NA Gode, Umaru.

Oh my! Was just googling the net few days back and to my ultimate surprise came across this piece. It was written by someone I knew in my fathers classic pictures of his school days. Someone I have never set my two eyes on but able to read his piece about his student more than 40 years ago. Happy reading



By Earl (Buzz) Welker, (05) 62-65
He often came when I was watering the neem trees. He would always offer to carry the bucket for me and splash the water in the typical Nigerian way—a method that I never truly mastered. He was tall, shy, a taciturn young man who came from a small village near the border with Cameroon.
I was a “lecturer,” and none of the other “lecturers” actually worked with their hands, indoors or out-of-doors. I was told that I should hire a garden boy to do the work. I was told the sun was too hot for a bature.
He was a student in my English and geography classes. He spent more time with me than the others did. His primary school education in spoken and written English had been inadequate. He was determined to catch up and be as proficient as the students from larger towns. Unlike some of the other young men, he did not look at an American degree as being less worthy than one from a British university. My American accent was not something he worried about, he just wanted to learn and I was willing to help.
My cosley was close to the teacher training college gardens. Living there made me feel like I belonged after being quartered for months in the enclave of spacious houses several miles from the commercial and residential section of town where colonial civil servants had lived before independence.
Every student had a plot that he cared for every day. Since my house had no trees, no garden, no flowers, I often spent my time outside planting anything to add color to the drab landscape of the extreme savanna, the sahel.
At first, students working in their gardens would look over, stop their work, and come to offer to help. I chatted with them, told them that I enjoyed working with my hands after a long day of mental work, and encouraged them to just talk to me about themselves. The students would politely answer my questions but reveal little of their ambitions, their goals, their dreams. They were either unable to open up to a foreigner, or simply did not have the English language skills to talk casually with me.
He never called me by my name, but always said “Sir.”
During the first few months the students’ names were strange to me, but eventually I mastered them and enjoyed using both their first and last names instead of the traditional “Mister” which the British expatriate teachers used.
Umaru Bubaram became the first visitor to my cosley, my home, in Maiduguri.
When I joined the Peace Corps in 1962, I was optimistic about what I could learn and what I could accomplish. As an inexperienced, but trained, teacher, I was hopeful about what my classroom experiences would mean—not only to my students but to me. Nearly forty years passed before I really understood the impact I had.
We shared many hours of private lessons improving his English. I gladly lent my books to him. He read them, asked questions about them, and faithfully returned them. By the end of my tour in Nigeria, he had become more articulate and could speak and write English more fluently.
I had one letter from Umaru Bubaram after I left Nigeria in 1965. He had taken a teaching position in a small village in Bornu Province—near Potiskum, his home. After that, our lives went in separate directions and we lost touch.
When I went to Nigeria for a visit in 1976, I made it to Maiduguri, but none of my former students or colleagues knew the whereabouts of Umaru Bubaram. On rare occasions I would pull out photographs from Peace Corps days in Maiduguri and look at the serious faces of my former students. I wondered what had become of Umaru.
Six months ago, I clicked on You’ve-Got-Mail and found a message captioned “Are you E. Walker?” There was a photograph of me as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1963. Was I the E. Walker who had taught at Bornu Training College in Maiduguri in the 1960s?
“Yes! The photograph is of me—but my name is Earl.
The next day, I had a long, excited email from the daughter of Umaru Bubaram. Her father had kept my photograph and told her stories about the college, and me, and the Peace Corps. He insisted that I had been an important influence on his life. After Umaru became a teacher, he went on to become a headmaster, a prison superintendent, an important government official in Nigerian administrations, and steadily gained respect and trust from those he served.
My long-ago student is, today, Alhaji Emir Umaru Bubaram, the Emir of Potiskum.
In his picture today I still see the young man I tutored. I see the pride and dignity that was there when he was a student. His determination and conviction still show in his face and posture.
We have exchanged letters. Slowly we are learning about the lives we have led over the last 40 years. His adult children have earned university degrees. He has many grandchildren.
Umaru Bubaram infuses me with pride and reflected glory—the glory that comes from having students who make teaching a profession that truly is like no other.
Na gode, Alhaji Emir Umaru, Na gode.*
(* Hausa for Thank you.)
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The Meaning of True Love

Have you ever sat to think about your life, how it all began and the pattern it is taking? Have you ever sat a lover and asked him/her reasons for loving you? It does not matter whether you make the first move or not. If you have, what were the answers and facial expressions? Put shyness aside, your love is your life and you have to be careful, because something dreadful is chasing true love away and occupying its habitat in all nooks and crannies.

Love is something naturally created with its own special features, charisma, zenith and tenderness. It is a thing that any living creature feels, adores and obeys. As it is a gift, the mind needs to have it, the heart needs to feel it and the body accepts it to become a full being. The instance of Adam could be cited, when he was created alone he felt lonely and knew he needed to have something he had no knowledge of for him to be complete and be happy, then Eve was created and the equation was balanced.

Love has three faces: lust, infatuation and the real love which is very rare these days, but sweetest as ever imagined. Lust is one's mere desire for something seen in a person. The desire dies the moment satisfactions have been obtained. Infatuation easily occupies a mind and heart without a person knowing it and makes him think he is in love. It happens when a person has a feeling of admiration for the other that makes him feel he is in love. The moment he is fed-up with the thing with time or the thing being admired fades and sometimes if a better one is seen or a little problem erupts, it vanishes. Infatuation is what makes a person love another so much that he cannot see the partner as he/she really is.

But real love comes naturally to the mature mind. And what could be a mature mind? A mature mind is that which believes in love. Real love is not blind as the saying goes. Rather when one is infatuated he absolutely becomes blind that he cannot trace out black from white. If love comes, then it walks in with open and sensible eyes and an open mind that looks far beyond all things.

Love could explode at first sight, but mostly, it comes gradually. It touches gently. It itches tenderly and steals a heart completely in a tender, sweet, special way. And not like infatuation that cares blindly and impatiently.

As a man is created with certain unique characteristics and known to be rational, a female also has a different nature that makes her emotional. The pattern each gender loves is different from the other. A male is known to be the king of gender; he is also bestowed with the confidence of making the first move. A female however, finds it difficult and faulty to approach the opposite sex as a male does, except otherwise. This is because ladies have pride when it comes to love. It is nature and can never be changed. Because of this, ladies are always found in the habit of being endearing in most cases. Why? Because it is the only confidential way they could behave in contribution to the whole affair. It could be in form of words, dressing, gait, gesture, and look to mention but few.

These flamboyant things if not properly treated tend to impress some dependent minds and rush them to the garbage world of false love and such is the hallmark of infatuation.

A man may love a lady thinking and assuming she had some features that will make him happy in bed, he may love a lady because she is beautiful, or because of her family background. He may also love because of money and mention them. But the moment he finds out that she isn't as thought/ assumed, or if the beauty fades, money vanishes, etc, her case will be a gargantuan one because his desire will be grafting for another. As the Hausa saying, "soyayya tsuntsune" meaning "love is a bird", it flies from one tree to the other (infatuation).

The whole affair is as simple as this, you may long to taste something you have been hearing to be very sweet. For you to grade its sweetness you have to give it a try (one man's food is another's poison). The moment you get hold of the thing and taste, one of three things must happen; its either you find it not sweet to you as said, and you will never care about it again, or you taste and continue taking till you become fed-up and abandon it, or you may find it not sweet but add something that will make it sweet to you and you will never give it up, you may also find it sweet and not let go of it.

The first point is application to lust, the second one to infatuation and the third to humble true love. Puzzle your brain about these before moving further.

The first point does not even last long as most couples of these days believe in "toast" before marriage. Infatuation may pretend to be long to the unlucky ones that get tied to matrimony, it is then that infatuation will have a ground of confession without being begged.

But the case of a never-let-go affair (true love) couples may have studied each other, taken corrections before matrimony, and can never be parted except by God. This kind of love gives birth to a lucky matrimony, a successful marriage, a happy home, a sweet decent generation, plus a peaceful heart and mind. True lovers always co-operate, they live to enjoy their marriage, their world and their lives.

Notwithstanding, there are minds that have steps by step gone far from the call to the right path, they have gone far dreaming of possessing mansions, beautiful partners, wearing fancy clothes and driving flashy cars. Mind you, happiness does not lie in riches or by always appearing flashy. It exists where peace is. And where could peace be? Peace exist where there is true love and true love exist in the mind that believes in it; the minds that are always eager to co-operate, a heart with concern. It brings success because it encourages, it floods enmity and greediness, it waves goodbye to the pedestrian selfishness. It resides where meddling emigrated and materialism becomes a long forgotten issue.

Materialism is always accompanied by a devilish passion a greedy mind that will continuously drive one comfortably to the planet of absolute desire, a place of destruction and a dirty word. It will make your yesterday a regret, your today a sorrow and give you a hopeless tomorrow. However, any soul that always follows the desire of the heart is definite to find himself being infatuated, due to an impatient heart, an eager mind and an imbalanced brain, that slumbers to a hungry lions den.

Despite that, every disease has been created with a medicine and the medicine definitely works except not found or not properly used. Likewise, it is not late for each and every lover to examine the kind of affair he is in. Compare and contrast between true love and infatuation. Then puzzle your brain and make a decision; life is short.

Love endures, infatuation does not. True love is not blind; infatuation is blind because it doesn’t open its eyes to reality, when one has a very strong passion for a partner that prevents him from thinking about the other in a balanced and sensible way. Love touches kindly and grows gradually, infatuation explodes at a moment and diminishes with time. Love never fades, infatuation, easily vanishes. Love is patient and endures all hardship. Love deals with the inner being and qualify the outer being by the judgement of the inner being. Infatuation gives distinction to the outer being. Love is humble, infatuation envies and never traces errors. Love give sex a secondary treatment, infatuation worship sex and materialism. Love increases by the quality of a lover, infatuation increases by the quantity of a partner and reduced by the quantity of a partner. Love takes caution of meddlers and thinks twice, meddlers can easily separate ones in infatuation. Love respects, infatuation does not. Love has rules and it punishes only when the rules are being violated, infatuation does not have rules and it is wicked because it punishes unnecessarily. Love adores truth, infatuation makes one lie to gain confidence, but lies only flowers, and it does not bear fruits.

Be wise in order to have a sweet memorable yesterday, happy today and a hopeful and fruitful tomorrow. A matured mind always remembers that nothing on earth is permanent. Take this as a guide when you lose a beloved one. Love is really a deadly gun that never kills. Remember, time changes and heals yesterday, it brings the unknown tomorrow. Love is not blind.