Elsewhere on the Internetz

This whole post is nothing but a shameless plug (or a series of shameless plugs)! I was recently invited by the authors of That African Girl to participate in their African Childhood series celebrating growing up in an African home and the quirks that come with it. I wrote a post on the childhood monsters and legends I heard while growing up. Here is an excerpt;

I grew up knowing and fearing all sorts of creatures from Nigerian and African folklore. When young children misbehave, even today, they are told that if they are stubborn, ojuju would catch them. I have no idea which language ojuju comes from but I believe it refers to a masquerade. The ojuju was my earliest encounter with the supernatural and fear of it reigned supreme especially when lights were turned off during bedtime, you never knew ojuju could be hiding under your bed or lurking in shadowy corners.

There was also the famous Mami Wata, that beautiful woman with thick long hair who lured people to her underwater kingdom. She was always described as a witch by distant aunties and uncles who had stories to tell about their encounters with the Mami Wata. They would tell me how while walking in the open air market or driving down the highway they saw a beautiful woman and how though she tried to tempt them with either her beauty or her riches they managed to escape her evil clutches. Read the rest…

Please show both me and That African Girl some love by heading over to the blog and reading other African childhood posts.

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Speaking of my activities on other parts of the web, I recently joined Dreamwidth where I keep a journal that acts as my historical, creative and cultural space. This basically means all the stuff that I don’t think will fit in here will be published over there, also all my ‘global beats’ posts will be published over there from now on. I am keeping this space as my personal, ‘research’ blog and basically the blog where I publish looong posts ^.^

I also recently became a contributor to two really amazing blogs by really amazing people; The Blasian Narrative and Black Looks which means I pop up at those corners of the internet from time to time.

So if you like reading what I write please check me out elsewhere on the internetzzz!