Transcendent Kingdom: a window to the world

 Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom is a fine representation of migrant body and migrant text. It can be read both as an American and Ghanian story, on one hand, and as a chronicle of assorted nightmares of not only immigrants but also Black experience in America, on the other.

The book does a lot of things at once while keeping focused on its central mission. Bits of Kejetia and Alabama; between the two worlds, all was well until at the point of cultural contact. Gifty’s parents emigrated to Alabama from Ghana. The family grapples with adjustment and belonging amidst the pull of the home culture.

Gifty, born in the US and only has had a passing experience of her parents’ homecountry, finds herself boxed in stereotypical immigrant trappings: lonely and introvert, spending long hours in lab and brooding over everything: the suffering in her family, her relationship with colleagues and friends at church.

Nana, her brother, is a talented athlete, afflicted with addiction and died of opioid overdose. The story is somehow about Nana, but it’s in fact about Gifty, the six-year PhD student at Stanford University School of Medicine, who lives in a circle of multiple traumas of lacking – of community who understood her, of her brother, of father and the grief of her dying mother. Readers come to know events through her mouth and private thinking.

Nana is the dominant unifying force. His dying pushed the family further apart but does not stall the story. In death, he is still alive through Gifty’s thinking and reflection.

From the start the book has about it a funeral character. The brooding nature of Gifty’s mind permeates the narrative landscape – somber and moody – which makes the reading meditative, and draws the reader closer to the pain. The sorrowful ambiance makes it possible for us not to be mere spectators.

Interestingly, the story is built on the basis of oppositions and ideational conflicts: faith vs science, family vs profession etc. Gifty set out to understand the basis of reward-seeking behavior in mice and neural circuits of depression in hope of finding solution to the demons that afflicted her family. She is heavily invested in her family and profession almost in equal proportion. She’s selfless in her pursuit to serve the larger humanity beginning with solving her family’s issues.

While this is an intimate, personal story, Gifty does not seem to have a deeper connection with her parents; her mother was simply known as Black Mamba and her father as Chin Chin Man.

From the family to lab and the church spaces, we have seen the social, the scientific and spiritual, spilling and colliding in each other. As these issues – and more – journeyed through the novel and failed to find common ground, they go their separate ways.

The text, overall, is a window to the world. As a locus of cultural negotiation and conflict, it presents and defines the “radical other” between the two traditions, in which the family has to make a choice. Father goes to nationalism, mother and daughter to internationalism. But their trade-off in favor of the host culture wasn’t enough. 

Madison, WI

The back-story of my life

 

Our journey takes us to difficult places…anonymous

I’m the kind of guy that you hear from 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 small issues.

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

 

 

Friends with conviviality

Dr Iliya Amaza and I had been meaning to meet. Unfortunately, the schedule on both sides didn’t agree. So, we made a final deal for the Thanksgiving. I have only had a distant awareness of Thanksgiving. I assumed it is some religious festival. Even if it happens in Nigeria I might not know what it means. Some religious observance days connected to Christianity can come and pass without many of us knowing what that is in our part of Nigeria.

I heard of Dr Iliya through my supervisor. Being both Nigerians, she gave me his number as they had already spoken about me. We communicated sparingly. But for the Thanksgiving he came and picked me up from my house. Along with him was Mr Zakariyya Bulus, also from Borno, who came down to Wisconsin from Ohio to spend the holiday with the Iliyas.

We chatted up in the car. Light talk and sharing stuff about ourselves, inevitably, comparing life here and back there. Soon, we arrived the house at a highbrow area of the city.

Some folks were already in the house. I went to closet and removed the winter stuff. Ah, great, cool! American culture! I said hi to few folks and sat down in one corner. More people were on their way. 

 

Dr Iliya sat with me, and again we discussed a bit about stuff before he was swallowed into the activities in the house. Flurry of activities was going on in the kitchen. The hosts and the guests were working hard for the final touches.

Soon, it was time to move to the kitchen and bless the food. A circle was formed around the kitchen area where the food was laid out in an air of festive mood. Our host, Dr Iliya, opened the floor for food and dinner conversation. As usual, since most of us were meeting for the first time, it was only natural to begin with self-introduction.  That would help prepare a ground for acquaintanceship. You can have a handle on how to engage people for the imminent conversation. by knowing a bit about their life from their words.

Nigerians, Nigerian-Americans, Americans, a Canadian, Gambian and Ivorian were among the guests. We served ourselves and took our seats, all the while maintaining nervous politeness. I didn’t know how it started but soon we found ourselves drawn into hearty, soulful conversation. Inevitably, the talk veered into cultural differences and comparison and the role of language in understanding the world.

Karen and I - of Ivorian heritage and me a Nigerian - for instance, could not know what is happening on the other side of Africa except in translation. We speak different colonial languages. She agreed. To buttress this point, Paddy, the lady on the table with expertise in psychology, mentioned how multilingualism helps individuals in developing an expanded vision of the world. This was discussed at some length and how lack of language constrained our ability to understand our feeling. For instance, most African cultures don’t have the language for depression. But obviously for us who can read in foreign languages could look back and mention individuals we know suffering one or two psychological ailments. We can easily identify our conditions because we know them. Post-natal depression, for example, existed but was not acknowledged in African culture. How did our mothers cope with this situation? Karen made the case that in African culture new mothers are surrounded by and have the support of family from when pregnancy is due, to about 40 days after, as is the case in my culture.

Looking back, I could see instances of my mother at her lowest, gripped in depression. She would tell me her feeling. She said she felt something dark, undefinable in her chest, feeling like bursting. I knew its name, but I would never tell her what it was. I’d pray for her, comfort her. For someone who views hospital negatively, who sees hospital as a last resort, as a house of death instead of cure, she believes that I’m inventing all these misfortunes on her where none exists. And for fever and headache, why not go to the chemist’s shop instead of hospital? As the saying goes, what you don’t know would not kill you.

The crowd thinned and the conversation became even more interesting. In the crowded conversation you have the responsibility of inclusion, of carrying everyone along and listen to them when they talk. At micro level, the conversation became more detailed, people more relaxed and willing to share.

We have got to hear experiences from Alexa and her hard water theory. A sister from Atlanta, Alexa looked to me like Faith in Imo Nigeria, whom I met at NYSC. I barely controlled the urge to walk up to her and say you looked like someone I know. And then Kesha and her husband Akila Bwala. As it turned out, Bwala graduated from ABU Zaria, my alma mater. The distance in the graduation years didn’t hinder our conversation. Esprit de corps instead. The usual suspects: Social Center, North Gate, Zinc House, Amina, and other assortment experience of college life.

Kesha and Akila aren’t just couple, they are friends, friends with conviviality. Their life is super-wonderful. God when…?

 

What struck everyone is the issue of Nigerian national language. Once the question comes up, Nigerians would look at each other. “English.” People become puzzled and make clarification. “I mean, the national language other than English.” My Brazilian friend is always amused and can’t get over this, that the Yoruba people and I can’t communicate when they visit my house. But no such a thing as national language, though. We only have regional languages with English at the center. Hausa for the North as I always explain. And that’s what united us all in the room for folks from the North. And English to every Nigerian North and South. While Iliya and the rest might be able to speak pidgin, I can’t. And million others in my North.

Even more surprising was when Dr Iliya revealed that he and his wife speak different languages. They don’t understand each other except in Hausa or English. She is from Yobe, he Maiduguri. Wonderful! It was also new thing to me. I knew it happens through my imagination but I never came across it in reality.

Dr Iliya regaled us with his wealth of experience about complex American financial system. Bola with her experience of being a Black doctor. Against my wish, it’s time for me to go. Hannatu, Iliya's wife - my daughter - packed food for me. She had cooked masa and zoɓo and ginger juice.

Madison, WI

 

Ps

I can’t mention everyone in the article but recognition also goes to Dr Wole family, Sambo, Alex, Victor and Merlin.