Status Updates From One Leg on Earth

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Before the first man was sculpted from mud, there was only water.

A mother is what is real.

No, for them, survival was immediate. Food. Water. Shelter, Breath. All demandingly, present tense. Like running water, like new clothes, tomorrow was a privilege they didn't think about.

Olabisi venture into Lagos when she was pregnant with Yosoye taught her to distrust the city. She went looking for Yosoye father in attempt to persuade him to marry her. Instead she met a Bowler Hat Man who promised her the world and delivered nothing. Olabisi has been a good mother. Yosoye has joined a church group of women who have experienced miscarriages.

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"Sir?" She turned back to him, startled. His expression reminded neutral, unreadable. Was this Who are you? as in Who do you think you are? Or more Who are you in the What kind of person does this after all I've done for you? sense?

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"Why are you saying government like it's one high concept? As if they're spirits that we can't see? Who is that government? Government is just men! Men that your oga knows, men that are his friends. You owe someone favor today. Tomorrow, someone owes you something else.

The Architect had said. Yosoye felt deceived, naive. For taking their maps as science instead of a work of dangerous imagination.

Yosoye tries to drown herself in the ocean. Fortunately, she was rescued. She is home with her mother. Tens of women jumped that with Yosoye, and the day after that, and the day after that. For five days now. Lagosians are taking notice.....Yosoye misses the women in her dreams and the women from the ocean.

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" I didn't think people could truly love me, but I thought if they called me beloved, then I could at least be adored. A prophecy, innit? If I couldn't get love, I would happily accept devotion."

Beloved shook her head. "Not just dying, Yosoye. Choosing to die. How. When. Isn't that the ultimate proof that your body belongs to you?"

Yosoye finds out that Beloved wanted to have sex with her because she is pregnant. Also, she wanted to capture the fear of committing suicide on canvas. Yosoye left her home in a hurry. Further, she has found out that the security guard at JKD is Endurance's cousin. Yosoye thinks her baby will fill the hollowness or emptiest that is part of her. Beloved told her a baby cannot fill this hole.

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Was her poverty a sin? Were workers supposed to be erased from the futures they were creating with their own bleeding hands?

He looked up from his empty glass, looked around, and Yosoye saw what it looked like for someone else to be alone.

"I just want to know if you dream about drowning, too, if sometimes, you want to ...."

Yosoye keeps thinking of the pregnant women who committed suicide and is scared. Yosoye keeps smelling sea water. She keeps thinking of drowning. Beloved is trying to help her. She takes her to a support group for women offering affirmation about pregnancy and motherhood. Yosoye shared her experience and scared these women. These women do not bring negative energy into their lives.

"It depends," a woman across the circle said. "Is it baby two or seven?"

It was clear that this group was thinking of the suicides as abstract. Like one discussed The Economy. An amorphous force out of their control.

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In this city, money evaporated in her hands, bank account wasting away like a man afflicted by an unknown disease.

Money was smearing realism all over her dreams.

There were people who kept others around to remind themselves that they were impressive.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

I like the way this book is written. The prose makes me think about what is real and what is fiction. Yosoye finds a community of pregnant women to connect with she drops her indignation and succumbs to the communal cooing which sounded like its own swarm song. In Nigeria, there are so many poor children begging for money on the streets.Yosoye encounters them every day. She is indifferent to them as a Lagonsian, now.

Yosoye is pregnant. Other pregnant women are drowning in the water committing suicide. There are different theories of why. A lot of pregnant women see the issue as abstract. The Architect sees her pregnancy as a good omen for OMI City. Yosoye sees her pregnancy as fulfilling her body. Someone who will need her. Yosoye sees this as changing her life. Beloved, the artist is staying in touch with Yosoye.

struggling with this one