My Culture,

    

I am from Togo. It is a small country located in the west side of Africa. Togo is limited to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north by Burkina-Faso, to the east by Benin, and to the west by Ghana. I am from the south of Togo, and my village name is Agbanakin. Although I was born in Lome the capital of Togo my parents taught me some do of my culture. As it is define culture is about what are your values and beliefs. However, my parents taught me the value of education in the society because without education, it is hard to succeed in life.

    My country is a mix of religion, and dominant one is the Christianity. The rest of religion are Muslim and Animist. In my village Agbanakin, people have all kind of “gods” in which they believe in. If i remember well each year they have festival call “Zangbeto zan”, its means voodoo mask festival where the neighbor villages came with their Zangbeto. In Aneho-Glidji the celebrate festival of stone named “Ekpessosso” where one of the leader of voodoo go into sacred forest and pick up one stone from there, and if the stone is red that’s mean there will be no rain, in case it is white there will be rain where they will have good harvest year. In Kara it is located in the north side of Togo, we have one festival called “Evala”, and it is festival of wrestler.

   Now as we come to the food, we have all kind of foods but national foods are “Akoume” and “Fufu”. Akoume is made of maize floor and we eat it with all kind of soup but my favorite soup with that is “Ademe dessi” called jutes leaves. Fufu is made of yam which is crushed.

  In conclusion, I really love my country culture. It is way different than the western culture. We have all kind of beliefs, all kind of foods, and kind of wearing.

 

 

 

         CAN YOU CONNECT THIS STORY TO  A  CULTURE  OR TRADITION THAT IS PRACTICED TODAY?

 

      In this book, ”Things Fall Apart” of Chinua  Achebe, the narrator Achebe is talking  about the Igbo culture or tradition. The story took place in the colonial time precisely at the end of the nineteen century where the British government brought Christianity, their government and law to the different tribes in Nigerian. As it was described in the novel Okonkwo on of the main character in the novel tried to keep his tradition he didn’t want it to lose that tradition because that was his belief and he wanted his children to follow is path and he was so furious when he found out that his son Nwoye joined the missionary.  Tradition is the transmission of a customs or beliefs from generation to generation, and through the novel, Achebe talked about the Igbo culture or tradition and it is nothing like Christianity where there is only one GOD but more than one GOD, and it is away different and it is called in the Bible as” idolatry”; the Igbo tradition allowed people married more than one wives. First if we took the worship of many GODS in the Igbo tradition, we could notice that kind of tradition still in Africa and I have witness some of it. Am from Agbanakin one village in Togo and it is an idolatry village and people in the village have all kind of GOD like god of river, god of snake, god of thunders that one every time that it is running and there is thunders you will see all followers named “vodoussi” come out on the ruin and worship their god. You don’t whisper in my village at night for the villagers it was like you calling the snakes.  In Aneho- Togo they celebrate sacred stone named “ekpessosso”,  and they oracle go to the sacred forest and get the stone and if the stone is white that mean the year will be good for former and if the stone is red that mean the year won’t be good for farmers. However in those villages the second thing we noticed is the villagers married more than one wife just like it was described in the novel where Okonkwo have married three wives. If we took the Islamic tradition people married up to seven wives and I have seen something on youtube where a man is married to 86 wives.

    In conclusion, today where we are in the 21 century people still practiced the tradition of their pass grand father and the African continent is the one of the continent who is really connected to this novel of Chinua Achebe “Things Fall Apart”. In each village of every country in Africa, villagers have all kinds of gods in which they believed and they have all kind of practice and ways to worship those gods. The villagers do every things that is on their power to protect that tradition to be transmitted from generation to generation just like Okonkwo was trying to protect his culture. After all it is not all of villagers that are followers of those gods.

 

 

     “It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers.”(page 207) said by Obierika close friend of Okonkwo after Okonkwo took his own life. I really like this quote because it explained the tradition of Igbo clan and for them someone taking  his life was seeing bad, and that’s their beliefs.

    One of the scene I really liked in  this novel of Chinua Achebe was how Okonkwo  felt after he killed Ikemefuna the boy who was giving to Okonkwo by a neighboring village. Ikemefuna has to live at Okonkwo  house until decide what will be his situation because he was giving by a neighboring village to settle peace with the umofia village. As the boy stayed at Okonkwo house Okonkwo has developed a strong relationship with the boy and ven the boy called him “father”. One day the oracle decided that the boy need to be killed and Ogbuefi the oldest man of the village told Okonkwo not to take part in the boy death because Ikemefuna  was like his son, but he did not listen to the old man. However Okonkwo participated to the death of the boy and he was the one who cut the boy because he always wanted to see by the rest of the man as the tough wrestling man. When Okonkwo came home he was not felling himself, he could not sleep, he cannot eat  until everyone from his house noticed it; deep inside him he was weak  and emotional as he thought about other people who are emotional that they are like women .