Queen Amina, 'Greets' and Pancakes

Alex came home from nursery yesterday proudly brandishing the following picture that he had drawn in his after-school Nigerian Studies club:

I know, I must confess I'd never heard of Queen Amina of Zaria either, but turns out she is Nigeria's answer to Boadicea. The Warrior Queen apparently came to power in the late 1580s (or so - exact details are rather vague) and reigned over the Hausa city of Zaria, in the northern state of Kaduna. She is celebrated as one of Nigeria's greatest military strategists, undertaking a succession of fierce exploits in order to expand her area of influence. Her legacy lives on - many of the fortified city walls she ordered to be constructed around her military camps are still in existence today and she is remembered today in the phrase 'Amina, Yar Bakwa ta san rana', meaning, 'Amina, daughter of Bakwa, a woman as capable as a man'. She is apparently also famed for refusing to marry, instead taking a lover after each of her battle victories and killing him the morning after their night together (although I don't believe that the pre-school Nigerian Studies club entered into quite that level of historical detail).

As well as this in-depth study of Nigerian feminist icons, Alex has been learning Nigerian dancing ("look at me, Mummy - just hold one hand up in the air and turn around in circles until you feel sick") and Nigerian 'greets'. Last week, he arrived home, lay down on his tummy in the hallway, bowed his head and, after several long moments of silence, gave a big sigh and confessed "I have to say something now, but I can't remember what". It turns out that he was trying to show me a Yoruba greeting. I now know that he was affording me great respect by prostrating himself at my feet and the words he was searching for were 'Ẹ kú ọ̀sán' (Good afternoon).

At home, we have been learning about Nigerian food. Abigail, our nanny, is an excellent cook and has been making a number of Nigerian dishes for Alex and Freya to try, their favourites being fried plantain and jollof rice. This evening, in celebration of Shrove Tuesday, we decided the children should have pancakes for tea. Abigail was keen to cook so I suggested that they might have a couple of savoury pancakes followed by a sweeter one for pudding, and left things in her capable hands whilst I disappeared upstairs to send a couple of urgent emails. I returned to the kitchen ten minutes later to find Alex with the most enormous grin on his face, munching away on a sweetcorn-and-cheese pancake covered in golden syrup. Freya was similarly delighted by her pancake of sweetcorn and chocolate sauce, which she gobbled up before I had time to object. I must admit there are distinct advantages to combining both courses; it was the quickest pancake tea we've ever had, leaving the children plenty of time to practise their Nigerian dance routines before bedtime.