aFRica 13 Saraba Magazine is a literary/arts magazine published up to four times a year by Iroko Publishing on www.sarabamag.com. Copyright is held by Iroko Publishing, Saraba Magazine and individual authors of works published herein. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. General enquiries for reproduction, collaboration, etc., can be directed to [email protected]. Subscribe to our Newsletter for updates on our activities. Please see our website for complete submission guidelines. Submissions are welcome for our next (‗Art‘) Issue. See www.sarabamag.com/themes for our Theme Calender. The Africa (#13) Issue is published on A4 and best viewed at 75% with bookmarks. Fonts: France, Bell MT. Cover photograph: Dillon Marsh Back Illustration: (Infographic Africa) Francesco Poroli Publisher Emmanuel Iduma Publisher / Fiction Editor Managing Editor Dami Ajayi Adaudo Anyiam-Osigwe Poetry Editor Nonfiction Editor Adebiyi Olusolape Arthur Anyaduba Digital Editor Copy Editor Adedamola R. Mogaji Akumbu Uche Business Development Manager Graphic Artist Yemi Soneye Illa Amudi Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 2 Contents 4/ Editor‘s Note 110/ Contributors 115/ Design Notes Fiction Poetry 6/ Okani-Nkam Modern Day Project 5/ Poetry for the Iroko Men Esame Bassey Godspower Oboido 30/ A Safe Indiscretion 16-19/ Kidal | Bukavu| Jos Sefi Atta Peter Akinlabi 39/ Nyamiri 54/ You Hum Tunes Okwuje Israel Chukwuemeka Okoroafor Chibuzor 50/ It Is Runonko Time 109/ Touchdown Brian Bwesigye Ikeogu Oke 54/ A Beautiful Mind Lara Daniels Interviews 86/ Guilt Trip 24/ Dami Ajayi converses with Sefi Atta Sylva Nze Ifedigbo 43/ Akumbu Uche‘s interview of Dike Chukwumerije 94/ Thirteen Tosin Akingbulu Short Play 102/ The Attempted Killing of Faruk 34/ Seretse, My King Richard Ali Donald Molosi Non-fiction Visual Art 13/ Something Else Not Violence 20/ All in the Night Together Keguro Macharia Brendan Bannon Mike Pflanz 60/ Face Me, I Book You: 47/ Daily Life in Algeria Writing Africa‘s Agency in the Jeroen Evers Age of the Netizen Pius Adesanmi 57/ Gabon Space Elevator Némo Tral 68/ Do We Still Have Postcolonialism? Kenneth W. Harrow 79/ Journey through Southern and Eastern Africa 92/ The Real Tragedy in Being African Dillon Marsh Miriam Jerotich 98/ Shadows and Traffic Serubiri Moses 114/ Infographic Africa Francesco Poroli Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 3 Editor’s Note There is a statement, ―Africa is a country‖ used to satirize ‗Western‘ preconceptions about Africa. With billions of people, thousands of ethnicities, several colonial histories and varied post-independence struggles, the continent is spoken of as a single plane that is beset by bad leadership, unending poverty, and the odd scenery. Yes, the continent has these, and yes, there really are some similarities across the different countries and cultures. But, the question remains: Is that all that can be said? And there is another question: How can you represent what truly is Africa? For us at Saraba, we set out to have the issue explore the complex narrative that is Africa. But, reading through the writings, and the art, of this issue, I became aware of the mundane in the stories that were told. Africa, like Europe, like Latin America, etc, is a place where some people are living out their existence. In this issue, a boy takes a girl out in Richard Ali‘s The Attempted Killing of Faruk; two girls have a conversation while riding a bus in Tosin Akingbulu‘s Thirteen; and two grown-ups talk about having sex in Sefi Atta‘s A Safe Indiscretion. And, yes, these stories come with their own unique spin, because Africa has undergone its own speciation. This issue, in some way, answers the questions I raised at the beginning. We take a glimpse at some of the different happenings of, and in, life, which the setting may have played a part. The setting is Africa. Enjoy! Adaudo A-O Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 4 Poetry for the Iroko Men Godspower Oboido I invented a simple vision Of the mosquito feasting On the bud of the hibiscus Sucking its sweetening nectar Promising me never to be drunk Again on our blood-red wine I invented a simple vision: The king of the jungle appointed The tortoise as poet laureate Ojualagba was brilliant Birds were lulled to sleep— Little chicks gathered By their mother for her fowl tales Brilliant in true rendition I invented a vision Of the merchant of the Libyan Desert No longer lusting over American Rice No longer crushing the Arab flowers Unspoiled in their youthful bloom I invented a vision Of the pregnant Ugandan mosquito Dancing at a feast of nectar With all her invisible children I invent a lucid vision Of the Iroko Men, assembled In a poetic commonwealth Dialoguing for Africa‘s change. Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 5 Okani-Nkam Modern Day Project Esame Bassey The Okani-Nkam Modern Day Project is a dual carriage road that my best friend, Comfort, says leads to the world. The Okani-Nkam Modern Day Project is a dual carriage road that my best friend, Comfort, says leads to the world. Every day, truckloads of goods and traders bursting from each side rattle along this modern thoroughfare, on their way to the other side of the world. The road is busiest at Christmas, bringing back diseases and woes and Okani-Nkam people who have lived in the world for so long that they look at us (the ones who have not been outside the village) the same way we look at them, like aliens. My father refers to the road as the broad way; smooth, easy, and plagued with whoredom and drunkenness and rottenness that stinks and ranks to the high heavens. The narrow way however (a road he fervently prescribes) is winding, thorny, but rewarding. The first time I met my father's younger brother, Kumasi, I knew he had travelled the broad way. He was tall and muscular and had a carefree air about him that Comfort found sexy, while Father was short and pudgy in areas that made him look unattractive; Comfort said Father was just fat. Uncle Kumasi was nothing like my father's other brother, Godswill, who visited the village every Christmas, until he met a woman from God-knows- where and now he says he doesn't believe in God anymore. Comfort says he is lost. Uncle Kumasi never even worked for Chung Bro & Sons, where Father and Godswill worked as cooks and where Father had only recently been promoted to Chief Cook after over a decade of Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 6 dishing out Chinese food and smelling as at the back of the Community College if he was carrying rotten meat in his and then falling into the stream. pocket. ‗Okay, if you think I am lying, ask But my Uncle Kumasi smelled of Kumasi.‘ someone he called ‗Issy Miyaki‘. He said it in that soft sensuous voice that Comfort ‗Uncle Kumasi...‘ also found sexy. ‗Yes,‘ Uncle Kumasi said, clearing his ‗I thought it was his body that was sexy?‘ throat like Father does whenever he I asked. wants to say something important. ‗Dogs do wear sunglasses. Even cats and ‗Idiot, don't you know that a person's monkeys. In fact, I have seen a dog voice can be sexy? Abroad everything is wearing sunglasses in Cape Town. Eh... sexy, even dogs and cats and they even my friend's dog, it was.‘ wear sunglasses.‘ Comfort said, fluttering her fake eyelashes like a baby doll The bit about his friend's dog wearing running out of batteries. sunglasses seemed like a lie, because he stammered at the end of the sentence. ‗Dogs?‘ Father says when someone stammers it is often because they are lying. I tried to ‗Yes, dogs.‘ imagine Lucky, our neighbour‘s dog, wearing sunglasses. Lucky would ‗How can a dog wear sunglasses?‘ probably eat the sunglasses before realizing what they were meant for, the ‗Bush girl,‘ Comfort hissed and sucked same way he ate Comfort's fancy slippers her teeth at me. ‗You do not even know that one of her lovers had brought her anything.‘ from Mombassa or Nampula or someplace close to the Indian Ocean. The ‗Eh..., because you are lying.‘ I said same way he had dug into my ankle carefully, in order not to rattle her. She meat and left a deep scar that Comfort was different now. Since she returned said I must hide if I was to find a husband from the city, we no longer played and successfully. laughed like we used to. I remembered how we once were, before the road was ‗Strange things happen in the world finished and people started travelling to these days,‘ Uncle Kumasi said, rolling see the world. I remembered us in cannabis, offering me a smoke. I shook primary school, before our breasts my head vigorously. Comfort hissed, and formed and the trapped oils in our pores snatched it from him. broke through as pimples. All Comfort and I did then was run around bare feet ‗I heard a story about a rich man in playing nsa and ten-ten and chasing red- America who died and left 10 million necked lizards down the sloppy road that dollars to his dog.‘ He said, his eyes led to the stream. The lizards travelled became fixed, the creases on his the same course each time, in-between forehead deepened. ‗I would rule the small islands of thickets, running world with such money.‘ heedlessly towards the stretch of green Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 7 I lionized him, this uncle of mine, this ‗Why do you have to come back so late, enigma of a man, with his jutting jaw, everyday? People are saying you smoke carved hairline and bright-coloured ties.