Ile-Ife
Photo: Damilare Adekunle
Ile is where home is.
Thousands of miles away, and I can hear Babalawo consulting his cowries. “What has maami gone to ask of him this time?” Maybe she wants to know if I’d ever set foot in Ile-Ife again or if I’ve found me one Oyibo to make a husband.
This would give her immeasurable joy, getting married, that is. Right now, it’s gone beyond coming back home to Ife to find a husband; it’s about me marrying just about anybody with dangling genitals between his legs.
I try to go back to sleep, but I can’t. I hear Ife calling out to me again, loud and clear this time. Ife: it reminds me of my name, Ifeoluwa, love of God. But I don’t believe, not anymore. But sometimes, my roots—Ife, Babalawo, his cowries, the gods, maami—they make it hard not to believe.
I try to sleep for the last time. But this time, it’s like a force—drawing my heart back home. Back to rusty corrugated metal roofs, red soil, dusty roads, and pit latrines. I make up my mind; I’m going back home.
* * *
It’s been two weeks now. I had to stay for the burial rites as her only child. It wasn’t marriage, after all. Maami was passing, and the only way she knew how to reach me was through Awo’s cowries.
Because Ife is where home should be.
About the Author
Laura Chioma Nnamdi is a Nigerian law graduate, writer, poet, and content writer. Her works have been published in Praxis Magazine, Kalahari Review, African Writer, Nnoko Stories, and elsewhere. Her poem, “To the shoes that shaped me”, was published in the 2019 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize anthology.
She identifies as a “Jesus freak” and loves her introverted nature. Follow her on IG @thelaurannamdi.
