One of the first Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin phrases I learnt are as above. I was barely 7. I cannot remember where exactly I learnt it from, but for years my mind has associated it with Ola Rotimi and his The God’s Are Not To Blame book which had a glass-wearing man on the cover. I kept wondering as a child how eyes can talk.
I am not a glass-wearing person. Those glass wearers of my school days used to flaunt their intelligence so much that it annoys. They were always the doctor wannabes, especially the ones whose glasses had ropes. It was so annoying that I associated wearing glasses with ‘artificial intelligence,, but not the AI you are thinking of.

So, when people kept telling me that glasses will fit me, I resist the pressure of wearing them, even for fashion. I got a scare recently when I was diagnosed with a supposedly rare eye condition called Central Serous Chorioretinopathy. Of course I was afraid of losing my keen eyesight, but even more scared of having to wear glasses. One of the things I kept asking the ophthalmologist was “I will not need to wear glasses, right?”

As each stage of the management passed and glasses kept being ruled out, I was excited. I wanted my eyes to always be seen so that they can talk freely. Yes, outside wearing safety glasses at work, or sunshades on the beach or antiglare glasses for the computer, I want my eyes to talk as eyes did then. Oh, I am much better now.
Looking back, I realize that indeed, eyes talked those growing up days. A mother or father will only look at a child to say it all. That will be the reason that kid will decline or accept an offered gift. Those eyes will make a child say “thank you” to an invitation to eat.

Today, we find ourselves in the so-called Soro Soke (or Speak Up) generation and we are sometimes confused in it as lost travelers. If you talk to a child with the eye these days, he will respond: “What? Why are you blinking?” Sometimes, we need to learn how to listen.
The real reason why I don’t wear glasses is because I still want my eye to talk. So when glasses are designed as the one below, I will wear them frequently.