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DRENCHED IN CONFUSION THIS NEW YEAR?
Yesterday, I put up a question on my Instagram Story, asking people to share their 2020 ask in one word. My word was ‘Courage’; I am asking the universe for an abundance of it. When the answers came back, I noticed that for a lot of people, ‘Clarity’ is their word for the year. Hours ago, I had a conversation about how dreams become heavier the older we become. How, if we’re not careful, they lose that shine youth possesses in abundance and begin to take on a dull hue that threatens one’s sanity. The price for failure becomes steeper. I studied Microbiology at the University. It was a course…
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Marriage Is Not For Every Woman
I know exactly what I typed. Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to type. Now, before you feel a type of way, do note that I did not say “any” woman, because then, that would be another type of baloney. It’s tiring, to say the least, the way we manage to connect even the most casual cords in a woman’s life to marriage and someone she may someday be joined with. What’s even more tiring is the way that has been made the only acceptable reality. If you speak and your voice is a little too clear, you hear things like “is it someone like you that will find a…
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A being, BEing
Mama Tolu works very hard, the quintessential Nigerian mother. She wakes up at 4am while the world still sleeps and the spirits are prowling to cook and clean. When its 5:30, she wakes up the entire household; children for school, husband for work. She deploys her 3 pairs of hands to dish everyone’s food, while matching mixed socks, doing the dishes as they get piled up in the sink and refereeing fights that break out when the children break out fully from their sleepy state. At 7:30, she’s almost bouncing to get the kids to school and oh yes, there is herself to get ready because she probably has to…
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Call a thing by its name
“When you name something, it comes into existence – did you know that? There is strength there, bone-white power injected in a rush, like a trembling drug,” – Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater. Imagine menstruating and being ostracized singularly for that reason. Imagine being banished to a menstrual hut outside your house made from weak materials and barely able to stand against weather conditions. Imagine being so cold because of that and having to create fires to warm yourself up. Then, imagine dying from asphyxiation because you inhaled too much smoke from the fire you prepared to keep warm. This Chhaupadi huts are real in Nepal, and although they have been legally…
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To all my Ladies.
Today, October 11, is the International Day of the Girl. Today, I look back on the time that I have lived, and while a lot of things still irk me as it relates to society’s perception and relation with the girl child, I am excited about the lines we have erased and the dents we’ve made on the ceiling. A lot of people who know me will describe me as confident and self-assured, but I can assure you, I didn’t wake up like this. It took years of deliberate conditioning – of my mind, my outlook on life and how I fit into this equation. My father has been a…
The Isle of Jade
