Market Women Teach Feminism

Learning from the Market Women

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave the commencement speech at Wellesley College in Massachusetts a few days ago. She was fabulous! The graduates and the rest of the audience loved her, judging from the applause.

I did too. My husband couldn’t understand why I kept chuckling as I watched. I wonder if you will laugh too?

She said she learned more about being a feminist from the market women in Nsukka than from the feminist scholars she read as a student.

“Take, don’t just give,” she urged the graduates, explaining that we women so often want to give our encouragement, love, and support that we may forget to  ask for what we want and need.

Toward the end I stopped laughing as she spoke about her father’s kidnapping in Nigeria.

She spoke about it with deep emotion and wrote about it in an opinion piece in The New York Times a few days later.

Buhari waves to the crowd at his insauguration

Buhari waves to the crowd at his insauguration

Impressive Inauguration

Buhari was inaugurated with all the appropriate pomp and fanfare on Friday in Abuja. The photo is from ‘Jola Sotubo at Pulse.ng.

I’ve read and heard only positive comments. Our older son Chinaku was there. He found it impressive and he’s not easily impressed!

In the Reuters’ report by Julia Payne, I read a few of Buhari’s remarks from his inauguration speech. Payne reported that Buhari said, “We cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held hostage,” he said. “This government will do all it can to rescue them alive.”

Zainab Usman tweeted about the inauguration. First she was pleased that the event started just a few minutes late and ended almost on time. Second, she mentioned Buhari’s speech at the gala dinner that evening. She said, “Buhari just spoke at the Gala Dinner off the cuff, without reading a prepared speech, and spoke well. Who says he’s not articulate?”

Nigeria Revisited Review

There is finally a review of my memoir Nigeria Revisited My Life and Loves Abroad on the Peace Corps Worldwide website. Just in time – the Peace Corps Connect annual gathering of former Peace Corps volunteers starts on Thursday this week!

Tonight my husband Clem and I are in Fairfield, California, on the first stop of my western book tour. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll give a book talk, sell, and sign books at Paradise Valley Estates where my friend Kimmie and her husband John live.

Family Photo

Monica in center, Nonso on her right, Nonso's children around them

Monica in center, Nonso on her right, Nonso’s children around them

Clem and I visited his sister Monica in Los Angeles before starting the book tour.

We also saw her son Emeka, daughter Nonso, and Nonso’s three lovely children, now mostly grown up.

The youngest is finishing his senior year in high school.

He plays tennis for his school, and was completely up-to-date on the French Open which is underway now. So he could tell us who won the match we couldn’t watch when we were driving.

It was great fun to catch up!

What relatives do you see too infrequently?

Author: Catherine Onyemelukwe

Author, blogger, speaker. Born in New York, grew up in mid west United States, lived in Nigeria for 24 years, back in U.S. since 1986. Advocate for racial justice.