Ladies of the Stars

Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop

After a year off, Chimamanda Adichie’s creative writing workshop returned in 2018. This year it was sponsored by Trace Nigeria.

You may recall reading about Trace. It is our younger son Sam’s company in Lagos; Chinaku, our older son was also involved.

You can see more photos from the event here.

I admire Adichie for encouraging other African, especially Nigerian, writers. Twenty-two participants attended workshops led by Chimamanda, Dave Eggers, Tash Aw, and Lola Shoneyin.

In a workshop like this, the interaction between participants can be as valuable as the teaching sessions. Writers benefit from interacting with each other for ideas and to hone their craft. At least that’s what I found in my writing classes at the Westport Writers Workshop!

Death of a Nigerian Statesman

Shehu Shagari, Nigeria’s president during the second republic, 1979 to 1983, passed away on December 28 in Abuja. He was 93.

The post civil war military government was headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo who held elections and handed over power to the winner Shagari.

Abassador Campbell says, “It was a period of hope—the military voluntarily relinquishing power to a civilian following elections—and therefore, both at home and abroad, the shortcomings of the elections were overlooked.”

Several major changes took place during Shagari’s time as president. The constitution was changed from the British model to follow that of the US. He encouraged the building of the new capital, Abuja, in the center of the country and away from any major tribal influence.

Immigrants Expelled

With the dramatic fall in the price of oil soon after his election, he needed to show some action. He expelled foreigners who had come during the boom days. “An estimated two million people, mostly Ghanaians, literally walked home, in what at the time was one of the larger movements of African peoples,” Campbell says. (Does this remind anyone of more recent anti-immigrant sentiment used to demonstrate power and rally fans?)

I remember this well. It happened not once but twice. My garment company, Trinity House of Fashion, employed tailors from Ghana. We also had men from the two neighboring French-speaking countries, Togo and Benin.

When the expulsion order was announced, they all disappeared. Over the next few days, weeks and months, most returned. But in 1982 there was another order to leave, and most did. Again some returned, but we lost one of the best tailors.

After the next election people could not ignore the rigging that took place, and Shagari was deposed in a coup led by Muhammadu Buhari. Today Buhari is the president, running for reelection next month.

The Glass Universe and Women Astronomers

Tonight our Bakers Dozen book group discussed The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, by Dava Sobel. “The Ladies” were the women hired as computers from the early days of the Harvard Observatory in the late 19th century until the middle of the 20th. I loved reading the book. So many names were familiar.

I studied astronomy during my freshman year at Mount Holyoke, then taught lab for a year.

Dorrit Hoffleit

The summer after sophomore year I was hired by Dr. Dorrit Hoffleit at the Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket to study variable stars.

We were four research assistants, each assigned a small portion of the sky. Each day we would look at photographs taken over many years to look for specific variables, record their magnitude, and chart their periods of variation.

We also took photographs through the telescope on clear nights and developed the glass plates for future study.

It was exciting work. I “discovered” an asteroid; that is, I found an asteroid and identified it as Vesta. It is actually the second largest asteroid but I hadn’t expected it in my bit of the sky. Dr. Hoffleit let me speak about it at the next weekly open house.

I found her name in The Glass Universe, as I was sure I would. There were four mentions. She began working at the Harvard Observatory in 1943, willing to take the low pay because of her love of astronomy.

When I worked for her in 1960, she was a professor of astronomy at Harvard. Later she moved to Yale, where I saw her several times after I returned to the US in 1986.

Maria Mitchell

Yesterday I picked up the biography of Maria Mitchell. It’s been sitting in my “to read” pile for a couple of years! She was raised in her Quaker family in Nantucket, trained by her father and studied mathematics at the Nantucket Athenaeum. She discovered the Unitarian congregation, found it more to her liking, and left the Quakers, although she dressed in their drab custom throughout her life.

She became world-renowned after she discovered a comet in 1847, called Miss Mitchell’s Comet.

She was dedicated to encouraging women to become scientists or professionals in other fields. When Vassar College established a department of astronomy she was hired as the first professor.

Lunar Eclipse

Astronomy is still fascinating for me. I watched the full lunar eclipse on Monday night, even though it was so cold I could only look for a minute before retreating into the warm house.

I ventured out five times to watch the progress. The moon turned reddish, not completely dark, because the sun’s light was passing through the earth’s atmosphere.

Did you watch?

And have you ever been to the Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket, which still hires young women as summer research assistants?