Random Alert: Berry Dakara Blog

Hey friends!

How's your week going? Mine's been pretty good - minus the stupid traffic I got caught in this morning, and the nonsensical fuel scarcity that's reared its ugly head again. About the traffic - I know I'm late if the sun is out and I don't need headlights on anymore before I get to the office. As for the fuel scarcity, it is my firm belief that it's political - the Nigerian government withholds gas when they're trying to distract citizens from issues in the country. Like right now, they're trying to make us forget that there are 200 school girls missing, so they frustrate us into complaining about fuel scarcity. *hiss*

Moving on from the frustration that is Nigeria...

When I started this blog, I thought long and hard about it... what to blog about, what it would look like, how to get followers, what the central theme would be, etc. I actually had a format in mind and the blog was going to be called 'Berry's Five F's' - Food, Faith, Fun, Fashion, Family/Friends - this would have ensured that I blogged at least 5 days a week. It was easy to see very quickly that it wouldn't work for me - for one thing, my friends are boring (I LOVE YOU ALL but you refuse to hang out with me, and some of you don't want your pictures posted, so what's the point???); another thing was this: in my mind I'm a foodie and I love cooking - but in reality, I can eat the same thing everyday for 1 month, and I can't stand cooking anything that takes more than 30 minutes to cook. Let's not even go into fashion cos the whole world knows that style is NOT my thing.

Still though, now that I'm thinking about it, I do wish I could have tried that format for a little bit. I also wish sometimes that I was a beauty blogger - but I really don't want to wear that much makeup. Being a style blogger too was on my mind - but I'm not trendy and I don't have a cohesive style and I don't go shopping that much. I didn't want to be a hair blogger because I'm not that into my hair and I'm not a hair guru.

So, the only thing left to do for me was just blog randomly about my life, my thoughts, my experiences, my dreams, and whatever was in my head. I blog at will and at the snap of a finger - this post literally just came up and initially was supposed to be about my secret blog wishes (A fabulous Style Beauty Inspirational Brainy Fierce-Haired Travel blog), but here we are :)

#ThereIsNoTheEndThisTime #ItIsJustAnImJustSayinPost

Maybe this should have been my 1-Year Bloggerversay post! And I was valiantly trying to write a good post for it o, but nothing came to my mind. Okay, let's pretend it's January 1st so that the post makes a little sense - HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

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It's called Personal Space

Please o, can someone please help explain to me why our people don't get the concept of personal space?!?!?! I mean, you go to a store and you're trying to stand in line, but the person behind you feels the need to rub their skin with yours. Why? You go out, meet a cute hunk, and dude feels the need to let you know what he ate for lunch in 1996 (yup, that's how close to you he's standing). Or you go to bank, and your fellow account holders have decided that they want to know your account balances and statements.

But why? Por que? Per che? Mais pourquoi?

I'm not saying you need to stand in Jerusalem to have a conversation with me, or there has to be 6 feet of space between people standing in line, but ugggh, I don't like my skin rubbing other people's skin. If we're not hugging or holding each other, why is your skin on mine and why can I smell/feel your breath?!?!?!

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Berry Dakara Notes

Hey y'all,

Howdy? How's your week been? Did you have a pretty week? Mine was blehry. I got home later than 10pm two days in a row (not like I stayed late at work - I had to get my eye brows done and didn't want to deal with traffic, and the following day I decided to go for midweek service). But getting home late meant I didn't get enough sleep on those nights. It was bad enough that on Thursday morning, I got to work early and slept off in my car for 45 minutes :D

Anyways, if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the pictures below. For everyone else, sometimes I have a thought that I really want to share and make pretty, so I use S Memo to create notes on my phone and share them as pictures on Instagram (and sometimes Twitter). Just thought to share some of 'em here. Of course, the thoughts are mostly random :)



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Happy Easter Tout Le Monde!!!

Bonjour mesdames et messieurs! Ca va? Et moi? Bien, merci!

Lol, okay I just got back from Cotonou, so I'm still in mode Francaise! I had taken the week off last week, with the intent to have a mini vacay. We threw around destinations like the Gambia, Ghana and Dubai but the worrier realist in me would rather know that we're actively saving for rent at year's end, than spend the money now. So Cakes arranged for us to go across the border and head to Cotonou in Benin Republic.

NOTE: For the very dear people that wondered where I disappeared to and commented on other blogs and IG, thank you so much for your concern and checking in. For those who didn't care that I had disappeared for over a week, you very obviously don't care about me, so as your punishment you're NOT allowed to read the rest of this post. Oya, close your eyes! No peeking...

We left Lagos on Wednesday afternoon. My poor Cakes obviously didn't realize the extent of my aje-butterness, cos he had me crossing the airport road and getting into taxis without AC. Well it's not totally his fault cos the taxi guy said that his car had AC (which makes me realize that in Nigeria, AC is relative). Let's just say I sweated the whole 4-hour ride to our final destination.

BEFORE we reached our hotel, I must inform you of the stupidity, backwardness, and criminality that Nigeria is. If you like, abuse me and tell me that I'm stuck up, that's your problem. The Nigeria-Benin Republic border is a DISASTER!!! I think the border town is called Seme and it's rife with criminals and Nigerian immigration officials touts! The driver warned us beforehand, that we needed to break N3000 into smaller bills. I didn't really get why until we got there. There's a stretch of road that's very busy, and every 6 feet or so, there was someone collecting money for no freaking reason! You couldn't even try to pass, cos they had those spiked sticks and would burst your tires. Sometimes up to 3 officials touts would come to the window demanding money (from N100 to N300 each). Then we got to the border proper, and we had the option of crossing without getting our passports stamped... HOWWWWWWW?!?!?!? What kind of bloody corruption is in this society?!? They claim that some people don't want to waste their passport pages. Well, there was no way in heck I was doing that, and they informed us that since we've never gone to Benin Republic before, we had to pay to get our passports stamped - N4000 total for Cakes and I. Now, I have to ask what the ECOWAS passport is for if we're having to pay to get it stamped. Nigeria... SMDH. At one point some guy seized our passports because Cakes didn't want to give him extra money. It took the cab guy 15 minutes to beg the human being to let go of our passports. I didn't get pictures of what the whole thing looks like on our entry to Benin Republic, but I got some shots on the way back. Oh, by the way, they seized our yellow cards on the way back in, claiming that they were fake and that we should give them N4000 for new ones. Cakes said "HELL TO THE BLOODY NO! Keep the yellow cards!" and we zoomed off. These are cards that we got in December in Lagos Island, in the same building as the marriage registry. After this border drama, I'm certainly never doing a road trip in Africa again,

We finally got to our hotel (Ibis) in Cotonou. It's not very fancy, but it was certainly clean and nice. For some reason, we forgot that we were now in a French-speaking country, and all the TV channels were in French, apart from CNN. I certainly got caught up with all the bad news around the world (kidnapped Nigerian school girls and the lies of the military, sunken ferry in South Korea, still missing Malaysian plane, craziness in Ukraine, etc). Apart from all the bad news we were forced to watch 24/7, we had a pretty good time in Cotonou. We went to the beach, drove around, and I even got on a zemidjan (aka okada aka motorcycle) 3 times!!! Let me tell you why this is a big deal. The last time I was on an okada was in 1999, and the time before that was in 1994. Let's just say there was a little screaming and the zemidjan riders got my boobs and hands all over them, while I grasped at them trying not to fall off.

And with that, I shall stop writing and let you enjoy the pictures :)

Have a pretty week. Revoir mes amis.

Bienvenue a Cotonou!

Happy by Pharrell

Hey friendly friends :)

So you know this song, Happy, by the vampire Pharrell Williams? It was nominated for an Oscar for best song in a movie, Despicable Me 2. Let me tell you, I ABSOTIVELY POSILUTELY LOVE the song! I think it's one of my favorite songs in the whole wide world, and in fact, I wish I had heard it earlier because I would have wanted to use it in my wedding. The song just radiates joy in a world full of chaos. For just 4:08 minutes, you can forget that there are missing planes, warring countries, fuel scarcities that make ZERO sense, broken hearts, etc.

Did you know that the actual video is 24 hours long?! As in, Pharrell decided to make the video a 24-hour project and there are 24 1-hour videos from 12am to 12am on Youtube and on the 24 Hours of Happy website. Isn't that just genius?!

Now, for all the happiness from Happy, I have to make 2 confessions...

Rude Surprises *can't think of a better title*

Sooooo, I was reading one of these 'Dear Abby' letters and this lady had written, asking if how she felt was wrong. Her boyfriend of 2 years had planned a romantic night stay in a nice hotel, with dinner, drinks, everything! He organized it and wanted to do something nice. However, when it was time to pay, he asked her to bring money twice, which she did but she was upset about it. He said he was going to pay her back, but she maintained that if he didn't have enough money to execute his plan, then basically he shouldn't have gone through with it.

Source

How's Married Life?

Cakes and I just "celebrated" our 3-month anniversary of weddedness. I put celebrated in quotes because we didn't actually do anything, which sucks lollipops!

Anyways, remember when I wrote about how long newlywed-dom lasts? We concluded that it lasts as long as people keep asking "So how's married life?" Well I want to address this question. When people ask me this question, I take a second or two to assess who asked, how close we are, how I'm feeling at that particular moment, and if I have time to gist. Depending on my assessment, you'll get one of the following answers...

Happy April Fool's Day

Unfortunately, I can't play any pranks because I'm apparently such a prankster that anything I say today, will automatically be judged as an April Fool's joke. *rolls eyes*

Anyways, lemme go tend to this bun in my oven.

Source. Nobody believed me. I need new friends that believe EVERYTHING I tell them, even on April Fools Day.

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