#41 A Private Experience- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Two Nigerian woman find themselves together in an abandoned
storefront helping one another stay safe during a riot. These two woman are
polar opposites in everything external; Chika studies medicine at the
University, the other woman sells onions in the market. Chika loses her
expensive Burburry bag while fleeing the mob, the other woman loses her cheap
plastic necklace. Chika is an Igbo Christian, the other woman is a Hausa
Muslim. When riots break out, these differences do not matter.
The unrest began when a Christian man ran over a Koran in
the street. The Hausa woman seems to be used to these cultural uprisings, while
Chika is overwhelmed.
“Riots like this are what she read about in newspapers. Riots
like this were what happened to other people.”
Despite being in close confines and sharing very intimate
personal moments, these woman remain somewhat distant and very detached,
each retreating to a personal bubble. Thus the title. The scene with the woman worrying
about her cracked nipple is a powerful metaphor for her inability to protect
her children when they need her the most.
Notable Passage: “The room is stuffy and smells nothing like
the streets outside, which smell like the kind of sky-colored smoke that wafts
around during Christmas when people throw goat carcasses into fires to burn the
hair off the skin.”
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