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.
Eye witness account, we looked at this work in class today.It is part of much larger door panel carved by a Yoruba sculptor called Dada Arowoogun.He is one of those we refer to as a “traditional” African artist.
When I arrived in the United States thirty years ago, I couldn’t call the US a new land.
It might be new to me, but it was not new to those who were born there.
But if the history of the United States were written by me, I would call the United States, “new land.”
That has been the experience of peoples in Africa.
Today, exactly thirty years ago, I arrived the United States.
Also, it is exactly thirty years ago I was in a plane crash.
It was the Nigeria Airways. Thirty odd years ago, and the memory is so vivid it feels like it happened yesterday.
A plane crash is not like a car crash. I’ve survived a couple of car crashes. A Car crash feels like a slow-motion movie.
A plane crash is different.