Coming Home: An Introduction
August 12, 2009
Lagos, Nigeria
Pressed against the window, journal in hand, I had decided that once we arrived in Lagos, I would eat suya first, followed by fresh plantain. I would ask Mommy to buy local fabrics and I would dress like a native.
The crowd streamed past our seats in waves, down both aisles of the plane. They kept coming; tall, short, slender, fat, light-skinned, and dark-skinned. I soaked in the sight of their thick hair, long braids, balding heads, cornrows, and graying edges. I stared at the wrinkled hands, smooth legs, flowing dresses, and brightly patterned shirts.
At fifteen, this was the most important trip of my life. I believed I would find, there across the Atlantic Ocean, the answer to everything. I would belong there. Everyone would look like me, eat the foods I ate at home, and dance to the music I loved so much.
Mommy sat in the middle seat between me and my little sister, Lola. Her eyes remained locked on her game, only looking up occasionally to see if the plane was leaving yet. My parents had agreed that the two of us would go with Mommy to Lagos while the boys stayed behind with Daddy to play their summer sports.
My siblings ran the spectrum of the dual culture experience. Lola was the youngest of the four of us. She was the walking, talking personification of chicken tenders and fries; a full-blown Texan. She and Mommy met nightly at the battlefield that was the dinner table; she refused to eat most Nigerian foods. The boys were different, straddling three worlds at once. They reveled in American football, fully integrated themselves into Black American culture, and always had their plates ready for second helpings of pounded yam and egusi soup. As for me, no matter what I did, I kept at least one foot turned toward Nigeria. I had a habit of eavesdropping on Daddy’s conversations in Yoruba, quietly mimicking his “e kaaro!” and “ese pupo!” I begged my parents to take me to the parties around town. Once there, I would memorize every curve of the gele hair ties and every twist of the colorful wrappers wound tightly around the waists of each guest.
I had become very familiar with the ache that accompanied my friends’ mention of holidays with their easily accessible relatives. We did not have a history in America. There were no generational stories that preceded our existence here. We were finally going back to the land that had birthed our lineage. As we taxied down the runway, I felt a peace and a nervousness that mixed in my chest like oil and water.
At 35,000 feet the flight attendants made their way down the aisles. Mommy slid a tray of food onto my table. The smell of meat shook my stomach with a forcefulness that made me sit up straight. Lola slowly peeled back the foil lid of the plastic container; her eyes went wide.
“Mommy...Mommy is this supposed to be stew?” She prodded the chunks of meat that floated in the red sauce, parting the block of rice like a surgeon with her scalpel. Mommy laughed.
“It is stew. Eat it. They are trying.”
Lola frowned into her tray. She managed to finish enough of the medley to satisfy Mommy for the time being.
As amused as I was by the airline’s thoughtful gesture, I quickly finished my food and returned my gaze to the pitch black beyond the window. Though I hadn’t been back since I was three, this journey across the Atlantic felt more like an introduction than a return. I could nearly recite the countless stories about my life in Lagos as a baby. I thought about the grandparents, uncles, aunties, and cousins that I had idolized for lack of seeing them often enough. Within reach was the Nigeria of political debates between elders at parties, of loud phone calls in the middle of the day, of hushed whispers in the middle of the night. The Nigeria of “yes, yes, maybe next Christmas” and “don’t you remember me? I carried you as a toddler!” The Nigeria of identity discomfort in American classrooms and “I’m sorry, how do you pronounce your name?”
We were going to that Nigeria, where it would all make sense. Although I knew that it was not as easy a place to live as America, it hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps I wouldn’t enjoy myself. There existed in my mind only varying degrees of falling madly in love with a place that echoed from every word my parents spoke and every glance I took in the mirror.
We dipped below the blanket of clouds and floated downward toward earth. I could just make out the lush green of the forests that hugged the northwestern perimeter of Lagos. The landscape was dotted with the soft red of pantile rooftops. The blood in my veins pulsated at ever increasing speed. This was it. As the plane slid onto the tarmac, it was all I could do not to unbuckle my seat belt and run down the aisle. I peeled my face from the window and turned to Mommy. The corners of my mouth were still spread wide when I noticed the tremble of her lips.
“Mommy? What’s wrong?”
She opened her mouth to speak and then began to sob. Her shoulders shook with the effort to remain silent. I looked at her until the sting of understanding leapt from my eyes and rolled down both cheeks. In all my wondering, all my imagining, I had not stopped to consider the obvious.
For as long as I could remember, Mommy and I had felt worlds apart. We often appeared alien to one another in a way that frustrated and confused me. But this I finally understood. Nigeria was not a mystery to my mother at all. Even though she had not been back in twelve years, it was still a far more familiar land than the suburbs of Houston, Texas.
I squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Mommy. You’re home now.”
Photo Credit: @evelazco
