₦airaland Forum

If he doesn't have a good supply of water then it would be silly to install a flush toilet. It would end up being very unhygienic.

Department stores: "I learned all u've got in the U.K is Harrod's"

Well that just proves that you 100% don't know what you are talking about at all, doesn't it.

One department store (not even just one brand, but only one actual shop) for an entire country? Gee, you must be dumb if you believe that.

I wouldn't let a child speak to me like that 

But a 4 year old has learnt from his parents that it is ok for him to do this. If it is not your child you cannot do much, but just tell the child that this is not ok to speak to you like this and that if he does it again he will be in trouble with you. Then if it happens again you have to take action. It could be as simple as telling the child the leave the room and not come back until he can apologise and be polite. It can be hard though when it is not your child, it's down to the parents to discipline their children, and if they don't care, what can you do.

If my son had done that at 4 he would have got a smacked bottom!

I know that most Nigerians seem to think that western parents don't discipline their children but most of us do, and we don't like out of control children any more than you do. The rudest child I ever met was a Nigerian girl aged 8. At a big family party she took a dislike to me and was very rude and no-one stopped her at all.

My parents are great. My dad will be 80 years old this year and my mum will be 80 years old next year and they will be celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary - that is 60 years - in 2008 as well. We are lucky that they are both still in good health.

Wow those are amazing! I love the little figures on them!

I don't care if people drink alcohol or not but I HATE it when a Christian offers me a glass of wine and I end up with a mouthful of sickly grape juice instead. It's not wine so why call it wine? It;s like offering me whiskey and giving me a slice of bread because they are both made from grains!

If you are giving me fruit juice then offer me fruit juice. I like fruit juice. I don't like being lied to.

Can you find out why she feels she won't be able to make something of herself when she is married? If you admire her career and ambition then you can try to make her trust you to continue to support her career after marriage. Perhaps she is scared that you would want her to give up work and stay at home having babies instead.

In a good marriage you become stronger and more able to achieve what you want. You just have to get that message across to her.

You could cut her legs off at the knees

My Yoruba boyfriend refuses to cook, he says that African men don't cook! thanks to this forum I know he is talking rubbish! He still won't cook though or do anything to do with food - shopping, washing dishes etc. He says that is for women. He won't even believe me that English men cook. I bought my brother (who loves cooking and does all the cooking in his house) a recipe book for Christmas and he was very shocked and thought it was a very peculiar thing to buy him.

Sometimes I want to hit him on the head with the frying pan!

He only gets away with it as he does other housework ok.

Someone's qualifications are not important to me but intelligence is. I know lots of very intelligent non-graduates and very stupid graduates! You can tell if someone is intelligent or not when you talk to them, not by whether they have a degree or not.

Coke and Fanta are not wine?!!!

Ah, the eat/take idea is one of the big differences between Nigerian English and British English.

Nigerians say 'take' for many foods. I don't know if ice-cream is one of them but I assume so as every Nigerian I've heard uses 'take' for all types of eating/food. My Nigerian boyfriend only ever says 'take' and never 'eat' a food.

In Britain, we only use 'take' for medicine, we never use it for food at all. We eat food, we don't 'take' it. Ever.

This can lead to a lot of confusion!

So, if you are talking to Nigerians, say 'take' or if you are talking to British people say 'eat'.

I eat icecream from a bowl but I lick icecream from a cone as a way of eating it.

But 5 years is nothing! Who would ever know unless you told them?

I am not a Christian yet I love Christmas. Why?

Well, to me it's not just about presents. (although presents are nice. I get more pleasure from buying presents for others than in getting my own though.)

It's a very ancient European festival on that date that basically gives everyone a chance to let off steam before winter really sets in. It was always the time when food-stuffs that wouldn't store over the winter would be eaten. Days of cold and darkness lie ahead of us.In many cases, it was the last chance of a decent meal before the new crops in the Spring.  Many people died in the winter from cold and starvation - and terribly people still die of cold today, especially the elderly. Therefore Christmas has a special place in our hearts - it's a time to get together and eat with your family and friends in a loving way. You spend time with those you love. You think of them and their needs. I would say that most non-Christians would sum up Christmas as 'a time for family'. It has been commercialised but I don't' think people take that particularly seriously, the key is still to spend time with special people. No-one wants to be alone at Christmas, even if they could afford to fill their house with goods.

There are many other Christmas traditions that have their roots thousands of years in the past. Why should non-Christians give up their once-a-year celebration just because Christians also wish to use that day to celebrate something?  We now all call it 'Christmas' but you are right in saying that many people do not see it as Jesus's birthday, but I suppose that name has just taken over from the old names. Yule is an old name that does still get used sometimes.

Surely the day is big enough for all of us.

Thanks for your comments and the link to the other thread. I didn't realise this had already been discussed. 

That is an interesting thread and it has helped me understand why some Christians do and some Christians don't. It's a very personal decision.

I just don't like it when someone who doesn't takes a snotty attitude when someone else drinks - my brother-in-laws girlfriend was very rude to me when I offered her a drink and asked what she would like out of a long list that included about 8 different non-alcoholic drinks and 2 alcoholic drinks.

Oh and if I once more get offered 'a glass of wine' and get handed a glass of fruit juice instead I think I'll scream

Can anyone explain to me why some (certainly not all) Christians believe that they mustn't drink alcohol?

After all, Jesus drank it. He turned water into wine. Even at the last supper he said that wine was his body so many Christians use wine in their holy communion.

Why do the no-alcohol christians disapprove of people doing something that Jesus did?

I'm not criticising anyone who holds this belief, I don't care who drinks alcohol and who doesn't, but I'd just like to understand why you believe it?

Tithing is not common to all Christian churches.

In the UK I've only heard of African-led churches insisting on the 10% tithe. I'm sure other churches do it as well but it's not common here anyway.

British churches send round a voluntary collection and most people only drop in a couple of £s, nothing like the 10%. Not even half a percent! And you don't have to give, there's no stigma if you don't.

Hey everyone let's cool it down. I didn't mean to offend anyone when I said Nigerian style worship freaks me out, I was just saying that is the effect it has on me. As I am not a member of an African church then so what? It's none of my business how you do things and I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. It's just different. I can see how you could find English church services boring. Most English people do too!

The original question was 'should churches disturb those around them?'

Shall we get back to that?

Easyy, I did say

'Still, everyone can worship in their own way.'

so what was your point exactly?

My point is that the Nigerian/African style of worship seems to be one of its own invention and has little to do with most other Christian churches. The extreme noise is the main manifestation of that - I just wanted those in Nigeria who maybe think that all Christians worship in this way to know that actually, no, they don't. It is not a traditional part of Christianity at all.

But, like I said, everyone can worship in their own way. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone how to worship. Did I say otherwise? No.

Just don't disturb me while you do it.

I can tell you that Nigerian worship freaks me out because of the noise and the way that everyone gets so excited etc. Generally speaking Africans are just a lot noisier about everything than British people. That's not wrong, just different, but it causes a different reaction in me than it does to you. Any time a British person finds themself in the middle of a crowd of shrieking and shouting people waving their arms about they will run for cover- as it means that there is a terrible accident or a big fight or something awful about to happen. We don't behave like that in 'happy' situations. That is why Nigerian worship freaks me out. If I'm there then my heart starts pounding and I start to feel genuinely panicky - my body's instinct is that I'm in danger, even though my brain knows I'm not. That's because that's my culture's reaction to that sort of environment. Nigerians obviously react to it in a completely different way.

So how does western worship 'freak you out' exactly? Or were you just being silly and chanting my own words back at me like children do in the playground.

My heart goes out to people who are in such a desperate situation that they feel they have to risk their life trying to get to a new country.

lol.
I'd turn the hosepipe on a bunch of football hooligans too if they disturbed me in the middle of the night.

That was very clever!

If I had people outside my house making a racket in the middle of the night I'd get the hosepipe out and give them a shower!

I've seen some Nigerian style worshiping and I have to say that it freaks me out completely. It is so far from the western experience of worship.

I don't understand all the shouting and screaming and repeating the shouts over and over. They treat God like he is deaf or stupid. Still, everyone can worship in their own way. It's wrong to disturb others though.

It happened to me once. One of my neighbours held held a service in their home one Sunday evening and really we couldn't hear anything but screaming and ranting for nearly 2 hours even with all our windows firmly shut. However, they did stop at around 9.30pm and it was only once so no harm done. If they had carried on late or started doing it regularly then, yes, I would have called the police. What right do they have to disturb everyone else, keep babies and children awake, or force everyone to just sit and listen to their worship. We couldn't even hear the tv or ourselves talking over the noise. I was very cross about it. My boyfriend, who is Nigerian and goes to a Nigerian-run church was just as angry. He says it creates a bad impression of Nigerians - in the UK you don't hold church services in residential areas.

It's down to the couple to stop their relationship getting boring.

Lots of couples have life-long marriages. My parents have been married for 55 years and are not boring, therefore their relationship is not boring.

There is an English saying that covers this point exactly

Don't shit where you eat.

There is nothing wrong with punishing children in a physical way at times.

There is something terribly wrong with punishing children in a way that is torture - hot pepper sauce in a child's eyes and genitals? My god, that is not normal for anyone anywhere. That child could have been blinded.

In the Sky caption it does say it is 1999.

I've seen a couple of them. I wouldn't say it makes that negative an impression, at least it didn't on me. It is very clear from the programme that they are following the progress of new management who are bringing an end to any previous corruption and are making big improvements to the airport. IT's more about the 're-birth' of the airport.

The only part that I didn't like is where they cleared out all the shops and the disabled man was so upset as he now had no way of making a living apart from begging. It seems to me that they could have found a new area for the shops. After all, most airports have shops!