WHAT HAPPENED AT BRITISH COUNCIL 'THROUGH MY EYES' DAY 2

I have always heard people say the truth is bitter. Well, for me, I feel there is a truth; just bland and insipid, and there is a bitter truth.

Having said that, the truth is, I had so much fun today. The bitter truth is I am so so groggy right now that I can't narrate it all, so I'd just give you bits and pieces.

So, I and some other guys (24 of us, really) got selected for this British Council thing. That's what this is about.

The British Council 'through my eyes' project kicked off properly today. Everyone arrived at the venue in Ikoya, somewhere in Ikoyi, Lagos in high spirits.

The photographers could be seen proudly lugging their instruments with them, while the writers appeared intuitive, like they were communicating with their muse.

Mr Fusi Olateru, the project manager (arts) for the British Council had a slight chat with us and urged us to ask questions concerning the event. That seemed to be the icebreaker for the quietness that had settled on the room that morning.

In a moment, Sue Parkhill and Richard Kelly arrived. The first thing I notice on Mr Richard's face is his grin- a constant grin.

Richard Kelly is the author of the novel 'Crusaders' and 'the Possessions of Doctor Forrest'. He has done a lot  of other astounding stuff too in the past and here, we are privileged to have him as the coach for creative writers. I am a creative writer.

Sue Parkhill is also a photographer with a rich profile with her work exhibited in Europe, Australia and North America.

The day was certainly going to be fun.

The two coaches had small talk with us, eliciting humor from us- the students. Soon, the real learning began.

Each of the teams of two (photographer and writer) began with introductions, then each team had to come out and present to the class their winning entry (we all had to put in an entry each consisting a photo and a short story)

The imagery painted by each of the teams was fabulous, exquisite even. Each of the teams had fantastic images with stories to tell. From a dancing policeman, to a shantytown flanked by high rise buildings, to an Abuja Aboriginal settlement, to a child and his football idol, to children playing football, to a family in a despised part of the city , to children in school and children out of school and a whole lot more. It went on and on.

The creativity was contagious.

I won't bore you with details of our delightful tea break and sumptuous lunch anyway. I'm sure you already ate.

Besides, I have to post this thing before midnight.

 After all the indoor work, we left for outdoors, and for about a half hour, we went into the Falomo market (which we weren't told was a co-habitation of the police barracks) to take pictures. Sue had instructed us to picture things which people ordinarily overlooked, so we got there and everyone split.

Speaking for my partner and I, we got wonderful picture, and I came to see everything around us with a new set of eyes (like Salim in Abubakar Ibrahim's 'Whispering trees')

I also heard other teams got wonderful pictures.

I won't also bore you with the challenges some of the teams had with er...the police guys. If you want that info, let's just see in...er...camera...yes...that's the word. The word that got them in trouble.

And so it came to pass that we finished up, got back into our bus, shared experiences and headed home.

Don't worry about what happened thereafter.

P.S I'll be doing this again tomorrow.Watch out!