Omugwo: Traditional Igbo After-Birth Care

(From okwuid.com) – OMUGWO: Traditional Igbo After-birth Care

There is always delight and anticipation in the air when and Igbo family are expecting a new child.

The family unit is at center to Igbo culture. And whilst pregnancy can be an exciting, scary and nerve-wracking experience all rolled into one. It is a process that Igbos hold in very high regard.

Despite this, pregnancy can be a challenging time where your body and lifestyle will go through many unexpected changes.

These changes can leave new mothers feeling overwhelmed without a robust support network made up of family and friends.

Igbo culture’s answer to these post-natal challenges is a practice called “Omugwo”.

As part of the Omugwo process the mother, mother in law or close female relative stay with the new mother in the first few weeks/months to assist and care for the new mother and baby.

During Omugwo the new mother is fed a special diet and given traditional massages to help her body return to the pre-pregnancy state.

The aim of Omugwo is to offer new mother a robust form of after-birth care, it is necessary so that the new mother can rest well to regain her strength. Family support also means conditions like post-natal depressions become less prevalent. 

How to Become an Invisible Woman in Lagos

(By Sisi Lucia) - Do you want to become an invisible woman? I have found the perfect vanishing cream, immediately you slather in on your body, fiam, you just vanish.

So I live in an estate, every morning or evening I pass by the only gate in the estate. Depending on my mood, I either smile and greet, or just wave at security men at the gate. On Fridays or during any celebration say Christmas or Easter, they razzle me for ‘something for the boys’ and also depending on my mood, I give them ‘something’ or not. So you would think they know me, yes?

Well, they know me until they see me with a man and that’s it, the vanishing cream. Men are the vanishing cream. The presence of a man makes women invisible. The other day I took a cab home, they greeted the cab driver and totally ignored me. I wasn’t even expecting the greeting because I knew the presence of the cab driver has already made me evaporate. The cab driver had to ask me “did you just move here? Abi na new security?” I just smiled. It was not the first time. If my male friends are visiting, they do it and it is not as if the greeting adds any naira to my account, so shrug, right?

Chibok Girls and the Conquered Women of Biafra

“Stop pretending that you are a human being!” a victim of sexual abuse tells her abuser. They might not exactly be able to utter such words to their captors, but this is likely the thought that would be going through the minds of hundreds of the students of Government Girls Secondary School, Borno State, who were abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents since two weeks [six months] now.

Perhaps, the only trauma that would make these innocent girls even sadder in their captivity is the absence of news of any attempt at their rescue. According to the parents of the abducted girls, so far, there had been no known official effort at rescuing the girls, despite the enlarged security meetings.

The 3Ws of Nollywood: Women, Wealth, and Witchcraft

Critics often upbraid Nollywood for what they term its "thematic obsession" with the occult world, obscenity, prostitution, and money worship. But according to Brian Larkin, "[i]t is the mixing of melodrama with horror and magic and the linkage of financial with sexual and spiritual corruption that makes the melodrama of Nigeria... video film distinctively African."

The critics contend that this "obsession" casts Nigeria and Africa in a negative light. What they fail to acknowledge, however, is that Nollywood frames and represents its society, drawing inspiration from its milieu. No doubt, it does exaggerate its representations for filmic effects, but it does not invent its narratives.

It derives its content mainly from the socio-cultural realities of its environment, constantly beaming its cinematic light on the ugly and uncomfortable realities within society and, instead of allowing us play the ostrich, forces us into an open discursive arena to keep talking about such issues like ritual killings and the burning, torturing, and even killing of innocent children under the guise of forcing witchcraft confessions out of them.