I got a text yesterday from a professor at my University in Ibadan, wondering whether my experience in America has met up with what I expected. I wrote back that the experiences were mixed, but within me, I am convinced that besides the abundance of fast food, traffic lights and sometimes searing cold, I have not seen any major difference in America as a place to live and Nigeria. Okay, maybe that’s likely to be perceived wrongly. I have met with many more interesting people, not any different from the interesting ones I’ve known before. I’ve also met with some strange people, not stranger than the ones I’ve met in Nigeria. However, there is a sense in which everything seems mostly normal, even though different. America is interesting, and so is Nigeria. I can grant that because of its place in the world, I seem to have a front-row to life’s interesting drama when I’m in the US than when I’m in Nigeria, but so far, I have not had any cause to stand in a public square staring in awe at any spectacular sight only because I’ve never seen it before, even though that seem strange enough to the people I tell.
Whenever I tell my American friends that I’ve been here for only two months, they immediately ask for my opinion on everything I’ve seen and experienced. And, instead of going with a previously standard response of “Oh it’s nothing. Except for the cold, it’s not much different here from where I’m from,” I now have to go into a long discussion on my very many notable observations, wonder, amazement, dread, lonesomeness and all, just to avoid a long stare or an awkward moment of uncomfortable silence that have now begun to attend any seemingly self-confident response. “It’s okay to feel lonely at times, and miss home, you know.” My classmate had said to me once, and he’s right. I should desist from this present stoic, often impersonal response to this distance, and really break down into my true status as a lost stranger in a distant land. Maybe only then can I find another part of myself necessary for the true experience of travelling. The problem is, it’s not working out for me. I wonder if there’s anything wrong with that.
I have stopped counting my days in the United States. The calendar is there to do that. I just make a mental note of the hours as they pass by. By my calculations, I have spent over two months here and it already feels like forever. But I don’t feel the pressure to keep feeling nostalgic, so I believe that I have finally entered the cruise mode – that time of the journey where everything seems suspiciously smooth and fine. The problem is, I don’t like it. I want some action and new challenges. I do not want to get used to the idea that I’m in America, and therefore all is well with the world. This is what pushes me out every morning, and alas, this is what causes me all the great stress episodes that keep my muscles aching and my butt in bed for longer hours than necessary.
I was once presented by a doting love with a list of several endearment terms from which to choose a specific one for future continuous use. After about a few days of serious thinking I came back with a preferred choice, and she looked at me long and hard, hissed aloud, then wondered aloud why of all the thousand and one “nice and lovely” possible names to choose from – like ‘darling,’ ‘dear,’ ‘love,’ ‘honey’ etc – I had chosen “pumpkin”. To her very bewildered self, this terrible mis-choice only meant one thing: a confirmation of what she had probably long suspected: that I had finally lost all my romantic sensibilities. To me however, it was a very unique expression of my kind of doting which was not meant to conform to popular expectation. Needless to say, the arguments that ensued afterwards ensured that it was not one of the best nights of my romantic life!
It was therefore a mild surprise, on getting back to my apartment this evening, to find that our names on the door have been re-written on pumpkin-themed pink cards by some strange fairies within the University Students Housing system. How very sweet! I can now be sure that whenever the Halloween fairy finally comes by, he’d be sure to knock on our door sometime in the night, even though our own pumpkins plants are just a few inches large.
