Efo Riro, Reminds me of home...

*This is from an email from our Vice President. The original email is from the Ijesa Ladies Union International to the "Nigerians in Diaspora", another umbrella organization for our people. They are marking up an effort to fight childhood obesity in our children, a leading cause of adult onset diabetes, by encouraging us to go back to the basics of home cooking using fresh vegetables and minimal preservatives in our food - much like our mothers of old did. Enjoy!

HOW TO PREPARE EFO RIRO:

Eba and Efo Riro, Obe a je, pon 'nu la, hm, hm, hm!

Have you ever thought of using a portion of that little flower bed in front of your house or even using small plastic containers with some potting soil to plant some tomatoes, pepper and efo tete organically? I do that most summers with my teenage kids as our past time and the joy that planting gives when they start to come to fruit cannot be quantified.

If  you cannot plant, then go to your neighborhood store to purchase the fresh ingredients below.

Ingredients:

I bag of  fresh or frozen greens of  your choice ( tete, spinach, collard green, ewuro (bitter leaf), water leaf etc).

Fresh tomatoes about 5 lbs, 

One big bell pepper

Half medium sized onion.

2 cubes of maggi and seasonings of your choice

Fish, beef, saki, abodi, snail, panla or assorted whatever you like.

small teaspoon of salt 

Iru (locust bean) if you like it

Cooking Directions:

Wash and cut your meat (beef, goat meat, bushmeat, snail, fish,  panla etc)

Wash, cut and blend  the tomatoes, pepper and onion  with just enough water to keep them from getting stucked in the blender.

Pour the mix into your cooking pot  with the meat, cover  and bring to boil  for about 10 minutes or until the meat is  tender enough, brown and free of any red spots. Note FOR BEEF ONLY: If you are cooking the beef first before pouring the ingredients, do not add  water, it will generate its own water to boil it.

Add maggi, your seasonings  and  salt to taste.

(Optional) Add about 2 serving spoons of oil (ororo or epo pupa) ( If you have high cholesterol, you do not need oil, the beef will generate enough and it will taste equally great).

Add your cut,washed  and strained  greens  to the mixture

Bring all to boil for about 5 more minutes.

Your  highly nutritious efo riro free of unnecessary preservatives is ready in minutes .

Can serve 4-5 people.

Call your family to the table and serve them with Eba, Iyan, Amala, Rice, Eko riro, Lafun, etc. and a bottle of drinking water or fresh juice (not soda or fanta). The eating together itself also has its own advantage of bringing the family closer, another way of encouraging healthy living.  

Original article authored by Ms Olugbemiro Odunmbaku.
*Edited for posting by the blog editor. 

Thanks to Mrs Popoola for forwarding this.

Funke Abolade

S/P/Sec

A John Wesley Poetry Minute

Doing Good / Si se ohun ti o d'ara

Do all the good you can,      E se gbogbo ohun ti o d'ara,

By all the means you have,   Pelu gbogbo nkan ti e ni

In all the places you can,     Ni  gbogbo ibi ti e ba ti le de

At all the times you can,      Ni  gbogbo igba ti e ba le se

for all the people you can.    Fun gbogbo eni ti e ba le se fun

As long you ever can!          Fun gbogbo igba ti e ba ti le se.


*Have you done something good for anyone today? Do Good. Pass it on!


Original poem by John Wesley.

Modified and translated by the blog editor.

Funke Abolade

S/P/Sec 

On 9/11, we too, remember them...

An appropriate time to plant an American flag on a Nigerian website. 

With millions of Americans, we too remember that day of infamy that forever changed the way we live and travel.  Our prayers go out to the families of the victims and service men who have since also paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Where were you when the world as we knew it changed?

I remember where I was:  in the middle of a staff meeting about patients in a rural state Psychiatric
step - down forensic hospital in Caro, Michigan. People left the hospital, going to stock up on gas and groceries. Some wondered if the world was finally coming to an end.  Americans told me that this was war and we were in it immediately. I just wondered how I was going to get home 60 miles away with my one year old in tow in the middle of the confusion amongst the citizenry as to what just happened and what to do...

Here we are ten years on and the world has not come to an end. The original perpetrator has been caught but people's lives have been forever changed.

Where were you when the planes hit and what do you remember about that time? Please leave your comments on the blog.

Funke Abolade

S/P S

The culture of Aso ebi, creativity and talent amongst yoruba women.

 This is a yoruba fashion - centric post that only the ladies of yodaai may find interesting. Our men, unless you follow the vagaries of fashion, can stop reading the post now if y'all want.

Aso ebi,  for our non-yoruba speaking friends literally translates into "family cloth / dress / fabric",  something that when worn in a gathering, identifies a whole group of people wearing the same "dress" as ebi, or family or relatives, or close friends of the family - a very broad and inclusive definition indeed. Induces a feeling of warmth and fuzziness.

We can have a vigorous debate one way or the other on the virtues of the culture of aso ebi amongst us yoruba folks, why do we do it, is it necessary, etc, etc. This is not an essay on that subject.

Rather, this is a celebration of talent, creativity and bonding amongst the yorubas, focusing on the use of Aso ebi. Indeed that yoruba talent and creativity was on display this last labor day weekend at a 70th birthday celebration I attended in Houston, Texas. Yes, I know. A long way from Nigeria and here we are with our custom of aso ebi..

The family of the celebrant sent out this aso ebi to each of us.

Aso ebi, Ankara.

Not anything unusual amongst us Nigerians. The question is what do you do with it? What do you turn it into creatively?

Aso ebi with hot pink fabric added to top of blouse

 I was struck by the many different and fantabulous styles and combination people came up with,  given the same ankara fabric, both men and women. None of the women went to Macy's or Sacks 5th Avenue to pick out a design. We each found our individual tailors and created our individual designs and came out with about a hundred different complete designs, no two dresses alike, same fabric.

Aso ebi on top, different skirt altogether

Aso ebi, maxi dress

Aso ebi maxi dress with swingy bottom

Aso ebi, traditional iro & buba

Aso ebi, different blouse on top, with the aso ebi as gele and wrapper on the left, Skirt & blouse on the right.

Aso ebi combined with denim fabric to make a wrap dress! Ingenious!

Aso ebi, Cute Top with black ric rac in the waist

Aso ebi with turquoise gele (Headtie and )insert in bustier 

Aso ebi skirt & blouse with turquoise inserts in top & skirt,  (r) maxi dress with gold sequins on top, pink insert below

Aso ebi with golden yellow sequins on maxi dress

Aso ebi, with holes cut out of fabric to make it into lace with a bronze lining underneath showing

Aso ebi, traditional buba & sokoto

 Dont tell me we are not a creatively minded people, very right brained and ingenious in what we can do given the little we have by way of resources. Here is my premise really for this story: Any group of minds that can come up with this many ideas can surely come up with creative solutions for some of the challenges facing our country. I know that this is a long extrapolation, but why not?

What are we doing with our God given talents? 

I am reminded of the old Ebenezer Obey song -  that song that spoke about the parable of the 3 men with talents, one of whom ended up burying his. "Ma se ri talenti ri mo le arakunrin, Oluwa yio bere l'owo re, ohun t'o fi se! 

Yes, we are a talented group. Yes, we can be very creative. Yes, we can, as President Obama would say, if we put our minds to it, create a better, more secure society for our selves in Nigeria. Yes, we can harness the talent and creative minds of many Yoruba/Nigerians to take the society to a different level, reflect our culture from a different perspective, make the world sit up and notice us once again, and not just for what we are wearing.

Funke Abolade,


Social / Publicity Secretary

A little bit of Yoruba history...

Lady Betty, Rev R.H.Stone and the Ijaye-Ibadan war.

Did you know that the great grand-daughter of the first Baptist Missionary to Nigeria lives in Alabama? It is a little known fact that may be of relevance only to the yoruba descendants in Alabama like us. Read on.

By Prof Lekan Ayanwale.

The woman is by the name of Mrs Betty Finklea Florey. She lives in Tuscaloosa and teaches at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Her great grandfather and the missionary's name is Rev. R.H. Stone, who in 1858 (by foot from Lagos port) arrived in Ijaye Orile, a suburb of Ibadan where my own great grand parents originated from, to be specific.

More about Ijaiye town of old and new.

 Ijaye of old is in Akinyele local government area of Oyo State.  Rev. R.H. Stone's book about the Ijaye war entitled "In Africa's Forest and Jungle" was first published in 1899. It was recently edited and re-written by this remarkable descendant of his, lady Betty as she would like to be called.

 Rev Stone's diary was the only authentic and eye-witness accounts of the Ijaye vs Ibadan war.

  

Are Kunrunmi of Ijaye led the Ijaiye people while Ogunmola of Ibadan led the people of Ibadan. The Ibadan people (like our President Yinka & co) trashed my people in the war. Those who survived migrated to other parts of Oyo State while others moved to Ogun and Lagos States. My own people migrated to Abeokuta, Ogun State and later to Lagos. That is why we have (where they settled) Ijaye Ojokoro near Ifo, Ijaiye Agege / Ifako and Ago Ijaye (Methodist Church at Ebute meta) areas of Lagos State today. 

*From the editor: There is more to this story from Prof. Ayanwale in part 2.

Edited for publishing by Funke Abolade.

Congratulations to one of ours!

Mrs Sola Popoola, Vice President, YODAAI


From all of us at YODAAI, a heartfelt congratulations to our Vice President, Mrs Sola Popoola, who I have just been reliably informed has been appointed an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing, Tuskegee University, Alabama. Owo yin a ma ro oke o. Ko ni re yin o. We share in your reflected glory and we are proud of you or as we say in the south, "you go girl!".


Funke Abolade


Social/Publicity sec.