A Page From A Writer's Diary

Saturday August 23, 2008.

I am online, because I work online. I have to report the news from the news agencies and I have to update my news websites and blogs and sell books. This is my life and I love it. It pays my bills and helps me to keep my obligations to our mission fields and charities who need every ounce of support they can get in spreading the word in the Age of Information, but where most people are still ignorant of the realities of our common humanity.

It is still baffling that most of my people in Nigeria are less bothered by the genocide in nearby Darfur, except for the great sacrifices of the brave Nigerian military officers who have been part of the African Union Peace Keeping operations in Darfur and dozens of them have lost their precious lives both in Sudan and even on their way back to their barracks in Nigeria. More people in New York know about the horrors of Darfur than the majority of Nigerian on the streets of Lagos and Abuja.

While I am worried about the plight of the refugees in Darfur, members of my family are more disturbed by the daily threats of the Niger Delta militants. Living on Bonny Island is now high-risk behaviour in these interesting times.

My youngest brother who cannot even locate Darfur on the map pf Africa is asking for petty cash, but does not even care if any of my books is selling or not. Is it not ironic that a young security officer at a bank on Bonny Island is more excited to sell one of my books than my brothers who are more excited about asking for more money and freebies without asking you how you are faring? I told one of my younger brothers, if you want money, go and collect copies of my book and sell them and keep 30% of every copy you sell, but I heard that he hissed at my offer, but he wants me to give him money?

Nigerians who are lazy to read books, but they waste millions of dollars weekly on making pleasure calls and keeping vigils to make free love calls and exchange text messages. Is this the new generation of Nigerian youths we should pin our hopes on?

If the great Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka called his own generation, a wasted generation, I wonder what we should call this present generation that is even worse than the wasted generation of Wole Soyinka? Wanderlust youths wasting their time on their vacuous ways of life in romantic escapism. They are pathetic.

I have packed my essential things to return to Lagos. My assignment in the Niger Delta is completed and my long stay here has been very rewarding intellectually and financially. I will only come back to begin the shooting of one of the short documentaries from the researches on the Niger Delta crisis. Bisi Daniels said I should write a novel on the bloody crisis, but I prefer to shoot a short documentary first.

I was thinking how the five children of my younger sister would fare in my absence when I received the e-mail from Katie O’Callaghan, the Assistant Marketing Manager of Ballantine Books. She is informing me of Halima Bashir's war memoir, Tears of a Desert".

I read her mail silently.

"Tears of the Desert" is the first memoir ever written by a woman caught up in the war in Darfur . It is a survivor’s tale of a conflicted country, a resilient people, and the uncompromising spirit of a young woman who refused to be silenced.Born into the Zaghawa tribe in the Sudanese desert, Halima was doted on by her father, a cattle herder, and kept in line by her formidable grandmother. A politically astute man, Halima’s father saw to it that his daughter received a good education away from their rural surroundings. Halima excelled in her studies and exams, surpassing even the privileged Arab girls who looked down their noses at the black Africans. With her love of learning and her father’s support, Halima went on to study medicine, and at twenty-four became her village’s first formal doctor.Yet not even the symbol of good luck that dotted her eye could protect her from the encroaching conflict that would consume her land. Janjaweed Arab militias started savagely assaulting the Zaghawa, often with the backing of the Sudanese military.

Then, in early 2004, the Janjaweed attacked Bashir’s village and surrounding areas, raping forty-two schoolgirls and their teachers. Bashir, who treated the traumatized victims, some as young as eight years old, could no longer remain quiet. But breaking her silence ignited a horrifying turn of events.

Halima is calling the world to action with her story, and I’d like to help her. I’d love to share this book with you – if you’re interested in reading it, please let me know and I will send you a copy.

I replied her that I have read Daoud Hari's "The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur", and he is from the same Zaghawa tribe of Halima Bashir. I told her that words are not enough to describe the horrors and the terrors of Darfur and if I could convince Steven Spielberg to make a film on the genocide in Darfur it would be more illustrative of the catastrophe.

My darling called me and would love to see me in Aba on my way to Lagos. Then I called my younger brother on our financial agreement. He has to refund the petty cash I gave him. It was a loan and not a gift. I have a lot to do and I need more money to do so.