Potter
Potter:
What wants you from us,
One legged man?
Me: I’m here to study with you
the ancient art of terra-cotta.
Potter:
You, a university professor,
Coming to us to study,
We humble peasants and illiterates?
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?
The carpenter is singing as he does the roof:
The carpenter is singing as he does the roof:
Ẹ̀yin tẹ́ ń lóyún lé rodo-ríndín, hẹn-ẹn
Bọ́mọ bá yàgbẹ́ o
Baba rẹ̀ ní ó ko.
Translation:
You who conceive while your infants are mere suckling babies
When your infants mess their pants
Their daddies will change their diapers.
When I arrived…
When I arrived the United States in 1992 to start a doctorate at UW, Madison, I had only $98 in my pocket.
My professor, Henry Drewal, quickly came to my assistance. He immediately paid my school fees for the first semester, and gave me $1,000 in cash to start me off. Then he provided me with free accommodation in the posh part of town for the first year of my studies, while I found my feet.
The things we take for granted.
The things we take for granted.
I wanted to plant some flowers. Ordinarily I would simply jump up, grab the seeds, and plant the flowers.
But things are now different.
Without a serviceable leg, I had to think carefully of the strategy that would enable me to plant the flowers.
My friend
My friend—for whom I was chasing the snake when I fell yakata off the ladder—just made…
It is not an okada o.
It is not an okada o.
It’s a long tori.
It started with a green snake.
It entered the house and crawled into bed with my friend.
I was in the other house, painting, when my friend came running in. “A snake! A snake. Quick!” She said, breathless. “Come, quickly. Please! Come and kill it!”
Good news!!!!
We are the last of the broke Africans.
Believe it or not: by the end of this century, every fourth person in the world will be an African. It means that one out of every four humans will be an African.
Which organization is yours?
Me: Which organization is yours?
We have been stopped and checked by at least four different organizations, with different uniforms, since we left home and started our trip to Ondo some 30 minutes ago. But your uniform is different from those worn by the other organizations that stopped us.
There’s nobody who will see this place and not be afraid
“There’s nobody who will see this place and not be afraid,” the two men on the bike said this morning as they stopped and kept looking at our newest installation at the Àkòdì Òrìṣà.
Bí ìwọ́ bá ṣe rere, ara kì yíò ha yá ọ? I wonder where I got that quote from. Is it a Yoruba proverb?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from the Bible.
Good news.
The community protested and shut down the noises of the Christian church that has been harassing us for the past one month, keeping us up all night long, making it impossible for us to catch a moment of sleep.