The Afosua Series: My Dream Woman

One of the reasons I don’t – and haven’t – written very much for Adventures is because of what my preconceived notion of a blog was. I have always been under the presumption that a ‘blog’ is an amalgamation of real events, and that it was the bloggers duty to report and at times opine on these real events. I have always assumed that a blog was no place for fiction.

I don’t know how I broke free of these mental chains, but I had an epiphany just within moments of writing this note. I can write about whatever I want on Adventures, and however I want to! Eureka!

As Nana will tell you, I am a great fan of narratives. I love written dialogue between two or more parties, as well as the simple complexities inherent within any narrative. All the literary greats have been adept at finding ways to join their characters to one singular event. I am always amazed at how Jane Austin, who has been touted as the first female romance novelist, has been able to draw connections between her aristocrat heroines and a street sweeper, for example. Anyhow, all this to say it is my plan to try my hand at a fictional narrative for Adventures.

The heroine of my narrative is my dream woman – or rather the woman of my dreams.

As you might recall, this space was in an uproar over the comments of one BBC for Africa’s reader’s comments about this very blog. He termed this blog and all its content as ‘misguided advice’ and surmised that African women had better ways to occupy their time than talking about sex. He proposed that our time would be better spent discussing Africa’s ‘core values’ including better child rearing. There’s no need to rehash any of that. We all know that this guy is an idiot.

But then that got me to thinking. Who is this typical African woman? Of course any fair minded person knows that there is no typical woman of any sort, but there is this myth, this pervasive stereotype of what an African woman is or should be. She’s educated (if at all) just well enough to be suitable for some predetermined occupation – like a receptionist – and knows very little about the world outside of the confines of her community. She easily controlled, and nonthreatening. And that’s just the way world would love to see an African woman: as harmless, and hardly worth regard. At best, she is to be pitied. My dream woman is the very antithesis of this stereotype; and at the end of the day, her existence and choices all center back to sex.

Sex! It’s such a dirty word, isn’t it? After all, ‘good girls’ don’t have sex, do they? They say money rules the world, but I’d be tempted to say sex trumps money. We all owe our very existence to two people having sex at some point, don’t we? And presidents have risen and fallen because of their views on issues surrounding sex (rape, abortion, gay sex), haven’t they? Sex is even used as a weapon in war zones, is it not? When a man does something noteworthy, is he not often ‘rewarded’ with sex – or in the converse, punished by withholding it? And is sex not sometimes used as currency or barter for material things? No friends, at the end of the day, I believe sex is Queen.

I hope you will enjoy this narrative of my fictional character, this empowered woman of my dreams. She is the person that I should have liked to have become, were I myself not afraid of society’s judgment. Perhaps I would have morphed into her if I had made 2 or 3 different decisions at critical points in my life. She also embodies elements of women I admire greatly. She will make mistakes, but she will use her wits to overcome them. She is the alter ego of so many women I know who wouldn’t dare to tread in her footsteps.

Her name is Afosua: because I’ve always thought that was a kick-ass name.