Wonders of Wanda

 The Title The title of the story is in the form of a question that jogs our minds even before we start reading the story. We, ourselves, wonder whether there is a standard amount of land that each person needs before he/she is satisfied.  In the story, Pahom already owns 123 acres of land but still desires to have more. This desire to have more land is what makes him to readily travel to a distant land to have more land.  Plot Summary Pahom is a farmer who is already in possession of 123 acres of land in which he has built a house where five members of his family live. However, he still has an insatiable appetite for more land because he believes the 123 acres are not enough. So, when he meets a dealer who informs him about the land of the Bashkirs, where land as much as 13,000 acres can be acquired for as little an amount as 1,000 roubles, he readily travels to this place, the long distance notwithstanding.  Pahoms gets to the land of the Bashkirs after seven days....

 Plot The story talks about a Sudanese man, Majdy, who is a PhD student in London. At the beginning of the story, he has failed the qualifying exam for the PhD.  He talks to his mother on the phone, and she would have none of his nonsense. She has had to make several trips to the Central Post Office in Khartoum just to encourage him to continue with his quest to secure a PhD.  She's a very staunch believer in his prowess in academics. She remembers how he's always done well in his high school days. In fact, he had  shaken the president's hand for doing excellently in his secondary school exam. So, she cannot fathom how he could become a dunderhead all of a sudden.  His mother embarks on a campaign to get him a wife. She believes this may help his son change his attitude and pass the exam. To her, loneliness is the cause of his resigned attitude. So, she organizes a marriage between him and Samra.  Majdy embarks on a serious redoing of his studies and, in Ju...

 Plot A group of nine people:Bunmi, her brother Bola, Sam, Papa, Mrs. Kekere, Tunde, Mr. and Mrs. Ejiofoh and the driver, is travelling to Lagos for healing. Their fellow churchgoers have contributed money to help them go to Lagos to receive healing from Pastor Adejola Fayemi, a man known for being in possession of a helicopter, a Gulfstream jet and homes in Florida, Switzerland and the Caribbean. He always wears dark glasses. Along the way, there are many things to see, but, unfortunately, the narrator, Bunmi, cannot see them since she has always been blind. She has always seen the world through Bola. Bola has to describe everything around them in terms of colour, size, age and general appearance in order to help Bunmi draw the pictures of these items and people in her mind. They see many vehicles and people. Among the people they see is a boy who has no limbs but struggles to move in the middle of the many vehicles around him: "he's pushing hard with his hands and his single...

 Arbortions will never let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or beat Them,or silence or buy with a sweet, You will never wind up the sucking-thumb Or scuttle off ghosts that come. You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh, Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye. I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted, I have eased My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. I have said, sweets, if I sinned, if I seized your luck And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. Though why sh...

 Plot Stones Bounce on Water is a story written by Dilman Dila, a Ugandan writer. It details events that take place before and after the murder of Winnie, one of the Paulsons' visitors from London.  The story starts on a night lit by a full moon, and the visitors enjoy the scenery since it's one they are not used to seeing in London. The conflict unfolds when a firecracker that's forgotten on the lawns after a birthday party the day before goes off. It sets the stage for a foreboding that prepares the audience for Winnie's impending death. In fact, she lays bare her suspicion that her five friends: Tim Collins, Peter, Chelsea Creole, Meg Paulson and Joe Paulson are planning to kill her for their own varied reasons. The next day, Simon, the cook, takes Tim to the pond, where he shows him how to make stones Bounce on Water. Simon also reveals that the pound is a taboo site for the locals since dead bodies are usually deposited there by murderers. When this topic is starte...

Plot Hitting Budapest is a story written by NoViolet Bulawayo. It recounts the activities of six juvenile delinquents: Basta, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, Stina and the narrator, whose name is not given. They are on a routine guava stealing escapade in a rich neighbouring estate, Budapest. Though they are forbidden to cross Mzilikazi Road, on this day, they cross it in order to enter Budapest. Besides, despite having better responsibilities at home, they abandon them and have to go to Budapest. For example, Basta is supposed to babysit his sister, Fraction, but is not bothered. He must go to Budapest. They take advantage of their parents' irresponsibility to easily file past them and go to Budapest. Their mothers are busy with their hairs and talk while their fathers are too busy with draughts to even notice them pass. Chipo is pregnant and her grandfather, who has already been arrested and detained, is responsible for it. So she can't run as fast as she would before she was pregnant...