This is one of the few times I make Jollof rice without first cooking the rice. The first thing I do is call my mother who instructs me accordingly. Rice. Banga cream and no spices. If at all, a mere pinch. I begin by washing the rice in water till clear. In a large pot,...
This is how you first eat starch, with your grandmother’s fresh fish pepper soup, thick with Tilapia and the noon day Isoko sun. Usi, she calls it – softly, slightly hissing the s . You are in your Sunday best – every mothers dream of a princess child – frilled hems and checked belts tied...
The mind wanders, not in defiance of boundaries but in search of meaning and truth. An exploration, not confined to history and culture and societal constructs. After all, the mind isn’t community, it is per person, per head, per brain to think and create and share. I’ve had Banga with ‘starches’ – pounded yam, garri, ‘starch’...
Tales by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa With the spliced rhythm of tribal Africa, with the pulse, and raw hide cloak of riddles, with the drizzling monsoon on lemon grass, with the serene river songs of the canaries, with the dim light of the oil lamps, I reflect on the times when under the tropical moon fierce...