I'd like to talk about my friend Olu, who I studied with at university in Ibadan. He's an accountant now, but in his free time he restores old manual typewriters.
His flat is full of them. He's got about fifteen, from tiny portable ones to a huge heavy office model from the nineteen-fifties. He finds most of them in markets or at the homes of old people who are clearing out their houses. He takes them completely apart, cleans every piece, replaces the ribbons and broken keys, and then gets them working again. Some he keeps, and some he gives to schools or sells to collectors.
He got interested in it quite by accident. About six years ago, his grandmother died, and while the family was sorting through her things, he found an old typewriter that had belonged to his grandfather, who'd been a court clerk. It was rusty and broken, but Olu wanted to keep it. He watched videos online and slowly worked out how to repair it. When he finally typed his first sentence on it, he said it felt like hearing his grandfather's voice. After that, he was hooked.
I think it's unusual for a few reasons. Most people his age see typewriters as completely useless, because we all have computers and phones. It also takes huge patience; one machine can take him two months. And it's a very quiet, physical hobby in a time when most hobbies happen on screens. When I asked him why he enjoys it, he said that when he's fixing a typewriter, he can't think about work at all. I think that's the real secret of a good hobby.