Monday, 6 August 2012

SHAN GEORGE TALKS ABOUT THE DAY SHE WAS CAUGHT STEALING


This light skinned actress needs not much introduction. She is well known for the controversies trailing her in Nigeria’s entertainment industry. Aside her controversial side, Shan George is also a hard working mother of two boys, with over 20 movies to her production credit. She has surely come a long way. And now she is poised to premier her new movie entitled, Finding Goodluck.

But once upon a time, this sultry and sexy actress was just a village girl who spent most of her time on the farm, fetching water from the village stream or running errands for elders. “I grew up in Ediba, Abi Local Government Area of Cross River state, a very wonderful village. We had no electricity or pipe borne water but I’ll tell you what, it was so much; those who did not grow up in the village definitely missed a lot. I was a bit of a tomboy; climbing mango trees, going to the farm, fishing and swimming; it was a great experience.”

However, at just age five, when most kids begin to develop retentive memories, her British dad who was an expatriate working in Nigeria died and so Shan, an only daughter, was raised single handedly by her mum who did all she could so that her little daughter could get the best out of life. Recalling her years in Ediba, Shan says laughing softly: “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer because I thought that would help me correct the ills in the society. In my childish mind, I saw things that I felt were wrong and I felt that if I read a lot of books and became a lawyer, I would be able to correct the wrong things going on around me when I grew up. However, I ended up behind the camera.”

As a child growing up, Shan had her own fair share of pranks. Her favorite was plucking mangoes from a tree that had a charm or juju tied around it. She laughs gaily as she recounts the experience: “I and my friends used to pluck mangoes from a tree that had a talisman tied around it to scare away people. We were not supposed to go near the tree or even pick mangoes that fell on the ground. However, we believed that we could neutralize the effect of talisman by packing a lot of sand and telling the tree, “if you can count this sand we are pouring on you grain by grain, then you can do to us the harm you were sent to do.’ And then we took off the talisman, climbed the tree and plucked our mangoes. When we came down, we tied it back and fled; that was very daring.” But like the popular saying goes, every day for the thief, one day for the owner. Judgment day finally came and Shan was caught while her friends escaped! However, for Shan, life is the village was sheer bliss and peaceful.

Despite loosing her dad at age five, she never felt his absence because of the typical African setting where she grew up, she had many uncles and aunties who stood in for her father. “This is Africa, no matter how bad it is, you always had a father figure around,” she volunteers.

My mum thought me humility and never to believe that I am too much and get carried away. She taught me to be down to earth. Those years were fun-filled. We went to school in the morning and headed to the farm after school to work and only came back home in the evening to listen to folk tales before going to sleep, watch TV at the homes of those who could afford vehicle batteries to run their television sets. That was when the desire to act began to grow in me,” the actress recalls.

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