What lane are you on?

How you doing people? To my Nigerian readers, what did you get up to for the holidays?

I went to Lagos, spent some quality time with my best friend Wunmi, and her son (my godson, duh). Nothing like family!

Dodging the sun vs. basking in the awesome lighting! This is such a great and awful photo at the same time, lol.

I must also confess that my diet was abandoned (which is what good people do during holidays, lol) so I’m typing this from the treadmill, trying to redeem myself.

It was also a good opportunity for me to focus on myself, and the exhaustion I’ve been feeling lately. I’m grateful for the massages, the sleep, the absolute rest I was able to achieve. So thankful.

A bit about my best friend before I move on… She’s an amazing, real chic. Like, I know I’m going to contend with her swollen head later but she’s one of the strongest women I know, an amazing worker, even more supportive wife and mom, and I’m just thankful for her today. Get yourself a bestie like mine!

Okay, Wunmi worship done, here’s the reason I decided to write this. So, it’s still raining in Abuja for reasons I cannot fathom. It rained from 4pm yesterday till about 11pm when I fell asleep. Why? Sigh. Plus it was thundering like God was scolding us (anyone understand thunder-speak?) and totally defeated the ‘weather for two’ purpose of the rain. Just as well since Bobo is far away at the moment.

Anyway, so I was trying to get home when the rain subsided a little bit and there was traffic. Not the Lagos type of traffic that can last an entire pregnancy term but it was bumper to bumper on what should have been an express lane.

I trudged through it, and then around my area, I ran into some traffic as well. A little pissed off at the time I’d already spent navigating traffic, I decided to leave the inner (speed) lane I was on, and get ahead using the outer lane. Was quick for all of five minutes and then I realised I hadn’t factored in that I would have to contend with the ‘keke napep’ riders who use that lane.

I struggled in that lane a little bit, trying to avoid the keke riders who do not see the need to indicate but feel the need to stop abruptly wherever they please, or even the ones who tried to scrape my car in the name of driving rough getting ahead.

When I narrowly missed one of them rear-ending me, I asked myself why I was raising my blood pressure on a lane that ended up not giving me the speed I’d hoped for, and then quietly moved back to where I was earlier.

I thought about it before I slept last night and tried to relate it to everyday living and humans switching lanes thinking someone else has it better than we do. In truth, sometimes they do but we don’t know what else they have to deal with that we don’t. So before we jump into something we’re not ready for in the name of the grass being greener on the other side, maybe think through it a bit more carefully?

PS: I will blog more. It’s a super distraction while I’m jogging on the treadmill. Been using this app called Couch to 10k, I’m in the 7th week, and I did 2.5miles today (25 minutes non stop). Talk about progress, when I started I was barely doing 5 minutes without gasping like I was being strangled. Can’t wait to do a full 5k! Yeah, I’ve never done that before.

Stories from work: About that N1500

I think I’ve written about vulnerable people and metrics for giving alms etc.; how I’m more disposed to women with babies and people with disabilities over people who look ‘okay’ at first glance. I’m also more likely to give food /edible items to younger children instead of money. Just my thinking and how I feel those things should happen.

What do you do when someone shows up at your office though? Yes, there’s a story here.

Two Fridays ago, about evening time I was trying to finish up an application, write an article and send a couple emails; talk about being super busy! My team had just come back from facilitating a step-down training in conjunction with Women Advocates for Vaccine Access (WAVA) and were putting away their things possibly to start heading home.

I was on the phone to Tata, when one of them came to say someone was waiting to see me. I recorded off the call and asked that she be ushered in.

Frail didn’t capture the woman wrapped from head to toe who entered my office and asked if she could sit. She did, and I asked how I could help. She said she came from Nasarawa State because hospitals were on strike and she couldn’t get her anti-retroviral medication. So she came to Abuja and after going to a few hospitals, got two months’ worth of medicines, and for free. She paused long enough to remind me that ARV are free from government hospitals once you have ‘your number’. I didn’t bother asking what the number was.

Anyway, bottom line was she had spent the money she had moving about and buying food and didn’t have any money to get home. She said she couldn’t beg on the streets and that God told her to walk and somehow she got to where our office is situated. How much was she looking for? N1500 only (less than 4 dollars).

I gave her the money, got my people to give her a pastry and drink from what was left over from their training and her smile is something I will remember for a while! Big, warm, and stretching from ear to hear. Then she prayed for us and left. Ah, she took my number too, said “so I can tell my daughter Chioma when I’ve reached home”. I haven’t heard from her since then, and I really hope she got home okay.

Now she could have just schemed me out of N1500, or she could really have been directed by God to seek help at our office. Either way it felt really good to be there for her and to not have had a plan or standard for that kind of request. May God wanted to disrupt this process of mine.

I dunno. And I think sometimes it’s okay not to.

On your marks… Getting ready for that half-marathon!

So, this is the year of doing things I haven’t done before. A number of them I won’t talk about till I’ve done them, but some others I can share, including my plans to run a half-marathon. 21.0975 kilometres. Yep.

Stop. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. I know it sounds like a lot (and it is, who am I kidding?) but yeah, I want to do it. According to experts, the best way to get that done, is to run 5km first, and then build up from there.

Brethren, up till Sunday, the 26th day of June 2016, I’d never done that before. I remember trying to run with Tokes one morning in London; I ended up blogging about the scenery and how I threw up, hurt my knee, developed a headache, let’s just say I wasn’t very successful!

To be fair, I love to walk. I’ve walked 19 kilometres before (Look at my Instagram if you’re a doubting doubter) but running is a problem. Not only because I’ve got a bum right knee (no I’m not making excuses) but also because it’s not something I really took to. And I want to change that. Plus I hear the cardio from running is super, and I need to drop a few more kilos, raise my stamina/endurance levels, all the good things.

So this time, I was pumped! Whaaaaat!! Get it girl! I had tweeted about wanting to run the half-marathon and gotten a few people who had offered to train me, including Bosun Tijani of CCHub and Truppr. If you’re in Abuja, Lagos (I think pretty much everywhere in Nigeria to be honest) and thinking of a FitFam family that allows you to pick and choose events (and even create some) that you’d truly be interested in, I suggest you download the app. Yeah?

Anyway, so Bosun had created a 5km event on the app, and the date was Sunday, time 5pm. Boom! I went to church that morning, clocked a meeting afterwards, went to the car wash (my darling nephew had created a biscuit and ribena explosion in the back of the car), and then ran home, ate lunch, sent a couple emails, and headed to Sheraton, where we were to meet.

Some other Truppr folk showed up, and interestingly, I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen in like 6 or 7 years. She was checking into the hotel and apparently had seen me outside so came over to say hello. She ended up going up to her room to change, and then coming back to join us!

This is where it becomes fun. I was so pumped. Like I had tweeted, some people had tweeted support, I was dressed warm cos it was a bit nippy out to be honest, playlist was ready, calorie and heart rate monitor checked, I was ready! I even downloaded another app, Runkeeper which should ‘train’ me to run by keeping track of the runs and times etc.

Then we started. First kilometre was alright, I was playing YCee’s ‘Jagaban’, Phyno’s ‘Fada Fada’ and a few other songs that are boosters so I was alright.

1.5km? My heart nearly stopped. Dang! I didn’t believe there wasn’t something wrong with me. Of course I stopped running, started walking. Of the six of us who ended up running, I think it was only Bosun and Shola who didn’t take walk breaks. Of course I took the longest walk break.

At some points (while I took the walk breaks) I was tweeting… Maybe I should share.

Lol… I remember the panic I felt. Thinking of it now makes me chuckle, but I actually panicked!

Please, don’t even judge. Look at this photo and move on, God bless you.

What!!! Cue Kanye West’s ‘Touch the sky’, R.Kelly’s ‘World’s greatest’ and other songs in that category!

Yeah….

Anyway, we got the 5k in, and I’m really excited about that. Plus, I made a few cool friends, and I’m looking forward to my next run. It might be this Wednesday if I can make out time, or I’ll create an event and see who else wants to get this in.

A few more photos…

So, that’s it! I can’t wait to get to the point where I’m running the entire stretch non-stop! Whoop!