Twin towns

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The small rural town of Igbo-Ora in south-western Nigeria proclaims itself to be the “twin capital of the world". It has an astonishingly high twin birth rate. Everyone here wants to have twins because in Yoruba culture they are believed to bring good fortune and are celebrated almost as deities. And yet, in another part of Nigeria, near the capital Abuja, a different community once viewed twins with fear. Twins were seen as the manifestations of evil spirits. There were even reports that some twins were killed as infants. Nigerian journalist Peter Macjob visits both communities, to hear about the lives of twins and explore the power of traditional beliefs.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A special group of children sing a special traditional song.
0:16.2	Its lyrics in Yoruba boast about the community's ability to have twins.
0:21.6	And that's rather appropriate here for the children singing are all twins.
0:26.7	This is Iguora a small rural town which has an astonishing number of twins.
0:35.0	It's the self-proclaimed twin capital of Nigeria, perhaps they hope, even the world.
0:40.0	And you get an idea why at this school.
0:43.0	It's a huge number of students.
0:45.0	You're the head teacher.
0:47.0	Thank you so much.
0:48.0	From your estimation, how many sets of twins do you have?
0:51.0	About 26. Twenty sets of twins. You have about 20 sets.
0:53.0	Twenty sets of twins.
0:55.2	Good morning.
0:58.1	My name is Peter.
0:59.2	I'm from the BBC.
1:00.6	How are you?
1:01.5	Right. I have a question for you. If you are a twin, if you have
1:09.6	twins in your family, whether your siblings are twins or your parents are twins,
1:13.0	or your parents are twins, put your hands up.
1:16.4	Oh wow, that's literally the entire school.
1:21.4	Remarkable. Everybody has their hands up.
1:25.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.