally superior, when they come across a sister that’s liberated from the shackles of her own inferiorities, they pounce on her, brimming with envy. If she can’t be like them, they’ll bring her down.

There is also the group of Muslims that believe everyone should be the same. That we should all think the same, dress the same and behave the same. If you dare step out of the confines of what is acceptable by their standards, they swoop down on you and accuse you of not being ‘Muslim enough’. For instance if a woman thinks as long as she dresses modestly, long skirts, loose top and a scarf over her head as opposed to wearing hijab, jilbab or niqab, they swoop down on her as if she committed murder. If a person dare express an independent opinion they are accused of deviating from the religion forgetting they are not God. It is only God that has jurisdiction over who is to be pronounced as a true Muslim or not. Only He knows what’s in our heart.

When will Muslims learn to leave eachother alone. I believe the Qur’an uses vague language for a reason because we cannot all fit into one mould. We cannot all look, talk, and act the same. True we worship One God, but we are unique individuals inbued with different qualities. My own philosophy is; don’t do anything that will give you sleepless nights. I always listen to my inner voice and try to maintain a balance, neither going over board nor resigning to passivity.

If you come across someone whose views you don’t disagree with, kindly relocate else where.

I went to Intercontinental bank this afternoon for what was to be a simple withdrawal. Having misplaced my ATM card, I’m forced to queue up for cash. It’s bad enough I went on a Monday afternoon, after waiting for almost thirty minutes – with just three people in front of me! – I went out to find some guy had blocked my car.

After trying to manouver my way out with the help of a good samaritan, for about ten minutes, I gave up and went to the security guard at the gate. He spent the next five minutes complaining about how he just resumed shift and didn’t know who parked the car there. And how he can’t leave his post to find out who the person is. I asked what I should do, and he directed me to the security man at the main entrance.

When I explained to that one, he told me to go back to the guy at the gate. Since they were both being uncoorperative, I went inside to report to customer service. The guy who attended to me followed me back outside to meet the security guys. They told him the exact same thing. He now left me hanging and went back in to do his job.

After waiting to no avail, I marched back in angrily. I didn’t care about decorum, at that point, I was prepared to scream my lungs out for whoever owned the car to come out and move it out of my way.

I asked to speak to the manager. He asked what the problem was and I narrated my predicament, I was sure to say the plate number out loud. As we were going out of the bank, the owner of the car, who’d obviously heard his car number, came out apologizing. I was visibly fuming at this point.

The manager said sorry, but I promptly told him sorry doesn’t make up for my time wasted waiting for a very simple matter to be resolved.

The bottom line was nobody did their job. The security men were apathetic. Their overall demeanor was as if I was inconveniencing them. The customer service guy who would have pursued the matter to the end left me at the mercy of two slugs. Normally staff appear disconcerted when you ask to speak to the manager, but in this case they about gave as much hoot as if I’d asked to use the restroom.

To make matters worst when I got home my dad felt it was unladylike of me to tell the manager off after he apologized. I told him only I know how I felt at that time. He asked how I would feel if I was the manager of a company and a customer refused to be placated after I apologized on behalf of the organization. I told him I would respect the customer’s feelings, because only they know what they experienced. As long as they’re not violent towards me, I would understand if the behaviour of unresponsible staff got to them.

The manager on his part however scolded the security men. I saw him rounding them up as I drove out of the bank. But I was too angry to pay any attention to them.

This is a bank that boasts of being one of the top banks in Africa. They even sponsor Inside Africa on CNN. This is not the first time I’ve had ‘run in’s with Intercontinental Bank. The first time I was trying to get my bank statement, they tossed me about like a pancake. I had to call their overall manager before they finally got to me with the answer. So much hassle over something so simple.

Everything in Nigeria symptomatic of our national psyche, which is to glorify the grandoise while ignoring the details. I would prefer a bank with sound structure and excellent customer relations than one that makes its money from money laundering and levying impossible and unnecessary charges on it’s customers and is flamboyant about how good it is.

As much as banks have improved their relations with customers over the years, we still have a long way to go. Back in those days it was as if they were doing the customer a huge favour. If you had problems, you don’t waste your time complaining to them; they had the rudest people working in banks back then.

I let it ruin my day because I haven’t been this angry in a long time.