Words cannot express the magnitude of my gratitude to you, my great and wonderful friends, for the beautiful messages of love you sent to me on my birthday.
That day a friend took me to a secret hideout by the Colorado River, and we had so much fun.
I love you all.
I looked out through the window. The grass was not yet tall enough to mow. It had rained, and green life was returning to Austin after the long winter, and spring was almost fully here.
But the snowstorm of a month ago in Texas dealt Austin a cruel hand and plant life has not really recovered.
“José,” I said, “The lawn doesn’t need you yet. Maybe in a week, two?”
“I need the money, Mr. Moyo,” José pleaded.
In the United States, the Zoom classroom is becoming the norm in an abnormal world.
It’s unbelievable that the death toll in the United States is nearing the 250,000 number.
That sort of figure is beyond imagination—one-quarter of a million people dead.
How does one wrap one’s mind around that sort of number, in terms of fallen heroes in a single war that has not yet even lasted one year?.
Whereas in Africa, hardly anyone is dying.
When last week the press reported the fall of Jerry Rawlings to the pandemic, it was so shocking, because in Nigeria, everybody is wining, dining, partying, and marketing as if nothing is going on, and everything is honky-dory.
The Fear of Cops Is the Beginning of Wisdom when I was a child of about four years old, my father attended a one-month residential workshop in Ibadan.
Oluorogbo–the first scholar.
In Ile Ife is a fellow to whom the invention of writing is ascribed.
His name is Oluorogbo.
(But this fellow is different from Olurorogbo, the son of Moremi).
Over the centuries, Oluorogbo’s scripts have disappeared because his books were buried during a conflict–a failed attempt to preserve the scripts and prevent them from getting into the hands of the enemies.
Africans living in voluntary and compelled exile:
Do we deserve the “comfort” of exile, if we are only concerned about the comfort of our immediate families?
We all realize that a country like Nigeria has become a lion’s den, and many of the citizens feel trapped inside it.
We realize that many of us escaped with nothing in our pockets. I left with only $98 in my pocket in 1992.
A silent demolition is going on.
When I was about 8 years old, I walked from Akarabata Line 2 to Iremo in Ile Ife, a distance of about three miles, every morning, at dawn. I was attending a private coaching class that started at 6 am, two hours before formal classes began at 8 am.