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