First, I forget to include some interesting things that happened to me the last time I was in Osogbo after I finished my interviews. While I was walking around with Dele, he pointed out the house of the late Susanne Wenger to me, and introduced me to her "heir." Most of you probably haven't heard of her before, but she's here's the first link that came up under her name on google:
http://www.geocities.com/adunni1/sw.html
The place was beautiful, and yes I did get pictures mom! The entire thing was one huge sculpture, and there were Olorisha(orisha worshipers/devotees) all over place. I didn't get the name of the lady to whom Dele had introduced me because she was pretty busy ordering people around, but she gave us some ground nut and told us that we should come back any time to have a meal there and look around the house! I think I will go back to Osogbo one more time to interview Dele's dad again, and maybe if there's time we'll come by again.
On the way back to Ife that day there was a lady sitting next to me on the bus with a baby wrapped to her back (this is usually how women carry their babies around in Nigeria), and all of a sudden I felt a tug on the left side of my scalp! The little guy thought my hair looked like apull chord and was really excited to be playing with it. His mom appologized quickly and laughed when I told her it was alright and handed a few dread locks back to him. All of the little kids love staring at me, and usually are even more surprised than the grown ups when I speak some Yoruba to them. I told the son of one of Uncle Funso's friends that I spoke Yoruba better than he does when he was too taken aback to answer me when I asked him how he was doing :p
Another thing I like noticing is what people wear. I love the traditional clothes (aso), but I've seen all kinds of other things too. Some people dress really nicely, some people try to dress really nicely, and I'm just not quite sure what other people are doing. Yesterday I saw a guy wearing a tux shirt, flip-flops, and some cut off shorts. I almost wanted to take a picture because I thought there was actually a natural law that kept those thigns away from each other. Some people asked me why I only wear traditional clothes to dress up here, and I say it's because they were made for the weather and I feel bad for people wearing 3-piece suits when it's this humid! That and my aso are much more comfortable and easy to manage.
I got sick of working inside on saturday so I decided to go into town and price (or haggle) for some thigns at the market. As expected everywhere I went people would quote exorbitant prices for me since I'm clearly a foreigner, and would pretend to get offended when I laughed at them. I made this one lady give me 2 times as much of something as she had originally for a lower price, and afterwards she looked kinda bewildered and asked me where I was from. I told her in Yoruba that my father is an Ijebu-man, Ijebus are known for being very "economic" in spending their money, and she laughed really hard. She said that made sense, and that next time she would give me an "Ijebu" price.
Unfortunately I also found out that the cheap knock-off soccer jerseys from Indonesia that we used to buy en-massse at the market are practically gone. In just about the pasy year or so, they have been replaced by the more up-scale Chinese knock offs that I have to say look almost exactly like the real thing. It's really a shame (not just because the new ones are from China) because the old ones were ridiculously inexpensive and you could find all kinds of obscure shirts that you'd never be able to find elsewhere. Oh well...
I talked to Aunty Bimbo yesterday and she is going to be in Ibadan this Friday, and since I want to just do a few more interviews here in Ife (since I heard different things in Osogbo than I did from the Awise here in Ife), I'm going to try to plan it out so that I can finish up by Friday and maybe meet up with Aunty Bimbo by Saturday.
I think that's all the news that's newsworthy, oh except that Nigeria tied Tunisia 0-0 over the weekend which means that we're 2 points behind Tunisia in our group for World Cup qaulifiers. That means we're right behind Tunisia, but since only the first team in the group immediately qualifies, we need to keep wining and hope they drop some points. Maybe Ifa can tell me if we'll make it to South Africa...
~Deji
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
If you know let me know!
I just did a quick search on Google, and apparently the Meccans had an "expert tracker" help them find the cave in which the Prophet Muhammad had been hiding. I haven't seen anything else, but I can see how some people would read expert tracker as diviner/Babalawo... If you know anything more about this story please let me know!
~Deji
~Deji
Naija Strikes Back!
Sorry it's been so long since I've posted an update, I've been pretty busy over the past few days, and I've come to know first hand what people mean here when they say "Body no be stone" All the traveling around in rickety buses and on the back of Okada (I may have mentioned that they are somewhat suspect motor bikes and unfortunately slightly less than safe) has really tired me out so I'm not doing anything more until monday at the earliest.
Before I left Mr. Onifade's house in Osogbo the last time, I asked him if he knows any Alfas that I could interview. Alfas are Muslim leaders/scholars/diviners all rolled into one who play a role very similar to that of the Babalawo, and even share the same herbal tradition nad practices that the Babalawos have. I anted to interview one or two of them to see what they were all about and get a Muslim perspective on Ifa. Mr Onifade said he knew of one guy who would be great for that and would get me in touch with him, so the next day Dele called me and said if I came to Osogbo again by 2 we could go see the guy.
Naturally I thought he was in Osogbo too, but when I got there I found out he lives about an hours drive away in a town called Ogbagba, and Mr. Onifade was just going to drive us there. The dude is too much. He also picked up another one of their Babalawo friends, and I kpet thinking that if you told me a few months ago that I would be driving to talk to a Muslim diviner in a car with 3 Babalawos I probably would've laughed at you, but that's what was going on.
The Alfa that we were going to see (the Babalawos came too because I htink they were just as interested as I was) is named Al-Haji Hamad Akurede, and everythign about him is big, his voice, his build, and even the welcome he gave us. He and everyone else were impressed that I knew Arabic, and had a good laugh when I started reading all the things he had on his wall, and could transliterate everyones' names into Arabic.
To cut a long story short, through a combination of broken pidgin English, Yoruba, and a bit of Arabic, Mr. Akurede basically told me that Ifa and Islam (Alfas in particular) are very close because the religion of Islam came from a society of traditional religion in which people worhsipped the orishas. This is fairly accurate since the Arabs were practising something not unlike what the olorishas (devotees of the orishas) do now and have been doing for hundreds/thousands of years.
What was even more interesting was that he said this man, Setiyu, whom most of the Babalawos I have interviewed have mentioned, practiced Ifa at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, and he actually was called to consult Ifa when the Meccans were chasing him and he hid in a cave in the mountains. According to Mr. Akurede, and Mr. Onifade agreed, Setiyu used Ifa to tell where he was, and told the Meccans to go find him in that cave, but as you may know, the cave was sealed by a spiderweb and a birds nest after the Prophet Muhammad and Abu Bakr, his companion, went inside it. This made the Meccans think Setiyu was lying or in cahoots with Muhammad so they killed him and smashed his divining tools. Later they realized that he was right, and went back to find his diving chain (called an opele in Yorubaland) and they found that of the original 16 cowrie-shells or nuts, only 8 were left, and the other 8 were said to have been dispersed in the bush and became the medicines and herbs that Babalawos now have to go out and pick ot heal people. While this may not be completely historically accurate (I'm not sure if Ifa was around then, much less in Saudi Arabia) it's certainly interesting nonetheless. I'm trying to look up any account of this Setiyu guy on the internet since Mr. Akurede couldn't remember where it was in the Quran.
The other interesting thing he taught me was about Islamic Sand divination. Before coming I had done some researh about how similar I thought they were, even though lots of scholars disagree. I just asked about divination in general, and Al-Haji basically told me that he prints sand to do Ifa. He said that he does it in a different way from Babalawos, but that they were like two different languages saying the same thing. They have different forms, but say the same thing. He said the same is also true of religion, that all real religions recognize one God, like the Muslims say, and that they all have intermediaries, like Orunmila or Jesus, that help them get to God. Anyway, he basically taught me how to do Islamic Sand divination (along with a few other methods of divination), and it was more or less exactly what I had read about. The reason it was so important was because the end result of the whole process is a column of 4 symbols, either one short vertical line or two that looks like this:
II I
I or II etc.
I I
II I
These signs are what are called Odu in Ifa and carry the message that the Babalawos give their clients. They're exactly the same. Al-Haji and the Babalawos had fun coming up with different ones, and the Babalawos would say the name in Yoruba, and Al-Haji would tell me, "see they're the same!" Even though some disagree, I think there has to be something there, because Muslim diviners print these symbols on sand to get divinatory messages, and Babalawos do exactly the same thing. I also asked another Alfa about this yesterday (after he offered to marry me to his daughter) and he told me that it was indeed Ifa, and that Muslims probably shouldn't be doing that, even though they can go to the Babalawos for help. The whole thing was very interesting...
I had actually planned to see this other Alfa on Wednesday, but the students at Obafemi Awolowo decided to have a strike, for a reason I still do not fully understand. These things happen all the time at least in West African Universities when there are budget cuts and that sort of thing. So they students shut down lectures and wouldn't let buses in the campus, and being myself I just decided that I would take the extra hour and just walk out to the University gate. Unfortuantely there weren't many people as resolved as I was, so by the time I got to the bus to Osogbo, there was only 1 other person in it, and 20 minutes later there were only 2 other people in it. Since these buses don't leave until they're full, I could tell I wasn't going to get to Osogbo anytime soon, so I called Dele and told him that we'd have to postpone for the next day. This is why things often just don't work in Nigeria...
Anyway I was able to meet this Alfa, who told me his grandfather or great-grandfather was a Babalawo, and another Babalawo yesterday. The meeting with the Babalawo mainly taught me that I don't want to interview any more Babalawos in Osogbo. Not that they aren't nice, they're just all telling me more or less the same thing at this point, and I don't have the time or energy to do it all over again. This was tough to explain to Dele because he keeps giving me the names of more Babalawos that he knows in Osogbo and Ilobu, which is almost the same thing, saying that they knoew what they're talking about and that they'll tell me the truth. I just told him that even if other people don't know what they're saying, I want to hear what they have to say and see why they think that. It was kinda awkward because we kept running into his friends, and I think most of them heard that there's a white kid running around giving Babalawos money and wine, what the call alcohol, if they'll talk to him for an hour, so they're all pretty willing to talk to me.
Well that's most of the news I have for now. I'm going to try to get my last 5 or 6 interviews transcribed and then I want to try to interview a few Babalawos in Ife itself, including the Awise I first met since he had the most interesting thigns to say, and then maybe I'll get to go back to Ibadan and or Lagos to hang out with Uncle Seun and Aunty Bimbo, and maybe even a Babalawo or two.
Still not married or initiated,
~Deji
PS The second Alfa that I met also reference one Surah of the Quran (Surat-al Kafirun) to explain that Muslims shouldn't be attacking Ifa worshippers or anyone else like that since it reads:
Say: O unbelievers!
I do not serve that which you serve
Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve:
Nor am I going to serve that which you serve,
Nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve:
You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.
Or alternatively:
To you be your Way, and to me mine.
I'd never heard that interpretation before, and it was pretty cool that he read it out to me in Arabic and I followed what it said!
Before I left Mr. Onifade's house in Osogbo the last time, I asked him if he knows any Alfas that I could interview. Alfas are Muslim leaders/scholars/diviners all rolled into one who play a role very similar to that of the Babalawo, and even share the same herbal tradition nad practices that the Babalawos have. I anted to interview one or two of them to see what they were all about and get a Muslim perspective on Ifa. Mr Onifade said he knew of one guy who would be great for that and would get me in touch with him, so the next day Dele called me and said if I came to Osogbo again by 2 we could go see the guy.
Naturally I thought he was in Osogbo too, but when I got there I found out he lives about an hours drive away in a town called Ogbagba, and Mr. Onifade was just going to drive us there. The dude is too much. He also picked up another one of their Babalawo friends, and I kpet thinking that if you told me a few months ago that I would be driving to talk to a Muslim diviner in a car with 3 Babalawos I probably would've laughed at you, but that's what was going on.
The Alfa that we were going to see (the Babalawos came too because I htink they were just as interested as I was) is named Al-Haji Hamad Akurede, and everythign about him is big, his voice, his build, and even the welcome he gave us. He and everyone else were impressed that I knew Arabic, and had a good laugh when I started reading all the things he had on his wall, and could transliterate everyones' names into Arabic.
To cut a long story short, through a combination of broken pidgin English, Yoruba, and a bit of Arabic, Mr. Akurede basically told me that Ifa and Islam (Alfas in particular) are very close because the religion of Islam came from a society of traditional religion in which people worhsipped the orishas. This is fairly accurate since the Arabs were practising something not unlike what the olorishas (devotees of the orishas) do now and have been doing for hundreds/thousands of years.
What was even more interesting was that he said this man, Setiyu, whom most of the Babalawos I have interviewed have mentioned, practiced Ifa at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, and he actually was called to consult Ifa when the Meccans were chasing him and he hid in a cave in the mountains. According to Mr. Akurede, and Mr. Onifade agreed, Setiyu used Ifa to tell where he was, and told the Meccans to go find him in that cave, but as you may know, the cave was sealed by a spiderweb and a birds nest after the Prophet Muhammad and Abu Bakr, his companion, went inside it. This made the Meccans think Setiyu was lying or in cahoots with Muhammad so they killed him and smashed his divining tools. Later they realized that he was right, and went back to find his diving chain (called an opele in Yorubaland) and they found that of the original 16 cowrie-shells or nuts, only 8 were left, and the other 8 were said to have been dispersed in the bush and became the medicines and herbs that Babalawos now have to go out and pick ot heal people. While this may not be completely historically accurate (I'm not sure if Ifa was around then, much less in Saudi Arabia) it's certainly interesting nonetheless. I'm trying to look up any account of this Setiyu guy on the internet since Mr. Akurede couldn't remember where it was in the Quran.
The other interesting thing he taught me was about Islamic Sand divination. Before coming I had done some researh about how similar I thought they were, even though lots of scholars disagree. I just asked about divination in general, and Al-Haji basically told me that he prints sand to do Ifa. He said that he does it in a different way from Babalawos, but that they were like two different languages saying the same thing. They have different forms, but say the same thing. He said the same is also true of religion, that all real religions recognize one God, like the Muslims say, and that they all have intermediaries, like Orunmila or Jesus, that help them get to God. Anyway, he basically taught me how to do Islamic Sand divination (along with a few other methods of divination), and it was more or less exactly what I had read about. The reason it was so important was because the end result of the whole process is a column of 4 symbols, either one short vertical line or two that looks like this:
II I
I or II etc.
I I
II I
These signs are what are called Odu in Ifa and carry the message that the Babalawos give their clients. They're exactly the same. Al-Haji and the Babalawos had fun coming up with different ones, and the Babalawos would say the name in Yoruba, and Al-Haji would tell me, "see they're the same!" Even though some disagree, I think there has to be something there, because Muslim diviners print these symbols on sand to get divinatory messages, and Babalawos do exactly the same thing. I also asked another Alfa about this yesterday (after he offered to marry me to his daughter) and he told me that it was indeed Ifa, and that Muslims probably shouldn't be doing that, even though they can go to the Babalawos for help. The whole thing was very interesting...
I had actually planned to see this other Alfa on Wednesday, but the students at Obafemi Awolowo decided to have a strike, for a reason I still do not fully understand. These things happen all the time at least in West African Universities when there are budget cuts and that sort of thing. So they students shut down lectures and wouldn't let buses in the campus, and being myself I just decided that I would take the extra hour and just walk out to the University gate. Unfortuantely there weren't many people as resolved as I was, so by the time I got to the bus to Osogbo, there was only 1 other person in it, and 20 minutes later there were only 2 other people in it. Since these buses don't leave until they're full, I could tell I wasn't going to get to Osogbo anytime soon, so I called Dele and told him that we'd have to postpone for the next day. This is why things often just don't work in Nigeria...
Anyway I was able to meet this Alfa, who told me his grandfather or great-grandfather was a Babalawo, and another Babalawo yesterday. The meeting with the Babalawo mainly taught me that I don't want to interview any more Babalawos in Osogbo. Not that they aren't nice, they're just all telling me more or less the same thing at this point, and I don't have the time or energy to do it all over again. This was tough to explain to Dele because he keeps giving me the names of more Babalawos that he knows in Osogbo and Ilobu, which is almost the same thing, saying that they knoew what they're talking about and that they'll tell me the truth. I just told him that even if other people don't know what they're saying, I want to hear what they have to say and see why they think that. It was kinda awkward because we kept running into his friends, and I think most of them heard that there's a white kid running around giving Babalawos money and wine, what the call alcohol, if they'll talk to him for an hour, so they're all pretty willing to talk to me.
Well that's most of the news I have for now. I'm going to try to get my last 5 or 6 interviews transcribed and then I want to try to interview a few Babalawos in Ife itself, including the Awise I first met since he had the most interesting thigns to say, and then maybe I'll get to go back to Ibadan and or Lagos to hang out with Uncle Seun and Aunty Bimbo, and maybe even a Babalawo or two.
Still not married or initiated,
~Deji
PS The second Alfa that I met also reference one Surah of the Quran (Surat-al Kafirun) to explain that Muslims shouldn't be attacking Ifa worshippers or anyone else like that since it reads:
Say: O unbelievers!
I do not serve that which you serve
Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve:
Nor am I going to serve that which you serve,
Nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve:
You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.
Or alternatively:
To you be your Way, and to me mine.
I'd never heard that interpretation before, and it was pretty cool that he read it out to me in Arabic and I followed what it said!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Ifa also says...
Over the past weekend I interviewed 3 more Babalawos this time in Osogbo and a smaller town called Ilobu, just a few minutes north of Osogbo. Before I left with Dr. Ajibade he introduced me to two students who are going to transcribe my interviews (for a price of course), which is going to be a HUGE help to me since I can't understand most of the Yoruba, and when I get it translated afterward I'll have an audio and visual record of them! He also introduced me to Dele Babalola, who will be my field assistant while Dr. Ajibade is at a conference in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Fortunately for me, Dele is the son of the first Babalawo I interviewed this weekend and knows most of the Babalawos in the area, not to mention a whole lot about Ifa as well. I learned only later while talking to him, that he is not just an initiate into the society like I had thought, but that he is a full-fledged Babalawo himself as well!
So I first went with Dr. Ajibade to Ilobu where Dele's father, the Otun Awo of Ilobu, lives. This interview was a bit of a big deal, because most Ifa priests and scholars consider him to be one of the, if not the ultimate authority on Ifa because he is so old, and has travelled all over Yorubaland in his work with Ifa. His title, Otun Awo, also signifies that he is the 2nd highest priests in the society, I couldn't help but feel kinda puny and unimportant around him, and honored that he agreed to sit down and talk to me.
Besides being a big deal, Mr. Babalola was very friendly and sent one of the people in his house to go get drinks for Dr. Ajibade and I when we came in, and answered most of my questions (we didn't have time to do deal with all of them) in a very slow deliberate, and very dignified manner. I almost wanted to stop asking him questions and just listen to what he said, which caught me off guard when he was finished answering questions. There was way too much in uor interview for me to remember all of it off-hand or even to tell you but the most interesting parts were that most of the clients he has who come to him to do divination for them are Muslims, then quite a few Christians, but very few followers of traditional religion (called Olorishas). He also told me that lots of pastors who have just founded churches in other towns will come to him to ask what they should do, and how they can attract people to their churches! Apparently people from even pretty far away come to him because they don't want anyone to know they are consulting Ifa. I thought that was pretty crazy.
He also told me that the Bible, Qur'an, and Ifa corpus came from heaven (just like the Awise said) and that whenever they are in conflict or have flase teachings, that is the introduction of human creation into religion that causes all kinds of problems. According to him, this is part of the reason why in Nigeria people would understand why Muslims and Christians would be initiated into Ifa, since the consultation and divination doesn't have to be practiced as a religion, but if one wanted to become a priest or Babalawo, you would have to leave another faith for Ifa. This presented the biggest difference with the last interview, and he promised to tell me all about some Ifa mythology that would clear up a lot of my questions the next time I came to visit him.
At the end of my interviews I always give the Babalawos some money (usually about $15) and Dele and Dr. Ajibade siad they like wine and alcohol, so I gave Mr. Babalola the nicest one I could find since I really appreciated him taking the time to talk to me, and he loved it. When I produced it he said that one "Ah-ah!" that all of you who either know Nigerians or my Nigerian impersonation would recognize. He was so grateful he said abrief prayer asking Ifa to grant me success in my research and asked me if I had been initiated into Ifa or would want to. I told him that I had not, and weaseled my way out of explaining myself to him. I can't lie though, all of the Ifa people, initiates and Babalawos, have been very gracious and wise men, I just don't want to go through initiation into the society even though I have a keen interest in the tradition...
The next day I went with Dele to Osogbo to interview 2 of his fathers protégés, but in rue Nigerian fashion, Dele was about a half hour late, even after insisting that he would be 15 minutes early. It probably wasn't his fault because you never know how the roads are going to be, and what kind of bus driver you will get...
Osogbo is about a 45 minutes drive from Ife and I asked Dele all kinds of questions about his involvement in Ifa, and found out that he himself actually was initiated "under" the Odu Otua Meji (one of the 16 major divinatory signs of Ifa) when he was initiated. This was interesting because that is the Odu that is associated with Islam, and Dele told me that if he had wanted to he could now start dressing and largely acting like a Muslim if he wanted tosince that's what the sign means. He is extraodrinarily adamant that I get "the truth" about Ifa and through Ifa on my project, and I think he is enjoying being able to teach me about all of these things, and is glad that I am interested in him and Ifa instead of being dealthy afraid of it and disrespecting him and his family's occupation.
I know most Muslims and Christians at least oficially think and say these kinds of things, and I couldn't help but think about what it must be like for Dele and his family to have even the people who financially support you disapprove of the tradtion that you have dedicated your life to practicing and preserving since it is largely dying out. Even though I'm not and Ifa man, or have any plans to become one, I can't imagine that his would be a very pleasant position especially when he and his Dad tell me that they are really involved in Ifa since they believe it is a gift from God that is meant to help people and ease their suffering. Seems strange, and alos familiar that someone who wants to do that has to end up suffering for it...
At any rate, the next Babalawo on the list was the Ojugbona of Osogbo, and his job traditionally was to communicate between the Kabiyesi (chief or king of the area) and the Ifa community. So he would divine for the Kabiyesi and tell him what Ifa has to say, or what the Ifa community neds/advises, and then take orders from the Kabiyesi to Ifa as well. He was extremely friendly, giving me a warm smile when I greeted him, and even slapped me on the knee while laughing after I told Dele "Mo gbo ede Yoruba-o!" (I understand Yoruba!) when he tried translating something for me.
The Ojugbona told me a lot of the same things that Mr. Babalola did, which makes sense since the former studied under the latter. Mr Latona (the Ojugbona's name) told me that he too divines mostly for Muslims and some Christians, has initiated many, and even "keeps" Ifa for many of them. Traditionally, when a person "receives" and orisha, the orisha is said to inhabit a small shrine, pot, or calabash, after several secret rites have been performed to and over it, and so it is usually called by the name of the orisha since (s)he actually lives inside it. So when the Ojugbona initiated some Muslims and Christians, he said they didn't want to take Ifa back with them since it would cause all kinds of trouble within their religious communities, so they leave Ifa with him and he performs all of the nesecary sacrifices, like "feeding" Ifa kola nuts and water when necessary. He also agreed that Babalawos should not be Muslims even though initates should be, even though there is a strange very strong relatinoship between Muhammad and Orunmila. He said to know more than that I would have to go back and ask Mr. Babalola since he didn't know. At the end of the whole interview, he agreed to take a picture with me in his full regalia, putting his hand on my shoulder and thanking me for coming by. After we left, I felt kinda bad that I had been so apprehensive about meeting Babalawos since he was one of the nicest and most welcoming people I have met here.
Dele and I were already late to meet the next Babalawo, Mr. Onifade the Amokinrun of Osogbo, the immediate subordinate of the Ojugbona, who would usually be the life of any Ifa celebration or gathering, leading or beginning chants of Odu Ifa, and invoking Ifa/Orunmila to come down to them.We ended up being even later since Dele couldn't remember exactly where he lived, and said, "and what should I say?" when I asked if we could just call him for direction. He was really embarrassed that he didn't remember how to get there. So we called Dele's little brother and eventaully found it. Mr. Onifade reminded me a bit of my Uncle Wole in that he is a very big, powerful man, with an equally powerful and distinc voice whose size is only matched by his congeniality; he (and my Uncle Wole too) are the kind of guy everyone wants to have as an Uncle. I gave him the traditional greeting like always, and he yanked me up and gave me a hug and showed us into his house. As a pleasant surprise he spoke English as well if not better than Dele so we didn't have to bother translating wich saved a lot of time and effort, not to mention making everything clerer and more straight-forward.
This interview was maybe the most informative I have had, and I couldn't possibly tell you everything, but one of the most interesting things he told me was that although he's never asked or studied it, Arabs must have been worshipping the orishas before the prophet Muhammad came, which in a way is actually true, and that everyone needs to stop hating and trying to destroy the trditional religion that God gave them (All of the Babalawos I have talked to say God, Allah, and Olodumare the Yoruba word for God, are all the same and they even say things like, "Praise God" and "God willing"). According to Yoruba cosmology, Olodumare is so great and far from human beings in their impoerfection, that people must worship and access him through the intermediaries of orishas, many of whom were actual people. He said that if Jesus and Muhammad had come to Yorubaland instead they would have been called and worshipped as orishas as well since they served that same role. That's why he doesn't try to persecute Muslims or Christians or even deride Jesus or Muhammad. He got a bit riled up as well, when he said people just don't take the time to understand what's really going on, and think traditinoalist are worshipping rocks and dirt, when they actually know God in a very serious way. While not completely unexpected, this fascinated me, because I'd never heard anyone say that, much less in such frank language.
At the end I took a picture with him and Dele as well, and even a few of the pots he had in his sitting room that contained Ifa and belonged to Muslims from all over... Then as an added bonus, they told me one of their friends was having a celebration because he had just moved up the ranks in Ifa society, and they brought me along. at first it looked like most other Nigerian celebrations I've been too, big tents in the road, everyone sitting down, drinking, and eating, women in big colorful geles (head dresses), talking-drum players, people running around trying to sell all kinds of stuff, etc. BUT soon after we got there, after saying hi to about 20 people since everyone knew Dele and Mr Onifade (who undersandibly is well known and liked) Dele grabbed my hand and told me to go see the Masquerade, which is literally a costume with an elaborate mask that covers the face of the person wearing it, but is actually meant to be the embodiment of a spirit or orisha. Dele told me to take a picture with my camera quickly (notice the un-split infinitive Dad!) because people were shoving and beating each other out of the way with sticks to get to it. I got a pretty good picture with some Ifa men saying prayers and putting Ifa powder on it to ward of any evil and misfortune that might otherwise occur. It was at this point that I remembered why some people were so afraid and antagonistic to traditional religion, because I can't lie I was pretty afraid of the Masquerade and did not argue when Dele said we should get out of the way.
After a little while longer Mr. Onifade took me to another "bus" to Ife, which is really just a rickety van that squishes between 10-20 people in it. On the way he told me that he had just been called by one lady from the US who had been to all kinds of doctors to try to treat all of these seemingly unrelated helth issues she had been having before coming to him, and after he consulted Ifa and prescribed a treatment and prayer for her, she's all better. I have no idea how it worked, but Mr. Onifade said that happens to him a few times every day, especially with people from the US now because so many people are loosing jobs or are afraid of them, which had never occured to me but made sense. I just wonder how your average American hears about or decides to get in touch with an Ifa priest in Yorubaland. I guess that's the modern global village for you.
At any rate this post has been almost as long as my day in Osogbo, so I'm going to go review my interviews again, so bye for now, but remember to e-mail me and questions or thoughts because I'm sure I haven't fully explained all kinds of things
~Deji
So I first went with Dr. Ajibade to Ilobu where Dele's father, the Otun Awo of Ilobu, lives. This interview was a bit of a big deal, because most Ifa priests and scholars consider him to be one of the, if not the ultimate authority on Ifa because he is so old, and has travelled all over Yorubaland in his work with Ifa. His title, Otun Awo, also signifies that he is the 2nd highest priests in the society, I couldn't help but feel kinda puny and unimportant around him, and honored that he agreed to sit down and talk to me.
Besides being a big deal, Mr. Babalola was very friendly and sent one of the people in his house to go get drinks for Dr. Ajibade and I when we came in, and answered most of my questions (we didn't have time to do deal with all of them) in a very slow deliberate, and very dignified manner. I almost wanted to stop asking him questions and just listen to what he said, which caught me off guard when he was finished answering questions. There was way too much in uor interview for me to remember all of it off-hand or even to tell you but the most interesting parts were that most of the clients he has who come to him to do divination for them are Muslims, then quite a few Christians, but very few followers of traditional religion (called Olorishas). He also told me that lots of pastors who have just founded churches in other towns will come to him to ask what they should do, and how they can attract people to their churches! Apparently people from even pretty far away come to him because they don't want anyone to know they are consulting Ifa. I thought that was pretty crazy.
He also told me that the Bible, Qur'an, and Ifa corpus came from heaven (just like the Awise said) and that whenever they are in conflict or have flase teachings, that is the introduction of human creation into religion that causes all kinds of problems. According to him, this is part of the reason why in Nigeria people would understand why Muslims and Christians would be initiated into Ifa, since the consultation and divination doesn't have to be practiced as a religion, but if one wanted to become a priest or Babalawo, you would have to leave another faith for Ifa. This presented the biggest difference with the last interview, and he promised to tell me all about some Ifa mythology that would clear up a lot of my questions the next time I came to visit him.
At the end of my interviews I always give the Babalawos some money (usually about $15) and Dele and Dr. Ajibade siad they like wine and alcohol, so I gave Mr. Babalola the nicest one I could find since I really appreciated him taking the time to talk to me, and he loved it. When I produced it he said that one "Ah-ah!" that all of you who either know Nigerians or my Nigerian impersonation would recognize. He was so grateful he said abrief prayer asking Ifa to grant me success in my research and asked me if I had been initiated into Ifa or would want to. I told him that I had not, and weaseled my way out of explaining myself to him. I can't lie though, all of the Ifa people, initiates and Babalawos, have been very gracious and wise men, I just don't want to go through initiation into the society even though I have a keen interest in the tradition...
The next day I went with Dele to Osogbo to interview 2 of his fathers protégés, but in rue Nigerian fashion, Dele was about a half hour late, even after insisting that he would be 15 minutes early. It probably wasn't his fault because you never know how the roads are going to be, and what kind of bus driver you will get...
Osogbo is about a 45 minutes drive from Ife and I asked Dele all kinds of questions about his involvement in Ifa, and found out that he himself actually was initiated "under" the Odu Otua Meji (one of the 16 major divinatory signs of Ifa) when he was initiated. This was interesting because that is the Odu that is associated with Islam, and Dele told me that if he had wanted to he could now start dressing and largely acting like a Muslim if he wanted tosince that's what the sign means. He is extraodrinarily adamant that I get "the truth" about Ifa and through Ifa on my project, and I think he is enjoying being able to teach me about all of these things, and is glad that I am interested in him and Ifa instead of being dealthy afraid of it and disrespecting him and his family's occupation.
I know most Muslims and Christians at least oficially think and say these kinds of things, and I couldn't help but think about what it must be like for Dele and his family to have even the people who financially support you disapprove of the tradtion that you have dedicated your life to practicing and preserving since it is largely dying out. Even though I'm not and Ifa man, or have any plans to become one, I can't imagine that his would be a very pleasant position especially when he and his Dad tell me that they are really involved in Ifa since they believe it is a gift from God that is meant to help people and ease their suffering. Seems strange, and alos familiar that someone who wants to do that has to end up suffering for it...
At any rate, the next Babalawo on the list was the Ojugbona of Osogbo, and his job traditionally was to communicate between the Kabiyesi (chief or king of the area) and the Ifa community. So he would divine for the Kabiyesi and tell him what Ifa has to say, or what the Ifa community neds/advises, and then take orders from the Kabiyesi to Ifa as well. He was extremely friendly, giving me a warm smile when I greeted him, and even slapped me on the knee while laughing after I told Dele "Mo gbo ede Yoruba-o!" (I understand Yoruba!) when he tried translating something for me.
The Ojugbona told me a lot of the same things that Mr. Babalola did, which makes sense since the former studied under the latter. Mr Latona (the Ojugbona's name) told me that he too divines mostly for Muslims and some Christians, has initiated many, and even "keeps" Ifa for many of them. Traditionally, when a person "receives" and orisha, the orisha is said to inhabit a small shrine, pot, or calabash, after several secret rites have been performed to and over it, and so it is usually called by the name of the orisha since (s)he actually lives inside it. So when the Ojugbona initiated some Muslims and Christians, he said they didn't want to take Ifa back with them since it would cause all kinds of trouble within their religious communities, so they leave Ifa with him and he performs all of the nesecary sacrifices, like "feeding" Ifa kola nuts and water when necessary. He also agreed that Babalawos should not be Muslims even though initates should be, even though there is a strange very strong relatinoship between Muhammad and Orunmila. He said to know more than that I would have to go back and ask Mr. Babalola since he didn't know. At the end of the whole interview, he agreed to take a picture with me in his full regalia, putting his hand on my shoulder and thanking me for coming by. After we left, I felt kinda bad that I had been so apprehensive about meeting Babalawos since he was one of the nicest and most welcoming people I have met here.
Dele and I were already late to meet the next Babalawo, Mr. Onifade the Amokinrun of Osogbo, the immediate subordinate of the Ojugbona, who would usually be the life of any Ifa celebration or gathering, leading or beginning chants of Odu Ifa, and invoking Ifa/Orunmila to come down to them.We ended up being even later since Dele couldn't remember exactly where he lived, and said, "and what should I say?" when I asked if we could just call him for direction. He was really embarrassed that he didn't remember how to get there. So we called Dele's little brother and eventaully found it. Mr. Onifade reminded me a bit of my Uncle Wole in that he is a very big, powerful man, with an equally powerful and distinc voice whose size is only matched by his congeniality; he (and my Uncle Wole too) are the kind of guy everyone wants to have as an Uncle. I gave him the traditional greeting like always, and he yanked me up and gave me a hug and showed us into his house. As a pleasant surprise he spoke English as well if not better than Dele so we didn't have to bother translating wich saved a lot of time and effort, not to mention making everything clerer and more straight-forward.
This interview was maybe the most informative I have had, and I couldn't possibly tell you everything, but one of the most interesting things he told me was that although he's never asked or studied it, Arabs must have been worshipping the orishas before the prophet Muhammad came, which in a way is actually true, and that everyone needs to stop hating and trying to destroy the trditional religion that God gave them (All of the Babalawos I have talked to say God, Allah, and Olodumare the Yoruba word for God, are all the same and they even say things like, "Praise God" and "God willing"). According to Yoruba cosmology, Olodumare is so great and far from human beings in their impoerfection, that people must worship and access him through the intermediaries of orishas, many of whom were actual people. He said that if Jesus and Muhammad had come to Yorubaland instead they would have been called and worshipped as orishas as well since they served that same role. That's why he doesn't try to persecute Muslims or Christians or even deride Jesus or Muhammad. He got a bit riled up as well, when he said people just don't take the time to understand what's really going on, and think traditinoalist are worshipping rocks and dirt, when they actually know God in a very serious way. While not completely unexpected, this fascinated me, because I'd never heard anyone say that, much less in such frank language.
At the end I took a picture with him and Dele as well, and even a few of the pots he had in his sitting room that contained Ifa and belonged to Muslims from all over... Then as an added bonus, they told me one of their friends was having a celebration because he had just moved up the ranks in Ifa society, and they brought me along. at first it looked like most other Nigerian celebrations I've been too, big tents in the road, everyone sitting down, drinking, and eating, women in big colorful geles (head dresses), talking-drum players, people running around trying to sell all kinds of stuff, etc. BUT soon after we got there, after saying hi to about 20 people since everyone knew Dele and Mr Onifade (who undersandibly is well known and liked) Dele grabbed my hand and told me to go see the Masquerade, which is literally a costume with an elaborate mask that covers the face of the person wearing it, but is actually meant to be the embodiment of a spirit or orisha. Dele told me to take a picture with my camera quickly (notice the un-split infinitive Dad!) because people were shoving and beating each other out of the way with sticks to get to it. I got a pretty good picture with some Ifa men saying prayers and putting Ifa powder on it to ward of any evil and misfortune that might otherwise occur. It was at this point that I remembered why some people were so afraid and antagonistic to traditional religion, because I can't lie I was pretty afraid of the Masquerade and did not argue when Dele said we should get out of the way.
After a little while longer Mr. Onifade took me to another "bus" to Ife, which is really just a rickety van that squishes between 10-20 people in it. On the way he told me that he had just been called by one lady from the US who had been to all kinds of doctors to try to treat all of these seemingly unrelated helth issues she had been having before coming to him, and after he consulted Ifa and prescribed a treatment and prayer for her, she's all better. I have no idea how it worked, but Mr. Onifade said that happens to him a few times every day, especially with people from the US now because so many people are loosing jobs or are afraid of them, which had never occured to me but made sense. I just wonder how your average American hears about or decides to get in touch with an Ifa priest in Yorubaland. I guess that's the modern global village for you.
At any rate this post has been almost as long as my day in Osogbo, so I'm going to go review my interviews again, so bye for now, but remember to e-mail me and questions or thoughts because I'm sure I haven't fully explained all kinds of things
~Deji
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Ifa Says...
As you probably know, I've been studying Arabic and Islam along with African languages and culture for the past few years, and for my sr thesis I decided to write about the seemingly curious relationship between Islam and this traditional Yoruba divination form called Ifa. If you'd like a more detailed description of what Ifa is and how it works, please just send me an e-mail, but for now, Ifa Divination is used as a method for the priests of Orunmila, an incredibly wise Yoruba deity, to find out why people are having trouble in their lives and prescribe solutions. I and lots of other people have found Ifa fascinating since it is a very intricate and powerful tradition that is still very much alive and requires an incredible amount of training and knowledge (much of it secret) on the part of the Babalawos (Orunmila's priests who do the actualy divination). At any rate, I was particularly interested because one of my professors said that many of these Babalawos are simultaneously practicing Muslims, and the Ifa corpus (a group of poems, stories, and other largely oral material that the Babalawos use) has a fair amount to say about Islam as well. So my project this summer, and hopefully my thesis for the next school year, is exploring and hopefully explaining how these priests are able to practice Ifa and Islam together, and what Ifa's stance on Islam is. So with the help of Uncle Harvey, I went right to the source!
Fortunately for me, Dr. Ajibade is a vigorous student and professor of Yoruba culture and language, and has really taught me the meaning of the saying "a gentleman and a scholar." He immediately asked me what I wanted to do and how he could help. Within a few minutes he made a list of Babalawos I could interview and said he would take me to one the next day and then to another one about an hour or more away this coming Saturday. He also said he would translate for me and find someone to transcribe my interviews since they are all being recorded. The man is really amazing and almost single-handedly put my research in motion!
Another professor I met here at Obafemi Awolowo is Aunty Remi's good friend Uche, who also happens to teach French! I've had a lot of fun practicing French with him and lamenting how our proficiency in the language seems to slowly seep away like an atrophying muscle when stuck in a completely anglophone environment. He really likes my "parisian" accent and wants me to come talk to his students to prove that Nigerians can and should speak French and that the West African accent isn't the only one out there. He lives right by the Sonaiyas house and is trying to finish his Masters, and then hopefully leave the country to work on a PhD since acadmeic resources are so scant in quantity and quality here. He's told me several times that he wants to just escape the madness here and go to Senegal or Benin where people are more sane and he can really soak up the French language and Francophone culture. I really hope he gets the chance, because he's very bright and like those other famous francophiles like Cesaire and Senghor he has an almost irrepresible passion for the language.
Just yesterday I got back from conducting my very first interview here in Ife with one of the friends of Dr. Ajibade. We left at about 8:30am and after carefully navigating the tumultuous waves of broken pavement that constitute Nigerian roads we finally got to the house Babalawo, called the Awise of Modakeke. He was really big and kind of reminded me of a bear, to be honest, but he was quite friendly and had a very commanding presence. I could tell as soon as we sat down with him that the guy had all kinds of knowledge and power stored up in his head. It was strange how it hit me, but it was very apparent from the beginning. I gave him the traditional greeting called "dobale" which has now become an abbreviated prostration, and said "Ekaaro sir." He seemed pretty happy that I could greet him in Yoruba and got a bit of a kick out of the fact that I could introduce myself and tell him where my family came from, where I live, and why I am "Oyinbo" or "white" since anything outside of or lighter than the general Nigerian skintone gets put into this category.
Our interview took about an hour with me asking Dr. Ajibade a question and he in turn phrasing it in Yoruba for the Awise. I was surprised that part of the time I could actually understand the responses even though I certainly didn't know what words were being said, but I would always wait for Dr. Ajibade to translate so I wouldn't miss anything and because the interview is getting recorded. I learned more than I ever could have from reading books back at school in that 1 hour, and most significantly for me, I learned that at least this Babalawo says Ifa and Islam really aren't different. According to him they have been almost one religion since God, or Olodumare in Yoruba, sent them both down from heaven. He told me very matter-of-factly that Orunmila the god himself was a Muslim, that his own grandfather (also a Babalawo) was a Muslim, and that Orunmila told God to send a long-bearded servant he had named "Afa" down to earth with the Qur'an to put people on earth back in order. The overall message of the interview, among lots of other smaller points and another interview of Ifa and Islam origin mythology that will come later, was that Ifa and Islam are completely compatible and have been intertwined if not one practically since the dawn of time even though most Muslims will vehemently reject this idea. Those who do, the Awise said, "lack true understanding". Interestingly enough the Awise himself is not a Muslim, and while we were leaving, Dr. Ajibade and I ran into a priest of the god of iron and war, Ogun (the same Ogun in my last name), who happens to be a Christian. So don't accpect any statistics about how many people follow different religions in Nigeria at face value!
This interview was absolutely perfect for my thesis and if I could get even just a few more like this I would probably have all that I need, but Dr. Ajibade and I will to to milk it for all we can get. The more the better! So everyday, after getting up at 6-6:30 and praying and eating breakfast with Uncle Funso, I go to campus and visit either Uche or Dr. Ajibade to talk about/work on my project and by about noon or shortly after I come to Uncel Funso's department where I steal their internet and work in their conference room. Until they kick me out that is... There's almost always power here, and since the internet is free while I can "borrow" the conference room I should be able to get at my e-mail periodically so feel free to get in touch with me!
Hope you're all well
~Deji
PS I just bought myself a little treat of a bottle of "ground nut," which is really just peanuts in a glass bottle. I'm not sure why that's how they are sold, but they are so good I couldn't pass up the opportunity to "chop small"
Fortunately for me, Dr. Ajibade is a vigorous student and professor of Yoruba culture and language, and has really taught me the meaning of the saying "a gentleman and a scholar." He immediately asked me what I wanted to do and how he could help. Within a few minutes he made a list of Babalawos I could interview and said he would take me to one the next day and then to another one about an hour or more away this coming Saturday. He also said he would translate for me and find someone to transcribe my interviews since they are all being recorded. The man is really amazing and almost single-handedly put my research in motion!
Another professor I met here at Obafemi Awolowo is Aunty Remi's good friend Uche, who also happens to teach French! I've had a lot of fun practicing French with him and lamenting how our proficiency in the language seems to slowly seep away like an atrophying muscle when stuck in a completely anglophone environment. He really likes my "parisian" accent and wants me to come talk to his students to prove that Nigerians can and should speak French and that the West African accent isn't the only one out there. He lives right by the Sonaiyas house and is trying to finish his Masters, and then hopefully leave the country to work on a PhD since acadmeic resources are so scant in quantity and quality here. He's told me several times that he wants to just escape the madness here and go to Senegal or Benin where people are more sane and he can really soak up the French language and Francophone culture. I really hope he gets the chance, because he's very bright and like those other famous francophiles like Cesaire and Senghor he has an almost irrepresible passion for the language.
Just yesterday I got back from conducting my very first interview here in Ife with one of the friends of Dr. Ajibade. We left at about 8:30am and after carefully navigating the tumultuous waves of broken pavement that constitute Nigerian roads we finally got to the house Babalawo, called the Awise of Modakeke. He was really big and kind of reminded me of a bear, to be honest, but he was quite friendly and had a very commanding presence. I could tell as soon as we sat down with him that the guy had all kinds of knowledge and power stored up in his head. It was strange how it hit me, but it was very apparent from the beginning. I gave him the traditional greeting called "dobale" which has now become an abbreviated prostration, and said "Ekaaro sir." He seemed pretty happy that I could greet him in Yoruba and got a bit of a kick out of the fact that I could introduce myself and tell him where my family came from, where I live, and why I am "Oyinbo" or "white" since anything outside of or lighter than the general Nigerian skintone gets put into this category.
Our interview took about an hour with me asking Dr. Ajibade a question and he in turn phrasing it in Yoruba for the Awise. I was surprised that part of the time I could actually understand the responses even though I certainly didn't know what words were being said, but I would always wait for Dr. Ajibade to translate so I wouldn't miss anything and because the interview is getting recorded. I learned more than I ever could have from reading books back at school in that 1 hour, and most significantly for me, I learned that at least this Babalawo says Ifa and Islam really aren't different. According to him they have been almost one religion since God, or Olodumare in Yoruba, sent them both down from heaven. He told me very matter-of-factly that Orunmila the god himself was a Muslim, that his own grandfather (also a Babalawo) was a Muslim, and that Orunmila told God to send a long-bearded servant he had named "Afa" down to earth with the Qur'an to put people on earth back in order. The overall message of the interview, among lots of other smaller points and another interview of Ifa and Islam origin mythology that will come later, was that Ifa and Islam are completely compatible and have been intertwined if not one practically since the dawn of time even though most Muslims will vehemently reject this idea. Those who do, the Awise said, "lack true understanding". Interestingly enough the Awise himself is not a Muslim, and while we were leaving, Dr. Ajibade and I ran into a priest of the god of iron and war, Ogun (the same Ogun in my last name), who happens to be a Christian. So don't accpect any statistics about how many people follow different religions in Nigeria at face value!
This interview was absolutely perfect for my thesis and if I could get even just a few more like this I would probably have all that I need, but Dr. Ajibade and I will to to milk it for all we can get. The more the better! So everyday, after getting up at 6-6:30 and praying and eating breakfast with Uncle Funso, I go to campus and visit either Uche or Dr. Ajibade to talk about/work on my project and by about noon or shortly after I come to Uncel Funso's department where I steal their internet and work in their conference room. Until they kick me out that is... There's almost always power here, and since the internet is free while I can "borrow" the conference room I should be able to get at my e-mail periodically so feel free to get in touch with me!
Hope you're all well
~Deji
PS I just bought myself a little treat of a bottle of "ground nut," which is really just peanuts in a glass bottle. I'm not sure why that's how they are sold, but they are so good I couldn't pass up the opportunity to "chop small"
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Birthplace of Yorubaland
I left Ibadan at about 6am with Uncle Seun to go to Ile-Ife which according to Yoruba creation mythology is the place where Olodumare, or God, sent down Oduduwa to create the earth, which was orignally just sand that a chicken spread out all around the world, and Obatala, the creation divinity, began making people here and became the patron Orisha, or god, of the town. I'm going to Ife because it is also the home of Ifa Divination, which as you may already know, is the subject of my research. Needless to say I was a bit tired on the road, but I was surprised at first that it was so well maintained, until about half an hour in when all of the pot-holes reappeared and we had to slow down considerably. Uncle Seun and I talked about how Nigeria is a really blessed country because we don't really have to work hard for much of anything to feed any immediate needs. My father always said that if you planted a pig's ear in the ground in Nigeria, a month later you would find several pigs where you planted it. He's absolutely right, EVERYTHING grows here and because there plenty of sunlight and rain, you don't even have to cultivate it. And just as we were lamenting how great everything was, we noticed that the side of the "highway" we were on was turning into a swamp. When I say swamp, I don't mean the recent rains had flooded the road, I mean there was stagnant water there with pond scum and other plants growing out of it, and a good 100 yard section of the highway was completely submerged in an actualy swamp. So much for everything being so great...
I am staying with Aunty Remi and Uncle Funso Sonaiya, my father's very good friends, in Ife, and as luck would have it they are both professors at Obafemi Awolowo University, arguably the premier institution in the world for the study of Yoruba culture and certainly Ifa Divination. At any rate, we arrive at the university at about 8 am, and the place is absolutely beautiful! The university boasts that it hasa the most beautiful campus in Africa and I think they might be right. They have more acres and acres of land as far as the eye can see covered in beautiful trees and hills, and since it's a sub-saharan African University, it of course has to have buildings that have undergone a bit of neglect, but are still beautiful all the same. It took us maybe 5 minutes to drive from the gate to the Sonaiyas house, which is also on campus thankfully, and after a brief visit, Uncle Seun was off and Aunty Remi gave me a quick tour of campus. She introduced me to several professors that she knows, fortunately for me she teaches French!, and in particular one Professor Ajibade who does a lot of work very similar to my project. The only thing that surprised me more than the beauty of the school, was the fact that they had electricity almost all the time! I had gotten pretty good at hooking up every electronic appliance that I have to the same outlet when power comes, but there's no need here! The Sonaiyas even have a power inverter, so when there's no power, there's still power! I really lucked out.
Aunty Remi took me through the rest of the city, it's much much smaller than I had imagined, on her way to a tailor, and then we went back home because she had to go to a French villiage in Badagry (Eastern Nigeria), and then on to Germany and France. I hope that can once and for all dispell the myth that no Nigerians speak French... I settled my thigns in and talked with Uncle Funso about the rampant greed and corruption in Nigeria, what else..., over dinner and we tried to come up with a good explanation for why it has come about since that's the first step in fixing it. Unfortunately we don't have any real answers, but when we do I'll let you know. For now I'm going to do some more work on my research questions and pass out. I promise to outline my project some more in the next post
I am staying with Aunty Remi and Uncle Funso Sonaiya, my father's very good friends, in Ife, and as luck would have it they are both professors at Obafemi Awolowo University, arguably the premier institution in the world for the study of Yoruba culture and certainly Ifa Divination. At any rate, we arrive at the university at about 8 am, and the place is absolutely beautiful! The university boasts that it hasa the most beautiful campus in Africa and I think they might be right. They have more acres and acres of land as far as the eye can see covered in beautiful trees and hills, and since it's a sub-saharan African University, it of course has to have buildings that have undergone a bit of neglect, but are still beautiful all the same. It took us maybe 5 minutes to drive from the gate to the Sonaiyas house, which is also on campus thankfully, and after a brief visit, Uncle Seun was off and Aunty Remi gave me a quick tour of campus. She introduced me to several professors that she knows, fortunately for me she teaches French!, and in particular one Professor Ajibade who does a lot of work very similar to my project. The only thing that surprised me more than the beauty of the school, was the fact that they had electricity almost all the time! I had gotten pretty good at hooking up every electronic appliance that I have to the same outlet when power comes, but there's no need here! The Sonaiyas even have a power inverter, so when there's no power, there's still power! I really lucked out.
Aunty Remi took me through the rest of the city, it's much much smaller than I had imagined, on her way to a tailor, and then we went back home because she had to go to a French villiage in Badagry (Eastern Nigeria), and then on to Germany and France. I hope that can once and for all dispell the myth that no Nigerians speak French... I settled my thigns in and talked with Uncle Funso about the rampant greed and corruption in Nigeria, what else..., over dinner and we tried to come up with a good explanation for why it has come about since that's the first step in fixing it. Unfortunately we don't have any real answers, but when we do I'll let you know. For now I'm going to do some more work on my research questions and pass out. I promise to outline my project some more in the next post
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