Story Description:
Penguin Group
Canada| April 10, 2012| Trade Paperback| ISBN 978-0-14-318611-3
Spirited and intelligent Morayo grows up surrounded by
school friends and family in busy modern-day Ibadan, Nigeria. An adoring little sister, their traditional
parents, and a host of aunties and cousins make Morayo’s home their own. So there’s nothing unusual about her charming
but troubled cousin Bros T moving in with the family. At first Morayo and her sister are delighted
but in her innocence, nothing prepares Morayo for the shameful secret Bros T
forces upon her.
Thrust into a web of oppressive silence woven by the
adults around her, Morayo must learn to fiercely protect herself and her sister
from a legacy of silence many women in Morayo’s family share. Only Aunty Morenike – once shielded by her
own mother – provides Morayo with a safe home and a sense of female community
that sustains her as she grows into a young woman in bustling, politically
charged often violent Nigeria.
My Review:
Morayo was 5-years-old when her baby ‘albino’ sister,
Eniayo was born. She was shocked to see
that her baby sister was white with pink eyes and she was afraid to hold her
for the first time but did so out of respect.
This was the very first day that the word “afin” exploded into her
world, meaning ‘albino’ and believed to bring bad luck to her entire
family. Following Yoruba tradition,
Eniayo’s naming ceremony was held eight days after her birth. That’s when the neighbours began talking: “Where
do you think this ‘afin’ child come from?”
Another neighbour had said: “I just know that this is not a good thing…these
‘afin’ children, all they do is bring bad luck.” A few days later, Morayo’s father’s great-grand
Aunt, Iya Agba, the oldest person in her father’s family came to see the baby
and she was absolutely livid the child was a ‘afin’! She blamed Morayo’s mother saying she caused
the child to be born an albino by walking in the hot sun at noontime during her
pregnancy thereby giving “mischievous evil spirits the opportunity to occupy
her human body.” Morayo’s mother hung
her head in total shame with tears streaming down her face while great-aunt Iya
screamed: “Your disobedience has brought bad luck to this poor child and to our
entire family!” To show her great and
continued displeasure with Morayo’s mother, she refused to eat the special meal
that had been prepared for her, and refused to sleep in their home that night
and demanding to be taken to another relatives house. Morayo was upset that her mother was so sad
and crying, that great aunt had yelled at her and refused her food and told herself
it was all baby Eniayo’s fault. Her
family had been happy and full of laughter until “she” came along, and now it
was full of tears, shouting, and sadness.
In the first few weeks Morayo refused to even go near Eniayo constantly
amking up escuses as to why she couldn’t help with her or hold her. Besides, Aunty Adunni had come to stay for a while
to help out, she was one of her mother’s relatives. However, Morayo’s mother finally caught up to
her one day and asked her: “What is chasing you?” She confessed that she was afraid of Eniayo,
a “spirit child” and what great-aunt Iya Agba had said.” Her mother put her arm around her and told
her: “…your sister is not a spirit child.
She is ‘afin’ due to some things the doctors call recessive genes.” She continued on for a few more minutes explaining
more of what the doctors had said.
Morayo didn’t understand most of it, but was overjoyed to know she didn’t
have to sleep at night with one eye open anymore and that she had nothing to be
ashamed about over her little sister.
Finally, as the days and months passed, she no longer noticed her sister’s
pale pink eyes and instead only saw an “annoying little girl, calling my name
and determined to follow me everywhere I went.”
Eventually, as the years passed, Eniayo’s features, yellowish hair, pink
eyes, and milky white skin became as familiar and welcome to Morayo as the sun
in the sky.
Morayo is now ten-years-old and Eniayo almost
five. They live in Ibadan, Nigeria in a
block of six flats along the busy Poly-Sango Road. The flat has three bedrooms on the second
floor of an old building with bold red letters painted above the front door
telling visitors they were entering Remilekun House. Remilekum was Baba Landlord’s late
mother. Morayo and Eniayo shared a bedroom
and woke each morning to the minibus driver calling out their next destinations
which for them was their alarm clock. Lucky
for them Lake Eleyele was right across the road.
After school each day the girls roamed the streets
together with their friends. Their
father was a pharmaceutical salesman who often travelled and their mother had
her tailor shop at the Amunigun Market and didn’t come home until late in the
evening. Aunty Adunni stayed home with
the girls and was always busy dong household chores.
In February of 1984, the family moved out of their
3-bedroom flat into a new two-storey house on Eleyele Road, which was just
minutes from their old neighbourhood.
The rooms were bigger and the louvres on the windows opened completely
inside their black, burglar-proof metal casing.
Their father had begun building the house shortly after Eniayo was born
and was proud it was finally complete as they now had something to show for all
the years of hard work. Morayo liked the
new house because she and her sister now had their own bedrooms. Eniayo didn’t like sleeping alone, so she
still went to Morayo’s room at night.
Eniayo turned seven-years-old three months after they
moved into the new house. Their second
cousin, Aunty Morenike and her three-year-old son, Damilare came to visit. Eniayo was so excited to see them and
Damilare blurted out that his Mommy had made her a birthday cake.
The following morning, Aunty Tope showed up for a
visit too and they hadn’t seen her in two years. It was sad though as she didn’t have her son,
Bros T (Tayo) with her. Later Morayo went
to find her mother and realized she was in her bedroom with her sister, Aunty
Tope. She was just about to knock on the
door when she heard someone crying and it was Aunty Tope. She heard Aunty Tope say: “Tayo has finished
me, imagine the audacity to slap your own principal! And this past holiday, he and his friend, Abu
stole a suitcase full of foreign currency from Abu’s father. That boy almost slept in prison. I have nowhere else to turn, I cannot send
him to live with his father’s people and this kind of behaviour, what would
they think of me? I want him to finish
his education here and he needs to go to university but he needs the firm hand
of a man to guide him.” Morayo knew that
Aunty Tope’s husband had died so Tayo no longer had a father. Suddenly Morayo realized footsteps were
coming toward her so she fled to her bedroom.
Now that she was twelve she understood well what was going on.
It took Morayo’s mother three months to finally cave
to her demand to have Bros T move from Jos to Ibadan to live with them. The following week the now six foot Bros T
swaggered into their home with a cocky smile.
The family’s troubles would soon begin and Morayo would pay a high price
for the rest of her life. The only
stability and real sense of a family closeness she would have would be Aunty
Morenike.
Daughters Who
Walk This Path is a phenomenal story and one which I didn’t want to
see end. I hope Ms. Kilanko will
consider writing a sequel to it someday.
If you want an intense, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-the-page read, then
this is the book for you. I’m keeping it
as part of my permanent collection.
Excellent, excellent novel.
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