TICK IT book-club

  The Plot Summary The story, "The Neighbourhood Watch," follows a group of homeless individuals, Elias, Lazarus, Martin, Silas, and Omagano, who have formed a bond and a system for survival on the streets of Windhoek, Namibia. Watch here They call themselves the "Neighbourhood Watch" and have specific days dedicated to scavenging for food and other necessities in different neighborhoods. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they avoid poor areas and instead focus on neighborhoods where they know they will find more valuable resources, such as white or wealthier black communities. On Fridays and Saturdays, they stay in a designated spot, called "Headquarters," to avoid potential trouble with the police. And on Sundays, they focus on the neighborhoods of Avis, Klein Windhoek, and Eros where they know they will find the most resources and the least interference. The group also receives assistance from an elderly woman, Mrs. Bezuidenhout, who regularly gives them food,...

  "God Sees the Truth, but Waits" is a short story by Leo Tolstoy, that follows the story of a man named Ivan Aksionov, who is falsely accused of murder and robbery and is sentenced to 26 years of imprisonment in Siberia. Watch here Before he is framed and accused of the heinous crime Ivan is a young merchant from the town of Vladimir. He owns two shops and a house. As a young man, he was unruly and given to drinking a tad too much, but he stopped drinking when he got married. One day he bids his family goodbye as he is leaving for the Nizhy Fair. His wife dissuades him from going since she has had a bad dream about him. She dreams that he would return when his hair is quite grey. She beseeches him to put off the journey till a later date. Ivan Dmitritch Aksionov laughs it off and says that that is a lucky sign and carries through with his intended journey. Halfway through the journey he meets a merchant, who is an acquaintance of his. They spend the night at the same inn, ha...

                        The Plot Summary Watch here Adichie’s short story ‘Ghost’ alludes to the 1967-1970 Biafra War in Nigeria which she deploys as a pivotal vantage point to scan the realities of postcolonial Nigerian state. The plot of the story unfolds through the narrative voice of Professor James Nwoye, a retired 71-year-old Mathematics professor who was at Nsukka University at the time it fell to the federal forces during the civil war. The protagonist in the story epitomizes the devastation of the war, having lost a child to it and suffered disruption and dislocation. 'Ghost’ focuses on the present but flashes back to the past to reveal the harsh realities of the fictional postcolonial spaces it recreates. The story, "Ghosts," is set on a university campus in Nigeria and follows the character of James Nwoye, a retired professor, as he reflects on his past, current life, and encounters with the ghost of his late wi...

             The Plot Summary Short summary - a man sells a piece of land to some shady characters against the advice of his family and friends only to find out that the money he is given as payment is cursed The story is set in the vast rural expanse of Kakamega, Kenya. It is about a man named Mukidanyi who lives in a rural area and sells land to a wealthy man named Galo. He is warned against this transaction by his wife Ronika, and also by his brothers, Ngoseywe and Agoya. Mukidanyi’s brothers Ngoseywe and Agoya give up on him and leave. Obsessed with money in his mind, he refuses to heed his wife’s counsel and instead flogs her. Despite their warnings, Mukidanyi goes ahead and signs papers, accepting a large sum of money from Galo. After the papers are signed and the money is received, strange occurrences start happening in Mukidanyi's house. Voices are heard coming from under the bed where the money was kept. Frightened by these events, Ronika forc...

          The Plot Summary Abioseh Nical’s story, ‘The Truly Married Woman,’ follows Ajayi, a civil servant, and his relationship with Ayo, a woman he eventually marries. In the beginning, Ajayi and Ayo live together (Co-habitate) but aren't married despite the fact that Ayo had always wanted to be married properly. While Ayo tries to coarse Ajayi to marry her, Ajayi is hesitant as he feels that marriage involves some wild spending and the ceremony is unnecessarily costly. Ajayi's view on marriage frustrates Ayo until she accepts that it will never happen; thus, she stops trying to talk Ajati into marrying her. Basically, she gives up on the issue. despite not being officially married, the couples time together appears relatively amicable as Ayo performs her 'wifely' duties faithfully. They enjoy an everyday family life punctuated with minor conflicts such as the one that arises over Ajayi’s beating of their son Oju. This conflict surprises Ajayi as Ayo rarely ...

          The Plot Summary The old man goes to a tribal seer for a consultation after noticing something strange about a goat he had slaughtered (he notices blood specks on the liver of a goat he had slaughtered). The seer after listening to the old man tells him that his wife, is going to die (based off that sign from the slaughtered goat), and the only way to prevent this is to give the wife a thorough beating and send her to her parents.The seer’s pebbles say the man’s wife is going to die because the spirits were jealous of a happy wife. The old man is hesitant to follow this advice and suggests offering goats as a sacrifice instead. However, the seer is adamant that to avert the wife's death, the pebbles say he has to give her a thorough beating. The old man is a chief's councillor and is regarded as a small chief. As much as he is respected, many are surprised that he has only one wife. When the chief suggested that he marries another wife, the man replies...

              Plot summary  A Silent Song is a story about Mbane, a young paralyzed, blind city street beggar who has spent much of his life living on the streets of a city, begging for money and seeking shelter in a back lane at night. He lives in destitution, begging from the passers-by while seething with pain and discomfort. However, despite being surrounded by people and activity, Mbane is isolated and unable to fully participate in the rhythms and pleasures of urban life. He is unable to share in the small talk of the pedestrians, and even when they sing or whistle to the morning sky, Mbane can only observe from a distance. In the story, the city is depicted as a place of noise and activity, with people singing and dancing and engaging in various forms of work and leisure. However, Mbane is only able to experience this activity from a limited perspective, and is unable to fully understand or participate in it. This is due to Mbane's blindnes...

  THE PLOT SUMMARY The passage is about a market gardener named Ninema who grows and sells herbs at the Indian market. Ninema is described as a hardworking and respected woman who is admired by those around her for her skill and determination. Despite facing challenges, including an attack by an unknown assailant, Ninema is described as facing them head-on and winning. She is practical and focused on earning a living, and is well-regarded by her customers. Ninema is also described as a beautiful woman who is admired by those around her, although she does not seem to be aware of this. She is described as having long, toned arms, a cinched waist, and high, firm breasts, and is known for her piercing black eyes and high cheekbones. Despite the attention she receives from others, Ninema is primarily focused on her work and does not let the attention distract her. Throughout the passage, Ninema's interactions with customers and colleagues are described in detail. The passage mentions a ...

  THE PLOT SUMMARY  The short story opens with a gloomy description of the park. We meet some park loungers who waste hours on end sleeping in the park. Most of the idlers do not pay heed to the parliament and city hall clocks, and would rather loll all day doing nothing. At 1:00 , office workers come out of their offices in swarms. They are then swallowed by the sad city as they disperse in search of lunch. The idlers in the park nonchalantly watch the workers emerge from their offices, disappear into the city and even anticipate the wave of workers to return from various eateries and flood past the park back to their various offices. “The patched park was almost dead, alive only with a few idlers.” Among the idle men sitting or lying under trees and shrubs is a fruit-seller. He sits under a shrub taking stock of his sales. He mumbles and curses and lays on his back, covering his face with his bony hands. He lounges during lunch break. Maybe he is too poor to afford a meal. M...

  The Plot Summary Tayyib al-Mahdi is a man who believes that he has completed his mission in life and is living a contented, retired existence in an apartment in Nasr City. His current life is peaceful and uneventful. He spends time watching television, reading newspapers or listening to the radio in the comfort of his apartment that he shares with his wife since his daughters are already married.  One night, a man of radiant appearance appears to him in a dream and tells him that he has the power to make things happen simply by saying "Be!" At first, Tayyib is skeptical of the dream, but when he tries out his new power by commanding the television to change channels and makes it happen, he realizes that the dream was real. Endowed with the newly acquired power, he sets out to reform his country and the entire planet as he had often wished. He begins to use his power in various ways, such as making a taxi driver's tires explode when the driver refuses to pick him up, mak...

Chapter 14  (Page  173-185)  The Homestretch The summit reconvenes. The mood is expectant, yet jittery, hope and fear hang in the air in equal measure. Heads of state hope The Method Committee that had been formed the previous evening has done its work and found a method they will use to choose between Way Omega and Path Alpha. They fear their pick of committee leader might have killed this prospect even before it was born. President Bangoura, the chair of the committee, has surprisingly told the heads of state that he had not read and will never read the documents. There is a change in the sitting arrangement: Minister Zinto has moved to a place farther from the summit chair to create space for President Bangoura, the chair of The Method Committee. The other two remain at the places they had sat before. Among the observers at the back row are three new presences: Mr. Robert Manley, the chief of the local VOA bureau,  Fiona McKenzie and Mr. Nicolas Sentinel. Mr. Long...

Chapter 13 (Pg. 168-172) The Choice Matrix Dr. Afolabi visits Fiona Mckenzie. He follows the directions he had been given by her. He is warmly welcomed. It’s evening. A few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door. Nicolas Sentinel comes in. Dr. Afolabi and Mr. Nicolas Sentinel meet face to face for the first time. Dr. Afolabi has been looking forward to this great opportunity. He thanks Nick for having given him the tip of The Trick that enabled him manage to put Path Alpha on the summit’s agenda. Dr. Afolabi says that African Presidents condemn trouble makers but ironically some of them are trouble makers. If the heads of state would have had prior knowledge of The Trick, they would have plotted mischief against it. Nick reveals that his silent listener has told him that a method for choosing between Way Omega and Path Alpha had been found and that The Method Committee has named it The Choice Matrix. Dr. Afolabi has organized for observer status for Fiona McKenzie at the summit the...

Chapter 12 (Pg. 150-167) The Summit The national anthem for Gambia, our homeland strikes. The Gambian president stands up and marches to the speaker’s microphone and seated before him are 49 fellow heads of state. He digs out from a breast pocket a prepared speech. He then reads it. In his short speech he averse that the task of the summit is to adopt a common growth strategy for their people: Way Omega. Then he officially opens the meeting. H.E Miniko Menkiti, president of an important country is the chair after the Gambian president declined. Flanking the chair on his left and right are two other summiteers: Mr. Tiku Zinto on his right, a Minister of Development Planning in an Island country. Dr. Afolabi, here as an advisor is to help the summit along if asked to, is sitting on the chair’s left. The chair calls Mr. Tiku Zinto as the first speaker. He underscores the need for change and is in support of Way Omega. Dr. Afolabi is the next speaker. In his seven minutes, he makes two req...

Chapter 11 (Pg.141-149) Meeting the Guide Pastor Chiamaka goes through the Pinnacle Hotel’s security clearance formalities without difficulty and enters the dining room with ease. According to the program, heads of state should have had a small dinner at the Pinnacle Hotel the day before the real banquet on the last day of their summit. That small dinner at the Pinnacle Hotel was cancelled without explanation. So Chiamaka’s intended plan to meet his president and ask him about Way Omega failed. Chiamaka’s mobile phone rings, he picks it up. The caller on the other end is in jovial mood. It is the guide calling. The guide informs Pastor Chiamaka that he has scheduled a meeting that is soon to bring together Chiamaka and four other people alongside the guide. Pastor Chineke Chiamaka is invited to room 2059, central wing of The Seamount Hotel. This is the room where the guide is. Meanwhile, as Comrade Melusi is in bed, flat on his back, day dreaming about his late wife, Ziliza, he reaches...

 Chapter 10 The youth (Nick) phones her immediately after lunch, Fiona McKenzie goes to see Nicolas Sentinel in his office. She’s told to meet the silent listener. From the recordings on the silent listener, Nick says that there could be something fishy going on at the summit; a secret agenda by people whose identities are yet to be figured out beyond their names. There is a network of people whom he refers to as nodes. Four nodes (people) are not connected to each other. There are conversations over cell phones between a man and four others. While the other man knew names of the other four, he insisted they just call him guide, a fake name. it turns out the guide is a hub-node then those other nodes are the four men: Prof. Kimani, Comrade Melusi, PastorChiamaka and Engineer Tahir. The nodes are at The Seamount Hotel. Nick says he uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) as a way of determining location. The four nodes are not in communication with each other. All the four are comm...

Chapter 9 After graduating from Abdelaziz Academy in Tripoli, Libya, Engineer Seif Tahir had left Libya and gone to study weapons development at the University of Paris. Some skeptics scoffed at him. He returned from overseas (France) on the day the leader of Libya was celebrating his twentieth year in power. The leader’s opponents were not happy with these celebrations.  Engineer Tahir dismissed them as “crackpots left alone and ignored.” He believed the ruler had the right vision for Libya and so was the right person to rule it. He defended the ruler. Engineer Tahir joined the “Fist for Allah” after his return from the overseas. In a happy coincidence, the leader of Libya adored the “Fist of Allah.” He gave it all the money it asked for. Al-Qaeda struck on the American soil. The leader of Libya knew America would retaliate and not necessarily with bounds of reason. He scrambled for his bases to shield Libya from America’s revenge. He even dismantled the “Fist of Allah” itself. En...