A heart touching story by Ugandan mother

My name is Harriet Namayengo, I’m 40 years old and I come from Lugazi, Uganda.

I’m a married lady but with no children.  I've written this letter to fans of this page to share with you my pain that I’ve always lived with. It’s pain of childlessness that was inflicted upon me by my heartless co-wife. It all happened 12 years ago. I had just completed my Nursing course and I was working in one of the missionary hospitals in Uganda.

While still at school, I fell in love with James, a medical officer in Eastern Uganda. James was such a nice man that he always visited me at school and showered me with so many presents. This honestly convinced me that he was single as he had told me. While in my last year at the Nursing school, I got pregnant and so James arranged for our wedding, I had already been assured a job at the hospital, he decided to put me in his house in Kampala.

The shock of my life however came shortly after I gave birth to my baby gal. It was then that James disclosed to me that he was so excited coz I had finally given him a baby gal since he had 5 sons. I was surprised and when I told him to repeat what he had said; he apologized and said it was a mistake. I could see it in his eyes that he was hiding something from me so I probed him further. This is when he told me that he was actually married and had a wife with 5 sons. I was disappointed but confused since I loved James so much.

It's amazing what a lover's money can do to a man's social status!

~Vanguard, Sunday, June 12, 2016

THE scene was set for seduction. The dining table almost creeked with artistically crafted food dishes all wafting appetizing aroma. The plates were patterned Wedgewood and the spoons pure stainless steel with gold tips. A bottle of wine sat in a bucket at a corner of the table, and Jola, the hostess, was a sight to behold. She had on a negligee without bothering with a house-coat, and her two breasts stood up defiantly.

Even in her mid-30s, her boobs belied the fact that she'd had two children. "My late husband never encouraged me to breast-feed," she explained, "he said my breasts were solely for him and since infants have alternatives, I should feed my kids on the best brand of baby milk. Money was no problem afterall … " In a corner of her tastefully furnished living-room sat Frank. He too was in his 30s; a single father. Jola became widowed a few years ago.

A part from the money her husband left for her, she is a woman of substance in her own right and of almost impeccable pedigree. Frank, on the other hand, is a personnel manager of a small textile firm. They both met at a mutual friend's party and Jola made a play for Frank - otherwise, he wouldn't have dared propositioning her. It was Jola who invited him to dinner – and now here he was. I was obviously a ~ spare tyre, but curious as hell!

Frank's eyes first darted to the exquisite bikini pants that were outlined, sexily by the negligee; then to Jola's erect breasts and his eyes grew rounder and rounder. The food items that were served were delicious but you could see Jola was eager to get rid of me, I took a few things to the kitchen and she came after me. She urged me to take home as much food in packs as I wanted and leave her alone with Frank. As 1 obliged, she slipped a bottle of chilled wine in the carrier bag and told me to enjoy it at home - I got the message. I was a bit baffled by all the seduction scene and her not seeing things through in my presence! Some few months later, I was invited to a birthday party at Jola's. That party was for Frank who has now moved in with her. I couldn't believe the transformation that came over Frank.

Teenage children who bring out the worst in you!

Written by Bunmi Sofola
~Vanguard, Nigeria. Sunday, May 22, 2016

Joyce is a childhood friend I see often. When I called on her a few months back she looked visibly flustered. I was at a loose end and and had gone to see her for our usual natter. "Am I glad to see you," she said, ushering me into a chair in the kitchen where she was making up different mouth-watering dishes. I certainly had called at a good time. I patted myself on the back, as I tucked in with relish. "Henrietta is back," she informed as we ate. I looked blank. "You haven't forgotten all about her have you? Mercy's second daughter!" The penny finally dropped.

Mercy is Joyce's first cousin. She's always been close to Mercy's mother, Louisa, who is her big aunty. A woman-of-the-world, Louisa is the proud mother of three children from three different fathers. Nothing unusual these days where couples exchange partners like goods from a super-market, the snag is that the first and last 'husbands' were rich while Henrietta's father couldn't be described as a silver-spoon kid.

Henrietta knew she wasn't the apple of her mother's eyes and she behaved accordingly. "Her nasty father is fetish and must have used juju on my daughter," Louisa had said any time she had the opportunity. "Why else would Mercy give in to a rough-neck like that" Look at Henrietta's two siblings. Mercy's first daughter, Tina, the daughter of a renowned structural engineer, is a proper lady and her father sent her to the best public school as soon as she finished secondary school here. She's a real lady, thanks to her dad's impeccable pedigree. Pity his snooty self-centred wife refused to even think of him taking on Mercy as a second wife … When Mercy met Henrietta's father, Joyce wasn't exactly shouting for joy. The only advantage is that he agreed to marry her and be a step-dad to Tina," Joyce had told me. "But Tina's dad told him he should forget it – Tina had a dad who was proud of her. Anyway, they got married.He was a divorcee with two children and lived in the seedy part of the city. Still, Mercy, who was then a top personnel manager in a huge firm agreed to come down to his level because of love. In no time at all, the beast showed his claws and by the time Henrietta was only six, it was obvious they hated each other. It was inevitable that the marriage crashed and Mercy relocated abroad, leaving Henrietta in her mum's care.

"Louisa couldn't hide her distaste for the poor girl. Any time she put a foot wrong, she shrieked at her. 'The horse behind always takes a running cue from the one in front', she used to say. 'If you are blind to see how fast the front horse is running, shouldn't you look at the horse behind you in case it catches up with you?' This rear horse is Mercy's third child, a longed for son she had for another colleague just before she left for England.

When a 'husband-snatcher'got her comeuppance

Written by Bunmi Sofola
~Vanguard, Nigeria. Sunday, May 22, 2016

CHANCES of remarrying after a divorce might be slim; but some women are so lucky they even have third chances! A few weeks ago, Debbie, a once distraught wife, who has now got the hang of living with the intricacies of her husband's shenanigans came to the house looking radiant. "Would you come to a wedding party with me tomorrow?" she asked. Wedding?

As eagerly as families look forward to their offsprings getting married, the long-drawn ceremonies usually leave me climbing the walls. Engagement ceremonies I give a miss if I could get away with it. With the weddings proper, I usually ask the driver to be at the ready to get away anytime I get bored. Debbie knows of my aversion to weddings and assured me this one would be different.

"The couple had already got married abroad; they only came home for the wedding party," said Debbie. "Actually, the groom is Uncle Tony's wife's son." The plot thickens, I muttered. Debbie's Uncle Tony had been abroad for years and was married with four children, when his wife got tired of his philandering ways and kicked him out. By the time his divorce went through and the courts slapped a generous maintenance allowance on wife to be paid each month for the kids' upkeep, Uncle Tony came to Nigeria on holidays and never went back. He was determined his wife and kids wouldn't take him to the cleaners without a fight.

Instead, he used the nest-egg he'd brought back with him to complete a bungalow his ex-wife had no inkling he was building. His friends rallied round him by helping him set up a blockmaking business, and he was comfortable enough to take a new wife.The new wife, Bisi, was also married with five children before the husband exchanged her for a new model. They were both lucky to find each other, and Bisi relished her second-chance marriage.

The return of the 'Prodigal Husband!

From Femi Ajasa   Sunday, March 13, 2016

~Vanguard, Nigeria - By Candida

IT was a busy time at the office and I'd left specific instructions with my secretary not to be disturbed – except she thought it was absolutely necessary. So, when she peeked tentatively into my office and 1 scowled in disapproval, she quickly mouthed that Ini's husband was at the reception area.

Ini, my very good friend's husband? What the heck did he want? After frequent visits, to his home-town, the result of his clandestine visits had finally surfaced some few months ago. And who should let the cat out of the bag but some of his "respected" relatives who thought it was about time Ini knew her children had a half-brother. Without any warning of the impending bombshell, Ini was furious after the 'meeting'. But her in-laws pompously warned her to get a grip on herself – her husband wouldn't be the first man to stray from the straight and narrow. What was more, the son had a right to his father's home – the home that was more Ini's than her husband's.

For the next few weeks, Ini made life unbearable for Charles, her husband, that he virtually relocated to his town to savour the joys of new fatherhood. The last time I saw him, he was unrepentant. He said I should have a word with my friend to be realistic. That a child was involved here and if he didn't have any feelings for its mother, he wouldn't sleep with her. That he'd heard Ini refer to her mistress as a village illiterate. For my information, he went on with his lecture, the girl was not an illiterate but a successful trader and a princess. Over the years, I've learnt the wisdom of a still tongue, so I said nothing. Not even to my friend when I next saw her. Now he was in my office. To inform me he was finally leaving my friend to live with Cinderalla?

I found him sitting forlornly at the reception, looking like a stranger. He'd aged too. He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw me and I ushered him to my office. "I know I've no right to pounce on you without an appointment", he said "God knows I wasn't even expecting you to see me. But you've got to speak to Ini. Please you're one of the few people she'd listen to. Please beg her to take me back. I want to come home and I need this second chance badly.

"I know I'd been so stupid. Ini has always turned a blind eye on my affairs. Springing this child on her was a mistake. I was misled by those nossy village people. I'll never embarrass her like this again … "

Knowing when Enough is Enough

Written by Edith Ohaja

~Vanguard, Nigeria. February 29, 2016

Kukah's wife, Ojoma, has done it again! She just keeps pushing till he loses his patience and blows a fuse. She's always going on about his English - how a graduate should not speak the way he does, how a teacher should be a model to the students, blah, blah, blah. Kukah feels the attacks are unjustified. He admits his English is less than perfect, but he often reminds her, "I am a Chemistry teacher for crying out loud and I know a bunch of guys with higher degrees who speak more atrocious English than I do." He learned the term, "atrocious English", from her on one of the occasions she was berating him.

-

It's not like Kukah dozed through his English classes as a student. It's just that the teachers weren't much better than the pupils and it was felt on both sides that what matters most is to be understood. But he admired those who spoke well, which is why he went after his wife. He did ask her to teach him at some point but after she tried explaining about mood in grammar - indicative, subjunctive and so on - he gave up. The whole thing was too confusing.

-

"English is more technical and more illogical than any subject I know: the rules just keep changing, what applies in one case doesn't necessarily apply in all similar cases. Thank God, I scraped through the subject at O'Levels," he had declared then.

-

But his wife was not prepared to write him off as a lost cause. She was not bothered about the garble others spoke, but she was determined to refine her husband's usage of the English language. Which would have been fine and good, except she didn't know the time and place for it.

-

So this morning when her husband, the vice principal, was chatting with colleagues in the staffroom, she tut tutted his observation that Class 5 "beat" Class 6 every year in inter-house football. Ignoring the glare he gave her, she explained that class is a singular noun and thus should go with the singular verb, "beats" and followed that up with a lecture on how important concord is in English. However, Kukah cut her off midway, basically telling her that she and the English should take their unreasonable language with its erratic rules and shove it up you know where.

-

Kukah knew it was a bad idea to teach in the same school with his wife but jobs are hard to find, so he used his influence to secure a place for her. But he was wondering with their constant run-ins on English if that move was really worth the cost. When he got to his office, he began to rearrange the stuff on his table. That was his calm-down mechanism. If he was still boiling by the time he finished with the table, he would work on the entire room.

-

As he was packing books and papers, Mrs. Bulama, a fellow teacher, poked her head through the door. She held his gaze with a sympathetic and indulgent smile and initiated a rather strange conversation. First, she offered to help him reorganize his desk but he told her the desk was fine, that he was just ....

-

"I know how you feel. I am so sorry for that episode out there."

-

When you realise that long-distance relationship isn't going to work!

Written by Bunmi Sofola

~Vanguard, Nigeria: Tony Chinonso

When Joanne left the comfort of her parents' home to study pharmacy at the university, she wasn't in the least apprehensive. A bubbly girl just turning 20, she looked forward to making friends. Inside a few months, she'd not only made friends, she found Alfred, a boyfriend she fell madly in love with! "He lived off campus," explained Joanne,' and I moved in with him in my second year. The rest of my stay at Ibadan just flew by, and in no time at all, I had a degree under my belt ready to go back to Lagos for another stage of my life.

"Alfred, who was studying architecture carried on studying, and it was a massive shock to go from living together to hardly seeing each other. Nevertheless, we decided to give the now long-distance romance a go. We rang each other most days, but it wasn't the same. Travelling to see each other every other weekend was stressful. The car I had wasn't top-notch and the roads were a nightmare.

Apart from the highly unpredictable traffic, pot­holes often ruined my car and I had to rely a few times on public transport. We were often under pressure to make the little time we were together brilliant, but it was such an effort. I began to realise the relationship might not work long-term. I was never going to go back to Ibadan, and I couldn't expect Alfred to move to Lagos.

"In the end, I had to make the awful decision to say goodbye but I had no choice, I told him how I felt one weekend just after Christmas, after I'd spent hours on the Ibadan-Lagos expressway trying to get to his digs. It was very late when I eventually made it and I was really grumpy. He was very upset but I think he also realised it wasn't working. I drove away from his place the next morning in tears and felt really sick. I couldn't bear the thought of never speaking to him again.

"We did carry on talking for a while, but about a year later, I got a boyfriend I was serious with and felt I had to be honest with him. We've managed to stay friends and he will always be a part of my life. I was genuinely happy for him when he told me about his new girlfriend when he eventually found one and how happy he is now. He'll definitely be one of the first people I'll invite if I ever get married, and I hope I get an invite if he does too…"

Alfred was really sorry distance had to permanently separate him from his first love. "From the moment I met Joanne, I found her very easy to get along with," he said. "We got on so well, I thought it was the real thing and that our relationship would last forever. I always knew she would eventually move back to Lagos when her course finished and I supported her decision to go back. I didn't realise a long-distance relationship would be that hard.

4 amazing folktales told by the Igbos

Written by Ndem Nkem

~Vanguard, Nigeria: Ndem Nkem is travel/tech writer @Jovago. 

The eastern part of Nigeria largely occupied by the Ibo tribe, is rich in culture, customs and traditions and one of the tenets that has survived the rage of civilization and modernization is the art of storytelling. Interesting and educative folktales which have been passed down from generations to generations from the 'ancestors' are told to children in the bid to preserve the norms and culture of the tribe, imbibe good morals and instill the spirit of communal love amongst members of their society.

These Igbo folktales which paints colourful pictures of spiritual life and traditional aspirations are regarded as fictitious, incredible, mythical and totally removed from real life situations. However, with regards to their functionality, these folktales exhibit elements of truth that translate into realism.

Jovago.com, Africa's No.1 online hotel booking site offers 4 common traditional folktales you should seek to hear while visiting eastern Nigeria.

Obaledo

Usually accompanied with a song, this folktale tells of a young pretty girl who meets a great misfortune due to her defiance and decision to disobey her parents.

Set in a time when demons and spirits roamed around villages, the girl called "obaledo" was instructed by her parent before embarking on their trip, to remain within the confines of their home and eat just yam and snail when hungry. The parents asked that she roast the yam first before the snail, as the snail would eventually quench the fire. Unfortunately, the girl, being greedy and having a strong lust for meat, roasted the snail first and fire went off. Still hungry, she set out of her home, in disobedience to her parents, to get a matchstick from neighbors. On her way, she encounters a demon that steals her beauty and leaves her with his own ugliness.

The King's Drum

This story tells about a greedy tortoise who ends up trapping himself in his own greed. The tortoise, envious of a rich king who had a drum that would produce food and great wealth each time it was beaten, set a trap for the king's wife, and when she fell for it, he demanded the drum as his only compensation.

VANITY OF LIFE

From Ajala Kayode - Nigeria.

One Sunday morning, a wealthy man sat in his balcony enjoying the sunshine and his coffee when a little ant caught his eye; going from one side to the other side of the balcony, carrying a big leaf several times more than its size.

The man watched it for more than an hour. He saw that the ant faced many impediments during its journey, paused, took a diversion and then continued towards its destination.

At one point the tiny creature came across a crack in the floor. It paused for a little while, analyzed and then laid the huge leaf over the crack, walked over the leaf, picked the leaf on the other side then continued its journey.

The man was captivated by the cleverness of the ant, one of God’s tiniest creatures.

The incident left the man in awe and forced him to contemplate over the miracle of Creation. It showed the greatness of the Creator. Before his very eyes was this tiny creature of God, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to analyze, contemplate, reason, explore, discover and overcome.

Along with all these capabilities, the man also noticed that this tiny creature shared some human shortcomings.

The man saw about an hour later that the creature had reached its destination – a tiny hole in the floor which was entrance to its underground dwelling.

At this point the ant’s shortcoming that it shared with man was revealed.

How could the ant carry the large leaf it carefully managed to its destination into the tiny hole? It simply couldn’t!

Would you allow your daughter marry the son of an ex who jilted you?

By Juliet Ebirim - Vanguard, Nigeria.

Anozie and Ifeoma were very much in love. It was love at first sight and they've been together for four years. Ifeoma went on a two-months vacation and when she returned, she got the shock of her life, – the love of her life had replaced her with another woman. She was devastated as she didn't see it coming. Somehow, she went past it and had a daughter for another man. She is a grown woman today and she recently brought her fiance to meet her mother. The introduction date was set and guess who walked in as the future father-in-law? If you were Ifeoma, would you allow your daughter marry Anozie's son? These are the responses of some of our celebrities:

As a mother, it will be a hard decision to make - Yvonne Enakena, Actress

First of all, I will try to talk her out of it, but if she insists, I'll give her my blessings. Before that, I'll carry out an investigation on him to know the kind of person he is, if he deserves and genuinely loves my daughter. Truth is, people lead different lives. One person's character shouldn't affect another person negatively even if they are blood relatives. As a mother, it will be a hard decision to make. I will put up a fight to stop them, but if she insists that they want to be together, I'll let them be.

The Story Of Wife Whose Husband Cheated On

Written by By Anna Seaman - TheGuardian, Nigeria. 

WHILE I have been incredibly hurt by Doug’s repeated infidelities, the real twist of the knife has to be how naive I’d been for so many years. The bitter irony, of course, is that I am a relationship counselor, giving couples advice on how to avoid affairs.

Yet all the time, infidelity was going on right under my nose – and I never spotted it. When I met Doug in 1980 at a dinner with friends in Battersea, London, it wasn’t lust at first sight.
But he was a pleasant, chatty guy and just a year younger than me. I’d been married once before, to a man 14 years older, but we’d divorced after five years. When I started seeing Doug, I was really hopeful that we might have a future together. He seemed very sincere.

Two years later, in 1982, I was thrilled when we were married in South-West London.
Now, when I think that within six months he was cheating on me with an ex-girlfriend, I just want to scream. How could he have betrayed me so callously?

I guess I was taken in for so long because Doug never struck me as a Jack-the-Lad type. He is not a flirt and he doesn’t come out with cheesy chat-up lines. In short, he does not fit the description of men I have known to stray. It just goes to show that there is no type, and you never can tell.

To all appearances, Doug and I had an ideal partnership. He was a doting father figure to Nicky, now 31, my daughter from my previous marriage, and four years after we wed, I gave birth to Rob, then Mike a few years later.

King Adangba's many wives

A LONG, very long time ago, there lived a king called Adangba. He was very rich, very powerful and feared. He was a warrior who won all the wars he fought. He had many slaves and a big compound where his blacksmiths worked day and night to fashion out new weapons and repair old ones. He had many vassal towns that paid him taxes regularly. In spite of his wealth and power, Adangba was a kind and considerate man. He treated his people with fairness and was generous to his chiefs. Ordinarily, he should be a happy man but he was not for he had no son to inherit his throne.

Adamgba had a palace full of beautiful women, wives in dozens who gave him even more beautiful daughters. But was the use of beautiful daughters to a king who needed an heir? But he kept on trying because some bad people were saying some bad things about him. Some said he was not really a man otherwise he would have had a son. There were almost loud rumours that Adamgba had made a pact with the gods that he would not have sons as long as the gods gave him victory in every battle. Most of these stories got back to the king and kept him up at night. He would pace up and down his chambers for hours in pain and confusion. He offered sacrifices in all the shrines to all the gods but each time a queen fell into labour, she brought forth yet another girl.

Until one year, one evening, after the new yam festival, one of the neighbouring kings brought his daughter as a gift for the king. The king was reluctant for more than a reason. He had tried and tried and failed and failed. What was the guarantee that Ena, this new wife was going to give him a son, and not more daughters? He was already a minority in a palace full of females! And then this new wife not even beautiful. In fact, she was ugly.

The other wives sneered and sniggered. What was Ena going to do that they had not done? They even told her to her face that the best she would ever achieve was to produce the ugliest princess in the palace because since she was ugly, all her seeds would be ugly. But to the shock and dismay of all, including Ena herself, nine months after she paid King Adamgba her first night in the royal chambers, she gave birth to a set of twin boys, two beautiful boys.

It was a new day in the kingdom and royal household. The king was beside himself with joy. 

The Colours of Love (short story)

A story by 'Thoughts from Botswana by Lauri Kubuitsile' - Botswana.

He arrived with the spicy purple of the sunset, at the end of a long, hot, dusty day. They sat on the cool veranda and watched him walk up the side of the road into town.             

 “Where’s he from?”  Asked Mma Boago the owner of Mable’s Takeaway, a takeaway that had never known a woman by the name of Mable.

 “Don’t know. What’s that he’s carrying?” Johnny-Boy, Mma Boago’s perpetual customer and occasional bed-mate, asked, squinting his eyes to get a better look.             

 “Looks like a guitar. Dirty long dreadlocks and a guitar. He’s not bringing anything we need around here, that’s for damn sure.” Mma Boago turned and went back inside; she had magwinya in the deep fryer and couldn’t waste time keeping track of unwanted strangers.            

Warona was dragging her daughter, Kelapile, to the clinic when she spotted him. She wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight and fairy tales with happy endings, having witnessed Kelapile’s father’s profession of undying love just before he slipped into bed with the neighbour. It was more than being heart sore: Warona’s heart had been pulled out, knocked around for twelve rounds, then placed back into her chest to perform only the bare minimum required to keep her moving. Some days she wished it would give up on that, too. 

“Hurry! They’ll fire me if I’m not back in an hour.”  Kelapile’s legs could only go so fast, decided by their three-year-old length. Warona bent down and pulled the child up onto her back. When she looked up again, there he was.             

 “Do you know where I can find the guest house?”    

         

Practical Warona didn’t mention to anyone the way that her eyes went a bit funny the first time she saw him.  She didn’t mention the golden light that surrounded this odd stranger. It made her feel warm, and a barely held memory flooded over her, a remembered feeling, one that she had flung away deep into the folds and creases of the grey matter of her brain to be forgotten forever. It was joy; she felt a warm, orange joy.

“Are you okay?” he asked. His full lips and kind dark eyes twisted with concern.             

 “I’m fine, thanks. The guest house? Come with me, I’ll show you. It’s near the clinic where I’m going.”        

Twenty years on: Three love stories from Rwanda

...culled from Haaretz - Rwanda

In April 1994, the Rwandan genocide left an estimated 800,000 dead, most of them ethnic Tutsis. Haaretz hears the remarkable stories of three couples who have reconciled themselves with past horrors and found love and some form of redemption.

Twenty years ago, in the small, landlocked, east-central African country of Rwanda, members of the Hutu ethnic group turned on their neighbors, friends and family of the ethnic Tutsi group and began slaughtering them. Starting in early April of 1994, and during the course of the next 100 rainy days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and their moderate Hutu sympathizers were murdered.

But these are not stories recounting that genocide. These are love stories – tales of men and women, like men and women the world over, who find someone with whom to share a first kiss. These are couples with dreams and disappointments, good moments and bad.

That said, these couples, forced to live out their relationships in a time of unimaginable horror, do end up telling a story about the genocide after all. It's a story we don't often hear – one of resilience and redemption. One about picking up the pieces, forgetting, if only a little, and forgiving themselves and each other, as much as might be possible, and moving on.  

1. AGUTSINE AND CHRISTINE

Agutsine Nkurikiyinka was a broken man when he was released from jail. His wife had died of malaria. His two daughters, after a decade apart from their father, barely knew him. He had lost his job and home, and been reduced, so he felt, to nothing less than a perpetrator of genocide.

As many as two million people, practically all from the Hutu ethnic group, are believed to have participated in one way or another in the genocide that occurred in Rwanda in the rainy spring season of 1994, leaving 800,000 of their neighbors, friends and family – the vast majority of them Tutsi – dead.

Just before the genocide began, Agutsine – a mild-mannered son of Hutu farmers in Kimironko – had found a new job he was excited about: Working for the agriculture ministry, as a guard on a forest conservation project. On April 7, 1994, the day after President Juvénal Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down on its descent into the capital, Kigali, he set out to erect a roadblock.

A woman on the run

A thin woman with cropped hair, Christine Bamurange grew up working in her parents’ beer and soft drinks kiosk. The last of eight children, she was the one pulled from school when her parents’ business started doing badly, so she never learned how to read or write. She was married off young – to her neighbor Sylvester, a fellow Tutsi, who, after producing three children with her, left for the Ugandan border to fight with the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

'Never Knew Such Men Existed Till I Had A Personal Experience With My Husband'

~The Guardian

I was 21 years of age when I gained admission into the university in the Western region of Nigeria. Before then was when I met this man I am married to now. He has, if not all, the best quality any good man would have: God- fearing, intelligent, handsome to mention but a few. Even with the little he had he made sure he shared them with me. After he graduated and served, he got a job and further trained me in the university. He proposed to me in my second year and we finally got married in my final year in school.

The devil played his part during this period. There was this guy I was seeing. At first, I only took him as a friend. Along the line, he said he wouldn't mind being a fling and the result was that I got pregnant for this guy even though I just got married. I was so confused that I didn't know what to do, and I couldn't tell anybody, even my friend, because I could not just trust anybody. And terminating it would not be an option. I had to tell my husband I was pregnant for him even though I knew I was committing a very big sin.

After escaping Boko Haram, Chibok girls adjust to new life in America

Culled from Cosmopolitan

After escaping Boko Haram, Chibok girls adjust to new life in America

Grace slept through the sounds of gunfire in the night. Exhausted from final exams at her boarding school in Nigeria, she awoke when her roommate Mary prodded her, "Get up!"

Suddenly, the girls saw a gang of men spreading across the school grounds. "They said they were soldiers. They said they were there to protect us," Grace says. "They told us all to stay together."

Terrified, the girls did as they were told. The men made their way to the pantry, grabbing all the food. Then they headed for the administrative office. On the way, they began shouting, "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" It means "God is great" in Arabic. They lit the office on fire.

"We realized they were impostors," Grace says. "They were not there to help us." But it was too late to run. The girls were forced into trucks at gunpoint. Grace sat with Mary as their vehicle roared off into the dawn. As the school burned in their wake, lighting the sky, Grace thought: "These men are going to kill us."

It's so easy to fall for your best friend's ex!

Written by Candida - Nigeria

When Amarachi's childhood friend, Theresa continued to regale her with the escapades of Chuka, her boyfriend of five years, her instant reaction was for Theresa to dump him. "As far as I knew them, it was the logical solution", Amarachi said. "But would Theresa listen? No! `I love him', she wailed whenever Chuka behaved badly. Once, he'd gone for a friend's wedding in another state and didn't come back until a week later! Then worst of all, he'd forgotten her birthday.

"But I was always there for my friend, Kleenex at the ready, through every crisis. `Why don't you bin the loser?' I always urged her. `He's not good enough for you'. It might be a bit harsh but if my 28 years had thought me anything, it was that men just weren't worth the tissue. Practically every man I'd dated had either cheated on me or dumped me.

My last boyfriend had told me his company had transferred him to a neighbouring country only for me to see him a month later at the cold storage of a supermarket with anew girl in tow! Since then, I'd washed my hands off men.

"That was close to a year without sex - and it was a killer. But my piece of mind was more than a consolation. It wasn't long that Theresa called, crying it was over between her and Chuka the swine. I rushed over to her place and we called him every name we could over a bottle of wine. When I later ran into him at a party and he walked over to where I was, a sickly smile on his face, I told him to get lost. He looked embarrassed. `There are two sides to every story', he said.

Ethiopian Folktales

THE FOOLISH HUSBAND AND THE CLEVER WIFE 

Narrated by Ayelew Haile 

Opening phrase

Tocho tocho tanoret
Andreshoro kefela
Gahse butuna kela
Teret teret.
(Let us laugh.
Let the new garment suit you.)

Imahoy Zewditu Wudineh

Once there lived a husband and wife in a certain village. The man was very foolish and the woman was clever (which is very usual in our society!). So every week, she would go to the market to buy everything they needed for the home, while the husband stayed at home looking after the children, the domestic animals and the garden.

One day she met a young, handsome man. They became lovers and met every week. She was very much in love with him and she wanted to meet him all the time and felt very passionate. She wanted to stay long with him. She made plans every day as to how she could meet him often.

One day she said to him, “I’m not happy with this, I miss you because I see you only once a week. I’m not satisfied. Why can’t we spend a night together?”

He says, “No, this is impossible. Of course I feel passionate about you too, but you are married and so we can’t do it.”

She said, “I can make a plan for that. You will shave off your beard, wear a woman’s dress and put a veil on your head and I will tell him I’ve met my sister whom I haven’t seen for twenty years. Then I will introduce you to my husband. You will sleep in the other room and I will tell him that I am going to sleep with my sister because I haven’t seen her for so long.”

Her lover agreed and he went with her, wearing a skirt and everything was accomplished as she had planned.

So they went home and she said to her husband, “Here is my sister who I haven’t seen since before I married you twenty years ago, and God knows how lucky it is I met her in the market so suddenly. So He is to be praised. And I brought her here to introduce her to you.”

So they kissed each other. After a while she told him that her sister was so shy she would stay in the other room until she became more familiar with the family.

The husband had bought a good sheep.

The woman said, “There is no one I love more than my sister, so let us slaughter it (in the culture it is very important for a woman to feed her lover)."

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE THINKING

Written by Funmi Ajumobi - Vanguard, Nigeria.

Some time ago, there was a trader named Sripad. He amassed a huge wealth through hard work. He had everything in his house. One day, he set out on business journey. When he was passing through a forest, he felt tired and wanted to take rest for some time. He sat under a tree to relax.

While relaxing, he felt thirsty and desired for a glass of water. He said, ‘How I wish I had some water with which I could quench my thirst right now!’ There was a miracle. No sooner did he wish for water than a pitcher appeared before him. He quenched his thirst and felt relieved.

After some time, he felt hungry and wished for food. He said to himself, ‘If a plate of tasty food be available to me now, I would be really lucky.’ As soon as he thought of it, there appeared a plate of tasty food before him. He ate to his satisfaction. Too much of food made him drowsy and he murmured, ‘How can I sleep on this rough surface?

Why shouldn’t there be a soft bed for me?’ As he uttered these words, a colourful and comfortable bed of velvet appeared before him immediately. Sripad slept on the bed. He felt as if he was in heaven as all his desires were being fulfilled immediately. He was quite unaware that he was sleeping under a tree which could fulfil any desire.

It was not an ordinary tree but a tree thought to have powers to fulfil any desire. Sripad enjoyed a good sleep on the velvet bed. After he awoke, he began to think, ‘I am all alone in the forest which is full of wild animals like lions, tigers and wolves who may come at any moment and can kill me. I would not be able to protect myself.’

As he thought so, a ferocious tiger appeared there and attacked Sripad. Poor Sripad was so scared that he could not even run. Thus, he was killed because of his negative thinking. LESSON: It is said that a man is always led by his thought. If you think positive, it will lead to positive results. If it is negative thoughts, you will get negative result too. So, be positive in your thinking that you are a success and you will.

Help! My mother is denying me!

Written by Yetunde Arebi - Vanguard, Nigeria.

I have no parents. I mean, I do not know my father or mother. I was not adopted by anyone so, sometimes, I feel like I just dropped from heaven. I always feel lost and alone, even though I am now married and my husband tries to console me and makes me feel wanted all the time.

As I child, it took a while for me to know that I had no father like the other children. I lived with my mother with a few other people in the house. She was a rich business woman and it took a while for me to realise that the other girls who were older than me were not her children.This was because of the frequency with which these people came and left our house. They all came to work for her or learn to trade, so they always left after a while.

A few people called my mother by my name, Mama Nkem, but most of the people, especially family members called her by other names. I learnt that my mother had four other children who were much older than me and lived abroad.They have all returned to Nigeria now.

My mother used to travel very often too. Most times, she went for her businesses and also to see my brothers and sisters. They too used to come home once a while but we were never close. it was as if they resented me for a reason which was not clear to me at the time. I used to think it was because of the wide age difference between us. My mother too never related well with me. It obvious that I was a problem to her and she never liked me. She did not treat me differently from the other people that worked with her. She would rain abuses and curses on everyone and I was not spared. Her favourite abuse for me was eyen anana ete (bastards) and that I will never do well in life and would die in the forest. And she would beat me for every little thing.

I did not like her and sometimes wondered if truly she was my mother. However, over time, I began to discover things that gave me great concern. I would wonder why I had a different name from my other siblings and why they too also have different names. For instance, the first two children bear the same name while the third and fourth have different names.

When you add my own name, it meant that my mother had children by four different men.

This added to my resentment of her person and would always wonder why she would continue to blame me for her own mistakes.However, I eventually discovered that my name was actually my mother’s maiden name. This meant that I did not have a father and it bothered me to no end, especially since she always called me a bastards and treated me like one of her helps. I think it was at this point that I started thinking about my identity and who my father was. But I did not have the courage to ask my mother for fear of what her reaction would be.