Welcome to the I Am African podcast by Verastic! On this podcast, we will authentically share our stories, and we will celebrate, inspire, and demand excellence. We will ask the difficult questions, start the uncomfortable conversations, and propose the outside-the-box solutions. Why? Because it's like our parents used to tell us when we were kids: those that are doing it don't have two heads. Get comfortable.Let's connect:Instagram: @iamafricanpodcast | Twitter: @iamafricanpod | Facebook: I ...
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How One Mom Is Raising Two Children On The Autism Spectrum ft. Lola Dada-Olley
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The world is still learning about autism. And I, Vera Ezimora, know even less about autism. My first "real" experience with autism was when I got my first professional job after I graduated college. It was as a Service Coordinator, and I walked with individuals with intellectual disabilities. It seems like such a lifetime ago now. I learned so much…
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EP 28: How To Save Money Even When You Think You Don't Have It ft. Ronke Odewumi
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This pandemic needs to just go away. Am I right? Or am I right? A lot of things have changed permanently, thanks to the pandemic. For example, remote work, when possible, will probably always be the norm. Another thing is money: how much of it we wake, how much of it we have saved for a rainy day, etc. In today's episode, we have Ronke Adewumi, a f…
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EP 27: IVF and Male Factor Infertility ft. Nonsi Martins
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Infertility is one of the many taboo conversations in the African community. In the Christian African community, it's even worse. For starters, the bible says that there will be barrenness in the land, so both preachers and the congregation they're preaching to are quick to remind women who are trying to conceive of this verse. It's almost as if th…
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EP 26: Why I Had A Divorce Party ft Dr. Ikea Bello
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Recently, a Nigerian woman, Dr Ikea Bello, went viral for doing what we (Nigerians/Africans) would consider the unimaginable. Not only did she file for divorce, but she also dared to celebrate it --- and she did it publicly. On social media. With pictures. And videos. So, naturally, the African internet streets are offended. And also naturally, I w…
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EP 25: Dating As A Divorced Dad ft. Goziem
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My people! I am here to prove to you that divorced dads who are dating do exist! It took me so long to find a divorced dad willing to speak to me about his dating life. But then Goziem happened. He was introduced to me by a mutual friend, Eloka, and the rest is history. As a divorced mom, I know what dating is like. But I did not know and what I wa…
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EP 24: On Being An African Atheist ft. Ruth Marimo
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Conversations are important, especially with people who are different from you. As a Christian girl, it was important for me to have this conversation with Ruth Marimo, an African Atheist - because at the end of the day, no matter who we serve (or don't serve), we are still humans with blood running through our veins. Today's guest, Ruth Marimo, is…
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EP 23: I'm Divorced. Now What? ft. Sade Curry
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Divorce is like an onion; it has so many layers that need to be peeled, one after another. First, there's the layer where you realize you need to get divorced, and there are all the emotions that come with it. Then there's the layer where you go through the actual divorce. Then, finally, the layer after the divorce. Now what? What happens after the…
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EP 22: How To Be Confident AF ft. Msendoo
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I used to not wear shorts. Wait, let's rewind. When I was younger, maybe between 12 and 17 or something like that, I loved my legs, and I remember how it started. I had heard my mom in a conversation with her friend who kept complimenting my legs, saying how nice they were. And that was how I started suddenly thinking my legs were the best. But at …
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EP 21: Why Africans Don't Have The Black Perspective ft. Dr. Uju Anya
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This is one of the first topics I wrote down when I was dreaming about starting my podcast: why Africans don't have the African American perspective. From the moment I finally began to understand my African privilege and the struggles of my African-American brothers and sisters that I previously did not know of, I have tried to use my platform to t…
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EP 20: What About Sex During Divorce? FT. Berry Dakara
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Before I filed for divorce - in fact, before I even walked away from my marriage - I had never given a moment's thought to sex (or lack of it) during a divorce. I also did not know that the legal laws for sexing while divorcing varied from State to State. In my State, Maryland, for example, it is illegal to have sex with someone who is not your spo…
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My Sweet Potatoes! Season two is upon us! Need I say more? The real question is are you ready? Or ARE YOU READY? BEFORE YOU GO, PLEASE RATE AND LEAVE A WRITTEN REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS. THANK YOU! Let's connect: I Am African on Instagram I Am African on Twitter I Am African on Facebook Vera Ezimora on Instagram Vera Ezimora on Twitter Vera Ezimora …
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EP 19: Can Women Be Divorced And Happy?
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Can women actually be divorced and happy? For some reason, being divorced and happy, especially for a woman, seems like it's mutually exclusive. I will not make the claim that all women are divorced and happy, but I can confidently say that any woman who gets divorced for the right reasons can be - and most likely is - divorced and happy. Our cultu…
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EP 18: Emotional Resilience: How To Deal With Not Being Included FT. Ruth Marimo
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"Vera, you're so strong!" I've practically heard this for as long as I can remember. I heard it most when I left my marriage. People congratulated me for being so strong, for having the audacity to walk out of a marriage that was trampling me and robbing me of my peace. I did not understand why I was being congratulated. Should one not always leave…
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EP 17: A Conversation With An Openly-Gay Nigerian Man FT. Edafe Okporo
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"I believe in asking the difficult questions, starting the uncomfortable conversations, proposing outside-the-box solutions, and of course, shaking tables. No, breaking tables." Verbatim, these words are in the intro of the I Am African Podcast because they are exactly why I started this podcast. And today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Edafe…
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EP 16: How Not To Say Yes When You Really Mean No
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Even now, I'm wondering if How Not To Say Yes When You Really Mean No is the appropriate title for this. But it's too late to change it. The podcast has been recorded, edited, and published. Perhaps, what I really should have named it is How Not To Spend Your Energy On Things You Really Don't Want. Either way, I suppose there's still an element of …
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EP 15: Never Have I Ever [A Life Not Lived - Yet]
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I played a game of Never Have I Ever on Zoom for Uju's birthday in April, and it got me thinking about a whole lot. Although I knew it before, this game became living proof that indeed I need to stop being so safe and live already. There is so much I still have not experienced. Half the year is already gone, but it does not mean I can't start where…
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EP 14: On The Rape Culture In Nigeria ft. Omolara Oriye
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Sweet Potatoes, So much is going on in the world right now. And I'm tired of starting sentences like this, but how can I be tired when some people have a worse fate? My fellow Nigerian women have been raped and killed with no repercussions to the rapist because of the rape culture in Nigeria. In today's episode, I have the very smart and outspoken …
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EP 13: Dear Africans, You're Black Too!
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Today's episode is not a regular episode, and I am not a regular Vera today either. I was so angry recording this episode. When I was listening back to it, I felt bad for the Vera who recorded it. I was angry that some Africans still don't know that they're Black in America, but I was angrier at the situation that calls for Africans to be reminded …
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EP 12: On Patriarchal Cultural Norms That Don't Serve Women ft. Ola Bisi (Jopa's Daughter)
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The longer I live, the more I learn. When I was a child, there were so many things that were normal to me. Now that I'm older and wiser, I know myself a lot better, and I realize that some of the things I thought were normal were actually patriarchal cultural norms that don't serve women. I'd admit that I fell for some of them, and as I live and le…
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EP 11: On Remarrying After Divorce And Lessons Learned ft Mercedes Okwukogu
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Mercedes Okwukogu is a woman to be admired. In the past three weeks, Nigerian Facebook has been greatly shaken. On Ola Bisi's Facebook wall, she started sharing stories of women who are divorced. She used the hashtag, #DivorceNotStigma, and I was one of the women whose stories got shared. She reached out to me to share my story, and even before she…
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EP 10: Why Women Endure Bad Marriages
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Last week, I shared my marriage and divorce story again on Facebook, on Ola Bisi's Facebook profile page, as part of her #DivorceNotStigna series. It's a series of stories by women who walked out of their marriage and got divorced after enduring too much. But reading some of the comments, raised another question about why women endure bad marriages…
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EP 9: But Our African Men Know Better
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Before we go any further, let's just agree that our African men know better. That being said, last month, I wrote a post on this blog, titled, "20 Things Women Are Not Doing in 2020," and while it was so much fun to write, I was once again surprised by how many women related to it. A woman sent me an email to say how she related to so many of these…
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EP 8: The Mountain Is Smaller Than It Looks
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Have you ever faced a mountain in your life that you thought was just going to take you out? Yeah, me, too. Sometimes, I sit back and remember when life was much simpler. Like when my biggest problem in life was that I did not own a cell phone. I wished for one so badly. Funny enough, at some point, I owned not just one, but two cell phones. Then I…
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EP 7: How To Discover (And Harness) Your Feminine Energy ft. Ekene Onu
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It's not every day that one gets to have a conversation about how to discover your feminine energy with the dynamic feminine success coach, Ekene Onu. She's a whole lot of woman. She is as wise as she is graceful, and she seems to do it all so effortlessly. I don't know how she does it, but I do know that she is one of us, and I have met her in per…
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EP 6: How I Adopted My Daughters ft. Nkem Akinsoto
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In today’s episode, Nkem Akinsoto – AKA Myne Whitman – has graced us with her virtual presence and her wealth of knowledge on the subject of adoption, especially when it comes to adopting in Nigeria. I had heard before that adoption was expensive, but I assumed that adopting in Nigeria (or at least outside America) would be cheaper because you’d co…
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EP 5: On Being The Youngest Black Man To Own A Cannabis Dispensary ft. Seun Adedeji
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Seun Adedeji, youngest Black man to own a cannabis dispensary. And he's African, too? And he's Nigerian? Hot damn. So, I sought him out, and I reached out to him, and I begged him to be a guest on the I Am African podcast, and he obliged me generously. I was so impressed with Seun Adedeji. He's 26 years old, and he's wise, and he has foresight, and…
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EP 4: On Women Owning Their Sexual Desires ft. Duchess Iphie
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As an African woman who was raised by African parents, I was never taught to be comfortable with sex, and I was definitely not told about women owning their sexual desires. What sexual desires??? Sex was always this taboo thing that you were only allowed to think of after marriage. And even then, it was a man's thing, a thing that a wife gave her h…
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EP 3: How My Intuition Saved Me From My Marriage
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What does your intuition sound like to you? It sounds like the voice of God to me. It sounds to me like God nudging me, telling me where to go and how to get there. And that's why my intuition saved my life. This episode shares in great detail the many times my intuition saved my life. This episode mentions the story about how my marriage ended, an…
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It's okay to laugh at the title. I laughed at it too when I conceived of the idea. Did you watch that video that was circulating around last week and the week before of a woman physically attacking her husband's alleged side chic and asking her who she thought she was to be having anal sex with her husband? Yeah, that video inspired this episode. A…
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Do people pray for divorce? I don't know if they do. I know people pray for love, and for health, and for life, and for marriage, and for children, and for money. I don't know if people pray for divorce, but I know I did. I prayed for divorce fervently. And I prayed for my peace to return to me. I did not know the value of my peace until I did not …
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This is the introduction to the I Am African podcast by Verastic. The answers to your initial questions are in this episode. Like what is this podcast about? Who is the host? And why did she name it I Am African? Just click play. Thank you for listening. Please review, share, and subscribe to this podcast! Let's connect: I Am African on Instagram I…
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