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A solo exhibition
by artist and creative director at NEXT newspaper Victor Ehikhamenor,
“Entrances and Exits’, opened on Saturday, May 7 at the Centre for
Contemporary Art (CCA) in Yaba, Lagos.

Ehikhamenor set
up the exhibition with assistance from Bisi Silva, the director of CCA,
and artist Jude Anogwih. The show is the second of a four-part series
the centre is hosting, with photographer Mudi Yahaya having held the
first. Yahaya’s recently concluded exhibition at the centre was titled
‘The Ruptured Landscape’.

“This is
important for us because what we are interested in over the next two
years is working with Nigerian artists based here and artists that
reside primarily in the diaspora,” said Silva.

“We want to push
artists to go beyond their comfort zones to be able to use CCA as a
kind of laboratory where they can experiment, where they can try new
things and bring new dimensions to their work,” she added

Site-specific drawing

The works on
display include paintings and photographs by Ehikhamenor, who is also a
photographer. And underlying the works is the symbolism of the door in
all its shades of meanings, and its function as a point of entry and
exit.

The interesting
works are also the artist’s way of preserving the memories of his
childhood as seen from a site specific drawing with chalk on one of the
walls of the exhibition space at the CCA. The wall, which was initially
white, was repainted black and Ehikhamenor used white chalks to draw
patterns on it.

Some of the
paintings also have chalk drawings similar to those which appear on the
wall. The linear and circular lines in the drawings and paintings are
linked to every form of art the artist rediscovered while photographing
for the exhibition. “I decided to do a site-specific drawing, which is
what is going on around the art world right now. Unfortunately, we
don’t have funding from the government here so you can’t really play
around by just going to a place and say okay, this is what you want
people to see.

“So I decided to
do the site-specific, which again takes on a different meaning because
it is temporary and it is also permanent. It will be washed out after
the exhibition but people would have engaged with it.”

Feeding on memory

Another series
include photos of thatched walls and wooden doors with chalk
illustrations and drawings. The artist explained the series thus: “I
grew up in the village but I lived outside the country for about 16
years. Right after I got out of the university, I left the country.
When you are in exile you pretty much feed off your memories.

“When you are not
home, you tend to consume a lot of what you have experienced and I kept
doing some things with doors as far back as 10 years ago. Just like
thinking about the doors of my grandmother.

“My grandfather
had eight wives and each of them had their own houses with different
walls so I kept feeding off of those things and eventually in 2010, I
came back to the village and I realised that these things are going
away because nobody is taking care of them anymore.

“So I started
photographing them. After photographing, I looked at the images and
said well, they are just ordinary doors. The following day I got some
chalks, went back to them and started working on each of the doors,
which this series is all about.”

The artist added
that the series represents different doors, each with its own history.
“I showed them to Bisi [Silva] and we started talking and looking at
possibilities. I started thinking of what else I should do with it. I
started looking at where I went out from and where I decided to go back
to. That is how the whole door series started.”

For the artist,
essentially, it’s all about memories; going out and coming in. “In
doing that I was able to revisit my childhood. I was able to revisit
the visual codes that were there in the community and I decided to
replicate that.”

Ehikhamenor’s
fascination with doors and windows is also evident in the paintings
that are embedded in wooden window frames. “You can give the door
series a subjective analysis yourself because [a] door means different
things: they can be physical, they can be imaginary and we have doors
in our heads. How do we weave in and out of memory?” he said.

In ‘A Quest for
Memory’, a mixed media piece on canvas, old photos of the artist’s
grandfather and his wives are welded into the painting. He explained
that, “As far as the family picture image is concerned, it is a way for
me to feed off of my memory and to keep their memories as well so that
people can see them and say okay, this is where this guy is coming
from.”

Aside from
parallel patterns and illustrations on the works and the interesting
window and metal frames, some of the paintings are richly hued. The
colour choices are deliberate and the artist explains that the colours
in the painting are evocative of the red clay, ochre, charcoal and
sometimes chalk white that could be found on walls in his village.

Cultural artist

Silva expressed
satisfaction at the body of work. “This is an artist that is going back
into culture, going back into history but then looking at how that
impacts on the present and I think that is interesting,” she said. “One
of my favourites is the one where he has embedded vintage photographs
of family members into his work and [is] using that as a starting point
to begin to engage his ancestry; and how he, as a contemporary urban
individual, is engaging something intimate and that idea of home,” she
added.

Silva also
disclosed that the next installment of the exhibition series will
feature UK-based artist Jide Alakija while the fourth will focus on the
works of six female artists; three from Nigeria and three from the
diaspora.

‘Entrances and Exits’ is on display at the Centre for Contemporary Art, located at 9 McEwen Street, Yaba, Lagos until May 28.

BlackBird
By Jude Dibia
Jalaa Writers’ Collective
233pp

I’ll cut to the
chase: trailblazing writer Jude Dibia has worked up a tour de force
with his latest offering, ‘Blackbird’. Coming after his debut, ‘Walking
with Shadows’, and the prize-winning ‘Unbridled’, this latest work does
well as a worthy addition to a steadily growing oeuvre.

The story is
gritty and even saucy in places, only fitting for a tale that pulsates
with the stuff of everyday relationships, one suffused with the
colouration of something ripened by the elements. It has the power to
work on the mind to see, for the first time, the rearranged prejudices
it had been fooled all along to take for thinking.

The writer did it
for me when he had the flustered oyinbo main character of the story
finally retort to his black interest of the moment, an unsung singing
marvel: “The real issue is that you Nigerians never let your guests
forget that they are foreigners.” It is he who, by this state of
things, is able to get at the hospital what she needs to save her son
from certain death.

That’s no spoiler
alert; I will not be giving away any thread of the plot of the story,
or even its arc. You will get the book and you will read it for
yourself. If I could enforce that, I would.

Dibia’s tale is a
variegated land populated by characters that are by no means
paper-thin. Rather, they are sufficiently nuanced by their maker to be
driven around by demons within and without. This they do almost
mindlessly to tackle the insufferables and ponderables of a society in
the grip of change, triggered by the lustful glare of the rich and
powerful who want more land on which to grow their tribe, even if (or,
especially) at the expense of the dregs at the neck of society.

A tragic study in contrasts

In the middle of
all the action are mixed marital fortunes caught up in the tension of
the moment. Take the white-weds-black marriage of the curious Mr Edward
Wood and the narcissistically ugly Mrs Nduesoh Wood. Each party in the
contrivance has a set of reasons for entering into the marriage,
mutually exclusive to the other. And what an institution it was for
each to live through!

It is the same
for the counterpoise couple, Maya and Omoniyi. Both pairs, taken
together, present a cocktail of a tragic study in contrasts.

Mr Wood is a
Briton with an insatiable libido and an uncontrollable weakness for
black women, whose skin he has taken liberties with to arrive at a
well-informed conclusion: They “glisten like ebony when wet.”

Very married, Mr
Wood, an hotelier, is wont to follow his nose in his quest for strange
– not pale, like his own, but hale – flesh as in of a vibrant hue; to
be had wherever it is to be found.

Reaching far
beyond the creepy blandness of contemporary portrayals of emotions in
relationships in fiction, Dibia instead works a blender with great
tender loving care to squeeze sweetness and tang from the “sour feel of
things left unsaid,” his take on the many marital tensions of the rich,
who are poor in ways untold, and the poor, who turn out to have been
rich in understated hues.

Also worked into
the canvas are the many unstated ways in which Africa has undersold
herself, both in colonial times past and the post-independence present.
Dibia gets ‘the other side’ to reveal how the bargain was struck to get
it institutionalised. ‘Blackbird’ even captures the irony of the
moment: though it has effectively told on itself, that and many more
tellings won’t get it undone.

And how that
state of affairs has morphed into the status quo: a master-mendicant
relationship between pale-skinned intruders and otherwise hale-skinned
ousted landowners, with the former finding they could very well wear
their pigmentation like a cloak of superiority, with which comes a
mounting sense of invincibility.

Chekovian stunts

‘Blackbird’ brings
home with startling clarity the force of newfound truths: displaced
hosts now treated by the scheming, usurping guests as invisible –
except when it comes to hands and legs to run errands and other body
parts required to keep the fancy of the new landowners tickled and
pleased.

‘Blackbird’ is an
authentic narrative of urban space as either utopia or nirvana, or
neither, for the hordes that throng in to either find worth in it or
give their worth to it; the artificialisation of everything on its path
as it is forced to slough off its skin to make it to a new phase.

Pregnant with
irony and the weight of the contradictions of life, love and the lies
that bind them all together, ‘Blackbird’ is proof that the writer has
an eye for intricacies and delicacies; his powers of description are
redoubtable. It is an understatement to say that this writer is one
from whom we shall be hearing for many, many more moons to come. It is
clear that he has many clearly important and ticklish things to say to
us.

His handling of
interior monologue is as cool as it is intriguing. I also found it
achingly accurate at many points. Even the prison notes are so
beautiful they would melt a heart of stone.

For one, he has
proven worthy of inclusion in our conversations by growing for us on
his patch a whole new array of definitions – of things like love and
kindness. But these are, really, not new; only pristine and human at a
rock-bottom fundamental level. His freshly baked similes and metaphors
– how they resonate with mere reality.

While at it, he
even pulled off many a Chekovian stunt with unassailable precision.
Don’t try to catch him placing a gun in Chapter 1 that proved handy in
Chapter 10. Just prepare to catch your breath along with their rhythm
in place.

His portrayals of
what a woman would do for love (and for her man to prove) and what she,
as a mother, would do just to keep her child alive, are almost
revelatory, even celebratory.

A celebration of ordinariness

Dibia’s blackbird
symbolism is a throwback to the use of the raven, a large black bird of
the crow family, by the trailblazing Edgar Allan Poe, the American
writer famous as the first master of the short story form, especially
the psychological horror tale, to which ‘Blackbird’ hints in places.
Like Poe, Dibia appears to also have an obsession with death, as was
the poet John Keats before them both.

Further, Dibia’s
singing, stinging prose is arguably on par with that of Khaled
Hosseini, the highly renowned and important American writer originally
from Afghanistan. Dibia’s writerly senses, honed into instincts, do not
miss anything: the clock stuck… at 9:11. It’s ominous, but so is his
treatment of time in the story with its cache of anti-serendipities,
like anti-matter. Not pat but poignant.

It is obvious:
Dibia is familiar with his characters, but he does not treat them with
contempt. He cares for them; hence they could not but trust him with
their atubotan, or end — which became his beginning.

The tale ends on
a dreary but beautiful note. But it is only a false bottom to a valise.
The author isn’t quite done, not without driving home, perhaps
literally, the symbolism that is the lodestar for his inspiration.

I think the
writers’ collective that undertook the publishing of this book deserve
the flack for the copious copyediting blemishes that abound in the
book. The awkward comma that cuts into the flow of the story, again and
again, betrays a practice of poor punctuation. The ‘winner’ is a sore
thumb on page 284, a mix-up in the names of two key characters who are
sisters.

Yet there is, for
the writer, a little matter of nomenclature that tells on his stylistic
finesse. One example is the use of back-masking for the name of a
place, which makes it unwieldy, rendering it everything but memorable.
Even now, trying so hard, I can’t recall the name.

Apart from the staccato of typos and formatting errors that flare
up occasionally as you move through ‘Blackbird’ country, the book
passes in flying colours as a celebration of the ordinariness that dogs
the heels of the dreaded life.

You would think you
have met them all, in different sizes, colours, or styles. They are
unmistakable because they are rendered in thick linear lines of warm
colours. Some of the women appear in full figures (thin and large)
while others merely show happy or serene faces. The portraits of these
women are sometimes cohesive in one large canvas or divided by straight
white lines.

However you see
Rom Isichei’s women, their splendor will captivate you even though many
have a certain air of sadness oozing from their eyes. Many art
enthusiasts who have been following Isichei for years would conclude
they have seen all his women. To them I say, not so fast, until you see
the new ones in his new solo exhibition, ‘Quiet Spaces’, at the Nike
Art Gallery.

Late last year, I
visited the easygoing artist in his studio, to hang out and discuss
Nigeria’s contemporary art, a subject he is very passionate about. The
new works I encountered were, in a way, different from what I was used
to yet the same. What he was working on got me transfixed for a while
because I was trying to resolve the duality of my interpretation. His
latest women were rendered quite differently from what people like me
were used to. The known lines had been ditched for thick layers of
paints; the heavy wood dust foundation that foregrounds these new works
gave them a three-dimensional, sculptural feel. The layering of colours
to build depth had earlier been commented on by the renowned artist
Kolade Oshinowo in 2001 when he said, “His (Isichei) colours are
generously and heavy palette knife-applied, most of the time virtually
built into relief, enhancing the tactile value of the painting.” And 10
years later, he piled it on these works even thicker.

Since I knew I
would be back, I did not ask too many questions before I left. Most of
the works were still in the formative stage though the Isichei
signature was already unmistakable.

Lots of women

Two Saturdays ago,
when I needed a break from preparations for my own ongoing exhibition
at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Yaba, I went back to see the
progress of his works. Upon arrival in his studio, all the women in
their regality, like no one has seen them before, welcomed me. In
various media, they climbed from the artist’s tastefully furnished
living room on the first floor to his spacious studio on the second
floor and everywhere else in the house. Isichei had stretched his
terrain, both in subject matter and the material used since my last
visitation. I was more interested in the women, because they form more
than 90 percent of his latest offering. Some of the women were painted
with or, rather, sculpted from found objects, discarded bottle covers
and corrugated zinc roofing sheet. Large eyes popping out from behind
gorgeous colours were either coloured by acrylic or represented by
round hard metal objects.

The first question
I asked the artist from Asaba, Delta State, was, why the obsession with
the female subject? In short, what is your fixation with women
characters? I asked and he laughed because I was not the first to ask
him that question. Surprisingly, his answer had to do with the inside
than the external physical and visual viscosity of colours that one
sees in the large paintings. Isichei believes women are more
emotionally expressive than men. One can hardly measure the temperature
of an environment through the stoic and face-masking, macho-masculinity
of the male specie in our society, hence his concentration on women to
spread his subliminal socio-political message. This is why over the
years he has tapped into the expressiveness of women and keeps painting
them in varying degrees.

Fire in his furnace

The body of work
that makes up ‘Quiet Spaces’ deals with how we react to events in our
private spaces. And the first painting to capture this essence in its
entire oeuvre is ‘Prayer Warriors’, which has two characters with hands
in private supplication. The mixed media on board painting is used by
the artist to remind us that private religion alone will not solve
national problems; we need to publicly tackle issues head on.

This leads us to a
lone figure, a heavily made-up female portrait with all the whistles
and bells that come with a Sunday preparation. This painting speaks
with many voices in an interesting and thought-provoking way with a
title like ‘Preacher’s Wife’. Despite its multiplicity of meaning,
Isichei narrowed it down to “the way Nigeria overdoes things. Though it
is called ‘Preacher’s Wife’, it is more or less about our various
leaders’ wives and the way they carry themselves. Their loudness that
signifies certain hollowness. Our first ladies are distractions to
their husbands and it is unfortunate the men at the helm of affairs
cannot see this overzealousness.”

As if to
counterbalance his take on our leader’s wife, a similar painting titled
‘Feeling Incomplete’ talks about the pursuit of perfection, using the
preachers’ wives of our society as a benchmark. ‘Feeling Incomplete’
has a very dissatisfied woman tugging at her disjointed and badly
coordinated beads. Her head gear is askew and her dangling single
earring makes her incomplete. Though the subject’s face is bleached
out, she is not as gorgeous or loud as the preacher’s wife.

Unsurprisingly, it
was ‘Preacher’s Wife’ that fired up the usually quiet artist
politically and sent him commenting on all that has gone wrong in our
society. At the end of our discussion about the painting and its
accompanying piece, Oshinowo’s voice came screaming in my head, “There
might be snow on his (Isichei) roof, but there is plenty of fire in his
furnace.”

Fresh frontier

Many of the
paintings in ‘Quiet Spaces’ reference religion or the pageantry that
one is bound to experience on a Sunday afternoon in Lagos. This is not
surprising as most of the warehouses around Isichei’s Ilupeju axis have
been converted to churches and a large number of women fill these
places of worship. The fiery colours that exude from two outlandish and
heavily-coated paintings, ‘Habits and Rituals’ and ‘Glitterati’, speak
volumes about the way our women dress on Sundays and during social
ceremonies.

‘Habits and
Rituals’ and ‘Glitterati’ are both diptyches that depict women in
different formations and dresses, with handbags that glow and glitter
once in contact with light. These paintings remind one of Isichei’s
floral paintings of the past, because the colours are like the blooming
field of a well-tended garden. Though the artist does not zoom in on
these female figures’ faces as he does with others, the exquisiteness
with which he painted these city girls and fashionistas puts him in the
forefront of other chroniclers of beautiful women.

No matter how we
view these female characters, Rom Isichei has an unending stunning
romance with women in his art and there is always something new about
his old style. In his new exhibition, many art lovers who know Isichei
will find something to ruminate about. Though one is bound to find his
old style among the new works, their similarity form a pleasant
continuation of the conversation the artist is having with his
environment. The newer ones, especially those in the ‘Body Language
Series’ and the introduction of metal linearity in works like ‘Passage
to Remorse’ and ‘Ruminations of Uncertainty’, are definitely pushing a
fresh frontier.

How have you grown as an artist, I asked Isichei. “Very subjective.
Growing for me is that I am satisfied with where I am now and where I
am heading because many people were worried when I left advertising for
an uncertain future of a studio artist. [There is] no need to measure
myself with my financial success, but the fact that I like waking up
and doing what I love doing, is very satisfying and I would rather
measure my growth with that,” he says.

I was a boy once.
In Catholic boarding school. I survived the experience, I think. The
boarding school I attended as a little boy in the 70’s would be deemed
a place of abuse here in the West. Our parents thought we were getting
an education. I was about to turn 11-years-old when I started Form One.
I had skipped Primary Six because I passed the concessional entrance
examination to a highly sought-after secondary school. My mother felt I
was too young to leave the nest. My father would have none of it; once
I scaled the interview, I was sent off to go spend a nerve-wracking
five years in this school about an hour away from the city where we
lived. I did not like it, I missed my mom a lot and I just wanted to go
home.

Our boarding
school was organised around several ‘houses’, each of which
accommodated dozens of boys. There was a hierarchy of juniors, seniors
and prefects. The seniors lorded it over the juniors and the prefects
lorded it over everybody. There was an infirmary where the sick went. I
was a frequent visitor to the infirmary because malaria was my constant
companion. There was the local hospital, Zuma Memorial, owned by the
late legend, Christopher Okojie. If you had a bad case of malaria, you
went to see Dr Okojie, a compassionate but stern father figure. Many of
us would be dead today without his pioneering work. There are several
myths and tales about the good doctor. Like: this day student went to
see Dr Okojie and when he asked what he’d had for breakfast, the yeye
boy recounted imaginary stuff he’d read about in books. “Em, nothing
special sir, eggs sunny side up, two slices of toast, crumpets,
marmalade and tea!” Well, he proceeds to vomit right there and then,
come and see miracle of Galilee: hot toast and eggs sunny side up had
turned into long coils of eba and okro!

There was a
student riot. We did not like the food. The tea was weak; coloured
water, we called it. This one evening, some hot heads decided we had
had enough of the abuse. We all marched to the teachers’ quarters
chanting something revolutionary along the strains of “Beasts of
England! Beasts of Ireland!” We had been reading George Orwell’s
‘Animal Farm’ in class. We all headed to the senior tutor’s house, the
most hated man in our universe, just in time to see him flee into the
woods half-dressed. The police came and we were herded into the dining
hall where our ring leaders read the list of our demands: we wanted
bread, real tea, tins of sardines, really important stuff that would
stuff our stomachs. We also wanted the beatings to stop. And yes, no
more exams, we really, really hated those. We ate well that night. The
next day, all our ring leaders were sent packing. They never came back.

Once, our dinner
goat escaped from where it was tethered, and I have a vivid memory of
all of us chasing this cowardly goat. We caught and ate it, of course.
Juniors served the food. We got the food from the cooks and served them
in numbered dishes. The seniors always demanded more food than we were
able to provide. Once, one senior got enraged that I served him the
bitter end of yam. He chased after me as I raced away in terror and he
broke my ankle by kicking me off the ground like a soccer ball. There
were many things that happened to little boys in those hostels. Sexual
abuse by older boys was prevalent. Stubborn boys like me who fought
back were beaten or severely punished for not toeing the line. Even in
those days, I was a fighter.

Kerosene lanterns remind me of the pain of darkness. Our principal
was an Irish priest. We lived in mortal fear of him. He was built like
an angry boxer. Lights out and we had to go to bed. We preferred to
continue reading with the aid of kerosene lanterns. In his white
cassock he moved around like a spirit, you never knew when he would
steal behind you and make mincemeat of you for some infraction. There
was always an infraction; it was the Catholic Church. He was powerful.
He could beat a little boy into a pulp. For all these reasons, we
called him Akhu, the Powerful One. Akhu would surprise a little boy by
climbing into a dorm’s window and if he caught the boy reading, he
would lift him up with one arm and pummel him to sleep. The boy’s wail
would be carried from dorm to dorm: St Andrew’s, St. Mary’s, St.
Augustine’s, St. Joseph’s – these houses were named after saints. We
would hear the plaintive wail of a boy warning of the coming hell. “The
Powerful One is here! The Powerful One is here! Hide your lamps!!”
Dominus Vobiscum. Let us pray.

If ever the
expression ‘an army of rappers’ can be excused, then nothing better
captures the sight of Chocolate City commander MI and his trio of
lieutenants – Jesse Jags, Ice Prince and Brymo – when they took the
stage at the IndigO2 Millennium Dome, London, on the evening of April
28.

Dressed
identically in immaculate white jackets, white shirts and bowties,
Nigeria’s newest – and I dare say, most successful – crop of rappers
emerged onstage one after the other, heralded by a cartoon-animation
video of the prelude track on ‘MI2: The Movie’, his sophomore album.

“They call… they
call… they call me MI. Are you ready to dance with the devil? Let’s
go!” concluded the skit, as the renowned ‘short, black boy’ stepped
onstage to feverish cheers from the audience, who had gamely borne the
efforts of several comic and musical acts in the first half of the
concert.

Chocolatiers

The men-in-white
took their business of entertainment to heart. Their movements were
choreographed to exude practised grace. These ‘Chocolatiers’ had come
to offer their own brand of confection to the Diaspora; and ladies
dressed to the nines, trotting on high-heeled shoes, and young men
sporting designer wear and adopted accents stood side by side in united
admiration for MI. Most had forked out between 30 and 75 pounds for
this privilege.

Rap music is the
forte of the self-assured, and none exuded the confidence and swagger
(pardon this clichéd street slang) better than the Choc Boys. MI,
backed by Brymo, whipped the audience to a frenzy with a rendition of
“Action Film”. Its chorus, “I would like to take you on a ride,” was
nothing short of a promise of what the evening entailed. Extempore raps
were on the cards as Jesse Jags boasted the wealth of his lyrics: “They
call me Scarface, but everyday you can take my lines to the bank, they
call it Barclays.”

MI might have
visited London to promote his sophomore album but he was not about to
have the adoring crowd forget the self-titled debut that had set him
apart as the fastest-risen icon on the Nigerian music scene, in only
three years. He proposed a musical equivalent of Truth or Dare with his
label mates: concert-goers were given an opening cue to one of his old
songs and then were expected to rap the rest to prove their knowledge
of the track. Their reward was an item of clothing off one of the
rappers.

“I’m a girl
pleaser,” MI cued, and the audience screamed in response: “Big booty
squeezer, teaser looking for a diva for sheezer. What you need is a
geezer, cool like a freezer, rule like a Caesar,” finishing the hook of
the hit, “Teaser”.

“Anoti”, “Fast
Money Fast Cars”, “Mogbonofelifeli Remix”, “Nobody Test Me” and
“Forever” followed in the same pattern until all four pristine jackets
had being taken off, sometimes sparking catfights between eager hands
as they were thrown into the appreciative crowd. Jesse Jags, perhaps
not eager to stand before the crowd sans clothes, insisted that “one of
those lines just ain’t right,” effectively ending the game.

Rap Beef

MI without further
ado introduced one of the most popular song of his new album, “Beef”,
with a pep talk about “people that just be hating” – a reference to
musician Kelly Handsome. Many eagerly rhymed along with him: “See
musicians tryna beef me for real, son/ maybe they’re doing it to
promote the album/ they know that using my name will help them sell
some/ so Iceberg it’s all right, you’re welcome/ But I’m not in the
league, help me tell them/ The Super Eagles don’t play against the
Falcons/ see (ugly) pikin dey form handsome/ Kelechukwu clap for
yourself, well done!”

One wondered
fleetingly if the same crowd wouldn’t be just as keen to mouth the
words to “Finish You Boy”, Handsome’s newly-released response to MI’s
“Beef”. Perhaps the Nigerian crowd themselves are the fuel for the
Tupac/Biggie-like scenarios recently plaguing Nigeria’s music industry.

Proving his
dexterity as a lyricist, MI revealed the meaning behind some of his rap
lines that might have been taken at face value: “Some sow broke, others
wealth reaping,” and “How I would Fri as I Sat in the Sun through the
weekend” – a play on weekdays, which express his struggles to make a
name for himself in the industry.

Rhymes for Jos

But it wasn’t all
beef and self-aggrandisement as MI calmed the crowd’s excitement with
“Wild Wild West”, a song dedicated to the city of Jos. Accompanied by a
video showing graphic images of the 2010 crises, MI told of his anger
at the destruction that had “cancelled the (peaceful) name” of the
place he calls home. “Better get your gun, better get your vest, in
J-Town it’s the wild, wild, west/ I just wanna cry, I just wanna know
why my people struggle to unify/ orphans, coffins, bastards, caskets,
mass burials, how’re we gonna move past this?” he lamented to the
solemn rhythms that accompanied his delivery.

Not many of the
goings-on affecting the lives of the masses seemed to escape MI’s pen.
He may have moved “from a legedis-benz to a Honda” but he had expended
the effort to interview the street thugs of Lagos, and documented same
in a video that introduced a song inspired by the soundtrack of an old
Nigerian soap opera famous for the popular character, Jagua. “My head,
my belle” is a song for the poor, one that encouraged them and yet was
an apposite reflections of their circumstances.

Rounding up

Tracks like “Number
One”, “Slown Down”, “Represent” and “One Naira” featuring Waje, who
arrived sans make-up, straight from the airport, Ice Prince’s hit
single “Oleku” and Jesse Jagz’s “Jargo” rounded off the evening.

The album launch
was organised by Coko Bar, one of the more popular UK-based Nigerian
entertainment promoters. Acknowledging the management of Audu Maikori,
Chocolate City founder, comedian Seyi Law cracked a joke at MI’s
expense, saying, “If no be for this man (Maikori), MI Abaga for dey run
for gun now for Jos.”

Seyi Law and
British comedy act Kevin Jay, who has perfected Nigerian patterns of
speech and Pidgin English, had earlier reduced the audience to fits of
laughter with their hilarious takes on Nigerian life. Other acts
included 2kris, the duo of Nigerian-born brothers; and Tipsy, a
feminine incarnation of Dagrin’s street style who performed a tribute
to the late rapper.

MI may have been
accused of diluting his style with ‘MI2: the Movie’, but every song is
a brilliant reflection of the Nigerian struggle and aspiration,
eliciting open adulation from the fans who crowded the IndigO2 and were
crushed to see him leave at the show’s end. The emotion appeared to be
mutual as it was a reluctant MI that was finally coaxed offstage by
Coko Bar founder, Ropo Akin.

But not before MI had handed out all the accessories he was
wearing. Eventually stripped of almost everything but the clothes on
his back, and with several demanding fans left to satisfy, he had tried
to lift some off the other Choc Boys. But they, unlike MI, were not as
obliging. Hopefully, many a fan who left the show with a valuable
memento in hand, wished the short black boy a long reign as “African
rapper number one.”

Learning a new
language is like entering a desert with blindfolds. You have no
knowledge of what to expect. There are sand blasts and wind gusts from
every side, yet you keep trudging along. That is a mild description of
my road to learning French. The only tool I took with me was fun. I
wanted to have fun on the journey. Fun here translates into: ask
questions.

Why did I decide
to learn French?

First, it was the desire to have a mastery of another
language. Well, learn something different from the known. Having spoken
English, Yoruba and a bit of Pidgin for a great part of my life; it is
a bit boring, don’t you think? A part of me thought: wouldn’t it be
great to gossip in another language? Wouldn’t it be absolutely
interesting to maneuver two world languages well, to hit their heads
together as if in a duel?

Yoruba and English
are languages that just stumbled on me, or was it I who stumbled on
them?

Bottom line is, I do not really understand or appreciate the
process of learning them. For Yoruba, I grew up in a Yoruba-speaking
environment, my parents speak my native Ijare dialect at home; and yes,
I studied Yoruba as a subject in school. For English, the imposed
lingua franca, it was spoken at every other place: school, on TV, with
friends. Despite this, my mastery of both languages has been questioned
at different times. My Yoruba can only take me through basic survival.
Yet, among young people of my age, I am a pro. And please don’t ask me
to do “ayan ogbufo”, or proverbs, in my native Yoruba language. I do
not speak any accented English; you know, the kind of English spoken at
fashion shows and on many radio shows these days: British accent in
conflict with American, you get me?

I may have studied
English throughout my university years, yet to get a PhD someone thinks
I need to take a Test Of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL) or
Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Someone thinks my English needs to
be assessed. Trouble is, my Yoruba tongue always gets in the way of my
English tongue, especially with the ‘H’ factor. I do not much
appreciate these languages because I more or less grew into them. It’s
different with French. Maybe it’s just my way to consciously master the
process of acquiring a new language.

Learning French is
like forcing an old man who has eaten all his life with the right hand
to use the left. It is forcing that part of my brain that thinks in
English to process thoughts in another language, a strange one. The
process is a tough one, one that has taken discovering similarities and
differences between the familiar (Yoruba and English) and the strange
(French). The road has been filled with questions. This desire for
answers earned me the name ‘Madame Pourquoi’ in class. It literally
translates to ‘Madam Why?’ For every rule, I ask, “Why?” Why do I have
to force my tongue to roll upwards whenever I have to pronounce ‘R’?

Why does French genderise everything?

For crying out loud, it’s a
thing; why personify it? We are in a language class, not a poetry
class. Why should a crowd of women with a boy be addressed with the
masculine plural “ils”? Often, I get answers like: that’s how the
French do it and you are here to learn French the French way. I still
wonder, how can I learn French the French way when I am not French? I
will never be, anyway.

‘Madame Pourquoi’ is about these questions, not some theoretical
postulations. Every other week, I hope to take you along with me into
my confused world of speaking French the French way. Follow me on that
blurry road where thoughts in English merge with the French and a
Yoruba accent. Welcome to my world of blindfolds.

Mudi Yahaya’s
photography exhibition ‘The Ruptured Landscape’ came to a close with a
talk by the artist at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Lagos on
April 30.

Aside from an
opportunity to interact with the artist, Bisi Silva, curator at the
CCA, said the talk was intended as an avenue to see how Yahaya’s work
is highlighting new directions in art. She added that it was an
opportunity to get a better idea of his methodology and trajectory.

Yahaya refers to
his work as conceptual photography. He said of the exhibition, “It’s
about what we’ve become after colonialism and trying to explore
postcolonial identities that have emerged in black and diasporic
spaces.”

On display on the
gallery walls were images of men and women in various states of nudity.
Some of the photos were very striking, disquieting and almost grotesque
but they all expressed deep significance which the artist remarkably
elucidated.

Woman as subject

‘Black Woman
Unplugged’ is a series of photographs of the back view of a naked black
woman, leaning against a white wall, in different symbolic poses. “She
tries to negotiate how to break the wall,” said Yahaya, speaking of the
wall as some sort of barrier.

Asked why he chose
a woman to communicate the message, he replied, “When you talk about
identity, it leads you to sovereignty… So, her body is a sovereign
being. We are also looking at the source of production. The woman is
where it all comes out from. When you talk about the black female body
being objectified, I flipped it. Here she is the subject and not the
object.”

Another series
depict a naked and pregnant black woman. One of the images show her
bearing the paper cut-out face of a white man. There is distortion here
as her hands look masculine, and Silva and other participants seemed to
notice this.

In reply, the
artist said that he purposefully used lenses that would cause the image
to be somewhat distorted, hence the seemingly masculine hands of the
subject. “The ruptured landscape means things that have evolved or have
been distorted. So I am talking about different aspects in this
landscape and space we are in in Africa, that have been affected by
different stimuli, philosophy, culture, media. So we see little pockets
of different forms of identity that speak out,” he answered.

Hybrid versions of Christianity

In another series,
the artist uses a male subject, a naked man holding an antelope head to
his groin. According to Yahaya, each of the antelope horns represents
the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible.

“It’s about the
issue of sexuality and the challenge between the African church and the
Church of England. The Church of England says we now allow gay priests
and gay marriages,” he explained.

He added that,
“You can see the subject here; he is sort of tense and struggling with
some sense of sexuality and he is hiding behind the Old and the New
Testament. We received Christianity from the West and we now have
hybrids versions of Christianity.

“We received an
identity from the West. We were told to adjust the parameters and we
say no. Every image here is an identity that is hiding behind
something,” Yahaya said.

History of violence

“In all
postcolonial spaces, it’s an irony or a coincidence that the experience
after colonialism is usually civil war. Our identity is tied in
violence and we expect it. Elections are coming and we expect violence.
Our identities are scarred with violence,” he said, while discussing
another series images focusing on a bloodied man.

There are streaks
of bloody tears on his face and on his chest the words ‘I love Nigeria’
are inscribed in blood. According to the artist, “We die in the process
of loving this country.” Yahaya explained that all the images are named
after films that deal with tolerance.

The title of one
of the photographs, ‘Do the Right Thing’, takes its name from a Spike
Lee movie and shows a woman’s face with streaks of blood and bruises.
“You can see her, she has been badly bruised. So many things are wrong
and in Nigeria – they say a woman cannot bail a man out. ‘Do the Right
Thing’ is an identity in this space as well,” said the artist.

The artist turned
his attention to the image of a bare-chested bearded man holding a
bloodied knife: “Because you see him with a beard and a knife, if you
take ten Nigerians, eight will say he is a Muslim, but the truth is
that he could have been a Jehovah’s Witness,” he said.

“He could just
have killed a chicken. He could be a Cele priest or anything, but
because we identify violence with Islam, you see an image like this and
you assume it is Boko Haram,” he added.

Yahaya’s images all embody a system of semiotics that go beyond the
nude figures and bizarre images to explore strong social and political
issues.

US-based filmmaker,
Olamide Maarore, is set to become one of those changing the face of the
indigenous movie industry with his debut film, ‘Aina’, which he wrote,
produced and directed.

He describes the
soon-to-be-released film as an “intelligent modern-day drama about
working professionals, the choices they make and the consequences they
suffer. A ‘Sex and the City’ meets ‘Jerry Maguire’, set in an urban
city.”

In this interview
with NEXT, Maarore talks about his movie and canvasses for sponsorship
to get it premiered, among other things.

Tell us about yourself and your training as a filmmaker.

I was born in
Lagos. I went to England while I was young and then the US in my late
teens. I love the arts and I understand the incredible importance of
art in society. I’ve always wanted to be in films since I was a kid. I
am also an Africanist. After all these years in Los Angeles, I decided
to come here and start making really good quality films which will
portray Nigeria as a sophisticated country and also to inspire people;
to project Nigeria as not just villages and hungry people but as a
sophisticated country.

I started out as
an actor in high school. I was the class clown. I attended the
University of Southern California. I decided to go into filmmaking in
the nineties because I didn’t want to continue to be typecast for the
stereotypical roles for black men in Hollywood. I didn’t want to play
the prisoner, the gangster, the killer, the rapist; all those
stereotyped roles. When I went for auditions, it was the same. I was a
criminal, a drug dealer or I was running from the police. Those were
the only roles that I got. I started working in productions and doing
everything to learn. I have worked as production assistant, light
assistant, camera assistant, director, gaffer, anything; any position
in the film industry, I’ve basically done it.

In 2008, I decided
it’s about time I start. I wanted the films I make to have social
relevance, to be shot in Africa and to tell the African story from the
African perspective. I didn’t want to leave it up to white people
anymore to be telling our stories. Each time they tell our story, it’s
always ‘Blood Diamond’ or ‘Hotel Rwanda’. So I thought that, with my
expertise, my creativity and my passion, I could come here and do
something. So I started writing a script. Came to Nigeria in 2009, took
a lot of the Nigerian nuances, influences, went back to LA, rewrote the
script very well, came back in late 2009 and started holding auditions.

You used fresh faces in ‘Aina’. How did you pull that off and why?

We did
advertisements everywhere in Nigeria. We sent out flyers, even to the
North. It was very important not just to do what everybody does: “Let’s
put (Genevieve) Nnaji and we’ll have a successful film.” No. You’ll
never cultivate new talent. The guy who studies theatre for four, five
years has no hope if everybody is using Nnaji. We did auditions in New
York, Accra, Calabar and London. Screen acting requires that you are
there, not just knowing your lines. I didn’t think choosing famous
Nollywood actors would work. And there is also the problem of ego. They
wouldn’t want to succumb to training and I am interested in cultivating
new faces.

Our cast are
average-looking Nigerians because we were looking for authenticity. Mr
Nigeria, Kenneth Okolie, is in the film and also Tony Akposheri, who is
the only old actor we used. Our lead actress is from Senegal. There are
some love scenes in the film and Nigerians don’t do that so we had to
cast somebody who wouldn’t mind. You don’t change the story for the
actor; you change the actor for the story. If we had gone Nollywood, we
would have had to change the story for them. I have tremendous respect
for Nollywood and what they’ve done so far. As a matter of fact I came
here to work with them. But to the marketers I say: you’ve made your
money. Now let’s make greatness. I think they could do [it] with
standard films, understanding story structure as well as acting for
screen. All these things are vital. We have to move from mediocrity to
greatness. We need to get our films into the Oscars, Sundance, Cannes
because this is what will put us on the map. I think they’ve gotten
hung up on the money. The marketers need to see the vision and invest
in great talent.

What makes ‘Aina’ different from the average Nollywood film?

It is a
well-written story. After writing, I sent it to a story consultant to
go through it. We paid attention to narrative. It’s a very romantic
slow drama. The story is about women and we portray them as modern,
young, vibrant Nigerians. We used fresh faces and it is 100 percent
shot in Nigeria. It has world value, in that it is a human story. This
is our way of launching the renaissance of new Nigerian moviemaking. It
is nicely shot and the costume is pro-African. We decided to shoot the
movie here because Nollywood shoots about 3,500 films a year and people
see these films and ask, “What kind of film is this?” It is sad that
our films are not respected outside our viewership. Our films are
popular outside Nigeria but [they are] not respected anywhere. My
friends in America buy Nollywood films because they want to laugh at
the shortcomings of the film. I want to prove to the world that we can
do what we want right. It was important for me to shoot this film here.

How long did it take?

Two months,
everyday, for shooting, but the whole production process has taken
about two years. The story took me a year and half to write – six
months for pre-production, four months for auditions, and we are on
post production at the moment.

What was the experience like?

It was the most
difficult thing I have ever done in my life. The logistics of making a
film in Nigeria is hard. Accessibility of locations, commitment of
crew, availability of equipment and the lack of inspiration from the
people you are working with because they do not believe you can do it,
were just a few of the challenges. I got scammed at different times. It
is doable but very difficult. There were so many times I wanted to give
up.

And the picture quality: did you bring in equipment from the States?

We brought in all
our equipment. Filmmaking is not all about the camera equipment alone.
We achieved the quality we did because we planned it very well. Every
person in the production process has their role to play in making the
film come out great. In Nigeria, one person does everything. I
initially wanted to use Nigerian equipment but we were scammed. We had
to ship in cameras and also hire foreign crew. We spent all we had. We
used Hollywood standard in this movie, in everything from
cinematography to lighting. We didn’t cut corners.

What was the cost of making this movie?

I really do not
want to reveal the detailed cost but it was quite expensive to make.
And that is why we need sponsors to help us get the movie out. My
problem in Nigeria is that I do not really know anybody. I left the
country first in 1979 and came back some time ago to bury my mother. We
are looking for sponsors, for the premiere of ‘Aina’ and our next
project.

Any suggestions towards improving the Nigerian movie industry?

There are many
professionals who are capable of doing great work. However, one of the
problems is that the creative part of the industry is being run by
non-creative people who are only there to make money. We need to switch
the pattern and say [to them]: “Hey, you want to make a movie, let me
do it. You go and market.”

We can also
improve by focusing on doing the right thing. I am inspired by Africa’s
greatness and potential and I want to see that day where a Nigerian
filmmaker goes out there and wins Best Director or Best Picture.

Are you using indigenous soundtracks for the movie?

Sadly, we are going
to use foreign soundtracks. Everybody we talked to here in Nigeria
wanted us to pay them heavy money instead of them seeing it as us
giving them a platform to be heard. Even for the costumes, I had to go
to the market, buy ankara and give tailors to sew. None of the popular
fashion designers around we approached gave us the time of day.

Do you have any other upcoming projects?

Our next project is
an action thriller, but we need money for it. We’ll be auditioning for
that in August/September this year. It will do wonders for Nigeria.

Organisers took the
excuse of this year’s Black Heritage Festival being low key a bit too
far at the festival symposium on Wednesday, April 27. The seminar, held
at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, started over two hours late and recorded
a low turnout.

BHF consultant and
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, however, attempted to rationalise the late
commencement of the programme. He attributed it to “post-election
euphoria or depression, depending on the side you are,” in reference to
results of the previous day’s governorship polls that were being
declared.

The festival
consultant touched on the theme of the festival, ‘Animating Heritage:
The Lagos Experience’ and broke it down for those who may have been
puzzled by its meaning. He disclosed that he was overwhelmed by the
concept of turning “a place of despair and hopelessness” into Freedom
Park, the first time he stepped inside the former Broad Street Prison.
He, however, added a caveat, noting that “I should be careful not to
tar prisons as negative places,” in reference to political prisoners
who don’t find prisons to be places of hopelessness. Kongi noted that
instead of their spirits being broken, political prisoners are
strengthened by their ordeals in prisons. Soyinka, who delved into the
history of the park, cited the examples of nationalists including
Herbert Macaulay and the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, who were imprisoned
there but emerged even more determined.

He expressed
happiness that the prison is being converted and that he found it
striking that “the performance stage is on the exact spot where the
gallows used to stand.” He added that “the most poignant aspect of this
(conversion from a prison to park) is that prisons can be turned into
animating spaces.”

Awolowo’s curse

Theo Lawson, the
lead architect in charge of the conversion, spoke on ‘Freedom Park: A
Restoration of the old Broad Street Prison’. He told the gathering that
he conceived the idea of turning the prison to a park 12 years ago from
a workshop with students. He said the students helped with the idea
before he submitted a proposal for the project to government.

Lawson discovered
while researching the prison’s history that it was first built with mud
and thatch in 1872 but that the colonialists, who had earlier
established a constabulary to keep nationalists in check, decided to
rebuild it with bricks in 1875 because of the then-prevalent fire
outbreaks. The bricks were imported from the UK at a cost of £16,000
that same year the colonialists were hard pressed to spend £6,000 on
education in the colony.

Some other famous
inmates of the prison include Adeyemo Alakija, Michael Imoudu, Lateef
Jakande and Awolowo, who reportedly cursed the ground upon his release.
The prison was shut down shortly after Awolowo’s release and no one
occupied it for 30 years. Lawson explained that what further lengthened
the prison’s abandonment period was that both the federal and state
governments didn’t want it, until the Lagos administration eventually
took it over.

Rational and emotional

Lawson said he had
no problems converting the prison when work started because it already
had natural elements of a park, including a lot of trees. He disclosed
that he was motivated to embark on the project for two reasons: the
rational and the emotional. He noted that Lagos Island needed a park
for relaxation because it was over-developed and over-populated, with
no green areas. However, Lawson rather overstretched his argument by
comparing Freedom Park to historical slave sites like Elmina Castle in
Ghana and other colonial forts. The designer also highlighted the
park’s benefits, including encouraging healthy living and complementing
the Green Lagos project of the government.

Reacting to the
non-availability of a car park for the recreational area, Lawson said
branded motor tricycles (Keke NAPEP) will be provided to serve the park
from Tafawa Balewa Square and Marina. He disclosed that there is
already a car park opposite Island Maternity able to contain 50 cars.

Lawson further
disclosed that he tried his best to contact a living inmate of the old
prison but was thwarted by poor documentation at the Nigerian Prison
Service, Ibadan, where records of the prison were transferred when it
was shut down, and the National Archives. He however disclosed that he
met a former staff of the prison named John Ogundare, who told him more
about the old Broad Street Prison.

Deji Rhodes, a
lawyer and one of Lawson’s collaborators who handled the Nigerian leg
of the research, confirmed that getting old records of the prison has
been a herculean task. He said he is yet to get information on any
former inmates but that he is still working on it. Lawson weighed in by
disclosing that they are collaborating with some agencies in the UK to
get materials about the prison.

One of the
permanent secretaries in the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism and
Inter-Governmental Affairs, Sewanu Fadipe, enjoined Lawson to replicate
the old prison, to maintain the theme and originality. However, Lawson
maintained that the concept was to create a park merging history with
recreation. He added that relics they have been able to salvage from
the site, which had earlier been allocated to four developers, will be
in the museum. He noted that while it will be impossible to restore the
prison to its former state, plans are afoot for a virtual library about
its past in the park’s museum.

Fadipe, who rounded off the session, reiterated the importance of
the annual celebration and assured that, “We will drive this state to
the next level with the Heritage week.”

I was a boy once.
In Catholic boarding school. I survived the experience, I think. The
boarding school I attended as a little boy in the 70’s would be deemed
a place of abuse here in the West. Our parents thought we were getting
an education. I was about to turn 11-years-old when I started Form One.
I had skipped Primary Six because I passed the concessional entrance
examination to a highly sought-after secondary school. My mother felt I
was too young to leave the nest. My father would have none of it; once
I scaled the interview, I was sent off to go spend a nerve-wracking
five years in this school about an hour away from the city where we
lived. I did not like it, I missed my mom a lot and I just wanted to go
home.

Our boarding
school was organised around several ‘houses’, each of which
accommodated dozens of boys. There was a hierarchy of juniors, seniors
and prefects. The seniors lorded it over the juniors and the prefects
lorded it over everybody. There was an infirmary where the sick went. I
was a frequent visitor to the infirmary because malaria was my constant
companion. There was the local hospital, Zuma Memorial, owned by the
late legend, Christopher Okojie. If you had a bad case of malaria, you
went to see Dr Okojie, a compassionate but stern father figure. Many of
us would be dead today without his pioneering work. There are several
myths and tales about the good doctor. Like: this day student went to
see Dr Okojie and when he asked what he’d had for breakfast, the yeye
boy recounted imaginary stuff he’d read about in books. “Em, nothing
special sir, eggs sunny side up, two slices of toast, crumpets,
marmalade and tea!” Well, he proceeds to vomit right there and then,
come and see miracle of Galilee: hot toast and eggs sunny side up had
turned into long coils of eba and okro!

There was a
student riot. We did not like the food. The tea was weak; coloured
water, we called it. This one evening, some hot heads decided we had
had enough of the abuse. We all marched to the teachers’ quarters
chanting something revolutionary along the strains of “Beasts of
England! Beasts of Ireland!” We had been reading George Orwell’s
‘Animal Farm’ in class. We all headed to the senior tutor’s house, the
most hated man in our universe, just in time to see him flee into the
woods half-dressed. The police came and we were herded into the dining
hall where our ring leaders read the list of our demands: we wanted
bread, real tea, tins of sardines, really important stuff that would
stuff our stomachs. We also wanted the beatings to stop. And yes, no
more exams, we really, really hated those. We ate well that night. The
next day, all our ring leaders were sent packing. They never came back.

Once, our dinner
goat escaped from where it was tethered, and I have a vivid memory of
all of us chasing this cowardly goat. We caught and ate it, of course.
Juniors served the food. We got the food from the cooks and served them
in numbered dishes. The seniors always demanded more food than we were
able to provide. Once, one senior got enraged that I served him the
bitter end of yam. He chased after me as I raced away in terror and he
broke my ankle by kicking me off the ground like a soccer ball. There
were many things that happened to little boys in those hostels. Sexual
abuse by older boys was prevalent. Stubborn boys like me who fought
back were beaten or severely punished for not toeing the line. Even in
those days, I was a fighter.

Kerosene lanterns remind me of the pain of darkness. Our principal
was an Irish priest. We lived in mortal fear of him. He was built like
an angry boxer. Lights out and we had to go to bed. We preferred to
continue reading with the aid of kerosene lanterns. In his white
cassock he moved around like a spirit, you never knew when he would
steal behind you and make mincemeat of you for some infraction. There
was always an infraction; it was the Catholic Church. He was powerful.
He could beat a little boy into a pulp. For all these reasons, we
called him Akhu, the Powerful One. Akhu would surprise a little boy by
climbing into a dorm’s window and if he caught the boy reading, he
would lift him up with one arm and pummel him to sleep. The boy’s wail
would be carried from dorm to dorm: St Andrew’s, St. Mary’s, St.
Augustine’s, St. Joseph’s – these houses were named after saints. We
would hear the plaintive wail of a boy warning of the coming hell. “The
Powerful One is here! The Powerful One is here! Hide your lamps!!”
Dominus Vobiscum. Let us pray.