The Stock of Your Life

 I

End of year gives you a chance to take stock of your life, what happens and what does not. December is always a low-energy month. It gets you into shifting allegiance between yourself and your choices.  Slow paced, you find yourself liquid with emotion, mashed into a wet inertia. I joked to my housemate that we are running the house part time. One day you wake up and ask yourself, "what do you want"? For now, stability, anonymity, and immobility. 

Life is hard, it is really hard. Always something, always something, navigating difficulties and complexities and making trade-offs between something for something. Last year, between December 2022 through to May 2023 I listened to no song at all, shut down my main WhatsApp, listened to Qur’an 24/7, in the bus, walking to and from classes, working, cooking, shopping, everything and everywhere until I travelled back to Nigeria in May. I want to go back to Nigeria and live with my family. Suddenly, I am engulfed by a serious craving for travel to West African cities or North Africa and Mediterranean cities, not settle there but to visit different city every vacation year. 

Really, this life is crazy if you know what I mean, but this is how I wormed my way through the semester:

Open Door for refugees (ODFR), a non-profit in the City of Madison, has a tradition of organizing events for the displaced who moved to the city, including an annual Thanksgiving Dinner that started pre-COVID era. The event was held this year as well. I volunteered for the organization and led a team of volunteers for meat supply. I was happy and satisfied for the job-well-done. You get a sort of experience on how to get sponsorship and manage logistics. 

The Thanksgiving Dinner is organized for the refugee families in Madison. The families were drawn from countries across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Ukraine and some other places that I cannot easily remember. I did a migration study class this fall. I read a lot about migration and displacement. By default, I must have a deep personal empathy with the immigrants and the displaced. Given the context of ongoing West-backed, Israeli-led genocide in Gaza, some people refused to participate in organizing the Thanksgiving event in solidarity with the Palestinians because of Thanksgiving's genocidal origin.

I feel the need to extend my solidarity to the displaced, symbolically tell the refugees that they are not alone and can find community in our shared humanity. As the migrants were mainly Arabs and some handful of Blacks from the Congo, another site of genocide, I believed that my presence will be important to them. Besides, I have a shared experience with the displaced people.  Although there are differences in our circumstances, there are also similarities that bind us. I am by myself here, no family no nothing so I know what it means to live uprooted from your culture, to be the person out of place. I can tell what it means to leave century-old traditions and transplant elsewhere. Mine is voluntary, theirs is forced displacement. 

L-R: Me, Muhammad's family (M) and Egyptian couple (R)

I met new families at the event. One from Syria. The other from Egypt. I need to make things clear here. The Egyptian family is not refugee. They are immigrants. The husband is an engineer while his wife is a homemaker. They have lived in the US for about twenty years, with two children -- a son and a daughter -- living somewhere in the US with their own families.

When I feel comfortable, I naturally engage folks in deep, fun and meaningful conversation. A little introduction here and there, I got into talks with the Syrian family. They have a son called Muhammad. His English isn’t perfect, as he is just few months in the US. Muhammad and his family spent about 10 years in Egypt. They fled their home when the war in Syria broke. Probably when Muhammad was an infant. Muhammad grew up in Egypt, schooled there for his elementary education. When they moved here, his sister completed high school. We should call this sister Fatima. 

There is some magnetic force between me and kids, an intrigue about their psychology. I am interested in their development and always wanted to leave a positive mark in their lives. I bonded quickly with Muhammad, thanks to a shared interest in soccer and my basic Arabic language. I asked Muhammad about his friends and childhood in Syria, in English where Arabic failed. But Muhammad told me he does not have friends in Syria. He has only an imagined and mythologized memory of the homeland. He was infant when they fled the country. Probably only stories of aunties and uncles. All he knew about his childhood are memories in Egypt. He played soccer with the neighborhood kids. Muhammad is at least two degrees away from his culture when his family moved to the US. This launched me into sympathy for Muhammad. Muhammad is forever different from regular kids who grow up in their original culture. I wonder if Muhammad would grow up with the same idea of the pain of migration like adult migrants. In Egypt, he was just getting to know the place when they had to move again...

Muhammad and I

Muhammad loves soccer. He loves Cristiano Ronaldo. This deepened our connection. I made an assessment that Muhammad’s English is coming on gradually. As we spoke, he corrected my Arabic; I helped him with English. Muhammad told me about a special English language program in his school that kids like him were enrolled. This might be the reason for his quick English progress. I can’t shake off a sense of uneasiness about his socializing with the kids in school.

Given his background, I wanted to know what Muhammad wanted to be in his life. I asked him in my fledgling Arabic while the rest of the crowd at the table got immersed in their own world, giving attention to us only when needed, sporadically when Muhammad wanted to confirm something from his mother for a question I asked about. Muhammad wanted to be a space driver. He said this in Arabic, which is basically an astronaut. I asked if he knew what he needed to do right from elementary school to be able to be an astronaut in the future. 

Muhammed retains much of his Arabic tradition. His favorite subjects are Chemiyya, Biologiyya, and Physiyya. This reminds me of the foundational contributions of Islamic intellectuals in the development of what is now called modern science.

Muhammed’s sister, Fatima, finished high school and is preparing for college. She wants to study computer. But computer is just a broad term. I pressed further for specifics, offering suggestions and insights. Fatima said she wants to study IT. Their mum and dad can’t speak English. I spoke to them in Arabic and translation assistance from Muhammed and the Egyptian family when my Arabic failed.

II

I have had an interesting session with my students. I taught two sections in Introduction to African Cultural Expressions. Basically, what we do in this class is explore broadly the research portfolios of the faculty in our department. It is always a pleasure discussing stuff about Africa with the young American students. Smug in their content with America as the center of the world, they exude a demeanor that shows they are ready to learn, but the knowledge should always come second to whatever is American equivalent.  

Section 001

Section 003

As usual, students will get to like the course for various reasons and to various degrees. Some students like the course because of the instructor.  You can tell by their eagerness and investment in the course, always looking forward to the next meeting, no absence, no funny attitude or excuse. They take care of everything and make sure they do not request for any excuses. 

Walking on campus also brings back memories of my college days. You can see lovebirds, serious students, the social, and those in-between. You can also, actually, see the lonely students and those who don’t really give a damn! They are indifferent. They are everywhere if you look closely.

Lastly, I went to the theatre for the screening of The Color Purple, organized by The Black Cultural Excellence. I met a lady. A soulful woman, jet black, calm, and beautiful. We sat together. I asked her story. From the start I sensed she wasn’t telling the truth, but I came to realize that her words, like herself, were authentic and original. You can tell when someone is telling the truth. You can tell when someone is genuinely interested in the conversation.

She is first year business major (the course I agreed, but the year I did not). Her family was originally from Ethiopia. She was born here and regularly visits the place of her ancestry. A heavy silence would ensue between mouthfuls of popcorn, only to be broken by one more question. 

Why are you not eating your popcorn?

I had already eaten it up.

How did you like your hair? 

Natural, black and original. 

Did you hope to move back to Africa someday? 

Yes, some time in the future, not to settle but to be shuttling between the continents. 

What brought you to the screening?

I have an essay in my African American class. I wanted to see how the movie could help.

Did you read the novel?

No, not really. 

On and on and on…until the end credits. Then, we stood up to go. She said, "I already have a boyfriend"! 

Madison, WI

Out of the dark night

My life is a complete irony. The last two years had been a roller-coaster of emotional pain, a mosaic of emotions. Pain and pleasure in the same body, I never expected America could be so painful. Tola said things would get better. 

For a sustained period, I lived with a constant pain in my chest, lack of sleep, excess sleep, lack of appetite, feeling of sadness and lack of interest. It was a complete mental breakdown.  I could no longer hold it. I booked an appointment with a doctor. 

The doctor asked questions about suicidal thoughts, appetite, and insomnia. As a Muslim and working class, suicide was the last thing to cross my mind, though time and again I pondered going back to Nigeria. Preliminary examination in an online chat was extended to a physical meeting. The doctor made his diagnosis. Like a malfunctioning gadget, tubes and wires were fastened to my chest. The ECG machine displayed the flashing movement of my system. Afterwards, I was booked for a two-week therapy session subject to renewal.

I was in a dark place, and it showed in my work. Keen observers – among students and professors – noticed a change in me, which affected the quality of work and teaching outputs. The final assessment from my students and the grades from my professors were unmistakable about that.  I ignited resilience and managed to get As in all my classes though! 

I experienced the worst of winter. I experienced loneliness and isolation in their darkest form. There was a time that I spent two days without speaking to human soul because there was no one to talk to. People here travel in winter break. Nobody in Nigeria called and I decided to give everyone a space until they first reached out. America has so much space without people. Abundance is a commonplace without the people to rip it off.

I was separated from my family. I was going through ordeal: emotional pain, unmet desire, cruel separation, push and pull of migration. Worse was that I knew the term for each of my feeling. I had a voice for my condition, so I knew exactly what was going on. I interrogated my decision to come to America, whether the pain is worth it. 

But what was pleasantly surprising was that I was toeing a line walked by several other immigrants before me. My experience is a private collective. As I spoke to people and read books by immigrants, I realized I was the new arrival to the league. Two years ago when I came to the US I found out I was black. Everything I experienced had been experienced by someone else. From winter blues to isolation and loneliness and going back to Africa to feel the tangible deteriorations in your living standards. It is a common knowledge among immigrants that one month in the home-country can quickly wipe out the gain of ten months. This starts the process of your naturalization, the foreign land snatching you from your homeland. You become a visitor to your native land. You need to be somewhat stupendously rich to be able to maintain in Nigeria the basic comfort you have in the US. On some days, for instance, I can live without spending a dime, which is totally impossible in Nigeria for the same amount of comfort. 

Each visit to Nigeria gives me clarity. I am trying to make America and Wisconsin home. I particularly like our city, a small, quiet university town in the Midwest. The people are warm, willing to help, and especially welcoming to immigrants. 

But I somehow feel I do not belong. The thought of winter makes me shudder. Everything comes to me differently the way I see them and relate to them in Nigeria. Here, a home is just a place to sleep. There is no deep and intimate connection between history and memory, something you can remember from childhood, an uncle or neighbor who used to sit under the tree in-front of the house. There is no chatter of the children outside. There is a total absence of elements that constitute a home, roots that run deep into eons of legends and myths. 

My perception of things back in Nigeria is different from my relationship with things here in the US. And this proves more real during a visit to Nigeria. Living in two time zones, I worry and dwell over things in Nigeria, always picturing my people, what they are doing at a particular moment, where they are sitting and what they are saying. Quite unlike how I dwell much about events in Nigeria when I am in the US, I don’t think about events and life in the US with the similar passion and intensity while in Nigeria. 

Home is no more than a place to live, in which I can move houses at a drop of a hat. My existence is a collection of papers, two pieces of luggage and a backpack. This excludes neighbors, fond childhood memories, the neighborhood kids, the majlis, the small small Islamic cultures and everything that builds one’s formative experience, which jumpstarts me into the world of instability of belonging. 

In one of our numerous discussions about the challenges of diaspora living I have at least identified two things: on one hand, there is one group of us juggling infrequent stability, those who have belonging in one place through marriage but are separated physically because of residency and distance. On the other hand are those of us suffering from acute instability of belonging. We are so rootless, with nor marriage or kids in either country. Any which way, we suffer the double bind of cultural and personal displacement. 

Such a difficult process. In our journey across geographies, every stayover or layover adds to your pleasure and trauma. Moreso if you are a Muslim. Take for instance the ritual of daily praying or fasting and the memories in it.

Our life is intimately linked to our devices. As you move across times zones, so does the change in time follow you. The time change competes and tries to override your sense of timing and ritual in your point of origin. The experience is inscribed into your memory, which then tries to destroy or bastardize your sense of stability.

Instability of belonging means you are in a continuous state of transition, never able to put down roots, even if it means you are travelling back somewhere in an unspecified distant future. In the end, majority of people I spoke with have a plan of going back to where they come from. Wherever you move, you are starting all over again. For your intermittent or infrequent visits, the latent awareness of “going” sits in your subconscious. Arriving and going requires logistics and preparing. I have to buy new stuff to start over my life anytime I visit Nigeria, which I then have to get rid of when travelling back to the US. This continuous state of change and transition entails incredible amount of flexibility and minimalism. 

My life is screwed up, but this is my choice. And like Tola said things will get better. Things get better with each visit to Nigeria. I went to Nigeria and cut off the wires that caused the sparks. Sadly, in all of this, people think I am enjoying. Everyone thinks I am printing money in the US! 

Far from home

It's winter. Everywhere is white. We are copped up into our den. Those who could travel did travel. My plan to go to Texas fell through. 

In the past months I signed up for International Friendship Connection program, Getaway 2023. The event happens every year at Twin Lakes, Manson, Iowa. Iowa is a neighboring state, five hours from Wisconsin. As someone who loves travelling, this seemed an interesting idea. 

I needed to explore new places in America. I did not travel during my Fulbright year. For many reasons. One, I instinctively knew that I would be back in the US after the Fulbright year. That says that I would have more chance to explore when I’m back. Secondly, I was trying to save money for the expenses into graduate school. The end of my Fulbright year meant the end of my time on the US government payroll and privileges. Everything fell on my shoulders. Unlike before, I had to pay for my ticket now while flying back to the US from Nigeria. I had to pay for visa and other documents processing fees needed for graduate school.  It was only sensible to save the money for these upcoming expenses.

Arrangement was made for the Getaway event. Five schools from the Midwest were to be in attendance: UW-Madison, Iowa State, University of Missouri, KC; University of Nebraska, and the University of Minnesota. 

Dinner in the dining hall

I had no idea what the event would have looked like, but it seemed exciting to be away from home. It was even more exciting that one would be traveling to rural America, away from the modern comforts to live for some days in a cabin. Americans were excited to be away from their modern comforts. As it turned out, however, the only difference from your home was that you are away from home. There was the internet, though not fast, and almost all the amenities that run in an American home. 

I was assigned to a car belonging to the Walkers. Dillion and Kaitlyn Walkers are a beautiful couple. We became friends in the fall of 2022 shortly after my return from Nigeria. Our car had four passengers. Two Americans, one Russian and myself a Nigerian. The Walkers came and picked me up. We drove to the Russian and picked him up. The Russian, Mr Nurlan, is a funny guy with a critical mind. He is carefree and casual, a non-stickler to any American political correctness. Nurlan asks a lot of questions, is critical of faith and is blunt with American social issues. 

For many days my Gambian friend Majula had been excited about my adventure. She had been excited because she wanted to see how things should pan out. She kept egging me on to pack early. I assured her no worries. I travel light. 

Friday afternoon, I ate my lunch and packed my bag with a pillow, sheet, and blanket as the instructions for the trip warned us. These are unavailable in the cabin. I sat in the living room waiting for our pool car's arrival. Everything happened within seconds. 

Majula found all of me funny. She asked teasing questions and made funny remarks. What was so amusing to her about me was that I didn’t look like someone soon to be traveling. She was excited because I was leaving my comfort zone. It’s brave of me to have left Nigeria and come to America. Blind to this fact, she didn’t consider me naturally adventurous. Moreso, in her vision, I am not adventurous with food, to which I agreed. At every dinner Majula would present a dessert. She is stricter with American food culture and has installed this in the house. I declined her dessert offer, saying I am not interested in all these accessories of life.  

The Walkers had arrived. We were supposed to eat our dinner on our way. The ETA to the camp was around 10PM. We broke the journey at Dubuque. I asked if we could get Asian or Mexican restaurant. It was my hope that I could get something that aligned with my palate. We got into a Mexican restaurant. We ate rice, relaxed a little and continued with the journey.

After a three-hour drive, we arrived at the Twin Lakes Bible Camp. We parked our car, checked in and went to our room. If the Getaway event was lined up with activities, like what you experience at NYSC camp, our room brought back those memories in a torrent rush. The room was lined with bunk beds.  The camp, like the NYSC, is far from home, brings together strangers from college campuses, set of games to enjoy, new friends to make and build connections. Upon arrival and signing up, we dropped our luggage and went back to the main building to play one of the games on the schedule for the night. Just like NYSC experience, the camp was quiet at midnight. 

Bunk beds, each room hosted eight people

The camp was up at 6AM. We took turn using the bathroom. I stayed behind and prayed. I then followed the rest to the Bible Study, after which breakfast was served at 8AM. Every step of the program reminded me of the NYSC. I was smiling. But my friends couldn’t relate. I told them briefly what NYSC is. It's like AmeriCorps.

Lots of winter games after breakfast. We played Toboggan on the nearby frozen lake. Others played ice-skating, but it was extremely cold outside. So, I remained indoors.

During the day, I stole my way back to the room and prayed for the day’s prayers. Once, Nurlan was with me in the room. I asked Nurlan if he had ever seen Muslims’ prayers. He has seen that countless times. in fact, his father was a Muslim. He used to pray with a small carpet. 

I sneaked some apples into my bag with the hope to eat them if I couldn’t eat the food provided at the camp. Luckily, I could eat fruit and potatoes and tea or coffee at the dining table for breakfast. For the lunch, there were chicken and rice and fruit and vegetables. Obviously, the organizers thought about the diverse community of faith and cultural background. I survived intermittingly on crunches and drinks to supplement my diet.

The Madison team

Saturday was a day full of fun. We played soccer, climbed rock, and I watched others play basketball. One of the best moments for me was the karaoke night. I met Venessa Porto, a young lady from Ecuador at the University of Nebraska. I liked her song. 

I met other Africans. One from Adamawa, a Nigerian- American born to a Yoruba woman and Bachama father. Africans from Gabon, Ghana, Congo and Rwanda. The first time I met anybody from Rwanda. 

Sunday morning. We were back at the Bible Study. We sang, we listened to stories and off we went to breakfast. The Getaway event was wrapping up. We had our family group discussion. We packed at 11Am. off we drove back to Wisconsin, another five-hour journey.

Madison, WI