Wednesday 23 September 2015

While I Was Away...



I'm back! Its been a while...

I was originally meant to post as soon as I got back from Nigeria, but that obviously didn't happen. Instead I've just been trying to get myself ready for university again.

I'll keep this post brief, but Nigeria was quite the experience! The food was amazing (as expected), the sun definitely wanted to kill me on certain days and I saw a traffic light! However Nigerians being Nigerians, they didn't exactly pay attention to it and drove past it anyway. The country has definitely changed drastically from the time years ago. There was WIFI this time! I felt like someone had given me a very early Christmas present. It basically meant that I felt like I hadn't left London.

The power of WIFI also meant that I could watch a few Nigerian shows/ mini series. Here are a few that I feel you should check out:

Skinny Girl In Transit 


This show is the bomb! (Yeah I threw in old slang and what?) Anyway, meet Tiwa she's what we'd call the classic oversized girl who is looking for love. However the thing that I love about this show is how the Afican culture has been incorporated into the show. For me personally the mum makes the entire show! Her witty Yoruba comments will have you in tears (it's subtitled don't worry). The sister is an absolute enemy of progress and to be fair you could easily snap her in half.

What I also appreciate about this show is that aside from following Tiwa's journey to love, it highlights real problems in Nigeria. *spoiler alert* in the most recent episode, it addresses the fact that in Africa, a woman's size and skin tone can affect her job prospects. The skin tone thing is arguably a worldwide thing, but that's for another day....

New episodes are released every Thursday at noon on YouTube   (there's been 8 so far so catch up!) so if you want something short and entertaining to watch then definitely add this to your list.

One Chance  


Honestly I'm not sure about this one. This show might be harder for me to adjust to because I don't live in Nigeria an so I don't really get it. It's basically about three friends getting on a bus that ends up being some sort of trap that and they are held hostage and told to keep quiet and do as their told. Like I said I don't necessarily get it. The first few episodes are great! Your're kept on edge, but after a while it just sounds like constant screaming with no story development or character development. I only watched up to chapter 4 or 5 and got tired of the screaming as the story seemed to have no actual progression. 

What I would say is that the theme tune (if we call it that) is amazing. Whoever the artist is, is amazing and who ever constructed the animation did a great job. Character development is definitely essential here though, see comments like "the woman in the headtie' raised a few brows for me. We know no one's name at all! 

However to make a series out of on experience that a sure more than a few Nigerians have experienced is definitely a good thing. Hopefully this means the government might take notice. 

MTV Shuga 


IT'S BACK! Yasssssss Shuga is back! Do I even need to explain my excitement. Well if you haven't watched Season 3 please go and do that. Tobi, Femi, Princess and Sophie are back with a few new people too! We are only two episodes into the new season, but it seems like we are focus on the on aftermath of everything that has happened including Princess getting pregnant! This show is just amazing, from Dorcas's (Sophie) acting (yes I'm biased, but she's great) to the camera work. It's basically a show about HIV and how to stay safe as well as how to cope with having HIV. Femi's story is definitely something I'm looking to watching develop as well as what happens to Princess and her baby. Go and watch it! 

NdaniRealTalk 


I deliberately left this till last. Not to talk about the show itself, but more the topic at hand this week. In short NdaniRealTalk is a show that just discusses a chosen a topic of the week with a few famous people. Not much to it, although the views can make you think a lot. Which brings me to the topic at hand this week. The pressure of proposals. 

I think it was the scenario that was given at hand that had me in confusion at first. So you have been with someone for ten years and they haven't proposed. My brain actually started spinning a little. Ten years and no ring?????!! what's going on here?? I get you want to know someone, but after ten years you're still not sure? Ladies I'm pretty sure I'm sure that not wrong in saying you might be more than a little confused and have many late nights thinking what's taking this guy so long?

It also highlighted key things like how women sometimes think they can change a man so stay put as well as the Nigerian mentality of 'what other men are out there'. It was definitely an interesting discussion and worth the watch.