So the biggest event to ever happen in my dear city of London is the Olympics, and I miss it completely. OK not completely, I got to watch the whole thing on TV.
I was impressed with the legends that Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Mo Farrah, welled up with emotion singing the British national anthem at the medal ceremonies, was disappointed with the weird and lackluster opening ceremony (the best bit was the Queen jumping out of the helicopter) kinda liked the closing ceremony, especially the Spice Girls and Oasis singing Wonderwall; and disappointed that the small African country of Gabon won a silver medal, and even Afghanistan won something yet Nigeria came home with nothing.
Anthony Obame from Gabon won a Silver medal in Taekwondo
My family were on holiday away from England during much of August so I decided to postpone my visit home until later in the year, but I still went through a mini depression wishing I was back in London to experience everything live. Many people I knew had tickets to the games or were volunteers and others told me about the electric atmosphere that was charged all around the city, and I was kicking myself that I wasn't there.
Now I’m planning to be in Rio
in four years for the 2016 Olympics. But seeing that seven years ago, when
London first won the bid to host the games, I’d planned that by 2012 I’d be
married with five kids, be the editor of my own lifestyle magazine, own a house
in South London and watch all the track and field events live with my family,
I now know that things don’t always happen as planned. I would never have
imagined I’d be living and working in Abuja with new and wonderful friends and
family in 2012. It’s amazing how plans and desires can change.
Speaking of new friends, I’ve been in Nigeria long enough now to note
one major difference between how Nigerians interact compared with the British:
Bragging. Whether insidious, implied or obvious, when a group of people come
together in Nigeria they jostle for position; who has foreign education, who lives in or
visited (or their mother/brother/uncle lives in or visited) the UK or US, who has the most expensive designer thing from abroad etc.
Now, my British friends and I would
find such ‘showing off’ distasteful. The British way is to be modest and mention your achievements when necessary. I once worked in an office in London with PhD
Doctors and reputable engineers, and I had no idea until I was privy to their
employment records, and found out that at least five of my co-workers had many
published books to their name and were somewhat celebrated in their fields. I
mentioned this to them and one blushed, and I jokingly insisted on calling
another one ‘Dr’ and he laughingly declined, telling me not to be so silly.
But in Nigeria, such men and
women would insist on everyone addressing them as Dr so and so and would find
every opportunity to ‘casually’ mention their doctorate or study abroad, and
would believe they were better than their non-lettered colleagues.
I have models, editors,
chattered accountants, film makers and well-traveled people amongst my group
of friends, but we wouldn't dream of recounting our every accomplishment when
we got together. But not so in Nigeria. Here people find reasons to continuously mention
their foreign experiences, the purchase of their 'authenticly foreign' weave/iPad/washing machine/designer bag.
Not everyone does it, but too
many do. I find it all unnecessary and uncouth. But I guess it’s different for
me: where visiting London is considered something to shout about for them, I
grew up there. Where buying a washing machine is impressive here, such appliances
are standard installations in houses where I come from. And where buying a bag
imported from Italy is noteworthy here, my friends and I go to Italy to buy
such bags.
So I find myself retreating
from such conversations. I don’t want ladies to compete with me in a
game I have no intention of playing, and even if I were to play, would win
anyway. And many times people lie to make their lives seem more fabulicious
than it really is. It’s silly, exhausting and sad. And I find that when I casually mention
something about my life in England, to them it’s like I've upped the ante and
they feel challenged to offer their own fantastic story.
My friend in Ghana (we left
England together at the same time) also reports of such ‘Bragging Games’ among Ghana’s
high-flying young people, where some girls falsify their accents in comical
ways to prove they’ve lived abroad; one girl always managed to work in stories
about her time studying for her Masters in Atlanta into every conversation, and one guy spent 10 minutes displaying his various mobile phones
and recounting how much each cost.
It’s slightly worrying really.
Here we are, my friend and I, trying to embrace our Africanness, recapture the
culture we’d lost or forgotten and play down our ‘otherness’ in the motherland,
whilst our African peers are busy trying to prove their Westernness by
feverishly attaining the trappings of Western culture that we think little of in order to gain respect.
Sometimes, if you can’t beat
them you join them. But not me. My inherent Fulani-shyness and adopted British
reserve merge together to prevent me from all the braggadacious displays of
Western-originated wealth or education, or revel in the celebrity this brings. I was never
into all those status symbols and expensive fashions whilst in England anyway,
and I’m not about to enter that world now.
Sure I speak of my experiences,
but only when asked or when it’s genuinely relevant. To do otherwise would be vulgar.
