{"id":10051,"date":"2014-11-13T06:45:48","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T11:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=10051"},"modified":"2014-11-12T21:35:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T02:35:21","slug":"conversations-american-boy-kidnaps-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/conversations-american-boy-kidnaps-nigeria.html","title":{"rendered":"Conversations With An American Boy: About The Kidnaps In Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living in a foreign land can be very very confusing.\u00a0It can make you question every single thing you thought you knew. All your beliefs and values, they become unraveled, and all of a sudden, you’re wondering how long you have been so ignorant. Or is this new foreign land just making you think you have been ignorant?<\/p>\n

Remember when I blogged about my conversation with my Vietnamese friend?<\/strong><\/a> By the way, I need to blog the second part of that conversation. I mentioned in the post about children born in America to Nigerian parents. Are the children Nigerians or Americans? Or both? Or none?<\/p>\n

\"Conversations-With-An-American-Boy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My little cousin, Toby (full name, Tobechukwu) is 12 years old, and we share the same birthday – January 14th. It’s literally a miracle. He was due to be born in April, but somehow, he showed up 3 months prematurely and was born on my birthday instead. He stayed in the incubator in the hospital till May, and he came home with an oxygen tank and a pulse monitor that had to be hooked to him at all times. He weighed 2.2 lbs at his birth. His mom is my mom’s baby sister. I remember how little and fragile he was. But I digress.<\/p>\n

He was born here in Baltimore, Maryland. Since his birth, he has never traveled home to Nigeria. America is all he knows. Sure, he knows how to mimic his mom’s Nigerian accent, especially the way she screams Blood of Jesus!<\/em> for just about every occurrence, and sure, he knows how to eat fufu, pounded yam, okra soup, etc. But ultimately, at this point of his life, he’ll pick pizza over fufu any day – more because he’s 12 than anything else, I think.<\/p>\n

The other day, we were talking about Nigeria and I casually mentioned that some day, he and I will go to Nigeria together. Well, he shut that down real quick. He said he never wanted to go to Nigeria because all they do there is kidnap people. My anger about his statement is two-fold: (1)<\/strong> I’m mad that we (his family) have not done a good job of telling him about Nigeria, and (2)<\/strong> I’m madder<\/em> that there is truth to what he said, and the problem might be that we told him too much about Nigeria.<\/p>\n

The reality is that Nigeria isn’t exactly the safest place to be. Although I grew up in Nigeria, I have not been back home in a very long time AND I, too, am afraid of Nigeria. While I desperately want to go to Nigeria, there is also a crippling fear that grips me. I’d be lying if I said that things like kidnap, bomb blasts, and theft don’t come to mind when I think of Nigeria. My struggle now is how to tell Toby about Nigeria without lying or exaggerating the truth because deep down, I see him as Nigerian, and I want him to embrace Nigeria, even if just partly. How do I tell him that although there is indeed kidnap, that Nigeria is not that bad? Most of all, how do I say it and believe it, too?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living in a foreign land can be very very confusing.\u00a0It can make you question every single thing you thought you knew. All your beliefs and values, they become unraveled, and all of a sudden, you’re wondering how long you have been so ignorant. Or is this new foreign land just making you think you haveRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[561],"tags":[1142,412,1137,745],"class_list":["post-10051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal","tag-1142","tag-culture","tag-identity","tag-nigerian","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nConversations 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