Hi Friends,

There comes a day when you're gonna look around and realize happiness is where you are -

Chief Tui, Moana.

Memories are like scrapbooks, they never point to a beginning or a definite end; rather, they scatter dots of picturesque lights around - like black and white snapshots mirrored through a pinhole camera. So, say you are Dr. Strange or Flash, and you just happen to take pleasure in teleporting me back to the precise moment of the 11th day in June, 2018. Well, you are sure to find a whole lot of hidden obscenities swimming in my thoughts like an overhead bridge. But more than that, through my eyes, you will see greenery, a leap of cackling playmates, a fat woman who can't keep her hands off pastries, a church clock, a smile of acceptance, a snag of worry and heat, a lively car conversation that broke my sweat and spoke of hardship and laughter, canopy that just might snap loose and let fall many beautiful people including a Britainised girl wearing an Ankara jumpsuit that matches her brownish buttercup weaved hair and clinging to a high society mother that just might as well have had her at eighteen; you will smell water, dry leaves, a healthy rapport amidst people who have never crossed paths and those whose path as school mates was going to end the very next day.

Smoky fumes, dead, fragile crocodiles cuddled up into one another, chess boards, fish ponds, thatched coves, hilly molds, a group snap, skyscrapers, traffic jams, busy garages and white people who were not exactly white, and lived freely enough to scratch their buttocks and itchy genitalia in front of the 'multitude'- these and many more are what lay stacked in my memory with regards to that day. But most importantly, you won't miss that sheer breezy awe, fickle and fragile, that comes from the realization that something so beautiful, so natural and forested can come from within a place that has been so strangely denaturalised. Really, the STEMNG Meetup that took place at the precise moment of June 11th, 2018 in Lekki Conservation Center, Lagos unfurled many such memories in my head, and taught me this one thing: whatever science took away from nature, science restored. This truth is analogous to the Polynesian adapted computer animated myth of Moana.

Catch me a little down below as I let you slide down memory lane with me (If you rode with us on that metallic, suspended canopy, you will know that most times, the best things of life, the best memories lay beyond the reef, at the other side of fear.)

Lagos, Bad Experiences, Langour: Te Ka

Eco-friendly, but not really ready - LCC

The conscious purpose of science is the control of nature; its unconscious effect is disruption and chaos--William Irwin Thompson

So STEMNG, an outfit of STEEMSTEM, had been planning this meetup for quite a while. And with the resourceful input of committee members like @gentleshaid, @greenrun, @agbona, @real2josh, @amazonaesh (pronounced amazing Aish), we were expecting nothing less than pure success. But one thing nobody was sure of was what the location held in store for us. Given that it was Lagos, a highly congested place caught up in the the throes of bad science, ugly industrial pollution, nasty climates and terrible road blockages, it was apparent that everyone willing to attend the meetup would have quite a handy sum of sorry tales to tell. And to say the least, Lagos did not disappoint us one bit.

While many attendees like @amazonaesh, @emperorhassy and @mrbreeziewrites couldn't bottle in the stalls and heavy traffic jams that accompanied their journey, others like @eurogee and @herbayomi who had to travel from other parts of the country just to join couldn't even narrate just an experience, rather they had their own share of stories that touch to tell. For myself, all through the journey to LCC, I could not help but wonder how science and technology in helping the world go round without a hitch has eroded nature in its stead. All through the rough, tiring journey, I could not sight one twig or one natural stem of fresh air, all I saw were skyscrapers, abandoned constructions and heavy-duty machines that were accidents in waiting. And yes, I saw a lot of water (which was more of a relief) but even the wide, expansive fresh water were sites of pollusive explorations and improvised sewers.

Somehow, I couldn't shake off the feeling that man, in trying to make the best out of his world through science and technology had somehow punctured and disrupted an erstwhile cohabitational equilibrium. This easily brings the words of George Bernard Shaw:

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Can this be true? If I were to appeal to my favourite animated movie, Moana, in my search for an answer, I might be tempted to call this a fact. For one, Maui, a demigod who sought to help the people he was entrusted with, disrupted nature's consistency in several ways - making the sun stand still, plucking coconuts at a very inopportune time and worse still, stealing the heart of mother nature, Te Fiti, in the hope that men would then be able to create and recreate existence whichever way they wanted. Without needing to be told, this prove to be the costliest mistake ever because darkness washed over the world - there was no water, no life, no blue, no green. And yes, out of a gentle, green, graceful goddess, the gnomic, gall spilling Te Ka was born. Nathaniel Eagleton summed up what happened in this movie and what might be happening to Lagos and the rest of the world in these worlds:

Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes; she is equally slow to be appeased, to turn away from her wrath.

Needless to say, when I got to LCC, right from the gate, I found out that somebody or some group of people had already begun the long grueling process of appeasing nature.

LCC, The Assemble, Climbs, Laughter: Te Fiti

Walk, Live, Conserve Nature - LCC

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land - Aldo Leopold

Upon getting to Lekki Conservation Centre, after about 3 hours of being enroute, the first people to welcome me were monkeys and peahens. They held the barricaded gates as if holding one of the twelve gates of heaven. You can't begin to imagine how seeing these animals scamper playfully on tall trees and green hedges affected me greatly. Somehow, a wash of relief came over me in a weird, inexplicable kind of way. I soon caught up with the laughter and excitement hummed by other members of STEMNG under a thatched building named Ijapa (Tortoise- the building wasn't named tortoise for nothing, trust me.) It would seem everyone else had already cosied up to the breezy atmosphere, the green environment and the warm fellowship. Soon enough, I caught the fever and it was with well kept, tingled sensations that I was led, alongside others, through a dense, foraged pathway, which to say the truth was nothing short of beautiful.

Soon enough, we were plunged into small talks, and exposed to beautiful leafy discoveries, snaps of amazing chemistries between water and plants- fallen roots rested on dark, embered waters, massive catfishes snuggled beneath the warmth of the living tissues of plants, leaves the colour of autumn plastered against calm, green waters; monkeys and people staring into one another's face and leaving residues of secret taunts, rotten woods lifting the weight of tens of people, the sororous ambience and reflective beauty. Without meaning to exaggerate, at Lekki Conservation Centre, nature was preserved at its best. This made our simple meetup feel like a trip back and forth paradise.

Technology took over when we climbed through the mountainous, seven tiered canopy, you know, that slingy, metallic suspensive amusement that took a reasonable ounce of breath from everyone. For me, this was where conversations with my fellow steemians picked up. For one, I got to know that @eurogee might be the king of Euro nation, but he was also the king of comedy. I fell in love with his unapologetic limps, his fair, almond skin and the sheer freshness of it (@eurogee, you really need to tell us what cream you use. That skin is fresher than what even a merman can boast of). And then, I got to know that @agbona was all the loverboy that I presumed he was. Also, I enjoyed the companionship of the quiet, calculated @samest, the amiable @emperorhassy, the cute looking @mrbreeziewrites who I earlier thought was a married gent with four to five kids already. And no, I won't forget to mention the delightsome @djoi. She was like a pink rose that lit up every conversation with her interesting way of showing her disapproval or approval. There was this beau that caught my eyes, but he wasn't a steemian sha. Nevertheless, I took his picture.

@rharphelle must have acquainted you with how the canopy thingy works so I won't even bother to spill my guts about it. But I must mention that it was one hell of a ride (it was when I got home that I knew what I got myself into). There were too many things that rung loud and clear in my head and caught my attention, but one image I rarely could come to terms with was that of a dead mother crocodile that looked every bit like a log of wood placed on the root of a water plant. The crocodile, dead and stiff, had two children by its side. On laid next to it, the other was right of the mother. To say the truth, this beautiful scene of motherhood, survival and companionship even in the face of death shook me to my very core. And I am sure that for a very long time, this image will remain etched in my memory.

Gathering under a cove, we had a rather serious cum playful Steemit inclined conversation headed by @gentleshaid. But rather than place focus at the matters under discussion, I was taken by two people: @gentleshaid's beautiful shy wife and gorgeous @bookie (you will have to forgive me, but I have a thing for ladies whose looks transcend the every day appearances I am used to).

For a fact, I could go on and on talking about the niceties of the meetup, but I would rather you know just one more thing: that somewhere between drooling at the conserved works of nature, straining my legs with the necessary evil of the canopy (and also the treehouse where we met two Indians that seemed to be making out before we arrived 😁) and enjoying the watery voices of amazing beauties like @amazonaesh (who saved my hungry ass with a cookie and chilled water), I came to the realization that, really, nature wasn't lost altogether; compressed, minimized, condensed maybe, but not entirely lost. More so, science and technology, in its gratitude to nature for all the hidden secrets it has helped unraveled, has provided better, effective ways of conserving the same.

My allusion to Moana would prove true in this regard. For a millennium after Maui made the grave error of stealing Te Fiti's heart, the ocean chose Moana to perform the uneasy task of appeasing mother nature and restoring the heart. I can never forget her sultry declaration,

"I am Moana of Montunui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea and restore the heart of Te Fiti"

If you were anything like me while watching Moana, you must have gasped with so much emotion at that point when Moana, against all obstacles, sailed her boat past Te Ka and stood on the gigantic lair of Te Fiti only to find it empty and void because all along, Te ka, the wicked larvae beast had been mother nature or Te Fiti, who after having her heart stolen turned against all of humanity. It only took the return of her green stoned heart for her true form to be revealed again. Something tells me that for all the wicked, unfriendly Te Ka, Lagos might be called, somewhere in its deep entrails lies the stone-shaped green heart of Te Fiti. And it takes quite a keen perception into places like Lekki Conservation Centre to realise that all hope is not lost for even dark, erosive worlds like Lagos. Because the heart of redemption has already been planted by way of natural conservation sites, Te Fiti will, one day, reveal her true form again.

A big thank you to the family at STEMNG, not just for the beautiful conversations and storied faces that lit my day, but for helping me rediscover a healthy fusion of technology and nature even in a place where I thought nature had given up on. I 💞 you all.