Ose Meji

This week went by really quickly, I think partially because I’ve gotten into a real groove with the Araba. Every day we try (we don’t always succeed) to cover 4 Ifa chapters. He usually tries to think about them the day before after I have left, and sometimes has them written down already. For each chapter he usually tries to come up with at least 2 verses and I write down the words he has memorized and he explains what Ifa is trying to say through them. Most often the verses just record the name of a Babalawo and the client for whom he divined and that’s it. Sometimes there’s a long story that comes along with it, but not always. The names of the Babalawo are almost like riddles themselves and often contain the lesson from the verse. These names are very esoteric in nature. I’m not sure if I have this name exactly correct, but one of them was the rich man is never guilty in the court of the king, but the poor man doesn’t loose his water in court. I think the obvious message from this name is that money is power, but the real lesson to take away is that this Babalawo most likely had something to do with a case brought before the king in which a poor person failed to repay a loan from a rich person (since a rich person has no need to break a rule or has no excuse for needing to break a rule). Furthermore even though the poor man is guilty he should still be treated with respect and the rich man cannot be given everything the poor man owns IE his water since that is most likely the least valuable of all of his possessions.

Anyway, since the Yoruba can be tricky and the lessons are often obscure, the Araba tries to explain them to me, so by the time he’s done I have the text and an interpretation. I made a word document with what Ifa says for each sign/chapter and I’m going to try to memorize them if I can since I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to memorize around 20 verses in Yoruba a day. I’ll try for the English interpretations and see how far I get. Right now I have reached Ogbe-Odi/1.3 or the 18th Odu/chapter of 256 so I still have quite a ways to go.

I have also gotten good with the videos I’ve been recording. I split them up into my little archiving system and put them into the folder for each chapter, and for the verses which have songs associated with them, I’ve been extracting the audio from the parts where the Araba is singing. I put those in the chapter folders too and I have an iTunes playlist of them on my computer now too. Some of them are really cool, there is one I like in particular about a lady who had trouble with money and business, but after consulting some Babalawo she wore expensive clothes and sat on a cushioned chair in the market.

This Friday I went with the Araba to his hometown of Ode Omu because one of his uncles died there last week. On the way there some policemen stopped us, waving their AK’s around, and expecting to get a nice bribe I’m sure. After they pulled us over they asked Mr. Ajayi (another Babalawo who lives in Modakeke who helped me a lot with my thesis last year since he is both a Babalawo and a Muslim!) where he was going and what he was doing, and another one came over to me and did the same. He was a little surprised when I answered him in Yoruba and he asked to search my bag. I’m glad I didn’t leave anything valuable in the main pocket (I had my recorder and a few other things in a small somewhat hidden one). When he saw a book I have on Ifa he looked even more surprised and then asked what we were doing exactly, and Mr. Ajayi told him that we were Babalawos, were not happy about being detained, and that the Araba was right behind us. Fortunately that did the trick and they let us go and started harassing the next people...

I went to Ibadan on Saturday morning to visit Aunty Bimbo since she has been staying at my grandparents’ old house there for a while. It was really nice to see her up to her usual tricks making fun of everyone and bossing them around. I impressed Mr. Toyin, Aunty’s driver, Mama Ibeji and some of her kids by reading my Opele for them and telling them that the Odu of this post (Ose Meji) is the Odu that was cast on the founding of Ibadan. Kyle also came Saturday afternoon after taking a trip to Benin City. We couldn’t stay too long and left this morning so we could be ready to start the week. That’s all for now, but I’ll try to write another update soon!