This past week the whole issue with the lie someone told about the Araba finally got settled. The King called everyone back to the palace to finish it, but the guy who accused the Araba of making charms against the person who owned the property never showed up because I think he realized that everyone already knew the truth. So we waited around for about an hour at the palace, but when he never showed up, we just left. It was incredibly anti-climactic...
I learned about one Odu Ifa that made me laugh a little bit on Monday because I think the Araba has assumed that it is mine. This one is Obara Oturupon, and if it is cast for someone, it means that (s)he should keep to certain very strict taboos, two of which are abstaining from eating dog meat, and the other is from drinking palm wine. I think the Araba associates it with me because I never drink alcohol and I don’t eat meat. Apparently, if this were my figure, and I broke one of these taboos my body would turn against me and possibly swell up. The funniest part about that was that I think I may have accidentally eaten some meat in something the day before I learned that figure and my body definitely turned against me...
We also went back to see the lady who has some kind of mental illness. The medicine seems to have been working well because every time she has taken it, she has passed out, and now she looks a lot better. Before she looked pretty scary, I can’t lie, but now she looks almost normal. Something in her face has definitely changed since she started taking the medicine. She also has become more together, as she realized that we were probably sneaking the medicine into her food, a fact that had completely gone over her head before. I’m not sure how we’ll convince her to take the medicine now that she’s more lucid, but hopefully she’ll be lucid enough to know that it’s good for her!
There is also this lady who lives right across from the Araba who is deathly thin and never has any food. I usually give her money every week or so just to make sure she can eat something healthy, but the terrible part is that she lives in a house with relatives who are fairly well-to-do. I never understood why they would let this woman starve while they were all fine, but the Araba finally explained it to me. Apparently this woman’s father owned a large plot of land, and since she his closest living relative she is the legal owner. Her relatives are letting her starve because they want to inherit the land once she dies! I didn’t want to believe it when he told me, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense, and the Araba has dealt with them before and says they are bad news (even though he’s always really polite to them).
On a much happier note, I got to see my Dad this week. He finished his course in Abuja last week and came back to Lagos to see a few people before leaving for the US. On Thursday, he and my uncles Segun and Seun came to Ibadan to see my grandparents’ graves and I came from Ife to see them at my grandparents house. I didn’t get to see them for too long, but it is really nice to see all of them together again. It doesn’t happen too often anymore.
Finally, there is this Al-Haja who has a store on one of the roads I take to get to the Araba’s house who is one of his good friends. Sometimes I stop by there to buy Akara (I guess the best way to describe it is beans that have been smashed and then deep fried in oil). I don’t always like Akara because it can taste very different depending on who it is that fries it, but I think I am hooked on hers. I think it also helps that she always gives me the biggest ones and slips a few extra in when I buy them. I am going to have to learn how she makes hers so I can copy it after I have left because it’s really just that good. If I perfect it, feel free to ask me to make some for you when I go back to the US because I’d love to have an excuse to eat it again (provided it tastes like hers...)
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