Tears for my friend

A lot of the literature I read as a teenager was by Charles Dickens, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe, Peter Abrahams or William Shakespeare. My mother, the gender activist that she is, introduced me to the women in her library. One of my favourite books was The Bride Price  by Buchi Emecheta. Buchi's heroine was in a dilemna because her uncle, who became her step father after her father's death, was trying to trade her off to the highest bidder. The girl was brilliant, educated and in love with her former teacher. She fought off her uncle's plans as best as she could. Sadly however, she dies in child birth at the end. More recently, I read another of Buchi's books, The Joys of Motherhood. It is a tale of a strong Nigerian woman who struggles against poverty, colonialism, world war II and her ignorant husband to raise and educate her children. Unfortunately, these children conveniently, in their success, forget their mother's efforts. They abandon her, living her to die alone and uncared for in rural Nigeria.

I just found out that Buchi died this year, the day after my birthday. I did not mourn her as I did Achebe [The way I speak of them, one would think we were related. That's what happens when you spend half your childhood sneaking into toilets after midnight to read novels. They become your friends.] I was too engrossed in orange and carrot juice at the time to notice that the wind had changed the direction in which it blew. 

I always felt like Buchi was telling a familiar story, of someone I may have known once upon a time. Now I see that she was speaking for all African girls and mothers who have to keep defending choices that are contrary to tradition or who take on the thankless task of bearing the burden of their ungrateful families. The world has changed and yet stays the same. I can do anything I want. However, I MUST want to be a mother and a wife - to refuse would be sacrilege.

Last year, I was mourning about how old I was and how little I had done. This year, I have a new found appreciation for how much is yet to be done. We're having conversations about new business ventures, insurance policies for Iko's education and the hope of living in our own house by the end of the year. 

I do not pretend that my ideas are worth spreading. I know that I am not the drop in the ocean that causes endless ripples. Buchi, though, and her ideas, are those drops that cause tremors. 

Aluta continua! May she rest in peace.