2: The Return
He was flying back “home” for the first time in his life.
At thirty-six, he felt that he had waited a little too long.
But better late than never: this is the moment he had been waiting for all his life.
He peeped out through the window of the aircraft as it descended toward their landing, with the building, vehicles and roads becoming bigger and bigger as the plane drew nearer the landing ground.
“Ina jin yunwa, Sule,” said the short, stocky man holding the cellphone.
“You are always hungry,” hissed the tall one. “Yaro will soon be back. Then you can eat yourself silly. I only need a cigarette. Really, really. bad. If I don’t have a smoke soon, walahi, I will kill this stupid man. He makes me jittery with his stupid coughing. If he coughs one more time, walahi, I will blow off his head.”
With his heavy boots, he delivered a severe kick to the fellow sitting on the ground. The blow caught the man in the ribs.
The three of them were directly under the shade of a large mango tree, its huge branches drooping from the weight of fruits hanging all the way from the top to the lowest branches.
Another African child born in this US exile. Truckloads of soldiers were speeding down the street in their huge vehicles. I felt I was dreaming but it was true:
As usual, I sat in front of my mother’s textiles shop, feeding my eyes with the typically boring activities on the narrow street.
Nothing really ever happened.
Baba Allah-Dey in 1930 lost to Oba Adesoji Aderemi (wearing black, seated in the middle of the picture) in a strong tussle between the two of them for the throne of Ile Ife.
Allah-Dey’s real name was Baba Coker Olawoyin or Baba Coker Adewoyin.
Too many people don taya for dis obodo Naija, I swear.
Our suffer don do!
Kole Omotoso wrote JUST BEFORE DAWN in 1988.
Just before dawn, people say, it gets really dark.
It is now nearly forty years after Omotoso thought the dawn would break on Nigeria, but no, it gets darker every second in Naija .
Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
How to train an apprentice artist?
Get her to work with you on your own art.
Get her to go through the process that you go through.
Get her to understand that it is a lot of work.
But there is no amount of talking that can convey that fact to her.
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: The Not-I Bird (After Wole Soyinka’s Poem in DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN)
Wole Soyinka: The Not-I Bird
“Not-I became the answering-name
Of the restless bird, that little one
Whom Death found nesting in the leaves
When whisper of his coming ran
Before him on the wind. Not-I
Has long abandoned home.
Hanging out with Adetola Wewe on the riverboat on Lake Travis, Austin, Texas.
He is visiting from Nigeria as the first fellow-in-residence, University of African Art at Austin.
Yesterday I took a break from work, and for the first time since the Covid outbreak in 2019, ventured out.
With Adetola Wewe, my friend visiting from Nigeria, I went on a boat ride.
PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD
There is an old Yoruba proverb that says “The child insisting that his mother must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Ọmọ tó ní ìyá òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).
Women who nurse babies know the challenge of getting enough sleep while a baby is still unable to understand the difference between night and day. The baby keeps waking up to feed, cry, poo and pee.
The mother must attend to all the needs of the baby during the night. Typically, for the mother, therefore, it is a long, wearying night.
The poor mother gets up in the morning having caught almost no sleep, exhausted and drained physically and emotionally.
Yet she must face another day of sleeplessness and ceaseless labor until the baby grows up.
Now think of the story of Ijapa.
PARABLE OF THE BOASTFUL BIRD One upon a time, a colorful bird known as Orofo was sad because she did not have even a single child. All the other birds, including Ega, Alapandede, and Eyele had lots of children. Orofo was worried.Sometimes she would lay many eggs, and none of them would hatch. At other times, as she pushed the eggs out of her womb, they would fall from her nest and break.