17 PERFECT STRANGERS AND 4 DOGS

 

FRIDAY COMMUNITY CHAT 2021

This blog post has sat as a draft for well over a year and only been updated shortly before I published, hence the mish-mash of past tense, present tense, past ‘prinsipa’ or whatever they call it, my English teacher would be absolutely mortified (Come and beat me Ma) When life throws pepper at you....make pepper soup and ayamase. We move🤪

What if I told you bar 2 people in this photograph, I’d never met any of the others before this day?

So I’ll start from the first few months of the pandemic when we were struggling to kill boredom and find new ways to interact socially. Two events got me through those months, it started with DJ Abass’s Friday Inner Caucus Hangout, a zoom session filled with Music, games and banter which I have already blogged about.  

Then one day I receive a zoom invite from my friend Oritsetsola or Tsholz as I call her. 

It was a zoom invite to ‘Friday Community Chat’, the Topic: ‘Married my childhood sweetheart.... now divorced what went wrong’ 😢

Confession time....Tsholz, when I saw the topic I climbed on my high horse and then rode the horse onto a soap box! My thoughts were ‘How inappropriate is this? Why would anybody want to discuss such a sensitive topic in front of a group of strangers? This Tsholz girl is really pushing her luck here.’ I had no intention of joining as I expected the zoom meeting to be a doom & gloom grief Olympics. I even forwarded her zoom flyer to some friends expressing my opinion, ‘egbami o, imagine this as a zoom topic?’ But hey-ho surprise-surprise they saw nothing wrong, topic actually piqued their curiosity and they said they’d be attending!

YEMISI, YEBO, TSHOLZ & JOSH (FCC 2021)

On D-Day, a Friday at 8pm an indignant me logged on the hour (I don’t do Africa time). And there was our smiley hostess with the mostest, Tsholz waiting to welcome us, friendly and chatty trying to get us to interact with each other. I didn’t recognise anyone I knew but quickly switched on my camera as others had. I sat tense in my armchair as this was early days when we were overly cautious on zoom. 

Surprisingly THAT was a topic and a half and the chat was nothing like I expected, firstly it wasn’t as if people had to talk about personal experiences, it could be simple as one just giving their own perspective on topic . Tsholz anchored the evening with decorum and it was so interesting and interactive. And that is how Friday Community chat zoom group started. 

ADETUTU, VIVIAN, DUPÈ, TSHOLZ & IJ

Over the months the group and topics evolved. Each attendee brought something different to the table. We are ‘scattered’ all over the world.  Though majority of us are based in the UK we have folk in Lagos, Abuja, New York, Maryland and South Korea! I always looked forward to Tsholz notifications, some of my favourite topics were:

Sabotage and Ghosting in Relationships 👀

What Makes A Man? What Makes A Woman?

Favourite child/Sibling rivalry

Shhhh...Don’t tell anyone 🤫 

Herd Mentality 🐑🐑

Moi With Pauline

Now for a quick roll call:

Gambo our soft spoken diplomatic voice of reason based in South Korea, 

Hassan our artist, ‘as in’ Naija proper artist! In the early days I thought the busy colourful backdrop behind him was a virtual one because of all the bright colours. So imagine my shock when he stood up during the zoom and walked off towards his art work and started painting. I was confused so later asked Tsholz what was going on, she explained he’s an artist and was zooming from his studio. When I picked my mouth off the floor, I’m like ‘Tsholz I need to visit this place’, she assured me as lockdown eases my wish would be granted. 

Akin 4:40 (Honorary member) With Risi

Bunmi is Hassan’s ‘Mrs’ one of the quiet ones among us, nothing like Hassan (if you know you know).      

Dupe, is the award winning fancy head gear member. Tsholz wanted to shake things up and suggested we make the zoom session interesting by wearing something, you could always trust Dupe to come up trumps with some mask or OTT headgear.  Dupè also likes to ‘blow grammar’ and she is very articulate with her words. Early days with camera off I’d roll my eyes when she started speaking. My thoughts were ‘kilode I too went to school now’🤦🏾‍♀️ 

Yemisi, he’s the life and soul of the party and wind up merchant, every group needs one! I sit there cringing as he gives his opinion on issues that should not really concern him like ‘Impact of lace wigs on African women’s hairline’😩  

Our Straight talking Yebo complains that I never pronounce her name right🙄  

Oga Josh, all his chat leads to naija politics and this was way before our Obedients, BAT and Atikulate nominees had been selected.  

Fope, Adetutu, Tsholz with Latari, Steve, Bunmi, Kunle and Dupe - FCC Picnic 

We also have Chinwe who encouraged Tsholz to start the Friday chat in the first place! Bambo turns up late for last reunion but was forgiven because she came with 6 moinmoin 🤫 London Ade, New York Ade , Kunle, Ndudi, Yomi, Kego, Obi, Aisha, Vivian, Charlotte, IJ, Titi, Bimbo, Rasheeda the quiet one, Imisi,Pauline, Bola, Funmi, Adetutu and Steve. 

1st Row Hassan, Bunmi, Bola. 2nd Row Gambo, Tsholz, Adetutu, Yebo. 3rd row Bambo, Josh, Vivian, Bimbo, IJ (hiding), Titi, Akin, Ola, Yemisi, Dupè FRIDAY CHAT REUNION 2022

Lani is our author of erotic books🔥 (fact not fiction)

Al-Amin our Abuja based personal ‘pesin’, he is a whole vibe. A quick bio on him, started life as a Jehovah’s Witness, then became born-again and attended a Seminary. Later he converted to Islam after that, some-how he emerged at the African Shrine and became Fela Anikulapo’s personal assistant! He smokes a pipe and while puffing out smoke it gets so much you can barely make out his silhouette in the cloud of smoke. On one occasion Ade, our New York based attendee signed in late became so perplexed by Al amin’s smoke that he asked whether he should call the fire brigade or whether the cloud was the Holy Spirit. His life story is giving my headache, a headache🤦🏾‍♀️😩

How could I forget our four furry friends, Hassan’s And Bunmi’s ‘bad boy’ dogs Polo and Freddie. Tsholz’s posh dog, Latari and Adetutu’s ‘Fopè’ yes that’s right a dog with Yoruba accented name😩

Chinwe, IJ, Steevo, Ade, Tsholz and Dupe showing-off👀

It was inevitable as the months rolled on and we went in and out of lockdown the day would come when we would actually see each other in the flesh. Logistically it was a bit of a kerfuffle but opportunity presented itself for us UK lot when Hassan invited us over to his studio on a day that just happened to fall on my birthday in 2021.  

OUR 1st INVITE🥳💃🏾🕺🏾

CALM DOWN HASSAN, FCC PICNIC 

So we roll up at Hassan’s. By then we had known each other virtually for a year. 

I’m walking through his and Bunmi’s home mesmerised by his art work not knowing the best is yet to come as we’re led through garden to the annex his studio/gallery. 

It was such a relaxed set up, the back drop of all the painting just added to the ambience. Jist is flowing, the gang have made me a personalised ‘Risi By Name’ birthday cake, we’re eating, drinking, dancing and hugging. I had planned to make this a 2-part blog but rather I’ll let the pics do the talking and summarise.

FCC EVENING OUT OCTOBER 2022

Over the years the group has evolved. We had Tsholz step aside and pass baton to Yebo and Adetutu, we’ve had people log in and log off, the loud ones have become quiet, quiet ones have found their voice. Our naija members met up. We’ve had 2 weddings this year and welcomed Bimbo to the group. We sadly lost a naija based member.  Last year naija social media was buzzing with news of the passing of popular gentleman known as ‘Dola Bamboye initially we did not make the connection or realise he was the same attendee introduced to the group by JD. ‘Dola often used the $ sign as his zoom DP. Life can be so strange. We dedicated one of our Zoom chats to his memory, where we were actually able to speak with his wife about our brief encounter with him. It was our saddest Friday chat 💐

  

We recently had a Friday chat BBQ /Reunion Sept 2022 at Hassan and Bunmi’s again! Coincidentally for a 2nd year running we were 17 in attendance again as seen in pic. The highlight was a surprise appearance by Gambo ✈️

(Our furry friends Freddie and Polo who appeared in our Friday Chat 2021 pic have sadly passed as at time I’m publishing this post, though we have a new dog called Capri). 

Friday Chat Fam, it’s been emotional but a pleasure knowing you all and I really wish I’d posted this much earlier. 

Anyone else made friends under strange circumstances?

                          🖕🏾Sneak peak video for those who read to end of blog🥳

Strangers Are Just Friends Waiting To Happen~ Unknown

💅🏾