Talk, Remember, Sing, Listen, and Learn

Mount Holyoke Club Hears about Nigeria Revisited

classmates

Me with my two classmates who came for the Mount Holyoke Club talk, Nancy on the left and Sylvia on the right.,

My second book event was as much fun as the first. I won’t write about every one, I promise (or maybe just a word or two). But I hope you don’t mind hearing about the second.

This one was a talk for the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club of Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut. (The website link is to the college’s directory of alumnae clubs; Bridgeport doesn’t have a website yet.)

Susan the organizer, had notified people in surrounding areas too, and my classmates Nancy and Sylvia from New Haven came. It was great to see them and catch up before the talk, and then to have them in the audience along with other women I knew, and a few I didn’t. Laura was an excellent host in her condo’s clubhouse in Fairfield.

I included more personal stories than last time and took several items for “Show and Tell’. My son Sam and his wife Onome gave me a handbag to hold my books, and I used it and showed it off. I’ll take a picture later and let you see it. I also took a string of beads, a doll dressed in a Nigerian outfit, and a turquoise embroidered men’s shirt.

The books I had ordered finally arrived on Friday – too late for either presentation! I had orders for four books from people who’d attended the Senior Center presentation. I delivered three already – to Mildred, Andi, and the VanGelders, I still have one , for Stu. I’ll deliver it tomorrow.

A couple of people have asked about the Kindle edition. I want to get that ready in the next couple of days.

Those Beautiful Calendars

I just ordered 2015 calendars from the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Madison, Wisconsin. For many years I have given them as gifts to our children and a few friends. During the past year a few of you won 2014 calendars as rewards for answering challenge questions. I even delivered one in person to my friend Dorcy who lives in France but was visiting Vermont.

The photos – all from countries where Peace Corps is now or has been in the past – are sent in by former Peace Corps volunteers and others. I’ve never had a great photo to submit. I’ll encourage my granddaughter Nkiru to take some that might be accepted during the Christmas holidays when we’ll all be in Nigeria. She has an eye for good photos, as her mother does, and of course at age 15 she takes photos all the time!

Twenty Five Years Ago

Berlin

Fireworks in Berlin, Reuters photo

Did you see the celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Sunday?  Google had a video showing scenes from Berlin and around the world where the anniversary was being celebrated.

I was in Berlin on August 13, 1961, when the wall first went up. It was the summer before my senior year at Mount Holyoke College. I was in Germany as part of a student program that arranged jobs and gave us time for travel. I worked as an aide in a hospital in Koblenz, where the Mosel River meets the Rhine, improving my German. Then I went to Berlin for the weekend when my job ended, taking the train through East Germany. On Saturday August 12 I went through Checkpoint Charlie and explored East Berlin.

The next morning I went downstairs for breakfast at the pension where I was staying. The radio was broadcasting news of the activity at the Brandenburg Gate. I went straight there and joined the crowd shouting, “Ulbricht Weg! Away with Ulbricht!” (the head of East Germany’s Soviet-supported government). The crowd stayed all day, but couldn’t stop the men who were constructing the wall.

Coming back to the American Sector 1989, around time of wall coming down.

Coming back to the American Sector 1989, around time of wall coming down.

And I was in Berlin again in 1989, not exactly on the day the wall first came down, but very near. I could feel the excitement then as the two parts of Germany came together. (Sorry for the poor picture – I can’t remember who took it for me. I’m in the brown coat.)

My father spoke often about a few episodes from his young childhood in Germany, but not often about his education and work before he came to the U.S.  Still Germany is a key part of my life. I would love to visit again, see my cousins and their children and grandchildren, and even go to Rostock, the city my father was from.

Anansi the Spider

At the Unitarian Church in Westport this morning I sang with the Chamber Choir for both services. So I heard the children’s story twice.

Mary Collins, our Director of Religious Education and a marvelous story-teller, related the Ashanti story of the spider Anansi who was given the world’s wisdom by the god. He wanted to keep it all for himself, so he decided to hide the jar that held the world’s wisdom.

Anansi picture I found in a school's abandoned WordPress site

Anansi picture I found in a school’s abandoned WordPress site

He planned to take it to the top of a tree where no one could see it. As he was climbing, pushing the large jar in front of him, his son called up to him. “Why don’t you tie the jar on your back?” the son said. Anansi was so angry that his son knew more than he did, even though he had the world’s wisdom in his jar, that he threw the jar down and broke it. All the bits of wisdom fell out, scattered, and were picked up by people who were happy to share what they learned with each other.

She explained that the story came to our hemisphere with slaves brought from West Africa.

Our interim minister Roberta Finkelstein referred to the story as she talked about the wisdom that comes from the world’s religions, the third source of Unitarian Universalist faith. She said we are stronger as a community because we share wisdom with each other. It is through sharing that we grow and develop our own faith and the sense of belonging.

I agree – I am always learning from others, not just about faith but about life. I find connections and wisdom in conversations or in something I read nearly every day, it seems. Do you too?

Missing

There were two other items to share with you, but it’s late – they’ll have to wait for next time!

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.

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