The back-story of my life

 

Our journey takes us to difficult places…anonymous

I’m the kind of guy that you hear from me mostly noise of useless chatter. But today I’m going to share a portion of the back-story of my life. My life has been a gradual process built upon solid foundation of work, pain and patience. No drastic happenstance that changed my life overnight. But one thing that I can say radically changed my life is going to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU).

My life would always be marked as before and after ABU. The post ABU is critical. But even before then I was a fighter and have had my dreams. Nothing comes to me by fluke, although at times I can feel the hand of God in my affairs.

I nearly died the first of my ABU days, because of the new situation I suddenly found myself in. I was used to getting money back in Kano and spending. All of a sudden, I abandoned everything and went to ABU and lived inside that open prison. Now I spent less than 500 Naira a week. I felt totally depressed, with a clamp permanently over my chest. I breathed with difficulty for the great part of my time there.

I cursed myself and questioned my judgement. I contemplated going back to Kano. My friends stayed in Kano, attended the hometown university and earned money in the market. The ABU years are one of the most difficult times in my life. I endured. And I feel like things were over from there.

They’re not. They follow me to America.

In the bus, I vaguely felt it the first day I was moving to Zaria for schooling. That I’d hardly ever live in Kano again, like before, with the balance of things intact.

My life after ABU followed similar pattern with ABU days. Single, living away from home, and doing stuff for my professional life, ultimately laced with aloneness, loneliness and the terror of work. But it shall pass. I say it shall pass with a tinge of doubt. Bigger things for me means bigger personal difficulties.

Why all these difficulties?

I am the kind of man who lives private and ascetic life. Left to me, I can live on few bucks. But I am utterly concerned about dignity. While I don’t court power directly, I crave for what power can offer: respect and dignity. I am a man with high taste for finer things. I’m also ascetic, leading a simple private life but quietly relentless. The money I spend directly on myself comes to me in the form of books, perfume, clothes and shoes. The rest is for family. I place a great expectation on me and hold myself accountable. I want to be free. This is because I recognize the joy that freedom of choice can offer. I want everything in my life to be of my own choosing, which is where I have a complicated relationship with God!

I know I need to work hard because of these things but there is something I didn’t expect!  

2018, from when I finished university and started pre-NYSC life in Kano, I realized the life I live is not the kind I want. I had to do something about it. I didn’t consider myself a failure. I was driven by a great anxiety for progression and personal development. I was dissatisfied with the present. I feel that I deserve more and better things.

Which means I’m a very ambitious person. How do I get money needed to fund the lifestyle I crave for myself and family? Somehow, I didn’t seem to like government job and I’m not a good business man. But I knew I would do well thinking for solving humanity’s problems. I started working to create condition for my life, for my wife and children.

I started applying for jobs at international organizations working for humanity. But then there was a problem. In one job I was asked to quote my salary and that was where I believed to have problem, even though my spirit told me that my skills didn’t quite fit. I applied to some paid fellowship, and failed again. The money wasn’t too much, even though I didn’t earn those figures at the time. It won’t be enough for my dream, but I needed it anyway, for my wife and children. They needed great life, to travel the world and live life.

Achieving my dream brings to me a new realization. I have to be psychologically prepared for the journey to my dream. Meaning, I have to be rootless and light and have my idea of home and family changed, exactly the vague fear that came over me on my first trip to Zaria.

But somehow, from my dream, I felt that I needed to leave Nigeria. I started working on that. Right now, I can say I’m am on the track to the dream of my professional life. But there is one or two hitches in my personal life. I did not see the trade-off. Or maybe I saw them but didn’t expect the pain to be this much, this intense.

Madison, WI

 

 

Of dreams that brought us here and the First World problems

Sometimes we are shocked at the kinds of things the developed world complains about, or the kind of risky undertaking they buy into. People complain about unreasonable things. Theirs is a secured life. Hard physical labor - from laundry to sweeping - had been eliminated, not talk of food, water, electricity or security. Also, one need not to worry about insecurity for interstate travel like you should back in Nigeria. Causes of deaths have been greatly reduced. In most cases people die only when necessary. However, I worry about gun violence and my status as a black man in America.

Nonetheless, as big problems are eliminated, small things become the big issues. Living in America for just few months has come to reshape my experience. Of the biggest things that trouble me now is the size of my computer. I feel ashamed to pull out the computer in public when everyone is using sleek gadget. The size of your computer - and sometimes the brand of your phone - is a marker of differentiation. Travelling by air is no longer a luxury but an endeavor that presents certain worry in me, a concern about safety. I sometimes catch myself rebuking me for worrying about these excesses.

I spend over a hundred dollars every month on books. I feel guilty, almost bad, when I remember people back in Nigeria with me spending such “fortune” on books, and not on food.  I skip bath on some days, or just shower. There is no need for the daily bath anymore. I literally don’t have dirt on me anymore. I became over-sensitive to people’s feeling, over-sensitive to violence and gory images that people flagrantly share on social media.  Yes, some of these problems couldn’t be counted as problems in Nigeria. But once you’re here they become problems.

America lives in abundance, Nigeria in scarcity. Who in Nigeria considers too much food a problem? In a place where governors and ministers hoarded noodles and cooking oil meant for Covid-19 palliatives, “No one in the entire Nigerian public,” said a friend in our conversation.  But too much food begins to worry me, for instance, not that I eat much. I have reached a point where I eat only once a day. A tea and 3 slices of bread by noon, a small plate of rice at 6pm. In Nigeria this would come across as bad impression, either poverty or being miser to oneself. My not eating comes from a place of luxury, not wanting. It was for fear of adding weight.

All kinds of things I don’t know how to process or prepare – diced meat, granulated meat, assorted cans of vegetables. Sometimes I have to clear my fridge and take these things off to trash. In a way I feel that I’m starving in the midst abundance.

I came to America when my consciousness was fully formed. I feel limited by what the social and cultural environment offers. The crazy winter days cramp my mind.  The daily routine is almost the same. I began to worry about boredom, mental health and fitness. I craved for free time when I was in Nigeria. Here I am, feeling bored, with all the time in my hand, with all the luxury I prayed and craved for.

It’s the dream that brought us here…

 

Madison, WI

 

 

 

 

First world fragility

I visit the houses of my Nigerian community, one of which is a lady, who has an American roommate. Jessica was from Alaska, polite and open-minded, the kind that you can call a friend of Africa and blackness.

Mostly, when visiting the house, I would text the American in advance of my coming. So, she would be out and get time for a chat.  Our discussion was usually on books and the culture and life in Africa.

I continued to visit but our meeting reduced considerably as the semester progressed. In anticipation of that, we made arrangement to visit the zoo, museums and some arts galleries during the New Year break. I meet my Nigerian friend in our shared class or in the bus or in the office we have in the same building. I sometimes asked after the American, when I visited, even if I would not have a chance to meet her. According to my friend, living in the same place they could spend days without meeting.

Things had cooled off during the Thanksgiving. My Nigerian friend said I abandoned her. I already agreed she and the Egyptian are my elder sisters. (It's so much easier if you agree the ladies around you are your elder sisters, because at least they can agree to pay their Uber). I fibbed and apologized and said I was on my way coming.

Before I showed up I asked my Nigerian friend if her roommate was around. She said yes. But I saw changes in the living room and met a new face when I arrived. Some pieces of furniture were missing. I wanted to ask about her American roommate. But I kept silent. Then, after some time that the Nigerian didn’t talk about her, I brought up the topic. “Where is she?” I asked as usual. She knew whom I was referring to. 

I addressed her that way. It was half a code. In case she’s within earshot she couldn’t realize we meant her. If she suddenly appeared she couldn’t catch us at it. But more so since this Nigerian lady joked that I was secretly dating her roommate, it’s good if we devised a way of doing things.

“Oh, she left. She quit grad school,” she said. I was numbed for a moment. I felt bad and touched at the same time. Quitting school is not often about having options alone. So many things were distant experience before my coming to the US. Grad school is tough, especially for single and those without a family. More so, if you’re an international student. Talk about adjustment, the rewiring  and healing of psychic fissure, and the constant thought and struggle to keep up with multiple time zones.

Jessica checks some, but not all of the descriptions. By all standards, she is from rich family. So, what could be her case? What could make her case so different from an African, Nigerian, or some other international students? Jessica once told me how she was struggling with so many ideas in her head.

It might be that she couldn’t cope. She was always inside her room. Could spend three days without coming out. At a time the Nigerian texted her to know if she’s Okay or if she had offended her mistakenly. She was always working. She was perfectionist. And then one day, as things refused to work out according to her plan, she suddenly realized grad school wasn’t for her.

I don’t know enough about Jessica nor the American culture to define this situation. But do Nigerians quit school on account of mental health and or by simply realizing grad school isn’t meant for them? For some folks in this world life is soft, precious and fragile while others wallow in the cauldron of boiling trauma.

 

Madison, WI