There are two types of people in Nigeria , those that eat butter and those that eat cassava. In modern day Yoruba, we call the former grope the ajebota and the latter, less fortunate group the ajepaki. The literal translation of these two word is “we eat butter,” and “we eat cassava.”
An ajebota (pronounced ah-jay-butta) is someone who lives a privileged, pampered life. In Nigeria, a spoiled life means having a driver to endure the hours of traffic and bad roads while you sit on the phone chatting on your BB. It means hardly minding the electricity outages because of the trusty generator that kicks in whenever NEPA happens. The term ajebota carries a negative meaning sometimes, that the person is not just spoiled, but insensitive and out of touch to realities of the world. I think the title ajebota for this type of lifestyle arose out of the fact that butter is rare in Nigeria. Most families eat one of the many unhealthy varieties of margarine. So those who eat butter and have the means to refrigerate it continuously are among the elite.
An ajepaki (pronounced ah-jay-pah-kee) is someone who lives a life with hardships and struggle. It means walking with your bucket to fetch water to take your bath every morning, spending long hours in the dark whenever the light goes. Calling someone an ajepaki is saying that person must work hard for the little he has. Paki means cassava in Yoruba. To those foreign to the plant, cassava is a tuber (in the potato family) that grows abundantly in Nigeria. Nigerians grind it up, add cold water and drink it as a snack called garri or add hot water, turn it and eat it as a meal called eba. It has a sour taste that took me a long time to get used to. Cassava is extremely cheap to buy so those who don’t have much must get by with garri and eba.
These terms are not official. They don’t have a deep meaning in the Yoruba culture and I have never heard anyone call himself an ajebota or ajepaki. They are modern day slangs that friends to make fun, tease or describe one another.
That being said, my mom from America arrived in Lagos last week. She is here for three weeks to visit me and walk in my shoes. We are having an incredible time together, and I apologize for not posting more but I have been a bit distracted. We were in Lagos for a few days and had quite an ajebota experience. From VIP tickets to Fela on Broadway, Chapmans at the News Cafe in Lekki, to air conditioned cars, my mom and I had a great time in Lagos. She is most amazed by the way cars share the roads with hawkers, wheelbarrows, and bikes weaving in and out. Even as we are back in Ibadan now her senses are on overload, taking Nigeria in. I could not be more excited that my real mom is visiting me in my new home.
[…] feel my feet on weekends, and my arms were a whole different story. My friends kept calling me ajebota and a spoiled […]
Hilarious and interesting all at once.
Ajebota is not always derogatory though. Sometimes it can be a boast about class. I have a friend you likes to call himself an ajebota. Eventually he began to call himself a “bu’er” for short, also dropping the “t” and accentuating the “r”- like an american, just to show that he had traveled the world and even acquired an american accent (it was all a joke!)
(sorry posted it initially in the wrong place:)
I second Tunde & Phil’s comments about ajepako being a noun and “pako” referring to “wood” or more specifically “chewing stick”.
i.e. the people using using chewing-stick, (versus toothbrush) to clean their teeth have a much harder life.
Love your duds!
I meant “Ajebota and Ajepaki are noun…” in the last post
TIti your special life attract me to come your bolgs almost every .
best wishs to you .and your family
I start to learn Yoruba
TIti you special life attract me to come you bolgs almost every .
best wishs to you .and your family
Titi, na wah, do u know that what i hear is “ajepako” in which i know pako means wood…hmmm…u taught me something about my language today…Ku ise sa…and make sure mummy wear some 9ja traditional clothings before she goes back…
TJ
Hi Cara,
Do you want to check your morphology again. Ajebota and Ajepaki are nows which mean butter-eater (more or less like the lotus-eater of English language) and cassava-eater rather than a sentence ‘we eat butter’ and ‘we eat cassava’. One of the ways a verb or verbal form is converted into now in Yoruba is to add the ‘A’ to it. ‘jebota’ is the verbal form, meaning ‘eat butter’, by adding ‘a’ before it, it becomes butter-eater.
Weldone on your progress in learning Yoruba.
Titi, o shan ko aso jo. Se o fe ki aso tan l’oja ni?
This is beautiful….eku ise takun takun
Titi,
I just want to say a big thank you to your biological Mom for surpporting your great work in our beloved country. Hope she is enjoying herself, despite all the cultural shock she will be experiencing through her stay. Meanwhile, will you be willing to give speeches about the importance and appreciation of Yoruba language to Nigerian American kids when you come back to US. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Lou (maryland U.S.A)
Ha Titi, are you sure your mother isn’t half Nigeria? She looks beautiful and tanned and you too could eaily pass for sisters.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I must say you have a lot of guts going around speaking a ‘foreign’ language to indigenous speakers with all the attendant risks of being laughed to scorn :-). Well done, well done.
PS: Enjoying your YouTube posts but you still need to work on your ‘p’ and ‘gb’, they’re not quite there yet.
Very nice Cara, insightful as always…i knew about the ajebota and ajepaki stuff, but i always used ajepako (which i think means “we eat wood”)…but no doubt urs sounds wey better… 🙂
Words diminish the awe your posts excite…
Titi great!nice to have your biological mum all the way from the state.she is a beautiful woman and no doubt about it you look like twins!
Hope you and other guys in the flagship program still have some more time with us in naija.i am afraid your mum has come to “carry you go back home”
titi it ll be a great joy even after the program,that you still visit nigeria from time to time,i ll even seggest you marry a nigerian.
You are right. Nigeria needs to be experienced to see how different it is. After about 25yrs in the UK. I still love to go back and live the life at least once a year. It makes me appreciates what I have got in life. I must add that when am there, there is always a sense of guilt that I can have it so good whilst millions are still visibly living in poverty. That is a result of us Nigerians not caring enough for one another. On a happy note, there is no place like it for me, but then, I have always been an “ajebota” like you said, lol. Hoping your mum enjoys her stay.
Fascinating accounts. Hope your Mum has a good time in Nigeria.
Ola is right – ajebota is used to mean ‘he/she who eats butter’. Usually mildly derogatory as you suggest.
This is one ‘problem’ with yoruba – multiple meanings for the same spelling though in this case you would probably separate the first two words. So ‘we eat butter’ would be ‘a je bota’ just as ‘they eat butter’ would be ‘won je bota’ and the ‘mummy’s kid’ or spoilt, privileged person would be a noun – ajebota!
Regards,
Tunde
I still eat garri though. It’s so delicious. I just had some w/ moin moin.
I was considered “ajebota” growing up in Naija. But I moved her and lost that status. lol
you look gorgeous in that blue attire…good job Cara. I believed “ajebota” was more like a third person phrase, that is “those who eat butter” rather than “we eat butter”. But now am confused 🙂
I hope you enjoy every bit of having your mum around. More power to your elbow!
Your mum look very young. yo bot looks like sisters. May she have a wonderful time with you. Happy Easter and stay blessed and safe.
Aww lovely post Cara
xx
Cara,
I am so happy for you two, it’s great that your Mom was able to do this. Have to say I’m a bit jealous but only in a very good way!
Don’t worry about posting if it gets in the way at all of enjoying your mothers time there, it will go by fast.
Love,
Dad