#676 On Ohaeto Street- Chinelo Okparanta
“Here are Nigerian woman at home and transplanted to the United States, building lives out of longing and hope, faith and doubt, the struggle to stay and the mandate to leave, the burden and strength of love.”
That is the back cover description of Chinelo OKparanta’s 2013 collection, Happiness, Like Water. It’s hard not to read that and think of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection, That Thing Around Your Neck, that we’ve already read for this project. But, that’s not a bad thing. Comparison is a part of analysis. I am looking forward reading this.
We begin with this story. Chinwe and her mother live on Ohaeto street, her father now dead. They get visited by a young Jehova’s Witness named Eze. At first Chinwe won’t invite him in, but her mother sees something in the young man, and they talk for a while. Besides spreading the good word, he is looking to start a family but he will only marry a woman who is also a Witness. After several friendly visits, Chinwe agrees at her mother’s prodding to convert and become Eze’s husband.
Meanwhile the surrounding townships are falling to a gang of thieves. When their neighborhood agrees to make a deal with the thieves and pay them off, Eze refuses to contribute, so he and Chinwe become a target. Eze is a wealthy and ostentatious so the robbers come pretty quickly. They survive the attack, but it becomes clear that Eze is more worried about protecting his wealth that his wife, she decides to leave.
There is strong commentary here about patriarchal constructs in religion, and the subjugation of independent woman for “stability.”
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