Its truly a state of 'Nervous conditions'

Just a few weeks ago I was walking past some book shelves in my Uni's library and found my friend curled up in a ball sobbing on her final page of Tsitsi Dangaemba's amazing 'Nervous conditions', I came up to her and asked her what was wrong, and she welled up  and whispered ' Its truly a state of Nervous conditions'. Just then I knew it exactly what the problem was.because I had had these issues creep up whilst reading the similar novel. We are both in the same African literature class . The character of  'Nyasha' in the novel Nervous conditions sums up the contradictions, confusions, frustrations, desires of many 'Hybrid' children.....When I say 'Hybrid' im referring to those children of the colonial explosion...Children who are both 'Here' and 'There' so much that they struggle to place themselves somewhere. I describe this 'Nervous Condition' as a creeping force that engulfs you and causes you to question the very understanding of yourself any time you come into contact with blatant forces of these'two worlds'.  My Nervous condition kicks in when I meet my Fula relatives who I cannot communicate in ula with, It Kicks in when I meet a European person who I seem to be getting along with perfectly, but who one day casually makes a ignorant racist remarks that causes me to question the foundation of their knowledge, and my Identity in being a woman who doesn't wish to be considered 'over-sensitive'. My nervous condition kicks in when I assess whether I am being to hard on such European being s for their ignorance, it forces me to question the philosophy of my position- Uncle tomishness passivity or Martin luther civil disobidience?........ Its truly a state of Nervous conditions

Marriage,Migration.and Mothers

Recently me and my three elder sisters have been enjoying the commentary of my mother and her sisters in their bids to find my elder sisters and cousins some husbands.  Myself and my sisters have so far always taken their advances in quite a light-hearted manner.  We are African and whereas for others it may seem odd- since a young age commentary and jokes about marriage have always existed- I have a number of Uncles whoa re my supposed 'husbands', my father makes jokes with my aunty;s that they are his wife. (These are often light- hearted commentary, but onetheless proves the importance in marriage in our society where the term 'marriage' can be used to describe various levels of endearment).  This point I highlight to demonstrate why when my mother and aunty say 'You must get married' me and my sisters do not instantaneously freak out and feel enormous pressure, although we know they wish t see us married one day we know there is a general looseness of the tongue afforded to the term.

However I am beginning to question whether the 'frivolosity' I associated with this term.

My mother moved to this country ( UK) at the age of 23 to meet my father. They had married a year before in Sierra Leone.  My mother's story was a classic tale of 'clean peulh courtship'. My mother was a very beautiful young lady, very hard- working in school also very keen on looking after her single-mother. My father was a young handsome man extremely intelligent and very handsome. They both belonged to the same peulh ethnic group, My father and mother both lived in the capital, and if anyone knows Freetown they will know that everybody knows everybody. He said he had been seeing my mother for years walking up and down a street they both shared and a few monthes before he was about to live Freetown ona schlarship to a British institution he knew he must get married. He told a mutual friend that my mother knew vaguely . H eone day approached my mother and she protested that 'he must go meet her family'. He did just that and my mother and father were married a few monthes later. She instantaneously moved to the UK to start her new life. My mother had a life, a family friends and familiarity in Sierra leone  ( and my friends I must tell you during these years Sierra Leone wasn't the disaster you see today, standard of living was much higher and peace and stability was around) and she was willing , and happy to leave this for the respectability of a 'clean marriage'. This is serious!

It causes me to question the expectations my mother will have for me. My parents are really quite open-minded I am allowed to study whatever I wish, I can go out when I want, I pretty much am allowed to do as wish.  I always said to myself I will get married after my studies to a young man and the only pre-requisite will be that this young man believed that Allah was the greatest and Prophet Muhammed ( PBUH) was his last messenger. But I question whether I will be willing to make the sacrifices for marriage that my mother was initially willing to make(not to say later). does this sound harsh? My mother is the most beautiful  and amazing woman ever. But I just think the centrality and importance of marriage as the necessary next step to life that  her generation held  just does not exist for me...More importantly this is no frivolity so perhaps my sniggers will turn a bit more sinister in the nearer future!

I

Finding Home

6 years ago I visited my Mother and Fathers Places of birth for the first time: Guinea and Sierra Leone. I remember The night we landed after a chaotic and humid experience at the crumbling airport we were greeted outside by my father's elder sister. This was the first time I was seeing her. She came with two vehicles one for herself and the five other family mebers that came with her and the other for myself, my brother, my sister and my mother and father. I will forever remember that drive The driver was playing Salif Keita's Tomorrow whilst the three of us sat squashed in the back. there were no street lamps and I could only put a smell to the place- salt sea baked cookies. The air was damp and clammy. Sitting there at the back I remember feeling a calm over-whelming feeling of joy which disallowed me to share with my sister sitting next to me. I remember sobbing for a while..... I was trying to figure ut whetehr there was a tinge of sadness there, whether my tears had to do with being in a place associated with the death of so many relatives ( at this time Sierra Leone had just come out of its 10 year civil war) but it wasn't this it  was plain ole simple joy and contentment.

Mind you I must inform you that I have lived most of my 20 years o f existence in the UK., however my visit to Sierra Leone felt  as if I was finally meeting my other half........ I have never felt at home in London, o fcourse my family live on a street and on that street is a house and in that house is a room where I feel comfortable. But this  personal attachment to the place never. This desire to ever defend the place. Sadly never.......

Our Race and colouroperating on different paradigms

I just returned back from my 2 monthes trip to Kenya. I went with a freind of mine a extremely beautiful Malaysian-Indian girl of Tamiil descent and everywhere we went I was instaneusly thought of as a Kenya, perhaps a 'Mzungu- Kenyan' ( Kenyan who does not speak any Kenyan langauge but is clearly of Kenyan descent) and everyone thoguht she was Ethiopian. Now it is no biggy everyone knows  that there is a relationship between South Indian Tamiils and Ethiopian but what really intrigued me was how this dark skin colour instantaneously gave her access to 'African societies' in Kenya as a sister  and a potential neighbouring ethnic group in Kenya as opposed to as a foriegner as would have been the case in the UK or  in other African countries. I am originally of Guinean-Sierra leonean descent  and I question whether this easy access and this comfortability and comradirity would have been offered to my Tamil friend  in Sierra leone or Guinea  or whether she would have been treated as a distant other- friendly and polite but still distant.

This observation caused me  to  question the static nature of which many people view Race access to race and colour. Kenyan Africans viewed my Tamiil friend as African because their near Ethiopian neighbours looked like her therefore her colour and not her race confirmed her Africanness in their African eyes. However, In Sierra leone there are no neighbouring people who look like Ethiopians and my Tamiil friend looks like Indian women they were only granted access to due to the popularisation  of Bollywood cinema from the 1960's onwards: to their African eyes shes a stranger a distant other. Now lets broaden the scope a little lets place my Tamiil friend  In Jamaica, her colour may perhaps instanetaneously associate her with the indentured labourers that came to the Carribean thus her colour does not link her to the Mother land and then back to themselves but  is linked through another channel of which her 'indianess is exemplified' as opposed to any other distant  heritage'. Ok so it is no rocket science that people from different regions view each other differently but what is interesting is the way in which ones perception of  an individual actually transforms the particular individual allowing  them access to a world they would never had  based upon no choice or decision of their own.

Just a thought.................. let me know what u think