My First Visit to Nigeria

The most clear memory I have of my first visit to Nigeria was of the village. My family is from a small village in Kogi State and it's most common for everyone, even our city-slicker relations, to make the exodus back home every Christmas. This was another one of those years. I was about 12 years old and wanted so badly to go to the village well to help fetch water for the family. Of course I was the American cousin, so they begged me to stay put and avoid over-exertion, but my on-going nagging eventually wore down their defences:)

They allowed me to walk with my aunt to the well, which was about a 15 minute walk away. I carried a jug on my head like all of the other girls and boys and made the successful trip to the well and back. I was smiling from ear to ear, as I entered my grandfather's compound. I called everyone within earshot to see how strong I was. As I got closer to our family's water tank, I tripped and spilled all of the water on myself and on the floor. I instantly started crying. I'm certain that I was inconsolable for hours and ended up crying myself to sleep that afternoon. Man!! I still remember the embarrassment that lasted for days after that...

I can laugh at it today, but I was mortified. lol. Events like this are practically life-shattering when you're 12.

Anyways. I have many fantastic and happy memories, but that's one that for sure sticks with me. Happy 50th Birthday, Nigeria. Although we are far apart, you are still my home.

In honor of this big-deal birthday for the motherland, check out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's poem Visiting Nigeria. If you've ever visited a homeland that felt both foreign and familiar, you'll love this poem. The popular author of books Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and, most recently, The Thing around Your Neck really captures it all in this lovely piece.



Also check out the pics from my last visit to Nigeria. Hoping to go back in the next few months. We'll see...:)

Visiting Nigeria
BY Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At first we goggled the
sprawling savannas; flat, vast expanses bearing
heads of grain, yellowish-brown in the scorching sun,
that nodded – swayed in the evenings – to the
magical drums of the northern winds

Then – south-bound - the joyous tears
of wise and wrinkled ancestors
trickled, and then poured down
to herald the resurrection of the yams

Then the lush wealth of green
surrounded us and we saw
on the stern-faced gods
carefully carved of living wood
a smile of benevolence

Then the brown, bare earth
turned red
with earthworm paths, with spicy dew
and our creased feet
like charred, parched brown paper
soaked the richness of re-birth

Then the Niger, still and silent
- housing its mermaids, its watery gods -
bore our canoe, zig-zag lines etched in its weather-beat body
in spiritual and dominant acquiescence

And at last
while the spirits roamed the hills
their piercing singing in the wind
(that our guards said were horny, mating crickets)
carrying the folklore of the wise tortoise
and feathers slipped off of humming birds,
our souls danced