Yinka's Visit Was A Blast...

Hi Mum and Dad...

This edition of my “Letters from USA” is long overdue. In September, Brother Yinka, came to the US to attend a medical conference in Richland. After the conference he visited me at my campus for three days. His visit here was a blast -- it went by so fast. There I was on Monday hugging him at the airport and suddenly it was Thursday and I was driving him back to the airport.

For the first time, big bros and I did what brothers do -- talk about life, women, and everything in between while having lots of fun doing stuff we love -- jazz shopping. We also went shopping for his girls at TJ Max, Toys R US etc. Every shop we go, first thing Yinka says is, "my girls will like this or my girls will like that". Marriage and fatherhood sure has done a number on him. His girls (that is, his wife and three daughters - whom our family calls "the 4MOs" and whom Yemisi calls his leading ladies) are an integral part of how he thinks, plans, and sees the future. It must be an exciting life for bros Yinka to live alone among his leading ladies!!.

At J C Penny’s the sales computer, for one reason or the other, decides to give us half off and also a huge discount on 3 pairs of solid-solid shoes. We paid and ran off with our heavily discounted purchase, giggling all the way like two high school girls. If the cops had showed up and told us to return the goods because of some virus in that sales computer or whatever, they would have had to rip that bag from my hands!!

Monday night, I took him to a neighbourhood bar where my friends and I usually meet each other for drinks. They were all happy to meet a member of the family. Next, I took big bros on a tour of the campus the next day, showing him the good and the bad and he met some of my professors too. I also showed him the library where I work in my spare time to earn a few needed dollars. Then on his last night we went out to dinner, and then came back home to pack for Thursday.

In between, we talked about everything and traded lessons we've learnt and so on. He even shot a little documentary of me picking up my mail and doing other mundane stuff, which he wants to send to you as soon as he edits it.

Needless to say Dad, that Bro Yinka was blessed on this trip to the US by all the doctors and friends he stayed with. And WOW!, some of the blessings "so runneth over and sprinkled on me". I needed it because my rent check was about to bounce. He was generous.

I’m leaving for Jacksonville, Florida 5.30 am tomorrow to present a paper at the Popular Culture Annual Conference. The conference starts today but I will be heading out Friday and returning Saturday. I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to this one, even though they accepted my abstract and placed me in the program, but Yinka’s generosity made it possible for me to go. I will be getting academic credit for my presentation and that is enough incentive for the trip.

The first wave of my projects just got turned in. In the meantime, I've been trying to get ahead in my classes and at the same time prepare notes to cover the next two weeks for my online classes.

You asked me about my Yahoo Instant Messenger (IM). Believe it or not Dad, I hardly use the Instant Messenger.  But I think Sunday chatting, as you suggested, using the Yahoo IM, is a great idea and we should give it a try.

Bye for now. Look after yourselves: Dad, Mum. 

Love, Bunmi.

Pictures top of this column are: Yinka in Bunmi's apartment and Bunmi doing his presentation at the Popular Culture  Conference.

HERE IS YINKA’S REPORT:

It was really Gods blessings that took me to the US in September 2005. I was invited by the Surgical Implant Generation Network (SIGN), a medical humanitarian charity that designs and manufactures Stainless steel nails or pins for operating and fixing fractures of the main leg bone and the thigh bone. The SIGN nail is developed mainly for developing countries and specifically provides state of the art fracture fixation with a low tech easy-to-maintain system that is given free to treat poor patients. I was using their system in Lesotho and introduced it in Swaziland. I also helped to train orthopaedics in the use of the system at the Osogbo hospital in Nigeria. SIGN has saved many peoples limbs so they can continue to earn their daily bread. You can visit them at  www.sign-post.org.

I had to sponsor myself for the SIGN conference; so it was financially a tight squeeze but God made a way for me to go and the organisers of the conference gave me a partial unexpected refund while I was there.

One of their board members, Dr. Anthony Brown, works in Minneapolis, Minnesota and he invited me to spend 3 days with him before we headed to the conference together. So on arrival at JFK, I went straight to Minneapolis and stayed with him. We flew to Seattle, Washington, hired a car and drove to Richland, venue of the conference. It was a 4hr drive which enable me see the US’s beautiful freeways and countryside. Richland is a beautiful little town on the banks of the Columbia River.

The conference brings together those using the SIGN system; the supporters of the charity; those who want to start using the system and those who want to work as volunteers for the Charity.

My presentation was just 20mins but as God took over, I was able to do a good one. Also, I was able to network at the conference and made very useful contacts for the training program I told you about in February.

After the conference I drove back to Seattle with Dr. Brown and then flew to Norfolk via Atlanta to meet Bunmi. I can’t describe how I felt when I saw him outside the airport. We hugged for almost 5 minutes. Bunmi hasn’t changed much physically but has grown in character and really looks and talks like a typical American academician.

His apartment is nice. They really live well in the US. The apartment has A/C plus heating, cooker, fridge and even a dish washer. There is a coin operated Laundromat just a hundred meters away.

He took me round the campus to the library, his department and to all his professors. I noticed he has very few friends and he is well focused. I read a couple of his projects and even though I couldn’t understand the stuff, his professors’ comments showed that he is doing well. He goes the extra distance in his work and he obviously loves what he is doing. We can all be very proud of him. He sends a big thanks to you Daddy and Mummy for all your moral and spiritual support.

I am sending a few pictures (in a zipped folder) and I will send a video with the girls when they come home in December for the Christmas holidays.

We will be getting permanent residential accommodation here by December; then we can get a telephone and our own email address. After that, we can update the info in our page on the family website. We think the info there is now getting out of date.

Yinka.

     Pictures top of this column, show Yinka with other doctors and friends at the SIGN Conference.

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