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(Computer + Odu Ifa) = Deeper knowledge
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(Computer + Odu Ifa) = Deeper knowledge
My first day of classes today.
I am teaching “Africana Women’s Art.”
The class is remote with about fifty students in it.
One day, I was having a discussion with a friend at the University of Ife in the early seventies.
I was seventeen years old.
Somehow the conversation drifted to “superiors.” I think he said something about “your superiors.”
I told him quite candidly that “I don’t have any superior.”
He was angry with me. Seriously, I don’t think he had heard that sort of response before.
But I was shocked that he was furious.
II The doctor is Seyi Ogunjobi, an artist in residence at the Obafemi Awolowo University’s Center for Cultural Studies. He has been assisting me to build the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ. At the exact time the police was storming the construction site of the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ, Ogunjobi, a Leeds doctorate in creative arts, was moderating a discussion in the lecture theater of the Center for Cultural Studies, at the Obafemi Awolowo University campus. Part of the seminar series of the center where Ogunjobi works, his duties include hosting the seminar series, at which invited guests presents on a regular basis. Yesterday, Ogunjobi was moderating a seminar that I presented, titled, “Invisible Canvas: Painting as Performance in Ile Ife.”
Oladejo Okediji–who happens to be my father, is the oldest living writer in the Yoruba language.
He is 89 this year.
He is pictured here with the cover of his first novel, Àjà Ló Lẹrù, published in 1969.
Baba is still pretty prolific. His latest book, Ohùn Ẹnu Àgbà, came out this year. It is a collection of his poems.
My mumu is too much.
Hear my story o.
They just fixed the electricity at my place in Nigeria.
To get it fixed, I bought four poles, and hundreds of yards of cable.
I contributed hundreds of thousands of naira to get the transformer.
I bought the meter.
And paid to have the entire thing installed.
But I understand that none of these things that I bought belongs to me.
They all belong to the government.
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.