simplyann.net

Wow! What a week it’s been since the historical (I know I have overused that word, but it was!) presidential election. Even in the six days since then, President-Elect Barack Obama has started more conversations, renewed more hope, opened more eyes than he can possibly imagine.

Friday night, standing outside of the E3 Steakhouse with my girl Mona and two random dudes (‘sup Kevin, ‘sup Lauren!), I got the chance to really express how I was feeling about everything. Kevin said that, from what he had been reading about Obama, it seems as if the man does have an idea of the impact of his (our!) victory. Many pundits have alluded to his ego.

But I wonder, how many of us hold ourselves to something higher? How often do we go around thinking, “I’m made for something bigger than this”? And how often does that type of thinking get translated into ego when it can also be seen as destiny? And how often do we even recognize our destinies?

I never thought I’d live to be older than 18. I don’t know what I thought would to happen to me: get hit by a bus? the Apocalypse? the Rapture? realization of ancient Mayan prophecies? And because of that, I never really dreamed big things for myself. My parents sure did (neurosurgeon! architect! attorney! or other variations of doctor, engineer, lawyer) and so did the Nigerian diaspora as a whole. But now that Obama will be president, and I’m a little ways past the age of 18, I feel like for once it’s okay to dream a little bigger, sit up a little straighter and believe in something like destiny.

As tressiemc challenged on blackfolk: “I dare you do everything you swore you couldn’t do. I double dog dare you.”

I woke up from a nightmare this morning. To understand how loopy I was for a good four hours after I woke, you must understand that I don’t scare easily. Scary movies do nothing for me. The Saw series simply sickens me. The Ring, The Grudge and all other Americanized movies bore me (in fact, I wanted the girl from The Ring to be my friend for a while). You can’t throw me a surprise party because I am just that perceptive. Try to jump out at me from behind a bush? Careful, I might knock you upside your head without a minute’s thought.

I wasn’t terrified, but I was off-kilter and I felt as if I would jump out of my skin. There was no adrenaline rush and I trouble carrying on conversations with my family, with the guy waiting for me at the office. We hadn’t changed the hour on most of our clocks and the simple mental energy needed to calculate the time was draining. I often retreat into my mind in a state of semi-hypnosis to distract myself from other issues, but I couldn’t do that this time as my mind still held the remnants of the dream.

The dream. I haven’t even been able to remember it except in hazy bits, but I remember the feelings. I had never felt that way before. Is this what nightmares are like? If anything, I’m more motivated to go to sleep sooner tonight, just to find out what happens next, to see if the characters are still there, to see if I can still lift the damn house with my mind, which is what I was trying to do before I woke up.

Okay I know it’s been nearly a month since that amazing weekend at Google, but I wanted to make sure that I said everything properly since I’m not the best blogger.

BarCampAfrica was exciting. I went there with an interest in not only the technology side of things, but also the more cultural and social side. I wanted to know what people were talking about in terms of bringing African culture, art, architecture, design and music into the global conversation. Before BarCampAfrica followed me on Twitter, I had, on occasion, entertained this wild dream of returning to Africa with a bunch of Los Angeles youth in tow to meet their African counterparts. The space that BarCampAfrica provided made this dream a little less “out there.”

The Good
The conversations. Mine were limited, but each person I talked to was doing something exciting. Leadership institutes, lots and lots of micro-financing, t-shirts, and more. The people were welcoming, especially with my far-fetched idea to bring a bunch of kids all over their field offices in Africa. I was able to get a decent list of internship opportunities for organizations here in LA and at UCSC with young people who want to work abroad. I especially enjoyed the music (we know, we know), and of course the DJ. Google was aiight.¹

The Bad
I didn’t see a lot of African women relative to the amount of people in attendance. I counted maybe ten (not including me or my sister) active participants and the topic did come up in a session. I know we are doing big things and that there are different levels of involvement, but it would be interesting to see how the conversation might have gone had there been more African women joining in. One woman (whose name I have misplaced; she works at Intel!) mentioned the cultural hurdles African women have to overcome in order to move forward and how that maybe challenged by the white or western ideals of organizations currently in Africa. That is currently the theme of my conversations with my mother bout Yoruba culture. She assures me that African women have ways of navigating their own cultures and I tried to convey parts of those conversations in the session.

The Beautiful
Made a bit of a fool of myself on twitter by being overexcited about a particular song. But check out my twitter profile it pretty much sums me up! And I met a couple of UCSC alumni which made me proud to be a slug.

I’m not worried about Africa, which is my answer to a lot of people who wanted to know why I was going to BarCampAfrica. But, if I want to show close-minded LA youth something bigger than themselves and give my cousins and extended family in Africa more opportunities, I have to open my mind some more. There are people with vision and genius throughout the continent, people like William Kamkwamba and Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg with Akili Dada who have had and are spreading opportunities. The world needs to know. The west needs to stop sleeping on them!

1: jay kay, jay kay. Google was an amazing host and my sis and I were properly impressed. We took down a list of the goodies to see if we can find them locally.