My letter to Arik Air, owu ite and the concept of ‘Fleeing money’

Dear Arik Air,

I hate you.

You are a nightmare for anyone who likes to plan things in advance, like I am.

I hate the fact that as ‘Nigeria’s biggest commercial airline’, you’re meant to be on par with the rest of the world, but you allegedly cancelled a route because you were not given a landing slot for free at Heathrow.

Nobody gets free landing slots, stupid.

Why would you re-route me to Lagos without telling me? Are you mad? Just so you will not give me my money back, okw’ya?

I hate that it’s people like me that have to pay for your squabbles.

I had to pay £300+ extra; I am a poor writer-cum-full-time mother. I do not have £300+

I had to get a reduced luggage allowance from 30kg to 23kg; I have a young child. I need that allowance.

To add salt to the wound, I can no longer carry my beloved beetles because these ndi ocha will surely not let me.

I can feel grey hairs of lividity growing in my armpits.

Now I look like Aji buusu  from scratching my head and body all morning. Yes, being poor makes you itch.

I hope you’re happy.

Angrily,

Nwunye.

P.S: You suck.

Child adoption among Igbo people

I am doing an article about Igbo people and adoption – attitudes, impacts on family and society, preferences, and so on. I need people whose families have adopted (yourselves, mothers, uncles, relatives etc), but I also welcome opinions if you have strong enough ones. If you would like to take part or you know of someone who would like to, please send me an email.

You will not be named if you don’t want to be and all phone numbers are confidential of course.

Thank you.

When we urinate together, we can make it foam (Igbo proverb).

Someone thought to add my meagre mamiri to those of other Igbo featured on this blog. Read profile here (and indulge all other Igbo-people fantasies by reading the blog too.)

Thank you San-Chi Media.

 

An Igbo woman writes from the grave: A story of domestic violence.

First of all – as a disclaimer – let me just say that I hate stories that are designed to tug at the heart especially if they are true stories. Just give me the facts and let me make my own judgement. I find those stories are more powerful that way, stripped of artifice. This is obviously a device of the writer and not a fault of the ‘victim’.

So I did have to filter out a fair bit of the maudlinism to get  to the nub of the matter:

1) The woman is dead.

2) She suffered emotional and physical cruelty at the hands of someone sworn to love and protect her until she died.

3) She left behind two children whose future now looks uncertain – one is a boy with developmental problems. The other is a girl. In this story, it seems their father would simply want them not to exist.

But there are other questions which simply refuse to go away:

1) Why, why, WHY did she stay a whole 12 years while the man stripped away her humanity? A lot of women think that a man has only broken his vows when he cheats. In my view, a man who beats you after he vows to cherish you has broken his vows. The signs were there from the beginning. A person that loves you will not allow you to be exposed to ridicule of ANYONE no matter if it’s their mother, sister-in-law or extended family. (Speaking of which, the sister-in-law was married into the family as well so she has just as many rights as the dead woman.)

2) Dead woman is the last of nine children. WHY could she not go to anyone in her family (obviously the writer of her story knew. What did he/she do to help?)  if things were so bad? She died like a fly with no kinsmen. Sad.

Biko nu, Igbo men if you are not ready to get married, simply stay single. A man is not mature by age. If after you marry you still hold your mother in higher esteem than your wife then marriage is NOT for you. Same goes for woman and their fathers. You’re better off staying with them rather than carrying your wahala to someone else’s house.

Seriously. Forgetting to buy anara for your mother is no reason to let your wife die alone.

See the dead Ogochukwu’s story here

I’m still interested in the man’s point of view – not excusing that the woman is dead and all – so if you’re he or you are privy to the info, please share.

Does Nollywood hate women?

We’ve all seen the movies. If you haven’t, I can tell you right now: It’s mostly always the woman.

It doesn’t matter what the film is; Action, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror…it’s the woman.

Let’s consider this scenario: Boy and girl have been going out for years, boy gets rich and dumps girl in the most humiliating way possible, girl – previously spending all her finances on boy – becomes destitute. Girl turns to her late father’s brother – who incidentally ‘inherited’ all her father’s property because there is no heir – for help, uncle rejects her, girl lives on the street. After a while, girl gets rescued by random guy who takes her in and gives her everything, random guy proposes to girl after she scrubs the grime off her face in popular Cinderella move and reveals herself to be beautiful (even though at the time she was supposed to be living on the streets, she still had a french manicure which cost her N3,000 and it’s a nail wrap so there is NO WAY she was going to take them off just to shoot a stupid street scene. After all she has just agreed to lie down in a pile of rubbish and should that not be enough? Mr Director biko shoot around it now.)

Just as girl is getting used to the idea of spending the rest of her life with random guy, just as she is learning to love him, boy comes back with his tail between his legs after losing his fortunes to gold digger chick , begs her forgiveness for being a total cad, girl falls back into his arms. (Parts 1-4)

Boy dies and leaves girl (now woman) a widow with three children and she has to go through cruel widowhood rites, her daughter is almost raped by Uncle and her son joins a gang of marauders and is shot, and woman in addition to losing her husband is arrested on charges of prostitution and sent to court. (Parts 5 – 8)