My first day of classes today.
I am teaching “Africana Women’s Art.”
The class is remote with about fifty students in it.
Looking forward to the class which starts in twenty minutes.
Right now I’m the only one in class, and will soon be joined by the students.
Trust you are all doing well at your places of work today.
Ẹ má a yáṣẹ́ o. Enjoy your day at work.
Scammer: Hello, how are you doing?
Me: Very good. How about you?
Scammer: I’m fine, thanks for asking. how’s your day going so far?
Me: Excellent. Who are you?
Scammer: I’m Susan, from Idaho but currently living in Jacksonville Florida. I’m a registered nurse working with the UN nations overseas.
Facebook suggested you as someone I may know so I viewed your profile and decided to send you a request out of curiosity hoping we could get to know more about ourselves and maybe become friends.
Me: That’s great. Where are you currently working overseas?
Gina sat on the floor by the doorstep waiting for us when we returned late to Benin City from Iludun. I didn’t she was sitting there until the headlamps lit up the spot where she was and Felicia said, “Hey, is that not Gina?”
It had been a long day spent mostly on the road and it took me a minute to adjust my mind to what was happening. I was exhausted from hours of driving on rough roads to and fro Iludun, Mama Rufus’s place.
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: The Not-I Bird (After Wole Soyinka’s Poem in DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN)
Wole Soyinka: The Not-I Bird
“Not-I became the answering-name
Of the restless bird, that little one
Whom Death found nesting in the leaves
When whisper of his coming ran
Before him on the wind. Not-I
Has long abandoned home.
The death of
Abba Kyari is a major loss
for Nigeria.
Because he departed
so suddenly and unexpectedly,
eliminated by a killer so
vehemently and with matchless
dispatch, the victim most
“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?
The first report (summer 2018)
Yesterday, July 5, 2018.
ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ
I was arrested by the Nigerian Police yesterday.
To be fair to them, they were angry with my new building, the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ, in Ile Ife. The police landed in trucks, arms, uniforms, and plain clothes to storm the construction site. There were about ten workers at the site when the police came. The previous day when the police arrived the workers fled into the surrounding bushes, abandoning their tools, unused building materials and the entire construction area.