It reads like the experiences of a girl, Esi. That is only on the surface. Of Women and Frogs is deeper. BisiAdjapon just hid behind Esi to recall Ghana’s tortuous history. This book brims with so much information disguised as fiction. It shows an author who knows the importance of research, even in a fictional work.
Adjapon tells a gripping tale. A girl, Esi, and her brother, Kwabena, find themselves in Ghana, their fatherland. They leave Nigeria to stay with their father, stepmother and stepsiblings. Adjusting to life with their new family is not easy. Even pronouncing the names of her four sisters is a daunting task for Esi, who soon gives the sisters monikers based on their attitudes towards her.
She experiences so many unpleasant things. For example, she is exposed to elders in love with superstitious beliefs (Or is it lies?). Elderly people are fond of telling kids lies to get them to avoid certain actions. Esi is told by a friend, who is some years older, that she will turn to a boy if she allows a frog to jump on her. This lie instills fear in her for a long time until the day she seeks to become a boy after a terrifying experience. Of course, she never became a boy! This discovery has a lasting impression on her.
Another unpleasant exposure for her young mind is about her father, the one she fondly calls Papa, who comes across to me as a man with low moral compass. What manner of a father sleeps with a concubine on a king-size bed on which his daughter is sleeping? If he fails to show good example, his wife Auntie and other children do not fare better. At almost every given opportunity, they make Esi feel bad about herself. One even calls her ‘Nigerian animal’ because she has a Nigerian mother, who she finds out painfully was long dead while elders were lying to her.
Her father, Edward, always sees a lady through her womanhood—her education counts less. He sees nothing wrong in Abena’s husband almost throwing her out of the window. All is well with Mansa’s husband pummeling her. To him, being a woman equals being the wrong one in any dispute with the man of the house.
But Esi is a strong girl, brilliant and strong-willed. The young girl in Esi becomes fascinated by her own body, but her stepmother and sisters criminalise this and punish her. That, however, does not stop the fascination. Her stay in a boarding school gives her the freedom to discover her body. Her fascination reaches a crescendo when she visits her relatives in Nigeria and falls in love with Kayode. Their relationship eventually ends on a sad note, with Rudolph appearing to fill the vacuum.
Her father and stepmother always drum it in her ears that the glory of a woman is in her husband. She is constantly reminded that equality when it comes to man and woman relationship is a mirage, and she must learn to live under a man’s shadow. In fact, she is made to feel men do not like educated women! In some other instances, her father makes her feel special, makes sure she gets into the best girls’ school and the University of Ghana—but reminds her what vacuum will be in her life without a man.
She is deceived into what she assumes is an engagement to Rudolph who is planning to relocate to Hollywood. Her father pursues her from home, arguing that their traditional engagement is equivalent to marriage. She is heart-broken, but nonetheless heads for Ibadan to stay with her husband. In Ibadan, her eyes open to the fact that Rudolph is not willing to sacrifice his Hollywood dream to start a family. So, when she falls pregnant, she is made to undergo another abortion, a development which marks the beginning of the end of their union. She soon heads for Dakar for a one-year stay as part of her French and Spanish degree programme, where she is forced to declare: “I am the queen of my body.” What happens after then? You need to read this important addition to literature to find out.
The themes Adjapon examines in this amazing work include feminism, deceit, heartbreak, domestic violence, deaths, failure of leadership, military dictatorship and abuse of power. And these, plus concise use of language, are the main strengths of this novel. The use of present tense mainly in the narration almost makes one forget that the events happened long ago. This, for me, is a plus. It brings some freshness.
Adjapon deserves kudos for her use of language. You will laugh at how words that look ordinary have meanings far beyond the surface. Imagine a pupil asking a teacher to explain how a man can enter a woman! The confused teacher rambles and eventually gets angry. What does it mean to eat a woman? Language is indeed a plus for the novel.
She paints imageries with words and uses them as planes to fly her readers from one point to the other. She blends words almost perfectly. She shows that with simple words you can tell a story, and perfectly too.
I, however, see some readers or critics complaining about the unpretentious depiction of sex. There is a school of thought, which believes that African literature should shy away from graphic depiction of sex. A member of this school of thought moved unsuccessfully against the award of the NLNG Literature Prize to Chika Ungwe’sOn Black Sisters’ Street because of its depiction of sex. He was to complain later when Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson Blossoms won the prize. I do not belong to this school. I also feel some will want to argue that Esi’s sexual baptism is premature, but I think they only need to think back and they may face the reality.
Anchoring the Esi story around major political developments in Ghana and Nigeria is a major plus. It takes the novel to a serious realm. I believe it will be nostalgic for an average Ghanaian, especially. The country saw hell and came back. This is a fact that an average Nigerian who travels to Accra, the Ghanaian capital, and is amazed that things work better, should have at the back of his or her mind. It is not that there are no hawkers or beggars on the streets, but Ghana works the way Nigeria is still dreaming of.
Adjapon gives us insights into the fire Ghana passed through before becoming the destination for many a Nigerian to have fun: The aliens’ expulsion, the coups, the counter coups and the coming of Flight Lieutenant J.J. Rawlings, the one called Junior Jesus. J.J. led a revolution, which saw many being killed on account of being allegedly corrupt. Soldiers took advantage of the revolution to wreak havocs on ordinary folks. But in the long run, Ghana rose above it all and is better for it. Aburi and its significance to Nigeria find a creative space in Adjapon’s narration; so is the Ghana-must-go saga, a retaliatory action for Ghana’s earlier aliens’ expulsion.
My final tale: Like Ghana, Nigeria has also been to hell, but unlike Ghana, Nigeria is not back. We are still trying to find our way back. It is taking so long that many are wondering if the labours of our heroes past are not in vain.
