All the way from the tropics, I have landed myself in Chi-Town in the bleak mid-winter, still decorated with the debris of its worst (or rather most severe) blizzard in a decade, and in all truth it has been a SHOCK to my system.
As much as I hate to admit it, I think I am a bonafide Nigerian: The concept of cold and winter is now so foreign to me. However I only have myself to blame for how cold I am right now, because before I left ‘Uncle P’ was telling me to pack long johnnnns, and tons of thermals, and naturally I was like “eiweeeee, I don’t have those”, his response: “oh, so you are tryna look cute in arctic conditions” ... turns out he knows his village better than I do, this cold is paralysing, definitely too cold to try and look cute, too cold to even try and look just aite....It’s all about keeping warm regardless of what’s in vogue. I can totally understand those Nigerians you see at Heathrow now, wearing tea cosies on their heads and turtle neck jumpers under their buba and iro, topped off with one of those ghastly felt looking scarves; the cold whey catch them, na only them fit understand.
But even more “Nigerian” of me, I just haven’t got the patience for ignorant oyinbos (you know, the sort that haven’t ever left their home country and have weird concepts and beliefs about the outside world). Believe it or not almost every person I have spoken to has asked me if I speak Nigerian, I have been asked when I learnt to speak English, If this was the first time I have seen snow, and one girl even announced on a microphone that she wants to visit Africa (South Africa specifically) because she really wants to see monkeys walking on the street. Someone asked my colleague if her mode of transport was elephant. As though all that was not bad enough, today some girl comes up to me grinning from ear to ear and says: “I was so fascinated when you spoke earlier, because before now I never knew there was a country called Nigeria”. Of course when all these comments were made, I smiled politely, maybe even laughed a little, but all that was going through my head was: “abi kiru iranu le leyi” (and yes I did actually think it in Yoruba, but for the none Yoruba speakers, I was thinking – “WHAT KIND OF RUBBISH IS THIS”).
All this jetlag has got me thinking how ironic it is that most Africans look to the western world, mostly to Europe and the United States as the beacons of all knowledge, superior, and as my grandfather would say, (Yoruba speakers pardon my spelling), “e gba keji olorun”, i.e. after God is the white man, but truthfully when it comes down to it(and after all these comments I have heard), the Africans, Indians, Chinese are far more technically sound, and fully exposed.
I have spoken to a lot of people since I’ve been here, and my mind has really been blown away by the quality of some peoples thoughts, and ideas, particularly one Indian chap, and one Korean girl. Quite frankly it took a lot of “active listening” for me to follow these peoples conversations, but when I did I was wowed, they had sound business acumen, they knew how to apply their knowledge, and articulate it, they knew about the world, the way it works, ideas on how it could work better, they could even discuss random topics like music and theatre in different geographical locations, they were well rounded. But when I think about it people (myself included) normally overlook these guys, because their command of the English language is not so great, but when they hear big big fone and grammar, thick American accent, plum in the mouth English, they sit up, even if that person is talking a pile of rubbish.
That seems to be the way the world works, we judge a book by its cover, and we rate the content of what someone is saying by the accent they are speaking in. I guess that is why we have so many Nigerians putting on God alone knows what accents that make them sound like they swallowed a pineapple whole and it got trapped in their throats. If the objective of faking accents is in order to give the illusion that we are intelligent, I believe I may start to speak with an Indian or Chinese accent (As it happens I do quite good impressions of both... I am way ahead of the curve, so when u hear me spitting one Indian or Chinese fone, don’t watch me, watch tv).
Missing Lagos, the sun, my family, friends, and my own bed.
Xoxo.
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