www.yorubawunmi.com

 The following were taken form a series of e-mails from Mr Wole Akande of Abeokuta Radio in the year 2005

I collected the package around 11pm last night while I was taking a stroll outside in an attempt to take a brief break from the work I was doing at the time on Radio Abeokuta, so it was too late to show it to my older son who I bought it for. However since I know that you have been asking me for feedback, I did a test-drive of the DVD with my younger son who was still awake at the time. He is just under 2 years old and he is currently at the stage where he is building up his vocabulary so he can start speaking properly. Some of the words he has already are Yoruba words (even though he has not been outside the United States) so he had some familiarity with the language - even though he does not realize that it is a seperate language yet - for instance, he expresses Yoruba words to white people! Anyway, as I expected your DVD was quite good and it was able to hold his attention. He watched it again this morning while I was getting ready to go to Work. I will show it to his brother when I get home tonight.

You have created a good product and you deserve to be commended. Your diction is very clear and effective so children not used to the Nigerian accent will not struggle to understand, the graphics are also quite good. I have bought quite a few Yoruba books for my older son from Nigeria and England (in the past) which have not served my purposes, but I believe your DVD will be very helpful for me to "easily" continue teaching Yoruba at home, by using the medium of the TV as a presentation/teaching tool. In my experience, the Yoruba books that I have bought in Nigeria are intended for classroom use.

Regarding the board game that you are working on is a great idea. Co-incidentally when I showed my son the YorubaWunmi photos I called his attention to the Ayo game in the photos (which I have been trying to buy on Ebay unsuccessfully). To my surprise he said he knows the game. He claims to have played it last year at Summer Camp, and described as a game where one "drops marbles into a hole", I was shocked.

Thank you so much for the e-mail. Please forgive me for being out of touch. Like you, I have been quite busy working on a number of Yoruba video projects for Radio Abeokuta. However we continue to enjoy watching my kids (especially the younger one) as they both learn from your text book and your DVD. It is amazing seeing a 2 year old who is just learning to speak, pick up Yoruba words from your text book and your DVD, while at the same time being bi-lingual enough to recognise the English equivalents of the same words. His favourite Yoruba word is "Maluuuuu" which he comically stretches out when he pronounces it. Funny enough he calls your text book "Yooba".