WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

“I will not cook!” Whatever do I mean? Because I am an educated woman, or I should say because I am a woman, I am going to complicate this rather simple statement. A lot of people are assuming that I am just stating that “I Will Not Cook” but for a woman like myself that would be rather pedestrian and obvious.

The issue at hand is much bigger than that; and it is much bigger than me. The voice of the person stating “I Will Not Cook” could be that of a woman or a man.


So when you think about, “I Will Not Cook”, think about it as a statement representing a departure from the normal, a departure from the expected, a departure from what it means to be African. Think about the kind of shock that you feel when you see an African parent trying to reason with their 5 year old child, when you know that in the African tradition the child ought to be slapped and told to shut up. I call the blog, I will not cook because in the African context, this is the greatest sin of all. And so, I will start off with this topic. In America, people say finances will break up a home, in Africa it is the lack of cooking that will send your husband packing and running for his life.

The matters that I will be talking about are the dynamics in relationships as it pertains to Africans living abroad and to some extent to the ones living on the continent. How do navigate through our traditional values when living in a foreign land? How modern is too modern? We will talk about cooking, sex, dating and marriage inside and outside your ethnic group or race, bearing children, raising children, the dynamics of juju and witchcraft in marriage and families, mother-in-laws, father-in-laws, sending money to your parents after marriage, traditional marriages vs. white weddings, marrying for papers, building homes in village, not speaking your traditional language, African men who marry nurses, African men who pimp their wives, African men who beat their wives, taking a second wife, and so much more. If you have a topic, send it in and let us talk about it.