Hi everyone, things have been moving along pretty quickly here for me this past week. Fortunately I’ve been able to use my digital camera to record some Okiki (songs derived from Ifa verses) from the Araba and I must have collected somewhere around 20 myths so far. Every one of them is really fascinating and carry great lessons. Today I learned several myths that taught me not to belittle anyone because you never know if that person may be able to help you or be more powerful than you, that the character of human beings is in constant decline (kind of like entropy in the laws of thermodynamics, thanks Dad!) and Olodumare (or almighty God) changes his interactions with us as a result of that, and a whole lot about destiny just to name a few.
I have also noticed a lot of similarities between the Bible and some of the Ifa verses the Araba has been reciting for me. I think I mentioned the similarities between the creation stories before, but there are also verses about how people used to live to be incredibly long like Noah and Methuselah because they were so close to God, and that everyone used to speak one language until they started misbehaving so God confounded them and created many different languages just like the Tower of Babel. I don’t think the Araba is aware of those similarities, but I might bring it up with him tomorrow to see what he has to say about it.
It’s pretty amazing how the Araba can rattle off these complex verses once I get him started. Sometimes I’ll just ask him a general question about something, like “Why do people die?” for example. Then he will think for a few seconds and say, “Ifa says that...” and then tell me the Odu (Chapter) and rattle it off. He’s even more efficient than me having an encyclopedia because it hardly takes him any time to come up with relevant verses. It’s sometimes hard to believe how much information he has stored up in his head. It honestly makes me feel pretty small because I haven’t memorized anything like that ever. I can’t even remember my phone number here!
I have learned a whole lot about the Araba over the past week too. He’s building a new house and took me to visit it today and it’s really nice in a more quiet part of town. I asked him if he was going to sell his current house once the new one is completed, and he told me that he’s just renting the one he has now because his previous house was burned down in the most recent war. Although things are very calm now, the people in Ile-Ife and Modakeke have had a series of wars stretching back about a hundred years since the people from Modakeke came to the area to escape wars further north. The Araba was very active in these wars, which is why the Ife attacked it and burned it down! On Thursday he showed me a vest he made with a series of charms that made it impervious to bullets. Apparently it worked because he said despite his house being attacked and him being one of the leaders in the war, he’s never been shot once! Apparently it’s cheaper than Kevlar, but you need a Babalawo to make it for you, not DuPont...
For the past couple of days he has also been doing some prayers for someone in Germany with a continuous fire in a small bowl of palm oil and some other things. He told me that he has clients all over the place, from Chicago to London to Sao Paulo to London to Berlin. This particular person had a messy divorce in which his wife ran off with their child. The Araba has been making these prayers on his behalf so that he’ll be able to find his wife and bring her to court to see if they can work out custody. Apparently he has been working with this man for years, and I think it was right after the Araba made some other kind of prayers for him that he and his wife had their child.
In other news, I think I have found a football team. I played with a bunch of medical students on Saturday who told me that I should try to go pro, but we got kicked off of the field early because some guys wanted to play cricket there. It was pretty fun watching them all get heated and argue over the patch of dirt we were using. I also played a game with the team from Dr. Ajibade’s church. They gave me a trial run for part of the first half of a game on Sunday, and ended up giving me a full 90 minutes and a spot on the team, so it looks like I’ll be playing with them every weekend from now on. The guys are pretty fun and funny so I’m looking forward to it.
Well all the football and moving around has made me pretty tired, so I’m going to go to sleep while there’s still electricity to power my fan!
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