You may wonder why I left Abuja for a creative writing workshop since at Abuja Writers Forum (AWF), we organize the same every month. The first reason is the magic of seeing Chimamanda for the first time. The second reason is that my going is a holiday for me. As a part of AWF’s administrative structure, I never really had the luxury of sitting down to pay attention to the instructors since we started our workshops. So I needed to go somewhere where I could be attended to while I listened to an instructor.
Seeing this as a holiday doesn’t mean the period spent at the workshop is playtime. In fact, Chimamada gave a foretaste of what it would be like when I saw her e-mail loaded with heavy materials that I must download and read before I arrived the workshop venue. How did it all start? I sent in an excerpt of one of my articles (Perspectives on Obama’s Presidency, Daily Trust, January 28, 2009) when Farafina Trust called for entries. Chimamanda sent an e-mail stating I was invited. For days after I received that magic e-mail, I kept reading the article I had sent, wondering what she saw in it that qualified me as one of the twenty five participants out of a total entry of 1,776.
I still can not pinpoint what it is. But I remember that when I wrote the article, I was in my element, better put, writing mood, if you know what I mean. I did not write that article under the pressure that I must impress Chimamanda. It had flowed freely out of me at the time I wrote it. When I sent a story written purposely to impress her the previous year, I was not selected. In any case, Igoni Barret (you know him) was the one who reduced that large pile of entries to sixty, and from it, Chimamanda selected the finalists. “In the written pieces submitted by applicants, I wasn’t looking for what was already polished knowing that existing conditions have not equipped many who applied with the necessary tools for writing. Rather, I looked for writing that has talent, spark, promise,” Chimamanda later told us.
Alright. I did not arrive the Lagos venue of the workshop in good mood. I was late by one hour thirty minutes. I opened the door and saw my fellow participants. But I saw her first, and for the first time too - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. And didn’t I see what I had long concluded she had on the pages of newspapers? There she was at one end of the room. On her head was the colourful head scarf that has become her trademark. Oh, I just remember that I forgot to ask her why she often had her head cover. I doubt if it has anything to do with the ‘born-again’ matter. Maybe I am wrong. She is the one to clarify issues. In any case, as she sat facing her students, there was this air of composure and dignity around her. For the next ten days, and under every situation, she did not loose it. Even when some university unionists came to the literary evening (I will come to that shortly) and made activist’s kind of remarks, this Nigeria ’s queen of writing made her point and yet remained dignified.
The introduction was still on when I entered the room. “My name is Tunji Ajibade. I am from Abuja . I am sorry I arrived late. I like arriving at set time for anything. It was because the driver of the luxurious bus I boarded from Abuja did not know the road and he kept driving us around Kogi State for the better part of the night,” I had confessed when it came to my turn. There was a release of ‘Uh,uh’, among the other participants in the room lit in such a way that gives this sense of calm. It was an appropriate atmosphere for learning and intellectual discussion that was made available by Chimamanda, really. After I made that confession, I looked up briefly before I continued. It was the face of Chimamanda I saw across the room. She was smiling. My mind said, “the first reaction I got from Chimamanda ever in my life is a smile.” I loved it. Things will go well in the course of the workshop I concluded at that moment.
Chimamanda wanted to know what we have all been reading. She wanted to hear what we expect to benefit from the workshop. “I want to be better equipped to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ in my fiction writing, I had said. She took me up on that later after she introduced herself. Part of her introduction was how publishers had rejected her work before she eventually broke through. The day the editor of a major publishing house in the U.S personally sent her a letter with the comment “Chimamanda, could you send us something else?” was a turning point for her. She had a load of rejection letters which kept piling up. All along, some junior staff had always posted her letters of rejection. “It was like they had those letters ready. Once, they got your story, they would just mail it to you,” she added. That was in the middle 1990s when e-mail was not this much in vogue. “When I look back now, I discover that the stories I sent were actually bad. The truth is, when you have a good story, it will find a home.” She kept saying that until we departed from the workshop.
I had interesting characters as my course mates. There was Jide who appeared to me to have read anything any writer should read under the sun. And he was a student activist kind of speaker. Each time he spoke up, his tone reminded me of the eloquence of student unionists we were forced to listen to anytime there was aluta in my undergraduate days at the University of Lagos . There was Tesiro. With Jide and Tesiro, and in addition to others, I am sure our set can boast to have the most widely-read participants since the yearly workshop began three years ago. Those two boys are on one side. In the middle are the quieter ones made up of men, women and girls. Amanda who works for an NGO in Port Harcourt speaks in very low tone. You make think a six year old girl is talking before you turn around to see an adult. She is gentle, friendly, an angel. With her on this platform is Esther who is an Igalla from Kogi State but lives and works in Kaduna . She is an African beauty. Chiaka has the speaking tone and gentleness of a classroom teacher. Chimamanda thinks he will make a good editor. Jekwu is colouful - in action, words and in dressing. He regularly came to class in native attire with two layers of red beads on his neck. He never missed out on the hands too. He could pass for a young chief. Chimamanda loved it the day Jekwu came to class dressed like a bridegroom on his way to the altar. She even took pictures with him, insisting the photographer should snap Jekwu from the sole of his finely-polished new shoes to the crown of his head.
Ugochuku is possibly the most silent. He has this quiet mien and doesn’t speak unless he is asked to. Onyinye (of AWF) belongs to the same category although her stories never failed to elicit loud rounds of approval from everyone. Martina was from Accra , Ghana . There is something motherly about Martina. Of course she is a mother. Her opinion during critique session is highly regarded by everyone. Pelu is a travel writer and he carried himself with maturity in all things. He has a good sense of judgment and balance. Oyindamola belongs here. If she were a man, her face will qualify her as ‘dark and handsome.’ But she has this permanent frown on her face. No, not the type that is all over the face and can turn a person away. I concluded that her type of frown (which is only on either sides of her lips, running up the side of her nose) was a sign of an on-going thinking process. Her words gave her away as a deep-thinking person. She is a wise lady. Abiodun whom everyone called Aby doesn’t speak always. But you can’t miss her when she does. There is this sing-song pattern in her manner of speaking.
Jumoke (Verissimo) was quiet. I concluded she is more eloquent on paper than in speaking. Imagine, when we were asked to write prose, Jumoke wrote a poetry that everyone agreed passed for prose. Chimamanda said Jumoke brought her power in poetry to bear in every writing exercise. Omowunmi, an undergraduate from Lagos State University always spoke in low tone. But her power in writing was amazing. Really, everyone of us proved amazing. Each person displayed a kind of strength in writing that is peculiar to him or her. It eventually made sense to me why each of us was invited for the workshop. Zainab is a lawyer and she lives in Abuja . She writes romance and her dressing made the classroom a reflection of our multi-religious society. She too is married with children and she Martina were fast friends as they tended to move in each other’s direction in and outside the classroom.
Everyone called Oke Ikeogu Mighty Warrior because he says it is the meaning of his name. He is an established poet and in the course of a writing exercise, he wrote a poem that everyone agreed was read with a ‘bedroom voice.” He doesn’t often talk but whenever he does, you know a man is around. There is Kayode who is sometimes called Mr Fineman. He has stories online and though he had spent time outside the country, his ability to catch minute details of our local environment was remarkable. He amazed Chimamanda. She said so.
On the other end of this spectrum are the more vivacious ones. They are mostly female. Toyin is number one. She has this touch in her contribution that is sharp and direct. It indicates a girl…sorry…a lady with intelligence (she announced a day to our departure that she would be getting married in a couple of weeks). There is Naomi who may be quiet but never misses an opportunity to express her views. There is an air of maturity around Naomi but she did me harm because she was the first to jokingly refer to me as ‘Uncle.’ I told her to take a picture of Chimamanda for me with her camera. “Yes, Uncle,” Naomi said. Chimamanda looked up from the paper in her hands. “Who is Uncle?” she asked with a giggle. Naomi pointed at me. That was how Chimamanda named me ‘Uncle Tunji’ and my course mate began to laughingly call me the same.
Maybe it was not entirely Naomi’s fault. Maybe it is my fault. You see, during AWF’s weekly reading and critique session, one of the rules is that you are not allowed to interrupt anyone that has the floor. In fact, I remember suggesting jokingly that anyone who breaks the rule will do one day community service by helping out with administrative work at the Forum’s secretariat. At Farafina Trust workshop, I would become quiet immediately anyone interrupted me. “Tunji, are you always this serious? We all interrupt one another at one point or the other,” Chimamanda said on one occasion when someone interrupted me and I waited for him to finish before I continued. Whenever I stopped like this but continued after the other person had stopped, the entire class would break into laughter at the same time as if on cue. I remember Chimamanda saying on some occasions when debates became overheated that everyone should be quiet or the headmaster would bring the cane and administer punishment. That too elicited laughter. Of course, everyone knew who the headmaster was. I think Naomi took a cue from all this. Yes, now to Maryam. “Chimamanda called me the baby of the house. I tried to hide the fact from the onset but I guest didn’t succeed,” the University of Ibadan Law undergraduate had confessed to all of us a day to our departure.
Chimamanda was in charge for the first three days of the workshop. She apologized that she would have to leave her phone on in the course of the workshop even though the rule was that phones should be in silence. One of the instructors invited was having problem obtaining visa from the Nigerian embassy in Germany and she needed to be reachable as the situation unfolded. You may imagine the upward and downward movement of our emotion as she announced the outcome of her efforts each time she made or received phone calls as she tried to get some important people to intervene. The instructor made it at last. Four instructors were invited. Jackie Kay (UK) was the first to arrive. Wow, that was an energetic, high-spirited woman. It took me time to adjust my ears and mind to her pace in thinking and in speaking. She made us to take an adjective that starts with the first letter of our names. Zainab is Zealous Zainab. There is Joyous Jekwu, Tantalizing Tunji. Marvelous Maryam; Juvenile Jide; Pious Pelu; Timely Toyin; Indomitable Ikeogu and so on. Jackie’s emphasis at the workshop is working with undercurrents in a story; making use of ideas or complexities. She also made us to do exercise using doubles, strangers and mirrors.
Jackie has an Irish mother, was left in an orphanage but later raised as an adopted child. She laughed heartily as she described how her Nigerian father rejected her when she came to see him in Nigeria for the first time about six years ago. As she relived that moment of rejection in our presence, I told myself it was a very serious issue. But here was Jackie telling it with a smile, with laughter in her voice and on her face. That’s the kind of person this award winning writer of over twenty six books is. By the way, Jackie has been honoured by the Queen of England for her contribution to literature. That means you must put MBE behind her name each time you write it.
Nathan Englander was the next to take the class. Nathan lives in New York ( USA ) but has his root in Israel . He has a way of speaking that is even more rapid than Jackie. I also needed to really open my listening devise in order to catch what he was saying. He came with Racheal, his girlfriend whose camera ensured that we all remembered to maintain good posture and facial expressions. I recollect adjusting my posture each time her camera was focused on me. Nathan used the topic technology, writing and morality as the background for most of the things we treated in the course of his session. I asked Nathan which of the twelve tribe (the children of Jacob) he belongs to. He says everyone in Israel are called ‘people of Israel ’ and that except for the Levites, the remaining eleven tribes do no longer exist. I didn’t ask how this happened but I find this revelation shocking.
Binyavanga Wainana ( Kenya ) was the next person to take the class. This man had advised Chimamanda to enter for the Caine Prize a couple of years back. It happened that both of them were short-listed and at the award ceremony in London , Binyavanga was announced the winner. When he took the class, he focused on the need to catch significant moments in all the big events that happen around us. “These are the things that matter, the things that bring a story home to the reader, make him empathize,” Binyavanga said. Doreen Baingana ( Uganda ) took the class next. She is the author of Tropical Fish and she works for a publishing house in her country. She laid emphasis on details in story telling and how to use it without over-dramatizing. “Details if well-handled get us to know the character well,” she had said.
While the classroom was one thing; our movement to and from our hostel each day was another. We had a coaster bus to ourselves and Bola, the driver, did his work as expected of a professional. In the morning, there is a measure of quietness as we are conveyed to the venue of the workshop and some of us read stories that are to be critiqued for the day. Being one of the last persons to join the bus after moving around to call those who were still in their rooms, I regularly sat in one of the front seats, spaces in the middle and the back sections, having been taken up. I complained on some occasions that some of my course mates had become ‘landlords’ and ‘landladies,’ as they headed for the same seat each time they entered the bus. Actually, a process of bonding was going on among the workshop participants. Martina and Zainab always sat together in one of the seats in the mid section of the bus. When I wanted to sit beside Martina one day, she said the space was already occupied. I stood up only to discover that Zainab whom I had gone to call from her room, and ahead of whom I arrived the bus, was the person in question. At the back section, Jide, Ikeogu, Tesiro, Kayode may be found together. Maryam, Toyin and Omowumi are never far apart. On occasions when a joke (I was often a subject) or an argument became overheated, these three helped to add more ‘petrol to fire.’ They also used their phone to video whatever joke or argument was going on with the same intention. As we were returning to our hostel one day, exactly a week since the workshop began, I heard a chorus coming from the back section of the bus. As those in the middle section joined in, it became louder. I turned on my seat. Everyone was singing one of those Yoruba songs from Asha. That was the moment I knew the participants, though many of us did not know one another before we came for the workshop, had become one - we had bonded - and I said so.
Saturday, September 26 was the day for the Literary Evening meant to mark the end of the workshop. The event took place at The Lagoon in Victoria Island . When we disembarked from our bus I saw about four cameras focused on us. I quickly remembered one of those entertainment programmes on TV where celebrities were shown arriving the venue of an event. I was the first to drop from the bus and immediately I saw the cameras, I adjusted my expression and walking style. Inside the hall, we got the seats closest to the raised platform. The event kicked off fine. The CEO of Nigerian Breweries Plc, whose company sponsored both the workshop and the literary evening, Michiel Herkemij, expressed readiness to continue to support an endeavour that would produce the “next Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Chimamanda Adichie.”
In his remarks, a trustee of Farafina Trust, Muhtar Bakare who presented certificates to the workshop participants poured encomium on Adichie for her efforts targeted at moving literature to the next level. There were readings by Prof. Karen King-Aribisala of the Lagos State University , Odia Ofeimum, one of Nigeria ’s foremost poets as well as Egosa Imaseun, an established author. Comments on “Books matter to me” were made by TV personalities such as Adesuwa Onyenokwe and Funmi Iyanda. The workshop instructors also read and most poignant was the personal story of Jackie Kay who read a poem titled ‘Pride’ - a look into her root that include a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father whom she met for the first time in Nigeria six years ago but who had since refused to publicly acknowledge her as his daughter. In a hall that was silent by this story, Kay said she would travel to the village of her father which is in the Eastern part of Nigeria after which she would write the final chapter of a novel she is working on that examines the complexities of her ancestry and upbringing.
There was question and answer session in the course of which the invited instructors took turns to respond to questions that had to do with writing, publishing and how to improve reading culture in Nigeria . Significant was Adichie’s remark that any writer, no matter his background will get a publisher to accept his work if he had done his “homework properly.” There was a book signing session and performance by singing sensation, Timaya, brought the literary evening to a close.
Many of us that arrived late at the spot where meals had been set in another section of the hall, failed to get a bite. I was content to sit and wait for the photo session to finish so that we could return to our hostel when the CEO of Nigerian Breweries walked up to me and announced he wanted to give a dinner in our honour. I immediately moved around to inform all and we ended up in one of the restaurants within the premises of The Lagoon. I took my seat, thinking of how I would be able to get Chimamanda from the crowd around her to discuss one or two issues. It was my lucky day as she walked in and announced to me, laughing, that she was sitting by my side. The CEO of Nigerian Breweries sat next to her. In the course of the dinner, I discussed what I had in mind with Chimamanda. Did I hear your mind asking for the details? I refuse to tell.
A staff in the restaurant walked to me and announced that the meal was ready and waiting. I called my fellows, picked a plate and began to serve myself. Of all the more twenty bowls I saw waiting to be touched, I recognized spaghetti, cucumber, boiled egg and chopped tomato. Those were the things I cautiously put on my plate, plus one. Omowunmi told me Cous cous was the last thing I added. Of course, I didn’t know. I confessed to Chimamanda that I didn’t know most of the things provided and ready to be eaten. She said it is good to try out some things one doesn’t know. As I turned to return to my table, Racheal, Nathan’s girlfriend, said she liked my choice of food. I laughed. I thought I had an odd selection but they were the things I was comfortable with. What’s the point in eating only to run to the toilet after. Awoof dey run bele. There was plenty of food and drinks flowing around. Jekwu who was on the same table with me had a heap on his plate. Chiaka agreed to be served everything a chef’s creative mind could devise with beef, pork and fish that the restaurant’s staff brought to our table. He and Chimamanda joked about it. I stuck to my simple meal but asked for carrot juice which on the menu list promised to be natural and freshly made. It arrived in the largest glass cup I had ever seen. I told Chimamanda that the cup was intimidating. She agreed. Somehow, I lost my appetite for the drink so I passed it on to Onyinye. I took a bottle of malt instead.
Ike who had lived in Abuja before but now lives in London shocked me. He is well-known to Chimamanda and had visited us in the course of the workshop. This wonderful guy arrived our table in the course of the dinner and gave each one of us a book. Chiaka got Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish. Tesiro got Uwem Akpans’ They say you are one of Them that won a commonwealth prize for 2009. I got Aravid Adiga’s The White Tiger that won 2008 Man Booker Prize. I thought Tesiro got the best book. He in turn thought I did. We both coveted each other’s book. Others too coveted what others got. Ike later told me he bought and read the more than thirty books he brought and had decide to pass them on. There must be something more to Ike than the person I saw.
The morning after the literary evening, Esther, Oyindamola and I departed from our hostel in the same vehicle on our way back to our various destinations. “Chimamanda will forever remain in my heart,” Oyindamola had said in the course of our discussion. At that moment, I remembered a lady who once expressed the desire to be the Queen of people’s heart. She succeeded. Chimamanda also did as Oyindamola’s words as well as those of many others who attended the creative writing workshop showed.
Ajibade, a consultant writer, lives in Abuja .
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