Yesterday we met again to see if they had hot pepper soup at the local African joint.
Logically, when these simple folks enter a pepper soup joint, it is like Ṣẹ̀lẹ́ enter spirit: matters get philosophically historical like magicadabra.
“We are in October again,” I said, just because the bottle of stout looked chilled.
My annual (NOT monthly) salary as a Senior Lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University in 1992 (right before I left for the United States) was N9,600.
It’s not a typo. N9,600 only, for the entire year.
ÈNÌYÀN—We Have the Power to Choose
Ènìyàn in Yoruba means a person.
Ènìyàn is from the verb yàn (to choose).
Ènìyàn means ẹni tí ó yàn—the one who chose.
We went to celebrate the Independence Day of Nigeria at a local bar where they sell Nigerian food, beer and hot Isi Ewu pepper soup.
We ordered swallow food.
After that we ordered drinks.
Please learn from our mistakes.
Do not drink more than one bottle of beer.
We all laughed and chatted heartily after drinking one bottle of small stout and Isi Ewu pepper soup.
I am joyful today that I gave birth to a new baby.
As a writer, I am always very happy to see my new book in print.
A book is like a child: it takes a lot of work to raise a child.
But the credit for raising a child doesn’t belong to the parents only: the community also supports the parents as they raise the child from infancy to adulthood.
William Shakespeare, KING CHARLES III, Act 1, Scene 1 (#4) EGUNGUN: How, oh king, would you…
My phone rang.
“Àlàó?” I said after picking it up.
“Hello, prof,” said the sweet voice on the other side.
It is definitely a woman, I decided. But I don’t know the number. I shouldn’t have picked up the call. But it was too late.
So, I kept quiet.
William Shakespeare, KING CHARLES III, Act 1, Scene 1, #3 EGUNGUN: With what magic do you…
KING CHARLES:
Behold! Oh, Apparition.
If you must speak for your people, do it now. Or remove back to whence you came. It is night and Camilla and I long for the comfort of our bed.
EGUNGUN:
Address me by my name, I already told you who I am.
KING CHARLES:
The light is awful! Ha! who comes here? Are my eyes seeing double? What is this strange object in our bedroom? Camilla, do you see what I see? Are you for real? Speak, you apparition, trying to scare a new monarch!
EGUNGUN:
Ayam Egungun, the Ancestral Spirit of those your ancestors named Southwest Nigerians.
KING CHARLES:
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil?
Queen Elizabeth did not wait for my arrival in 1956 before she returned to England.
She arrived Lagos by air January 28, 1956, and returned February 16, 1956.
I arrived Lagos by birth February 25, 1956.
I was disappointed when I arrived and was told she already returned a week before I landed.
Like the comb (ÒÒYÀ)moves smoothly through the knotty hair
may you move without wahala through your days.
Ooya comes from yà, meaning to open up.