Posted in Proverbs, tagged proverbs on January 26, 2011| 5 Comments »
Translation: It is not out of enjoyment that a woman says yes.
This proverb highlights Yoruba culture about courting a woman. Men think that when a woman says “no” once, that just means he has to ask again, and again, and again until she finally agrees to go out with you or even marry you. Quite different than the American dating culture. People use this proverb in circumstances when you have to struggle and use persistance to achieve something, something we have to do a lot of here.
Posted in Proverbs, tagged patience, proverbs on October 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »
This proverb speaks about the importance of patience, a virtue sometimes hard to exercise in Nigeria, but very important nonetheless.
Posted in Proverbs, tagged proverbs on September 22, 2010| 4 Comments »
We learned this proverb on the first day of Yoruba class in Nigeria. It means we don’t make fun or abuse people to their face. It would be extremely rude to count a man’s 9 toes right in front of him.
As we have been trekking through campus going from department to department on a journey for library cards, ID cards and the like, we naturally meet a lot of new people. It usually happens that one of us ends up talking more than others. The people we greet assume the others can’t speak Yoruba as well as the one talking and then say that to us to our face. Now we have a comeback to put them in their place and show we actually do know Yoruba dáaáaa (very well).
North of Lagos 