I review my plan as our plane taxis to the gate. I would dispense with expectations. I would focus on experiencing every moment as it happened. I would cast no judgment and draw no comparisons. I was prayed up. I was inconspicuously dressed. I was ready.
[Or so I thought.]The three-hour plus drive home 👏🏽tested👏🏽me👏🏽right👏🏽away👏🏽. As our driver navigated crater-sized potholes, kekes and roadside salespersons with the confidence of a professional Nascar driver, I alternated between admiration, prayer and clutching the upholstery. While he made time to shout the appropriate insults at other drivers jostling to enter small strips of passable road, I practiced stillness and shallow breathing. When militia stopped us for a random check, Wale remained unperturbed while I made room on my dance card for a new plan—looking as un-American as possible.
Finally, we arrived at my aunt’s house. Traditional call and response greetings pepper the air as I am hugged over and over again—
Mazi/mazi
Na-wo/ Na nw’afo
Ka-nka/ka mu na gi
They hadn’t seen me since I was 4 or 5 years old and as we ate our heaping plates of rice and stew, highly exaggerated tales (I’m sure) of baby Oluchi spill out.
My mother is first to share a story at how irritated I’d been with a childhood friend who was doing small shakara during playtime. I’d told this friend in no uncertain terms, “if you want to play then play. If you don’t want to, then don’t.” My mother hollers in the remembering.
My aunt eagerly joins in. When she was carrying her first child, I had pointed at her belly and told her the unborn child would be like me. I got close—the baby girl was given a derivative of my name, Oluomachi. I smile outwardly but on the inside, I am horrified. I don’t want anyone to be like me, not because of pride but because, have you read this blog? I am a mess.
Another pregnancy story follows on the heels of the first; my aunt recalling a time when my father sent me to deliver a fruit salad. She’d declined and I left the plate there. When I returned, the plate was empty. Apparently, I’d roasted her for pretending she wasn’t hungry and my father, overhearing the exchange, told me to shut up. I supposedly said, “No. I will speak.” Or something along those lines.
My kindness is also fondly remembered. When Oluomachi born, I would sing to her to encourage her to eat. In another story, I told my father to be generous about sharing the Milo with my uncle.
I sit quietly as the recollections, updates and inquiries fly around me, wondering how I got away with so much. Children are usually seen and not heard but somehow, everyone had appreciated and allowed my boldness. I decide that maybe it was because they knew timidity served no purpose in a country where life was preset to be hard.
As our stay continued and I observed everyday Nigerian life—the brusque insults traded by keke drivers, the incessant peddling of goods, the prerequisite bartering in the marketplace, children at play but with the seriousness of adults, open bribery and civic inefficiencies—I realized that my conclusion had been spot on. America had softened my candor but not my bleeding heart. I would be taken advantage of here until I developed mental toughness, weariness or both.
That was the first day.