One of my dad's patients suffered from pseudocyesis. I never understood it then but I remember the whispers at the clinic. A lady who exhibited all signs of pregnancy yet she was not pregnant. Pseudocyesis is the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs and symptoms associated with pregnancy when the organism is not actually pregnant.
Yediji really wanted to bear children that her body responded to this desire. At twelve months her tummy was still extended and her menses had long stopped. Society expected Yediji to procreate and not having children was a failure on her part. Something that made her half woman and drove her mother in law crazy. No one bothered to ask if perchance the failure was her husband's.
It was this desire not to fail in the duty for which she was married that led her to the mountain of jaw dropping miracles with a white goat in search of a miracle. Now this I can relate to. The unreasonable things we do at the behest of advice from well meaning and not so well meaning people. It is this desire and desperation that leads us to Bishop Kanyari, Bishop Deya and other new age 'bishops' It is this mocking by others that led Hannah to the temple to seek respite from God who had "blocked her womb".
In most marriages impotence is blamed on women although it equally applies to women and men. Gynaecology abounds to help women overcome barriers to conception. My dad's clinic was filled to the brim with women seeking fertility help. Now I am not sure what 'logy’ is available to men but that is a story of another day. I remember the many women who came to dad's clinic early in the morning after having intercourse with their husbands. The extraction of the sperm, the trips to the laboratory and the reports. I will never forget the couple who came and had to go during lunch break to undertake sexual intercourse in a lodging just so my dad could extract the sperm. At the time, I always assumed sex was a night time activity. Surely knowing the reason for the intercourse may simply not allow the pregnancy to take place. Surely there had to be a better way. . That said, why should blame be apportioned? Should there be condemnation when it is God in his wisdom who decides to give children or not.
I learnt a new word - Abiku - children. When Yediji falls pregnant her fate is that her children would be Abiku. Although she has demonstrated that she is able to fall pregnant afterall, what is the point of bearing children only to lose them. As I recall, the Igbo call these children Ogbanje. Children whose main job is to terrorize their long suffering mothers. The child who comes and goes from whenst they came, causing their parents so much grief & heartache. Olamide brings much happiness and then goes, only to come back as Sesan who also goes. Then returns as Rotimi. Rotimi (Stay with me) taunts her mother with crisis after crisis, until Yediji is unable to cope. She has no energy for another loss. I know about sickle cell and the devastation thereof because it abounds in our bloodline.
This ultimately is a story about love brewed in the African pot! That Akin loved his wife unconditionally is in no doubt. It was this love that led him to request his brother Dotun to impregnate her - not once but three times - so as to spare her from the ridicule of barrenness. To allow Yediji to experience the joys of motherhood. It was this love that led him to love the children borne to Yediji as though they were his own. For fatherhood is not about sperm donation...Yet this love was not near enough to share his condition with her or inform his mother - as he had with his brother - that it was he and not Yediji who had a problem with conception. It was this love - even after Yediji left - that led him to love Rotimi unconditionally and bring her up through the different sickle cell crises. When his father dies, he looks up Yediji to come and sit by his side. She was afterall the wife of his youth. His best friend.
This is a story of broken dreams, unreasonable expectations & secrets that break up families. About the crossroads between the traditional Yoruba culture and western civilization and the women caught in between.
This is an unputdownable book in the genre of Achebe & Chimamanda. A story that leaves you seeking for more. A story in many ways of triumph & resilience. The story of Rotimi - who agreed to remain. Who answered to her name "Stay with me". Who understood that she could not continue to go away. Who realized that her mother unable to pick the pieces of her broken heart.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
This is one of those books that is "unputdownable". It was listed by Essence as one of those must read books by African writers. I must say that Yaa Gyasi did not disappoint. Homegoing starts with an Akan proverb:- "The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position." This book is about a family - two trees from the same Matriach - spanning seven generations through slavery, segregation, abolition, colonialism, broken dreams, everyday things and perhaps triumphs. It is actually many short stories all woven into one.
Some things struck me.
Yaw - one of the characters -tells his students "When you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice is suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect story". This might sound philosophical but it really has been the way I have viewed life i.e. that the story of the hunt (told from the hunters perspective)glorifies the bravery of the hunter while suppressing the courage of the hunted So for example when we study Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana, Lake Albert, Victoria falls, we must always ask ourselves if there were other names before then. It is not even just about history. When I listen to CNN repeat a narrative over and over again, I need to ask myself whose story is being suppressed in order that that particular CNN story is heard over ; over again and ultimately etched into my mind as the only true story. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie likes to remind us, there is danger (untruthfullness) in a one-sided story.
Ekua tells her son that Evil begets evil. This reminds me of the verse in the Bible that the sins of the father are visited upon the sons upto the 7th generation. Christians have spoken of generational curses. Of things that happen in our lives which are a result of things that happened long ago - things that we know not off but nonetheless follow the bloodline. How can he who was born in the 7th generation understand and know what happened in the first generation that continues to affect his life? How can Marjorie comprehend her dread for fire and Marcus his fear for water bodies? Why does Ekua dream vividly about an ancestor she never knew? This is a spiritual dilemma but one which cannot be wished away. Sometimes we find answers with the fetish priest while at other times with Allah or YWHW. What the author doesn't tell us - since it's not in her place to tell is how to break the power of these things upon us.
The book is generally a sad book. It lacks the usual romance of tales that makes us forget about the vicissitudes of life. However it is also a story of resilience. Maame's two bloodlines of the family survive to the 7th generation. From Asante to Stanford. All growing apart through two distinct lines and meeting up at Stanford. Like most female writers, the women in the lines are stronger than the men. The male characters in the book are "weaker" than their female counterparts. I guess this is because Yaa might have a feminist streak in her. Or perhaps because the Ghanaian in her is generally used to strong characters like the Yaa Asentewaa. Yaa tells the story of the Queen mother - Yaa Asantewaa- with pride. As the men were all too afraid to fight the white man, it was Yaa Asantewaa who said if the men wouldn't fight, then the women would. It was she who led the men to war.
It is rather difficult to love the depiction of the white man in the book as these depictions are not flattering. Be it the Government officers, Slavers or Missionaries. The role of the missionary has been discussed at length by the African elite and writers. The jury is still out as to whether the missionaries were a tool of subjugation used by the slave master or whether they were propelled by an intrinsic desire to save the souls of the natives. Perhaps both are true. In the USA, where part of the story is cast, the slave owners, the segregationists, the miners or even the students are depicted negatively. You cannot but loath their characters. Is this the victim mentality of the African or just that there are many things that have never truly been discussed? I remember having rasied an issue at the workplace on the treatment of a colleague and being asked - in response - whether my concern was fuelled by a victim mentality. I was taken aback as I had never considered myself a victim but never pursued the matter further. The "abolition" of slave trade is discussed in the book with cynicism. The writer ponders whether the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade was triggered by humane insticts or that the slaver had come up with another way to enslave people. The book holds that slavery was no longer a beneficial enterprise given that monopoly capital could get a better deal by having the same people work in the coal mines of Alabama at very poor wages or as convicts without having to be responsible for their well being. It goes without saying that being a slave master was expensive and created a moral dilemna. Ultimately one could achieve the same or even better bottom line with free men. One could enslave people with heroin and create a dependency from which there was no return. Criminalise heroin and get the same convicts working in the mines as cheap labour. It was the same difference really. Cocoa - farmed at source - became a better commodity for economic benefit than dealing in people.
Lastly, what I like is the comment by Amani Zulema. Wishing for something like Marcus Garvey is sometimes unhelpful. This is your now... you better get used to it. Pining for a different situation is unnecessary because oftentimes we cannot alter the cards that we have been dealt. We just play them the best we can. Is this resignation to one's fate fatalistic or simply being realistic? . It reminds me of Chinua Achebe'
Some things struck me.
Yaw - one of the characters -tells his students "When you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice is suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect story". This might sound philosophical but it really has been the way I have viewed life i.e. that the story of the hunt (told from the hunters perspective)glorifies the bravery of the hunter while suppressing the courage of the hunted So for example when we study Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana, Lake Albert, Victoria falls, we must always ask ourselves if there were other names before then. It is not even just about history. When I listen to CNN repeat a narrative over and over again, I need to ask myself whose story is being suppressed in order that that particular CNN story is heard over ; over again and ultimately etched into my mind as the only true story. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie likes to remind us, there is danger (untruthfullness) in a one-sided story.
Ekua tells her son that Evil begets evil. This reminds me of the verse in the Bible that the sins of the father are visited upon the sons upto the 7th generation. Christians have spoken of generational curses. Of things that happen in our lives which are a result of things that happened long ago - things that we know not off but nonetheless follow the bloodline. How can he who was born in the 7th generation understand and know what happened in the first generation that continues to affect his life? How can Marjorie comprehend her dread for fire and Marcus his fear for water bodies? Why does Ekua dream vividly about an ancestor she never knew? This is a spiritual dilemma but one which cannot be wished away. Sometimes we find answers with the fetish priest while at other times with Allah or YWHW. What the author doesn't tell us - since it's not in her place to tell is how to break the power of these things upon us.
The book is generally a sad book. It lacks the usual romance of tales that makes us forget about the vicissitudes of life. However it is also a story of resilience. Maame's two bloodlines of the family survive to the 7th generation. From Asante to Stanford. All growing apart through two distinct lines and meeting up at Stanford. Like most female writers, the women in the lines are stronger than the men. The male characters in the book are "weaker" than their female counterparts. I guess this is because Yaa might have a feminist streak in her. Or perhaps because the Ghanaian in her is generally used to strong characters like the Yaa Asentewaa. Yaa tells the story of the Queen mother - Yaa Asantewaa- with pride. As the men were all too afraid to fight the white man, it was Yaa Asantewaa who said if the men wouldn't fight, then the women would. It was she who led the men to war.
It is rather difficult to love the depiction of the white man in the book as these depictions are not flattering. Be it the Government officers, Slavers or Missionaries. The role of the missionary has been discussed at length by the African elite and writers. The jury is still out as to whether the missionaries were a tool of subjugation used by the slave master or whether they were propelled by an intrinsic desire to save the souls of the natives. Perhaps both are true. In the USA, where part of the story is cast, the slave owners, the segregationists, the miners or even the students are depicted negatively. You cannot but loath their characters. Is this the victim mentality of the African or just that there are many things that have never truly been discussed? I remember having rasied an issue at the workplace on the treatment of a colleague and being asked - in response - whether my concern was fuelled by a victim mentality. I was taken aback as I had never considered myself a victim but never pursued the matter further. The "abolition" of slave trade is discussed in the book with cynicism. The writer ponders whether the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade was triggered by humane insticts or that the slaver had come up with another way to enslave people. The book holds that slavery was no longer a beneficial enterprise given that monopoly capital could get a better deal by having the same people work in the coal mines of Alabama at very poor wages or as convicts without having to be responsible for their well being. It goes without saying that being a slave master was expensive and created a moral dilemna. Ultimately one could achieve the same or even better bottom line with free men. One could enslave people with heroin and create a dependency from which there was no return. Criminalise heroin and get the same convicts working in the mines as cheap labour. It was the same difference really. Cocoa - farmed at source - became a better commodity for economic benefit than dealing in people.
Lastly, what I like is the comment by Amani Zulema. Wishing for something like Marcus Garvey is sometimes unhelpful. This is your now... you better get used to it. Pining for a different situation is unnecessary because oftentimes we cannot alter the cards that we have been dealt. We just play them the best we can. Is this resignation to one's fate fatalistic or simply being realistic? . It reminds me of Chinua Achebe'
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