NWANYI OGBETE

"I've read quite a few of the seminal feminist texts, but for a long time, I didn't. And I like to think I learned a lot about gender and power by watching local women in Nigeria, particularly women who are sort of lower down on the class hierarchy because I kind of felt that so much was against them that sometimes they exhibit a kind of strength that I didn't find in more educated and privileged women." - Adichie

I personally find the single image of strength in women troubling. The bourgeoisie image. The very privileged image. The educated higher-middle class and upper class image.

Troubling because as a person who is interested in the "everydayness" of people, I've learned that strength defies social class.

I should tell you about the female Keke rider (commercial tricyclist) I once met at 7 and 8 junction and how she unflinchingly told this annoying man off after he had told her that she wasn't fit to be patronized because 'she's a woman'. Or this woman in a bus I boarded last year. How she talked about her husband who had lost his job, and how he joined her in working at her restaurant. How he did the dishes and served customers since his cooking wasn't really good. I remember how she flatly responded saying that they both have to because they both need to eat and survive and it isn't really that deep after some passengers had eulogized her husband for 'helping' his wife to wash plates.

I should tell you about a friend's mother who single-handedly runs one of the biggest soft drinks depots in Enugu, despite being constantly reminded of how it's a 'business for men'.

Or this particular meat market at Colliery Road with female butchers.

I particularly want to celebrate all the ordinary women who do extraordinary things everyday. Women who still hold their own with little or no formal education. Women that are never in the news. Women who haven't used 600 million naira for house renovation. Women who haven't embezzled 13 billion pounds in a space of less than seven years from a country struggling to attain development. Women with few privileges that still embody strength. Those women that sell fruits in UNN girls' hostels instead of their bodies at Otigba junction. Nwanyi Nsukka... that one that hustles day and night at Ogige selling Ugba and Abacha or Ogiri or Okpei or Azu Mangara or Azu Fridge or Vegetables or Okrika, or Okpa. Umunwanyi Ogbete... Those ones with sane and safe hustles amidst class intimidation existent in Enugu. Everyday women!

                  -Odenigbo