Once in a while, I bleed...

...Omonoba...
Our people say:
Yoruba: Onísùúrù ní ńse oko omo Aláhúsá.
Eng: Only the patient person will win the daughter of the Hausa man. - Yoruba Proverb.
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It's a lot of work to find oneself all over again. It's very interesting and rewarding but it's not always easy. It's HARD. One of those things that eventually, one can say is truly WORTH THE WHILE.
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Jaycee, FYI: I have fallen in love with Coelho...big time.
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I grew up exposed to so many different cultures understanding that I am bi-cultural and permit me to claim the Rivers state heritage also since I grew up there and will forever have nostalgic churns in my stomach and flooded eyes with the mention of The Old Place. Moving later on away from this bliss - this perfection of love and joy and togetherness - I was already biased against wherever it was that I would be moving to. I partly blame my dislike for the new place therefore, on this warped state of my mind. But, I wish it proved me wrong and at least fought to correct my impression. Almost everything was different from what I recognized as normal and yet the new place is within Nigeria. Suddenly, it was an issue that I had grown up in The Old Place and not somewhere else. Growing up in a different environment from what everyone else was used to the meant that I was spoiled and too easy-going and accepting of others. All of a sudden, it was thrown in my face that I was not just the normal Yoruba girl - I had Edo blood and therefore, I must be diluted. I, along with the ones that I love, fought to try to explain carefully that it was beautiful to be immersed in other cultures and learn from them but that was a futile move. Then, I chose instead to watch how things were done and why they were done as such in the new place. It was quite difficult to determine but with time, it was clear. Now, I'm terribly flooded with awful memories of wickedness. It is wickedness because this new place sought bitterly to rid me of the simplicity that I had known and the love that will help to move the world forward - the kind that even Christ would approve of. In all honesty, if I could, I would get rid of every single moment in the new place and grow up until this point in The Old Place because (TOP) reminds me of stripped beauty and love. Last Christmas, when I made my annual trip back home, I went through (TOP) and dare I say that I would not be doing this again. Landing in (TOP) had me crying uncontrollably because I was almost forced out of there and definitely not to a better place. Sleeping in its hotel bed over-night was much better though because we - the city and I - seemed to be communicating and catching up on old times and I heard it almost audibly reach out its comforting arms to me. The next morning, I moved on to the new place. Now, I think I may return home to serve (NYSC) since those of us who go to school outside Nigeria have a choice of where we may serve. People have sworn that I would choose Abuja or Calabar or The New Place...and betray (TOP)? Never! It was almost as if I was turning mad with all my nostalgic outbreaks regarding this city where I grew and lived and learned and failed and succeeded and schooled and then left by everything but choice, until one of the ones that I love recently confessed that he felt the same way too. So, the militants had control over it for a while and it does not necessarily have the most cinema houses or shopping malls but I understand the language of the earth of the Garden City and it understands mine. So, tomorrow, when I want to write a memoir of my life, I would make sure that honor is given to whom honor is due. Maybe if I was removed to a better place or at the very worst, the same place but with a different experience, I would have a different story to tell. But every time I speak of my childhood, I speak of love and peace and my eyes cry. The new place - the one that I have tried so hard to love - does not feel the same.
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And The Old Place (and all the people who were in it with me) taught me to see far beyond tribe and culture and see a person for who he / she is. The new place fought hard to make me myopic.

From bleeding NakedSha,
Bless...