Talk:Sometimes WAWA was a good thing

From Rpcvdraft

Chris, thank you for "Sometimes WAWA was a good thing"

Your comment set my mind spinning.

One of the things I had to cope with in Nigeria was a quickly growing sense of internal cynicism. "If something appears to make sense today, just wait, you will eventually discover it doesn't - doesn't either." How to deal with the sense of futility...

'Slice of life': I was sitting at the table in the house at my school playing cards with Michael. Michael was an ex-pat, not PCV. We enjoyed the card game sent by my parents. The electricity was off - which probably means it was a break in term time and the Headmaster didn't have the electrical plant going. The room and table were lit by a kerosene lamp. A battery driven portable radio was on at the far end of the table.

At some point we heard the silken voice of the announcer: "The World Service of the BBC." I can't recall exactly the exact words, we were told Biafra had declared itself independent from the rest of Nigeria.

I remember it clearly. Michael and I stopped to listen. A brief pause... Nothing seemed to be different. Both of us shrugged and one of us said, "Whose deal?"

It was as though the independence, or announcement of the independence, was another "something else" to be thrown on top of the already enormous pile of "something else".

The kerosene lamp lit us, the radio carried on, one of us dealt the next hand... and life sort of went on.

How to deal with what you describe as "WAWA", how to deal with my sense of cynicism? My cynicism was with me when I left Nigeria. I had no idea how to deal with it. I still don't.

Bill