The bank closed. The moon did not.
In this episode of Igbo Daily Drops, you'll learn 3 phrases for talking about
months and making plans — three months ago, in May, in December — and how a
calendar drawn in charcoal turns grief into a plan.
Eke Awka market, 1970, weeks after the Nigeria–Biafra war. Oriakụ, a
widowed cloth seller, has four five-pound notes: the twenty pounds the bank
gave back for her savings. With a stick of charcoal from her own burnt
rafters, she draws the months on the one wall still standing. In Igbo, month
and moon share one word, ọnwa. This is intangible cultural heritage and an
endangered language: the story of how Igbo women rebuilt, offered in a spirit
of cultural understanding and an African heritage renaissance.
Oriakụ and her family are fictional. The charcoal calendar, the burnt stall
and her daughter's occupied school are fictional reconstruction. The flat
£20 policy for Igbo depositors is documented (Achebe, There Was a Country,
2012), as are troops billeted in secondary schools in early 1970 and women's
central role in war-time trade and post-war recovery.
Research in this episode draws on Gloria Chuku, African Economic History,
1995 — Igbo women's trade and farming were "paramount in sustaining the Igbo
population during the war", and one mat-maker, Janet Agu, gave her son £48
"with which to start life again" when it ended.
📖 Today's proverb: E jighị ụtụtụ ama njọ ahịa — You do not judge a market's
failure by its morning.
🗣️ Sentences practised today:
1. Ọnwa atọ gara aga, enweghị m ihe ọ bụla. — Three months ago, I had nothing.
2. N'ọnwa Mee, aga m emeghe ụlọ ahịa. — In May, I'll open the shop.
3. Na Disemba, ụmụ m ga-alaghachi akwụkwọ. — In December, my children will go
back to school.
📥 Free Speaking Workbook: learnigbonow.com
🏛️ By every measure UNESCO uses to assess a language's vitality —
intergenerational transmission, community attitudes, government support — Igbo is
vulnerable. This podcast documents Igbo intangible cultural heritage — oral
traditions, social practices, rituals, and knowledge systems — while teaching
conversational Igbo to diaspora learners worldwide. Every episode is part of the
Igbo Daily Drops Living Archive.
Hosted by Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo — Heritage Futurist and Daughter of the soil.
▶️ Watch the visual version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LearnIgbo/podcasts
🎧 Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/iddspot
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/iddapple
🌐 learnigbonow.com
Every sentence you learn is a drop. Every drop feeds Oké Osimiri Mmụta Igbo —
the Ocean of Igbo Knowledge.
This has been Igbo Daily Drops with Yvonne Mbanefo.
FREE RESOURCES: - Igbo Heritage Family Kit: https://learnigbonow.com -
Main Channel: @learnigbo on YouTube
Kids' Channel: @learnigboforkids on YouTube
Our Mission: Raise 10,000 more next-generation Igbo speakers by next year.
Be one of them. Every sentence you learn is a drop.
And every drop feeds Oké Osimiri Mmụta Igbo — the Ocean of Igbo Knowledge. Subscribe now. Foundation episodes begin today.
