Ka-Ching!

The Holidays are done! So done that you can poke a fork. Can't even begin to describe that post-holiday feeling of emptiness. I like the holiday season. I like the delusion that I am getting paid for no work. Delusion it is because I inevitably end up working on those days. At least in Nigeria. In India, it was different. My working on a holiday meant the house was on fire. Ah, the good life!

I am not particularly fond of crying over spilt milk, more so if it is milk that I have spilt. Aware I was of what I was getting into when I decided to move here. What's more is that I did not even do it for the money. Yes, mercenary that I think of myself to be the greens had nothing to do with it. I actually moved for better 'career prospects'! And I thought such terms were dropped around solely for making pseudo impressions in job interviews. Sometimes our own doings can be such eye-openers! Shocking.

Cliched though it may sound (isn't this phrase itself hackneyed?), each day at work teaches me something different. I need to learn fast too. For instance, if I bump into an Area Boy (a really flashy term for a local goon) then I must either choose to part with some of my money or all of my life. When talking to customers, there cannot be a slip between the cup and the lip. Vehicles drive on the right of the road - especially of note if you don't wish to have your body parts and you separated. And, most importantly, when eating spring rolls remember it is the temperature on the inside and not on the surface that determines how charred your mouth gets.

My workplace is chaotic. There is almost a method to the madness - how we Indians define a fish market. The hustly-bustly noise almost blows the wind out of your sails the first time. Takes some getting used to. When you do, you have only one reaction to silence. Huh? Silence means no business, which means no money coming in. We all love the jingling of coins, don't we? The smell of Naira bills tickles my nostrils like the nostrils of Jehovah were tickled by the burnt offerings of the Semites, to borrow a similie from Maugham (and please, it is pronounced 'Maum' not 'Maugham')¹.

Today was good. Not orgasmic by any stretch of the imagination but good. I was out in the market (a big market called Agege) for half of the day, as has become the norm. I was passing by a Mosque just after the Friday Prayers were offerred, and I saw women coming out of it! From what I knew, men and women are not to pray at the same mosque. I guess my knowledge base isn't too sound. We live and learn. At any rate, we live².

We are doing a consumer promotion for our noodles. It is the first time that such a grand promo has been done in Nigeria. There are loads of gift items to be won - wristbands, glasses, ipods, handsets, bags, footballs, even scholarships. The response is fantastic. Yesterday this four year old girl came to the office for she had won a scholarship of Naira 100,000. Makes one glad when such things happen. Such a tiny little thing she was but quite the brat! The awareness that kids of this generation have sometimes makes me wonder if I am living in a cocoon.

The week is almost through. Saturday is half a working day. Cruel, I know. I had taken two days in a weekend for granted for far too long, I suppose.

1. William Somerset Maugham; The Luncheon
2. Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy