Na Wetin Na??

I just had the strangest discussion ever with a man at the university’s IT center. Apparently, he’s a big fan of my father’s and it makes him do and say crazy things. Now, I’ve met fans of Ken Saro-Wiwa before, but never one like this. First of all, I ran into him on Monday at one of the departments on campus. He was in a hurry, but he was smiling and said, “We have something very important to discuss!” I was thinking that it had to do with the fact that I’ve been surfing the net for free illegally near his office and that he wanted me to pay for it pronto. As is usually the case in matters like this, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I went to the IT center today to pay for my internet access because I got tired of having to look over my shoulder as I surfed. I figured it was time to make it legit, and I figured that I might as well stop over and talk to him since I was going to be in the building anyway. As I walked into his office, he extended his hand and called me “baby”. Nigerian men refer to women as “baby” all the time, so I tried, for once, to ignore the fact that I can’t stand it. I put it down to general lack of respect for womanhood. There is no end to the level of disrespect for womanhood in this place. Can you believe that I went to a play where the audience was actually cheering on a male character for commanding his wife to stay at home until he gives her permission to go out?? But that’s another story. Anyway, he then went on to say, “We need to have a serious discussion now, because you have offended me. Or maybe I have offended you.” I started to say, “But I’m going to pay for the internet right now!” but then he asked me to sit down so we could begin talks.

To cut a long story short, he wanted to find out about whether or not I was truly Ken Saro-Wiwa’s daughter. Like I said, he’s a big fan. He couldn’t stop gushing…in between all the conversational faux pas he was making, that is. First, he told me that it was about time I got over my father’s death, even though he’s sure I won’t get over it completely, but time has a way of healing wounds even though the scar remains. Yes, he said all that. Then he said that he often thinks about my father’s trial and finds it funny, though he’s sure it wouldn’t be funny to me since it was a personal loss on my part, but it was funny to him. To be fair, he did go on to explain himself, saying that it was because my dad used to put his head down on the table and when he was asked why he didn’t look up during the trial, he said it was because when he looks up and sees the trial judges, all he sees are kangaroos and it didn’t make sense to him that kangaroos should be judging a man, and then he’d put his head down again. That’s something new I learned today. Have I mentioned how much I love my daddy?

Anyway, the final blow to my composure was struck when he said, “Believe me, if I weren’t married now, I would have dated you!” You know you can see all my emotions on my face; I wonder if he saw the whole mix, or whether they all got jumbled up and came out as something more agreeable than what I was actually feeling. I flashed through feelings of shock, amusement, indignation and rage within 3 seconds. I should probably describe this man to you so you can understand a little bit of what I felt when he said this. He’s about six feet tall, dark, medium build. His eyes are brown and actually pretty soft-looking, if you get what I mean. They’re gentle eyes. And to be honest, that’s about all I can remember about him because his lips pretty much overpower everything else in my memory. They are both the same size and they are HUGE! They are huge and a bit misshapen, with an odd texture to them that makes them look bumpy, like mountainous regions on a relief map. And he has this very gross way of licking his lips where his tongue, which is a bright reddish-pink color, oozes out from between those gargantuan lips and forms a comparatively small triangle that slathers saliva over whatever surface area it can reach before disappearing back into his mouth. Those lips are what decided that I would be dated by their possessor. What impudence! He repeated that statement almost three times before he even considered the fact that there was a possibility that I had a say in the matter, at which point he added, “And you wouldn’t have been able to say no.” I burst out laughing at that point and said, “OK,” not because I agreed, but there was really nothing else to say.

Then he modified the statement slightly and said, “I’m not saying that I would have married you, but we would definitely have become emotionally involved.” Double blow. Not only do I not get a say in whether or not I would date this gross-lipped creature, but I’m not even good enough to marry! Then I remembered his wife, pregnant at home while this man, her husband, is going on and on about how he is struggling even now to control his emotions for me, and how he wouldn’t date me to take advantage of me but to show his love for my father. Hei! I don suffer for man pikin hand! When he invited me to have lunch with him one of these days so that we could discuss further, I decided it was time for me to go ahead and leave his office before it became another situation altogether. His ‘finishing move’ was to tell me that he was going to do his best to control his emotions regarding me now that he knows who I am and where I am. I suppose I should be grateful that this is all that came of our discussion. In the initial stages of his adulation, he had started to envision a publicity campaign to let the student body know that I was in Nigeria. Had to squash that with a quickness; I didn’t come to Nigeria to embarrass myself and let the world know all the things I haven’t done with my life. It was all very deep.

Enough of that though; I want to talk about how much my host mom is annoying me these days.

She keeps trying to force me to eat. And when I say force, I mean force! She only stops short of forcing the food down my throat with her bare hands. She thinks I don’t eat enough, but the truth of the matter is that it’s her food that’s putting me off food in general. Today, I had two pineapple slices for breakfast and a sausage roll for brunch and didn’t even feel hungry at lunchtime. If I were at home, that could NEVER happen…the food just tastes too good to let it sit in the pot! But here, I just lie and say that I don’t care much for food. Her food is just so bland! And even stuff that I think will taste good is starting to taste bad. So she badgers me repeatedly and it’s starting to get harder for me to be polite when I turn her down. And because she was expecting a very American guest and has therefore blocked her mind to my Nigerian-ness, she asks me questions that irritate the piss out of me. It's like "20 Questions" every single hour of the day! I’ve already told her a thousand and one times that I grew up in Nigeria, but she still has it in her mind that I’ve never been here before and therefore don’t know anything about the place. Take today, for instance. She came to pick me up from school and I asked her if we could stop on the way home so I could buy roasted groundnuts. She asked, “You like to eat them?” I’m already irritated by the question and I want to say, “No, I’m buying them just to look at them,” but instead I said, “Yes, but only when I drink gari.” Then she goes, “Do you drink gari?” I didn’t answer immediately because the phrase, “What the fuck did I just say?” was already on the tip of my tongue. I kept quiet, then she asked me again. I clenched my jaw and said, “Yes,” through my teeth, but I really wanted to smack her across the face for being so stupid and annoying, and for being such a bad cook that I can’t even take advantage of the fact that I’m finally back in Nigeria and have the opportunity to eat all the foods I’ve missed. If I don’t get to go home and eat some food with flavor, I’m going to call on Sango to strike this place! I’ve already lost 6 pounds and I’ve only been here 2 weeks!

I did drink the gari, which I was previously very excited to have, but it tasted like crap. I’m going to starve to death, I just know it. I’m going to lose so much weight that my skin will stop glowing and turn ashy, and even Big Lips won’t want me then! I wonder if I've wronged the universe somehow. Did I kill somebody's firstborn? Have I tief another person's husband? Well, clearly I've come close, but it's really not my fault that there is an invisible Pied Piper on my back that attracts these people to me! Sha, God de.