YorubaWorld September 14, 2010

Hi "Sir Lawie" (and readers of my open letters).

Congratulations on ten years of YorubaWorld - and thanks for sending information about YorubaWorld which I have copied below this email.

It is certainly a long time since you first helped me with some basic greetings in Yoruba.  I have to confess I have not been practicing for some time now as I have tended to be less in SW (Yoruba land) and more in North Central Nigeria in recent years - so my basic greetings in Hausa have had more use than the Yoruba ones. However I am back in contact again now.

You might also be interested to know about an opportunity I had in the UK to sprinkle a scrap of Yoruba into a situation. I was invited to do some training sessions for Crown Agents (it was about Millenium Development Goals and ICT - and genuine relevance in rural Nigeria). When I was invited I only knew the participants would be Nigerians - imagine my delight when I discovered they were all from Oyo State - the very area that got me learning scraps of Yoruba in the first place. It certainly lightened the atmosphere right at the start when I was able to welcome people properly and use a couple of other phrases too. Then of course we quickly had some informal discussion and laughter, establishing shared knowledge of places and realities and had a good atmosphere to do the training. (Later we even discovered a friend that three of us had in common - and we got together again next time I was in Ibadan.)

Now I am thinking of when you and I were last in contact - and remembering that we were discussing the project and people in Ago-Are. I forget if you were trying to follow up with Fola or with Pastor David. Anyhow I remember that communication was a challenge- so things were rather left on hold.

I've checked dadamac's posterous http://posterous.com/manage#dadamac/posts to see what references I have made to Ago-Are - and if any  might be of interest to you. I have copied a few links below. By the way - my work in Ago-Are (like yours with Yoruba World) started ten years ago.

• September 14, 2010 - Reverse charges for yahoo chat? - More Internet access from Ago-Are
  
• May 8, 2010 - [teaching in the rurals] internet connectivity get more popular - My friend Folabi Sunday updated us about phones and PCs in rural Ago-Are in Oyo Sate SW Nigeria:
• May 3, 2010 - Next Generation Telecentres- In paragraph five I wrote "Back in 2003 I was so ignorant that I thought the Ago-Are Info Centre was a Telecentre - I didn't realise that "real telecentres" were government funded. Given the Ago-Are Info Centre was somewhat different I should probably describe it a little more.'  - and in paragraph six there follows a description that you may find interesting. 
• April 15, 2010 - Dadamac tweeters session - Popoola from Ago-Are attended
  
• April 11, 2010 - Collaboration opportunity - Mobile phones in rural Africa - ICT4D or ICT4Ed - I was trying to explore possibilities with some of my contacts for  coming up with a win-win collaboration idea to involve two teachers in Ago-Are - Fola and Popoola.
  

I have copied your email below and hope some of my open letter readers will be tempted to visit the site and learn more about Yoruba world. I have followed the link and love the smarter presentation of the site, and the chance to listen to some Yoruba again.  I hope you will not mind if I confess to one disappointment though - which is that I failed to find all the lovely words and phrases that you directed me to all those years ago. I can't believe they were a figment of my imagination - I do hope they have not gone forever and will re-emerge for others to appreciate as I did.

I admire what you are doing to share your enthusiasm and knowledge and to welcome others to Yoruba world. Once more, congratulations on the first ten years and all good wises for the future

Pam