I(fa) Told You So

The biggest news around Osun State right now is how the current governor, a member of PDP of course, has just been found guilty of voter fraud and stripped of office! PDP is by far the most powerful party here and everyone has always kind of known that they weren’t quite playing by the rules, but for whatever reason just recently people have been calling them out. Osun State is just the latest in a group of 5 states (Edo, Ekiti, Anambra, and one other I just forgot) that have ousted their PDP governors. When the ruling came out over the radio, people were running out on the streets and honking horns, it was great. The funniest part about the whole thing, is that there were tons of PDP candidates who had spent lots of money on the coming election in 2011, but since the ACN Candidate won this court case, he is going to serve his term of 4 years, which means no election and a lot of money wasted by those guys. Every time I see their billboards I chuckle a little bit...

I also think about a few Ifa verses like one in Iwori-Aate/Wole that warns the person not to abuse the great power (s)he holds even if it will provide a short-term benefit. In the long run it will come back to hurt you more than you were able to gain from it. Mostly I think of a story from Irosun Agbe about the bird who got too cocky and greedy and started to do things he wasn’t supposed to and ultimately lost his power (I think I wrote something about it a few weeks ago...). Anyway that got me thinking about how people like to look down on politicians who patronize Babalawo, and to be honest a lot of it is making charms to hurt rivals or enemies, and of course I don’t support that, but I can’t help but wish that some of these guys would let Baba Araba cast one of those figures for them and see what happens. It might not be such a bad thing. On the radio today, I heard something about a man who was running for a position in the local government, and the Araba stopped what he was doing and told me that he had come to him not too long ago. He pulled out his record book and showed me his name and the figure he cast for him. I forgot to ask him if Ifa said he would win or not, but I will do that tomorrow.

A few days ago a guy I had never seen before came by the Araba’s house for divination and Baba did his usual thing while I was putting something away, and when I came out he asked me what the figure he had cast was. I recognized it as Oyeku-Ogunda, but then he asked me for the meaning because it is one of the about 80 we have studied, and to be honest I was a bit lost, but after a little while I remembered its alternate name, Oyeku-Ojo (k)o da, and that triggered everything. I told the Araba that in that Odu Ifa tells the story of Orunmila and Ikun or Vulture and how someone or some people have abused this person but (s)he needs to be patient and not retaliate. The person in question needs to take the matter to Olodumare (or God in Yoruba) in prayer because vengeance belongs to Him alone. If this is done, justice will be served, even if it takes up to 16 years (which figuratively means a long time in Yoruba). After I finished the guy was a bit surprised because apparently it was spot on and the Araba started to laugh and recited everything for him. I’m still not sure exactly what had happened to the guy, but I think some people had cheated him and were treating him really poorly and he wanted to find a way to get back at them, but I think he’s doing as Ifa said now.

I have a friend here, a Muslim guy, who sells DVDs and CDs who has been telling me all about how he wants to hopefully get married next year and maybe move into a bigger apartment and/or expand his business, but money is pretty tight. Just this week he asked if we could go see the Araba and see if there was anything he could do for him. So the Araba cast Ifa for him and said that he’s having trouble advancing in his business, and that for the amount of time and effort he has put into it, he should be further along than he is now. He said part of the problem comes from people in his family, perhaps because they ask too much of him. That all sounded about right to me because he’s not old, but he’s been working for a while and doesn’t have too much more to show for it than when he started and since he is the oldest child in his family, he carries the most responsibility even though he isn’t the most financially secure. So the Araba made a sacrifice for him today and we’ll see if business begins to pick up for him.

This past weekend I went to visit Kyle in Ibadan and we had a good time watching Arsenal put on a show at Villa Park, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching my favorite player Robert Pires come out of retirement, even if he was a bit rusty. The coolest thing that happened in Ibadan was that I was able to find a really nice Ayo board! Ayo is a Yoruba board game that uses the same board as Mancala but has some different rules. I had been looking for one for several years now, and I found a great one carved in the shape of hands praying, and the best part was I used the J+ genes from my father (Ogunnaike joke courtesy of Uncle John Orife) to pry it away from the seller for about $10! I have been trying to resurrect my Ayo skills, but it has been a while since I played and I’m not quite where I would like to be, but it’s been a great way for me to take a break from staring my computer screen when I’m trying to type up notes, stories, edit videos and all that good stuff.

One last funny anecdote from here is a story the Araba told me about some medicine he made for someone once in his hometown. We went to his village of Ode-Omu on Monday and as we were coming back he pointed to a little grove by the side of the road and started to tell me about how he had made medicine there, and then he started to laugh and turned around to take me back there. When he pulled over he showed me two charms that were stuck on sticks and covered to keep the rain off of them and he told me they were for protection and told me the story about them. He had a friend who wanted to plant some plantain trees but didn’t have land to do it, so the Araba made these charms for him and they planted them by the road in the bush. The charms apparently prevent people from stealing and keeping anything near them, and so when somebody from the town took some of the plantain when they became ripe, the Araba said within two days he went to the house of his friend and just handed him the plantain and said, “I stole these.” I thought that was pretty hilarious and I wish I could have been there. The Araba told me about some other ones he knows how to make that make thieves go blind or not be able to walk until the owner of the thing they stole gets it back. I would really like to see it in action some time, but we’ll see if that happens...