When in Nigeria, do as Nigerians do

When in Nigeria, do as Nigerians do. 

2014 was a significant year for me. 

This year, I was invited to Aboekuta Nigeria to participate in the Ake Festival, a resounding, reverberating and rich cultural festival of literary and visual arts. I had never travelled to Nigeria, before this.

2014 was also the year I was elected as the BBC Commonwealth Games Poet representing Uganda.

2014 was also the year we published our very first poetry anthology, 'A Thousand Voices Rising.'

There were many firsts for me.

I am sipping palm wine, which is a tradition at the Ake Festival, now in existence for over a decade. The more consistent yoiu are, the more yoiu build your credibility. They have built an outstanding platform of writers, poets and artists of various genre over the years.

I tand in awe of anyone able to keep their momentum. I know that behind the scenes, there is fatigue, moments of giving up, exhaustion after the exhilaration and not everyone who gives you a hug, actually wants you to succeed.

And yet you keep on. Give yourself flowers. You deserve them.

At the festival, chief guest Prof. Wole Soyinka, nobel laureate and renowned writer, whose play, 'The Lion and The Jewel,' with its simple plot and deeply layered meaning, is still one of the most vivid and important plays I have read.

When writers and poets gather together, they keep us this undeniably robus energy and magnetic charm, that the atmosphere just changes.

Make sure you attend a literary festival near you this year. It is life-changing.