Answer to Question #220011 in English for Tanya msimango

Question

Maya Angelou

The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy, licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy, and then disappearing into the utter blackness. Daylight was equally insistent, but much more bold and thoughtless. It dazzled, muddling the sight. It forced through my closed eyelids, bringing me up and out of a borrowed bed and into brand new streets.

After living nearly two years in Cairo, I had brought my son Guy to enter the University of Ghana in Accra. I had planned to stay for two weeks with a friend of a colleague, settle Guy into his dormitory, and then continue to Liberia to a job with the Department of Information.

17

Guy was seventeen and quick. I was thirty-three and determined. We were Black Americans in West Africa, where for the first time in our lives the color of our skin was accepted as correct and normal.

What two possible meanings can be attached to the sentence, ‘The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy’?

Answer 1

1. It could mean the night breezes hit the writer very gently and lightly. "Intimate" means quite warm and friendly while "shy" means reserved. Thus, the breezes blew slowly and in a friendly manner.
2. It could mean the writer was familiar with night breezes of the West African night and had a close and personal relationship with them. "Intimate" also means of a close or personal nature. This meaning is supported by the rest of the text "licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy."