Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks, things got fairly busy and interesting, which i guess makes it more of a shame that I didn't write it all up! The Odu-Ifa I chose for this post is Ose-Yeku, the Odu for taking a title or chieftaincy. If you're familiar with what's going on in Nigeria right now, you'll know that elections start today, so I thought it might be appropriate, but more importantly, I had my graduation of sorts with the Araba this past week. I'm trying to upload the official picture we took of me receiving my certification as a Babalawo from him, so I hope it works. Whenever a Babalawo finishes learning all of the Odu-Ifa, a special sacrifice is made to Ifa, and of course some money is paid to the Babalawo who did the teaching for each of the Odu. Since I'm not technically a practicing Babalawo, I just gave the Araba money to make the sacrifice on his own, but I did buy a lot of beer and schnapps for the Araba and some of his Babalawo-friends who all came on Wednesday to celebrate with me.
So now I still try to go to the Araba's house everyday to ask him a few more questions about Yoruba religion and Ifa, but mostly we have just been hanging around his house and helping people who come to him with problems. Starting this coming Tuesday I am going to go to Osogbo with a man named Wale I met here on campus who said he knows priests and priestesses there who can give me all of the information and stories that I need, so it looks like for the two weeks or so that are left for me I'll be interviewing priests and priestesses of several deities instead. I'm really looking forward to learning all of these things from them!
Dr. Ajibade had to leave for Germany on a fellowship this past friday, so I moved into the boy's quarters of another professor I know, Dr. Saah from Cameroon. The room is really interesting because he uses it as his recording studio and music practice room, so I'm surrounded by guitars, basses, and a keyboard! It's also been very good for my French because I've noticed that I have slowly been forgetting things like when to use the subjunctif, but since he only speaks French to me, it's all starting to come back.
Even with all of this the most exciting thing that happened was Ellie coming to visit! She was only here for about 4 days but we got to do a whole lot. Unfortunately the father of one of Uncle Seun's friends died, and in Yorubaland you have to return to the person's hometown to bury him/her, so we went out to Ekitiland (the far east of Yorubaland for the party!) We got to drive through lots of different parts of Yorubaland including Ife! All of the people at the party loved Ellie, and she got "sprayed" (given a lot of money for dancing) a lot by the people there. There were several older ladies there who really liked us, partly because Ellie gave them traditional greetings and partially I think because I could speak Yoruba to them. At any rate, they kept telling us that we had to get married and that they would come to the wedding to celebrate with us again! Uncle Seun also took us on a driving tour of Lagos, but I think one of Ellie's favorite things was the Akara that we bought on the side of the road. I think I'm going to have to make it for her once I leave.
Well those are the highlights from the past few weeks, but I'm sure I'll have plenty more to write after this coming week is over!
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