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Wisconsin, Madison, 1994. Naming ceremony.
I was a college student.
One of my Nigerian colleagues had just finished his Ph.D., and he returned to Nigeria.
He had no idea that his girlfriend in Madison was pregnant.
When he was contacted, he decided that he was not returning to the US.
The pregnant girlfriend decided she was not going to Nigeria to join him.
Rufus was in a murderous mood. Steve, the one who Obaseki pummeled, became worried when Rufus went into his room. “What’s he gone to do in his room?” I asked Steve, whose only interest at that moment was diving into the fried rice we just brought for him.
Steve said, “He’s gone to change into his shorts. Looks like he’s really upset. He is changing into loose clothes to take out that guy who attacked me.”
“Na shakara,” I told Steve.
“What?” Steve asked.
Ibeji: Soul Mates
“Iya Oyo,” I asked, “why call her Ọmọ Méji? Ọmọ Méji means two children but she is just one person.”
This was after a woman who looked like she was in her thirties, who was on her way to an errand, stopped by Iya Oyo’s house to greet her.
Iya Oyo looked at me with surprise, as if to say my mother should have given me such basic cultural education.
“You still have a couple of drops in your cup,” Obaseki observed, leaning over. He held his cup to his lips and drained the last drop. “Drink up, Brother Mo, and I’ll take you to my mother’s joint. The beer is always bone-dead cold, I assure you. And you will always get any brand you want. Together with pepper-soup.”
Personally, I was done. All I wanted to do was go home and sleep off my intoxication. But I was all so confused. Somehow I wanted to know more about Gina and Joshua, and the only way I could keep in close contact with them was through Obaseki.
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.
In 1999, I boarded a plane from New York to Syracuse. It was in December, and the weather was freezing cold. I was happy that the weather forecast indicated it was not going to snow, though I knew that the temperature in Syracuse was going to be well below zero, even colder than the weather in New York where I boarded the plane.
I was going to the University of Syracuse for a job interview. The advertised job was going to almost double my salary, if I got it.