Jelani Obi

Jelani moved to the US to attend college in New York. During his time there he met Issa and they became lovers. In addition to Issa he met his best friend Rai, who later married Issa in order to gain residency. Jelani was both best man & brides maid in the wedding & wore a split tuxedo/dress for the occasion. Jelani completed his doctorate specializing in botany and returned to Africa to live near the village where he grew up so as to conduct his research into the medical properties of a rare orchid species and continuing his late father's hobby of breeding domesticated hyenas. Issa moved with him and became involved in Jelani's family tradion of umthakathi and an anti-poacher movement that eventually became a violent obsession. Then things changed very suddenly. Issa came back from the edge of the dark place he had been ready to topple into. He seemed much more the man Jelani had fallen in love with, yet different. There was a new oddness to him - one that he would continue to be surprised & bewildered by in the future. Issa moved back to the US, but he somehow still made frequent visits to Jelani - always arriving by foot from the direction of an old caern he was fond of. Jelani understood that there were things in the world that could not be explained. He was raised by occult practitioners & he knew magic was alive in the world. He decided not to analyze the reality & be happy that he was able to spend time with the man he loved, distance be damned.

Notes

• Jelani own & lives in a sprawling compound about three miles from Issa's caern & five miles from the village where many of his relatives live. He gets around via a dirty yellow jeep. The compound is his home, his lab & office and his hyena breeding grounds.
• Unlike Rai & Issa, Jelani is not a gamer, though he enjoys board games, chess & didn't hate Tetris for perhaps ten minutes. Rai did hook him on comic books during his time in New York & he has Issa pick up & bring him his hefty list of subscribed comics each month. He considers this plus the sex adequate compensation for the mad things Issa tends to dump on him & not prying into the blatant mystery behind it all. He also has Issa pick up & deliver his Netflix subscription.
• Jelani initially took care of Valentina when she first arrived, understanding the process of detox and rehabilitation she would require, though having no feasible answers for her questions as to how she got there was rather frustrating.
• Valentina eventually began studying umthakathi under Jelani's aunt. She also began to help him with his research by acting as a gopher and lab assistant.
• Jelani met and adored Tanya & dotes on her when she visits. He let her pick a hyena pup from his newest litter.