Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001) ISSN: 1530-5686 "may the bullet not find me": Writing Memories, Writing Identities

Nkiru Nzegwu

This writing is about remembrances, about the elliptical cycle of remembering, of re/membering facets, and of gathering together experiences of former lives. The weaving process of remembering unravels and re-fashions an identity while the act of remembering re-members the splits and tears in the fabric of consciousness. Remembering unravels the thread of memory from one patch of the identity fabric and resuses it in a different area to form new patterns and designs in the new location. Out of old fabrics, new patterns and identities are created. I remember myself remembering; I remember my restored self each time. The process of remembering engages earlier conflicts and dilemmas, resolves them, or heals the person by skillfully hiding traumatic experiences away until one is strong enough to confront them. In the interim, rough and grainy patches of patterns on immaturely woven identity-cloth are smoothed out. This time, the refashioning of my identity involved visiting grainy patches of war experiences I had hidden way. It became a process for fusing together two different personality traits—the creative and the critical (the Uwechia and the Nzegwu)—which the binary Western intellectual framework underpinning the structures of academia had rent apart into two opposing voices. This memory-writing reconciles and repairs the split as a path toward self-recovery and understanding what it means to “know thyself.”

I

Did you hear that Chris Okigbo is dead? You know, the poet?

Eewoo! Him too! Everyone is gone. Where did he die?

At Opi Junction. They said it was the last stand!

What happened?

Actually nobody saw him die, but they said he faced it boldly. They said he wouldn’t move from the machine gun even when everyone was “falling back.”

BBC! How do you know?

Oh you don’t believe me!

I didn’t say that, broadcaster. I just asked how you know.

Well I was there. I was there when Ifeajuna was telling my cousins. You know, he visits them whenever he is passing through. He said, he was told that Chris wouldn’t move. Hm, Chris, na mmuo ibe ya (in his spirit identity), defiantly clung on to his machine gun and refused to leave. Can you imagine that, foolhardedly taunting death like that?

He’s always been crazy!

He has to be mad!

Stark raving mad!

Yes mad!

Pity he’s dead, though. I could have checked him out. There’s something fascinating about anyone who would do that.

You mean, dumb!

I remember.
I remember those days
those dark fearful days
when the morrow seemed like yesterday
and the past was the child to come.

Silence reigned supreme
cautious silence
deceptive silence
innocently clad
with arrows of death.

A cornered beast’s
wary silence,
trapped by the wall
it cannot escape,
steely mustering reserves of strength
for the last fierce struggle
in a dice-cast war.

Unpalatable silence
deadly still,
heavy as otangele ¹
disrupting the normal flow of blood.
Ominously still
chillingly calm
muscles taut in readiness
for the final spring.

-- “Eye of a Storm,” Uwechia, 11/74

Months earlier...

Report had reached my cousins of the death of their family friend at Opi junction. The bearer of the news Major Emma Ifeajuna had spoken of the frantic attempts to dissuade Okigbo from his course of action. They had tried to talk him out of the senselessness of his stand. “There are still many battles to fight in the future,” they pleaded. “We need all the men we can find.”

Nkiti kpom kpom (silence knock knock)
Sealed lips
deadened ears
stone walls of
silence.
Asi na onwu kolu igbu nwa nkita
oda’ anuzi isisi nsi.
(It is said that when death is about to kill the dog,
it prevents it from smelling the appetizing aroma of shit.)
“Bush meat!”
What’s that?
That’s why he didn’t mind dying in Nsukka.
“Bush meat?”
They say he loved “bush meat.”
Well, he’s become one now.

Oh you don’t get it. Listen, Nsukka male students and dons have this ritual. Whenever they get tired of their books, they head out into the villages to reconnect with reality, as they say. They really get down on all fours. They look for the uninhibited village-maidens whom they bring back to Nsukka for trysts. There was this day when this don was really going, flying high thinking he was scoring and giving this girl time of her life. After a few seconds in the second round, the girl instructed him barely concealing her irritation: “Place your feet on the wall and push; the drum that Chineke (God) created never breaks.”

I remember those nights
those dark fearful nights
when the dreaming began
the dream of shadows
of broken limbs
and broken lives
when the morrow moved to yesteryears
and the past was the child to come.

Life became spirit as the living passed through the doorway into spirit realm. Okigbo lives in spirit. His passage came from disobeying orders. Stubborn child. He cradled his machine gun and vowed to die to see mother Idoto. The last words they heard him shout over the exploding shells and crackling gunfire as they hastily beat a retreat were: “Upon this machine gun I’ll stay. I won’t move away from it.” Yes, the lone sentinel stood steadfast. But he died at his post.

In timeless eternity,
they lay
in slumberlike sleep,
stiffened by
the contact-shock from
the shadow of life
relentlessly sweeping across thresholds
relieving burdened souls
burdening recalcitrant souls.

-- “The Lull,” Uwechia, 7/3/73

gom...gom...gom

Before you mother Idoto
naked I stand
before your watery gate
a prodigal...

-- “Labyrinths,” Okigbo

At heavensgate stood I
in prayer
willing the winds
to carry forth my message
to realms unknown
where mortals thread not
I wait in hope...

-- “Heritage Transferred,” Uwechia

The heroism of the last stand haunted my imagination. It burned like bush fire; wildly it burned. I was on fire. I became fire. I am fire. How is death experienced? What happens when on “sees” death? How do you face it? How do you enter into death? How do you do it fearlessly?

No one will return to tell, the cavernous echo, replied. “Knowledge is in experiencing.”

I visualized the front: exploding mortars, whizzing bullets, crawling bodies, thumps of urgently retreating boots, bloodied bodies, crashing bodies, thuds of falling bodies, thrashing bodies, frantic orders, shouts, urgent orders, more shouts, and a lone watchman calmly guarding the passage way, intones:

Upon this machine gun here I’ll stay
I won’t move away from it
as coming danger threatens me
I’m here to save my motherland
...
Over my dead body
will the enemy enter my motherland
upon this machine gun here I’ll die
no matter what type of death.

-- “The Last Stand,” Uwechia, 5/68

I wondered what I would have done in similar circumstances. Would I have stayed on? Why should I have stayed on? I really wanted to believe I would. But why? To show I can repel all earthly lures. So what? So that the past may more swiftly be born and the future recede to yesterday!

The more I tried to believe, the more my imagination took wind and flew. Lost in the power of inner conviction, I journeyed into the spirit and wrote...and wrote...and wrote...:

While blood and mangled bodies lie
we leap and twirl our supple frame,
and the long weary trail
in the never ending race
hears the stout-hearted voice
dwell on morale lifting feats.

Bulging bellies on skeletal frames
large hungry eyes
with empty plates of food.
A table creaks under heavy load
of rarest delicacies for the chosen few.

Stolen glances, loving smiles
confetti like sprayed fivers² fall
herald the arrival of the bird of prey.
Flying wigs, floating veils
one abandoned bridal shoe...
but many abandoned human lives.

Laughter and smiles at the bundle of life
a joy and happiness to dry the tears.
in dim glow of light
we couch round the box
and listened intently to the voice of fate.

-- “War Panorama,” Uwechia, 5/72

...exhausted I slept.

In my dream
I prayed,
may the bullet not find me.
O Lord
Uray, Ojedi, Otumoye
Forces of Appeal
may the shrapnel not find me.

Those were dark
fearful dreams
those despondent dreams
where tunnels seemed endless
and the morrow was still yesterday.

May the bullet not find me
I prayed
with kolanut in hand
and nzu smeared around the eyes
I prayed:
Olisaebuluwa
The known unknowable
Being of Final Arbitration
I salute you
Obinamili
Olinri
Ani Onicha
Ojedi
Uray ukwu
I greet you
The day that is Eke
the day that is Oye
the day that is Afo
the day that is Nkwo
I greet you.
I pray
that if evil is before
I shall be behind
that if it is behind
I will be in front
that if it is in front
and behind
and the two sides
I shall catapult out of the danger
for my prayer is to hear
not to experience.
I shall hear
not experience
may the bullet not find me
I prayed.

War!!! Have you ever seen war? Do you know what it is?
Fiam!
a streak of lightening
the growl of thunder
a piercing scream
then a heart wrenching wail
Tears...
they fail to come
they hamper and hinder the nimble in flight
the fall of tears at the death of one
is a precious drop on a desert floor.
Fear!
a ghastly silence pervades the town
human-leaves³ as in a violent storm
bloody scene, mangled bodies
in mute acceptance of oppressive fate.

-- “Air Raid,” Uwechia, 3/2/73

I was in form three (grade nine) when the Biafran war started in 1967. My secondary school was in Owerri, sixty seven miles from my home in Onitsha. I was in boarding school, Owerri Girls’ Secondary School. They called us “Ogimgbo,” sometimes “Ogisco.” We sometimes called ourselves that, too. We called them “Hogosco,” not the Holy Ghost College students’ mouthful the unimaginative catholic priests had dreamt up. Hogosco was our brother school. Its students were our brothers. You know how it is: brothers, sisters, one large happy fraternizing family. But a lot more went on than was brotherly or sisterly. A lot of what happened resembled the stolen sensuous glances, fugitive touches, bodily rubs that we observed occurring between the reverend sisters and the reverend fathers in the sacristy.

Alu (abomination)!
Nso (sinfulness)!
We were holy!
The udala falls into sacred ground
who will shrine desecrate
to pick the fruit?
The fish vanishes from the river main
who will Nkisi defy
to subdue hunger?
Before our earthly church
and our watery altar
we faithfully stood in prayer.
With pertinent fingers
libations were poured,
to remove adversities
offerings were burnt,
my ancestors’ live

“Heresy! Heathens!”
croaked the white garbed ravens
feverishly clutching
their black bound book;
while
desperately struggling to retain
the handful of converts
steeped in tradition
they cannot cast off.

Beneath my feet, a solid rock
within my life, my faith
but rootless as the wind
that sweeps the earth bare
from ilo, the village square
your beliefs leave hollow
one, who without thought follows
your creed.

-- “My Ancestors,” Uwechia, 3/11/73

The white-child destroyed what it feared
to make us forget.
the white-child did not realize
that memories sing.
the white-child did not hear
the memories sing
and so my memories sang of:
the world as a river current
threading cultures
binding peoples.
The water-thread cuts a path
of unity
the white-child
cuts a path
of desolation:

may the white-child’s bullet not find me
I prayed
may the white-child’s bullet not find me.

II

At that time in Eastern Nigeria, it was the common practice for kids to be packed off to boarding schools many miles away from home; sometimes miles away from nowhere, at least that’s how we saw it. My family had always lived in Enugu: Constitution Road, Bishop Onyeabo Crescent, and the last road whose name is erased from memory. It was the place that father died. Though Enugu was where I’ve lived most of my life, I had always known I was not from Enugu. Enugu is and is not my home. There was no two ways about it. In my mind’s eye and consciousness, home was Onitsha. Enugu was the home of Ngwo people, not mine. Onitsha was where I can come into myself and be, it was how Ngwo people would perceive and relate me.

I knew with certitude what was my relationship to the place. I was a stranger. I saw it through stranger’s and resident’s eyes. Enugu is a scenic hilly resort, a nice place where father worked while we waited for him to retire. Except that he didn’t retire as we thought; he died. And so we had to go home to Onitsha in 1965, much sooner than we’d expected, much much sooner.

That was when some dreaming began.

I was fourteen in 1968 when I flew into Okigbo’s mind. After an intense agonizing labor I gave birth of my first poem. Exhausted, yet exhilarated, I knew I had broken through the invisible barrier. I knew that in this spirit-space I could fly, and soar; that I could sing, and dream. I knew then that the past would surely come, that it would be born. I knew that the spiral will coil from the enclosing circle. Jubilant and buoyant, I let my imagination soar and poured out my soul in words.

I saw the coil of ogbanje:
Again she comes
again like the galloping waves
that break on the shore
recede...
and then again she comes once more.

She drives with the fury
of wall-battering rams,
with a will that drives
wild horses free.
Round, round and round
in a circle she goes,
no trace of a beginning
no hope of an end.

Her birth was like a funeral knell,
we recognize her that heartless tormentor,
those missing toes and scar traversing the face
are all signs of your former visits
to our humble abode.

To you they are nothing;
nothing but a mocking triumph
of all our futile work.
Hope has killed hope and spirit destroyed,
by your ceaseless, selfish wandering.
You come by morn and go by night,
regardless of our pleas.
Stay, we implore you, stay
but once again you elude us with your smile.

Again she comes,
again like the galloping waves
that break on the shore
receed, ...

-- “Ogbanje,” Uwechia, 8-9/5/73

Dreaming was singing poems, writing poetry was daydreaming. Writing and dreaming was all I could safely do, and so I dreamed on. I wrote myself into my memory, and traced out the line of my identity:

Uray Ukwu
your height surpasses all
the strength girding
the loin of braves
cannot attain that
which carries your crown.
Flow mighty spirit
through all and in all
the ogwe that heedlessely dams the stream
prepares the path of a deluge...
Uray!
my hands lifts up in salute
before your gate;
I raise my ofo ⁴ to you
in praise
beseeching your blessings.
In the dark labyrinths of seasons
gone into the shadow of yesteryears;
desolate thou village
laid waste by war,
haunted by starving ghosts
whose ceremonies of dawn
not yet performed
continue their ceaseless wanderings
in search of peace
in search of rest;
while
you’ve stood firm
spreading your wings afar in watch,
without food
without rest
without grudge.

-- “Sacred Grove,” Uwechia, 15/11/73

Those days I dreamt. Those days I could dream, an I was allowed to dream. We were in Biafra and schools wered closed. Telephones no longer rang, the televisions wore blank faces, and the mail refused to move. The abnormal became real, and reality became unreal. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. All the boys had joined the Biafran Army. Girls, like myself, had to be protected from the war, and so we stayed home. It wasn’t quite clear to me why it was only pubescent girls that had to be protected. Why couldn’t I be like Mary, Rose, and Joy? What could war do to a girl like me? Mother-witch wouldn’t let me find out. So I found myself with lots of time on my hands. For company, I had pesky little brothers and sisters to task my patience. And so I dreamed:

Were I to choose
the tiniest nut in the spiky dome
of the fronded palm
I’d choose,
succulent with oil that had tasted
the sweetness of morning dew
and preserved its secrets,
I’d pluck
and lay beneath my head-rest
to impart its richness of life to me

Were I to choose
the secret of life
I’ll take
and lay within the palm
of hands
chapped and roughened
from taming
the terrain.

Were I to choose
I’ll fashion out a hill-like strength
and create a world
that stands as colossus;
that winds which blow
from north to south
and rays that spring
from east to west
may carry forth the tales
to centuries unborn;
that they who seek
that they may find
the footprints in the sands of time.

Yes,
were I to choose
I’ll take from destiny’s house
a seal
and leave the mark around.

-- “Were I to Choose,” Uwechia, 26/10/73

With the closure of schools, I lost contact with most of my friends. Like me, they too had returned to their respective homes and villages to be with their families. Since I had spent most of my childhood in Enugu, and the other remaining bit in a boarding school, I did not have many friends in Onitsha. True, I had a large extended family of uncles, aunts, numerous cousins and countless relatives, whom I had to get to know pretty quickly. Onitsha relatives get extremely cross when they are not instantly recognized. You are lucky, very lucky to get away with just a scolding.

With no homework to occupy my time, I gradually turned my attention to drawing. Drawing was a hobby that had always given me great joy. I sketched a lot. I had even won an art prize at the Festival of Arts in Enugu when I was six years? Seven years? Eight years? Oh, I can’t quite remember right now.

I was saying...

Working from photographs in Drum magazine (Africa’s foremost magazine, those days), I produced sketches of many of Nigeria’s political leaders. Looking back years later, it seems I was trying to find the reason for the country’s ills in the faces of those politicians. What other explanation could there be for what seems to me to be an obsessive interest in the faces of scoundrels. Scoundrels, whom I had been taught to believe were honorable men, and who had unleashed the hounds.

The hounds are after
the scent of my blood
red blood, same,
but Igbo blood.

Is there no mercy in the heart of humans
have sorrowful memories not carved a niche
in their soul
Why has ebele (pity)
removed its presence
from the feelings of my compeers?

Calumny has been heaped on us
as temper rides the crest of power.
My back’s interlaced with a maze of strips
raked and peeled by the strokes of the hide.
What harm is there to be born an Igbo?
What harm is there to speak the tongue?
innocent I am,
what is the charge?

Degradation in its truest form
by man to man
has been heaped on me.
But the flicker of life
is a persistent flame
suppression will not stifle a group.

-- “Lament of the Detainee,” Uwechia, 27/7/74

III

It was just as well that I lost all those sketches during one of our hasty departures from one of our various wartime places of refuge. It was just as well they were lost.

I still remember.
I remember those days
those dark fearful days
when the morrow seemed like yesterday
and the past was the child to come.
I prayed then
I prayed now
I prayed
that the bullet may not find me.

After the fall of Onitsha in March 1968 a few days after my birthday, my family, that is my mother, grandmother, two brother and two sisters, were moved to Asaba for safety. Asaba is just across the River Niger from Onitsha. At that time, Asaba seemed to offer better security than Onitsha which was still being bombarded by the recently dislodged Biafran troops. Major Yusuf, then Camp Commandant of 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army oversaw our move. Late Gen. Murtala Muhammed, who was then a Colonel and the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 2nd Division had entrusted our welfare to the Major after we surrendered to him.

We later learned that our surrender was highly significant for three reasons. First, the colonel had never captured a civilian in his entire military career, beginning from the 1960 Congo crises in which he participated to this war. (He was more accustomed to capturing soldiers or deserted towns). Secondly, he was in a swiftly moving convoy under tight security when mother dramatically emerged to surrender and stopped beside his car. (Allah must be with her!) Lastly, he was highly rumored to be psychically shielded at the war front. Ringed by a circle of mallams, women were not allowed near his vicinity since they could destroy the power of the shield. (Yet one penetrated in the most unlikely circumstance as his high-speed convoy sped to his base. This must be the work of Allah).⁵

Fortunately for us, the colonel saw the hand of Allah and viewed events favorably. However, it would be an understatement to say he was not taken aback by the whole event. Fortunately for us, as far as mother and grandmother were concerned, the unexpected outcome of our surrender guaranteed us the highest protection. It was the best thing that could have happened since it meant that their pubescent daughters would be spared those unmentionable vicissitudes of war.

Having entrusted us to the fatherly care of Major Yusuf, Murtala Mohammed went out of our lives the same way he came into it. Our welfare in the Camp became the responsibility of the Major. Reluctant to leave us in Onitsha while he went on a two-week pass to visit his family, Yusuf took us to Asaba where he hoped we would have greater security. We were given refuge by the late Chief Ogbolu. As fate would have it, our intended two-week stay in Asaba stretched into months. Major Yusuf had lost the contact address we had given him and was unable to locate us as he passed on to Onitsha at the end of his leave. Three months into our stay, the Biafrans infiltrated into Asaba and some other neighboring towns of the Mid-West region and the nightmare began.

those dark fearful nights
when the morrow seemed like yesteryears
and the past was the child to come.

We constantly prayed,

may the bullet not find us.
We loudly prayed,
may the bullet not find us
we prayed, nightly
may the bullet not find us.

This Biafran infiltration created panic in Nigerian military circle and large scale chaos in Asaba. The Nigerian soldiers forcibly evacuated people from their homes, and herded them into the makeshift refugee camp they had set up at St. Patrick’s College. Nervous stormtroopers fanned out into the town to search for Biafrans. Armchair officers at the military Command Center reasoned that the Biafran infiltration was successful because Asaba civilians were “bloody collaborators and sympathizers.” They launched their soldiers into every village, hamlet, home, and building to root out the enemy. As day became night, fear stalked life. Fearful and jittery, the soldiers fired erratically at anything that moved. They “confused” any adult Igbo-speaking male with a Biafran soldier, and shot them dead before asking questions. Because Igbo was the language of the people of Asaba, many Asaba men and boys lost their lives.

Too traumatized to wail, families huddled in groups to blot out the scene. Children whimpered in fear and in cold. Back in the Command Centre, the military pronounced the counterattack as successful. Militarily speaking, the Nigerian response was swift and decisive. It had killed off as many of the “bloody Igbos” as they could find. From Lagos, Kaduna, and Benin, the media hailed it a victory. But for us on the scene, receiving the lesson of bewilderment, it was a living hell; an inculcable tragedy, an unmitigated disaster. Many have lost a son, a husband, or both.

Silent women raged in spirit
silent cries shattered the stillness of sound
they cried today
for the morrow
and all preceding scenes.
Their oja (flutes) lay broken
beside the road...
their oja lay broken
on muddy paths...

Our flight from our place of refuge began with the arrival of armed fiery- eyed soldiers searching for infiltrators. Firing erratically into the air we were herded outside and instructed to pack out in five minutes. At the expiration of the time, we were informed, the soldiers would shoot their way into the house. And so we learned that a house was not a safe abode, or refuge. It was the unsafest place to be.

Gripped by fear, the urgency of the eviction order, and the wild appearance of the soldiers, my prized sketches were the last thing on my mind as we fought to meet the deadline. Many things were forgotten in our hurried state, only the very essentials were remembered. Huddling together for safety and comfort, we began the long, endless journey through the uncharted, dangerous zone of stray, uncensored, bullets.

We fearfully intoned:
may the bullet not find us...
may the bullet not find us...
may the bullet not find us.

I looked around
and I saw nothing.
Nothing but blood and the dead
blood gushing from newly cut arteries,
coagulating, but still sluggishly flowing
determined to find its way out
from the clayey moulds, the lifeless casts.

Again I saw the dead
and death in its most imperfect image.
The skull of one, dead,
with a bloody gaping hole
had its entire contents scooped out
and plastered on the face of the next.
Bulging eyeballs dropping from sockets
saw the glassy end of all.

The mouth of another, plugged with blood
revealed jarred teeth
adorned with specks of blood.
The heart of another
was a hollow red mass,
and the guts of a friend
wrenched from its rightly place
was resting caressingly
on the brow of his friend.
Headless and limbless bodies lay
carelessly thrown where the fatal impact
of the bullet had dumped them.

The sky darkens
as winged creatures appear
scavengers of the earth
they’re called;
I looked
I saw them peck out juicy eyeballs
filling gut, a heaven trail formed;
brains of men, a rare delicacy
such a feast at the folly of men.
I shudder with revulsion
but I lay not my blame on them
for they must feed.
I can only find it in my heart
to lay my curse
on Men’s Folly.

Now I listened
and I heard nothing
Nothing but groans, moans and cries
of those who have had their bitter taste
crying out in frenzied agony
knowing they are beyond recall
but waiting impatiently
for only friend, death.

I listened again,
closely,
and I knew that a neighbor has had it.
I pictured
for I cannot look:
back arched in pain
limbs drumming the bare dusty earth
in a rhythmless, tuneless sound;
face disfigured with pain
fiery eyes wide and roving
but seeing naught;
nostrils stretched taut
and laboring under heavy breathing.
I saw the sweat pores open
and sweat
trickling out in little rivulets
bathe his flaming dirty brow
(and there was no caring hands
to sooth and comfort).

He calls
and I cannot ignore
I turn
but with a sharp gasp, for
he was in a far worse condition
a revolting state
and in intense pain.
I offered my help
but what help?

My heart became charged with
bitterness
bitterness for the war
a destructive war
that took the toll of unfledged lives.
He managed a ghost of a smile
and said:

“Don’t worry, I know I’m gone.
I ... only ...”
he stopped to cough
and coughed out a safe supply of blood.
“I only called to say farewell, neighbor
may God protect you
so you may give my message to mankind.”

My eyes filled with tears
at my helplessness
I knew I was no use
nor better than he
I gazed on with sorrow
in my soul and wondered,
why should he die a useless death
a worthless death, and an unknown man
Why was he used as a mere tool
to further the vanities of ambitious men?

As I thought
I saw the brief flicker of life
rustle as it sought to leave
then he smiled, and faintly said:
“oja n’a kom”
(the flute is calling me)
oja Nnoli
Nnoli’s flute
I’m going, komesia.”⁶

A great peace settled on him
as he breathed out
his troubled last
I was a mere spectator
as the law of nature ran its course.

I wondered what flute my neighbor heard:
the whizzing of bullets?
the groans of the dying?
the explosions of shells?
or a soul stirring sound?
Which ever it was
the sound brought comfort and peace
to my neighbor, and rest
to a troubled man.

His closing chapter of life ends here
of mine, I know not where
I do not know
what destiny has in store for me
Will I end like him?
Will I live to see the end of the war?
Whatever it is to be
I only echo my neighbor’s message to all
“War is evil!”

-- “The Front,” Uwechia

Copyright 2001 Africa Resource Center, Inc.

Citation Format

Nzegwu, Nkiru (2001). "May the bullet not find me": Writing Memories, Writing Identities. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: 1, 2.