If I Hear...

I feel like I should apologize for not updating more often, but ironically enough I sort of feel like I’m just a normal college student at a normal university (which is a good thing, but it’s kind of crazy considering I’m in rural Nigeria).

So since we last talked life has been good. School is just there. I finished midterms (but I only had two) and they both went well. I am starting to enjoy class more, now that I know people and their views. It’s very cool that my observations about the society here are exactly what we discuss in many of my classes (African politics and literature). Here’s an example. So today in my literature class we’re talking about a novel called “The Beggars Strike” and at one point the main character tells his wife of 24 years that he’s marrying another woman the next day. And she stays with him! Now, to me this is insane. My logic was that the original wife should threaten divorce in order to prevent her husband from marrying another woman (divorce is a huge deal here). But, culturally a divorce is worse for a woman than a man. So he could care less if she divorces him, but she essentially needs him. So after class I’m talking with some friends about this, and they say that’s honestly how it is here. Women have some rights to fight for!

Alright, so I’ll fill you in on what I’ve learned about ‘tribes’. Now, first of all ‘tribe’ is formally considered derogatory but I have heard Nigerians ask other Nigerians what tribe they are from. The term tribe comes across as ‘primitive’ when really there are European ‘tribes’ but we call them ethnicities. There are three main ethnicities here in Nigeria: Ibo, Hausa, and Yoruba. There are lots of others, but for simplicity sake well leave it at that. Yola is in the north and the north is mainly Hausa and Muslim. Each ethnicity has its own language (with many different dialects) and traditional practices. From what I’ve heard, you can’t necessarily distinguish ethnicity by physical appearance, but some ethnicities tend to be more fair than others. There is a lot of pride in ethnicities, but not too much tension between them (unless talking about politics). Some of my friends have said that they’re parents want them to marry in their ethnicity, because the woman is taken in to her husband’s family. Everyone here is from a ‘village’, where grandmothers and some distant relatives live. Most people go to their village for Christmas or a visit every couple of years. The tensions are political. Leaders here get into power and give preference to their people and neglect the rest of the country. So for example the state that the president is from has better roads ect (and most presidents have been from the north) so the east and the south gets the shaft. It’s a difficult cycle to break so this has sort of pitted the groups against themselves in some cases. But people here at AUN have a lot of pride in their ethnicity. There’s some nice tshirts ‘Ibo Boy’! haha

There has been a running joke with my friends… “You People”. It started when I got to talking to this Yola guy at the mai shayi (tea shack). He told me that “you people all look alike” and I was like wow that’s the most racist thing anyone has ever said to me. But his English was pretty bad so I let it slide. But then I told my friends, they were like saying ‘you people’ is not offensive but we determined that saying all white people look alike is racist. Nigerians use ‘you people’ when talking about ethnicities. So then I told my friends that white people look really different from each other and I showed them pictures of my friends and they were like ‘wow you people all look alike’ and we just died laughing! So ironically enough in my African lit class a few days later my professor told me, “You people read fast. You start reading at a very young age” and I almost walked out of class. But later in his speech he said ‘Americans’ so once again I let it slide. But wow. It’s fun to joke around with my close friends about race, but because we all know that we look funny together and that we could care less about color. One of my friends is really dark and so people call him black boy, so now he calls me white girl. It’s funny because my friends and I can joke about race. They always talk about staining me. Or if I take a fanta over a coke they’ll say I’m watching my color!

Some Nigerianisms:
-IF I HEAR (shows shock)
-boning (serious look/attitude with someone)
-as in (just what you say)
-meat is tough
-if something is mediocre it’s ‘just there’
-beef with someone(same as in the US)
-malo (still trying to define this one)
-vexed (anger)
-dyou get? (do you understand/get it)
-abeg (this is my favorite, you use it to beg people to get your way)
-instead of cutting in line, you ‘chance’ the line