The Joys of Motherhood The Supernatural Quotes

When months later, Nnu Ego fell into that tired sleep often characteristic of early pregnancy, she dreamed she saw a baby boy, about three months old, who had been left by a stream. She had wondered to herself why this child should be so abandoned. He was half covered with mud, half with mucus from his nose and mouth. She shuddered when she came closer to pick him up. He was very dark with the type of jet blackness of her father, but chubby and extremely dirty. She did not think twice, but picked the child up and decided to wash him clean by the stream and then wait for his mother. His mother did not come, and Nnu Ego dreamed she put him on her back, as the child was sleepy. Then in her daze she saw the woman slave, her chi, on the other side of the stream, saying, "Yes, take the dirty, chubby babies. You can have as many of those as you want. Take them." She had laughed and her laughter was ghostly as she disappeared into the grove of thick forest that bordered the stream. (7.49)

"Oshia, when are you going to buy your father a bottle of white man's whisky to toast your chi for making you pass your exams?" Nnu Ego prompted. (17.18)

She had been brought up to believe that children made a woman. She had had children, nine in all, and luckily seven were alive, much more than many women of that period could boast of. Most of her friends and colleagues had buried more children than they had alive; but her god had been merciful to her. Still, how was she to know that by the time her children grew up the values of her country, her people and her tribe would have changed so drastically, to the extent where a woman with many children could face a lonely old age, and maybe a miserable death all alone, just like a barren woman? She was not even certain that worries over her children would not send her to her grave before her chi was ready for her. (18.87)