MY PHONE RINGS

ByMoyo Okediji

My phone rings and, recognizing the name of the caller, I pick up the call. It is the wife of a friend living in Nigeria. I say the usual, “Hello,” but there is no response. There is a faint conversation in the background. She is discussing with her friend. “He twisted my arms, shoved me into the wall and began to rain blows on me. Then he gave me a kick, and I found myself face-down on the floor. He then sat on my back, grabbed my long braids and I felt like he was going to yank my head off my neck as he kept tugging at my braids. All the while, he was screaming, ‘I can do whatever I like with my penis. What does it concern you that I impregnated another woman? If you don’t like it, why not pack your rags and get out of my house? Are you not a Yoruba woman? Your father had four wives….’”

I shut off my phone. Am I eavesdropping on an accidental call? Is she reaching out to me surreptitiously? What am I to do now…? Should I call her? Should I call him?

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Sugar and Sugarcane

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Those familiar with the Oyo-speaking parts of Yoruba country would notice that these folks refer to sugar as Iyọ̀ọ-Ṣúgà.

If they were strangers, it might confound them, because they would translate Iyọ̀ as salt, and wouldn’t understand why it is coupled with Ṣúgà, that is sugar.

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ÀMỌ̀TẸ́KÙN: No kidding

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ÀMỌ̀TẸ́KÙN: No kidding

The Yoruba forests have already lost too many animals to local hunters who spare nothing with life in the bushes.

And the Yoruba language has lost too many words to the brainwashed indigenes who refuse to speak the language or pass it down to their children.

It is not a good time to ask for the meaning of Àmọ̀tékùn.

The meaning is totally lost, to be honest with everyone.

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STAGE FOUR

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The Covid 19 era will usher in the fourth stage of the colonization of Africa.

It will be the stigmatization stage.

Pfizer just announced the discovery of a vaccine for the pandemic.

Other pharmaceutical companies will soon follow suit.

They will distribute these vaccines throughout the world.

But you already know the continent they will forget to send the vaccine to.

AFRICA.

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Hahahaha! Look at his Johnny Walker!

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Yesterday I made this funny painting. Hahahaha! Look at his Johnny Walker!

I sampled the painting from a wood panel sculptured by Dada Arowoogun, a Yoruba artist whose work narrates Yoruba life during the 19th century.

The work is relevant because Yoruba people are still doing what we used to call “two-fighting.” In our primary school days, when the teacher forbade speaking in vernacular, and all the English we knew were three words: “Two fighting” were two crucial words of the three.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Seven)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Seven)

ByMoyo Okediji

Rufus froze when he saw Obaseki moving towards our table. His jawline tightened. The grotesque was unmasking. I understood the meaning of that facial reaction. When a cobra flattens its head and its neck while lifting up its body off the ground to the torso level, even a baby knows what that means. We had crossed the red zone. I immediately got up and picked up the tumbler in front of him before it became a scud missile. My movement also distracted him for a moment. This was the climactic moment that had been building up for a year.

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