Lately, memories from my childhood have been surfacing, like fragments of a forgotten dream. One late afternoon stands out vividly. I had gone to buy Baba Dudu from a Hausa man’s kiosk, drawn there not just for the goods but for the intoxicating [...]

My grandparents married in August 1950. They had a small civil ceremony in London, where they were living at the time as my grandfather was specializing in paediatrics. My grandmother had been previously married and divorced, which was [...]

We all have a set of memories that are particularly painful to tap into. We box them up and push them behind our closets simply because they are too painful to think of, let alone narrate. The events that occurred on February 13th 2022 are those [...]

Dear Amara, at the end of last year, I received the teary email you sent me, which I read and reread until my heart wept. Some situations are humorous in themselves. It is how you run to someone for consolation and they end up crying with you. I [...]

Dear You, A warrior in an ongoing battle, a spectator watching a struggle, or a veteran of one, does the battle ever stop? Ooh, if only we’d write about the ongoing wars. The clanking of ideas, beliefs, and experiences is so loud that it’s [...]

Mingaphi iminyaka yakho?  No no no no. Why me? I Don’t Understand What They Are Saying. Sorry, I only speak English. Hayi! Ngoba? You’re black and you don’t speak your mother tongue? You should learn, my girl! Just force a smile. The stranger [...]

I sighed deeply before opening the door. I tried ignoring the persistent knocks, thinking that if I said all the right words like, “God knows best,” grief would realise I didn’t want to entertain him this time and go away.  I realised I had no [...]

Even as I stretch my mouth into some semblance of a decent smile, my spineless lips curl in on themselves, retreating towards my throat the way the ocean recoils from the shore and slithers back to the horizon. I always carefully greet my family [...]

In China, there is a custom that has been passed down for ages. It is called the Zhuazhou where during the one-year celebration of a baby, different items, each symbolizing a career path are placed in front of it and the baby is allowed to pick [...]

It’s alarming how many youths and even adults drift through life like leaves on water, devoid of purpose. They move aimlessly, lacking conscious direction or goals, resembling zombies in a silent pandemic. While some may accept this as the new [...]

With the exception of only a few tricks a human being can make, I reckon there is nothing as lethal as a good smile can be. There is just something irresistible about a beautiful smile, so much that all sense dissipates from the mind of the [...]

In my country, we love and loathe deadlines in equal measure. We hate being told by which date we should do things, but then we don’t do anything unless the deadline for the thing is tomorrow. In a similar rush against time, in mid-October 2022, [...]