What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
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PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD
PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD
There is an old Yoruba proverb that says “The child insisting that his mother must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Ọmọ tó ní ìyá òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).
Women who nurse babies know the challenge of getting enough sleep while a baby is still unable to understand the difference between night and day. The baby keeps waking up to feed, cry, poo and pee.
The mother must attend to all the needs of the baby during the night. Typically, for the mother, therefore, it is a long, wearying night.
The poor mother gets up in the morning having caught almost no sleep, exhausted and drained physically and emotionally.
Yet she must face another day of sleeplessness and ceaseless labor until the baby grows up.
Now think of the story of Ijapa.
The Hausa did not name us Yorùbá.
The Hausa did not name us Yorùbá.
The Hausa cannot even pronounce Yorùbá.
They say they pejoratively called us Yarubawa and we creatively changed it to Yorùbá. Rárá o. It’s the other way round.
We call ourselves Yorùbá and they pejoratively call us Yarubawa.
To be able to pronounce Yorùba correctly, you must understand the nuances of our triptych intonation.
When a man is talking.
“When a man is talking, the woman must shut up,” the young bricklayer was yelling. His colleague confirmed, “Yes, this is man to man talk. You need to keep quiet and let us settle this matter.”
My jaw was hanging in disbelief. I’ve been away too long from Nigeria. Nobody spoke to and about women like this when I was growing up. Now these young men drooling blasphemous vomit, where did they drop from? Am I hearing these statements, or am I dreaming? Is it just my imagination, or what?
Sisi Eko, Lagos Lady Waiting for Okada
Sisi Eko, Lagos Lady Waiting for Okada
Does anybody understand the meaning of the word “Okada?”
How did the use of Uber bikes start?
The first time I saw the Okada Uber was during my NYSC at Awka in 1977.
In the whole of the southwest of Nigeria, nobody used a bike for a taxi.
We used luxurious cars for taxis in the southwest.
APPRECIATION
I really thank Olodumare this year.
2019, the year I had my leg accident, also the year of my great recovery.
1925-2018
He almost made it into 2019. I wonder what stopped him.
The last of the soft kleptomaniacs and kleptocrats?
In his days, politicians stole in hundreds of thousands of naira. Or a few couples of million naira.
They were soft kleptomaniacs and kleptocrats.
Now we have hardcore kleptomaniacs and kleptocrats.
