Waiting by E.C. Osondu: A Story That Leaves You… Waiting

You know, you never really think much about where your name comes from… until you find yourself named after a sweaty t-shirt from Florida.

That’s right.

Meet Orlando Zaki — refugee, survivor, t-shirt baby.

Orlando’s name isn’t from a birth certificate or a proud grandmother’s whisper. Nope. “Orlando” comes from the print on the Red Cross t-shirt he was wearing when he was found. And “Zaki” — well, that’s the name of the town where someone finally noticed him lying around and decided, “Yeah, let’s take this one.”

“Orlando is taken from Orlando, Florida, which is what is written on the t-shirt given to me by the Red Cross. Zaki is the name of the town where I was found and from which I was brought to this refugee camp. My friends in the camp are known by the inscriptions on their t-shirts.”

This is how the story begins. And if you think the t-shirt naming system is where things start getting dark, oh no — we’re just stretching.

Life in the Camp

Orlando lives in a refugee camp. And if you’ve ever thought your Wi-Fi was slow, this story says: “Nope, you’re thriving.”

The camp operates on one simple rule: only the fittest survive. Food is scarce. Water is scarcer. Sanitation… well, let’s just say your imagination will fill in the gaps.

Everything is a waiting game. They wait for food, they wait for water, they wait for visitors. But most of all, they wait to be adopted. Being picked by a foreigner and flown abroad is the camp’s version of winning the lottery.

In the meantime, they survive. Or at least, they try.

Friends, Dogs &… Well, You’ll See

This part of the story really takes the cake — or maybe, eats the cake. Literally.

“There were a lot of black dogs. They were our friends, they were our protectors. Even though food was scarce, the dogs never went hungry. The women would call them whenever a child squatted down to shit and the dogs would come running. They would wait for the child to finish and lick the child’s buttocks clean before they ate the shit.”

Yes. Let that image simmer for a moment. Lost your appetite yet? Congratulations — you’re human.

These dogs weren’t just pets; they were babysitters, sanitation workers… eventually, even food. Later in the story, they are slaughtered and eaten.

And if you start wondering, why black dogs? what do they represent? — you’re on the right track. This imagery isn’t just shock value. It’s about the intersection of survival, morality, and despair.

Themes That Hit Hard

This story, like so many award-winning African stories, is a textbook example of “suffering on a grand scale.” Here’s what you get:

• Nameless, displaced children

• Disease and hunger

• Animal symbolism (dark, naturally)

• Hopelessness

• The dangling carrot of salvation through adoption or foreign aid

As I noted in my review:

“This is a clear example of what has become the African stories that get noted and awarded… And this is the very stories that almost always put me off from my objective of reading African stories and promoting them.”

Truth is real, and these stories reflect it. But must truth always be the extreme? Does African literature only exist at the far end of suffering?

The Problem With Prize-Winning Themes

Let’s be honest: there’s a pattern.

Stories that win awards, get featured in Western journals, or make the Caine Prize list often revolve around trauma, war, hunger, AIDS, genocide, refugee camps, and urban poverty.

As I wrote:

“This is not a matter of writing the so-called positive stories about Africa, but about writing stories not for the popularity of the themes. It is about writing because you have something else to say.”

A story doesn’t have to be rosy, but it should offer a new perspective. Waiting? It doesn’t.

“As it stands now, such themes have become crowded and I have read a lot of them to last me a generation.”

What’s Left? Just… Waiting

By the end, what do we really have? A group of young people, huddled in a camp, dreaming of leaving, always waiting. There’s no climax, no revelation — just endurance.

The Story Title & Author

If you’ve been wondering, the story is titled Waiting by E.C. Osondu, and it won the 10th Caine Prize for African Writing in 2009. Originally published in Guernica Magazine, you can read the full story on their site or download a PDF from the Caine Prize website.

My Take: Analysis & Personal Thoughts

Is it well-written? Absolutely. The language is clean, the voice authentic, and the world convincingly drawn. There’s even a strange poetry in the bleakness.

But does it move African literature forward? Not really. To me, it’s part of a larger machine — a conveyor belt of narratives that fulfill the expected African aesthetic: poor, desperate, tragic, exotic.

“How can there be a representative story if all that is said is on the extreme left?”

African life is more than trauma. There’s humor, joy, romance, daily monotony, grandmothers watching soap operas, students skipping lectures, middle-class routines. Waiting doesn’t explore that spectrum. It’s just a symptom of a deeper issue — representation overload.

About the Author: E.C. Osondu

E.C. Osondu is a highly skilled storyteller:

• Born in Nigeria, worked for years as an advertising copywriter

• Holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University

• His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, AGNI, and Guernica

• Coedited The AGNI Portfolio of African Fiction

• Published collections include Voice of America (2010) and This House Is Not For Sale (2015)

• Currently an assistant professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island

Even the best writers sometimes fall into old narrative patterns.

Final Thoughts

Waiting is a story that left me… well, waiting. Waiting for a twist, a new perspective, a break in the cycle of African stories stuck on suffering.

If you’ve never read a refugee camp story, it might hit hard. But if you’re familiar with African literature, it may feel like déjà vu… in a t-shirt.

What do you think? Should African stories move beyond trauma, or is it still important to tell tales of pain and survival?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. Like if you enjoy honest reviews, and subscribe for more reflections on African literature — the classics, the contemporary, and everything in between.

Until next time — keep reading, keep thinking, and don’t let a t-shirt name define your story.