I Will Never Forget My Home

  I was sitting in front of Mama-mi on the cold cement floor. We had placed a blanket underneath me, but the chill of the ground had already seeped into the backs of my thighs, or maybe my legs had already gone numb. It was the third Wednesday of the month, a day earlier than our usual “di irun” day, hair braiding day. My hair was quite average for my age — neither too long nor too short. Kehinde, a girl in my class who had just turned 10, had hair almost down to her bum. She would flick her hair so often, I was convinced one day she would flick her head right off her neck. I had hurried home, telling my Mama-mi I wanted long hair like Kehinde’s. I knew exactly what that involved, especially the hairstyle I would have to endure to get it. Rubber. My uniform wrinkled beneath me as we started the hairstyle.

Swish.

The sharp whizz of the rubber coil twisting around my hair echoed in my ear. From my other ear, I heard the front door bang open.

“We got it!” Baba-mi’s baritone voice echoed through our modest home. Ayo, my older brother, rushed out of his room at the sound.

Swish, swish, swish.

A piece of rubber sliced across my cheek. I winced but stayed quiet. It was a common occurrence that once I complained, Mama-mi would stop, and I would have to walk around with my half-done hair until I could convince her to continue. Kehinde would love that.

“Our visa has arrived!” Baba boasted.

Swi---

The current thread fell limply as Mama-mi jumped up to embrace Baba-mi. The rubber coil slowly unravelled. I pulled at it until it fell to the ground. Limp coils around my hair did nothing for hair growth. 

I did not know why we were so happy, but we were. Ayo had joined in on the jumping. Not wanting to be left out, I began to jump too. Baba-mi had grabbed Mama-mi, and they were now dancing and singing in true Nigerian fashion. He dipped her, and her box braids lightly grazed the ground as she struggled to keep her house wrapper dress hoisted high on her chest.

“Yay-e Yay- e Yay-e Africa... Yay Yay Yay Africa… Africa is my hoommeee.”

Ayo continued singing loudly as Baba-mi and Mama-mi danced around the kitchen. I did not know the song, but I was very familiar with the routine. With good news and glad tidings came a dance and a song that were never rehearsed, yet everyone seemed to know the words. I loved this routine.

As the excitement died down, Mama-mi resumed her position behind me. One knee lightly digging into my back, with her other knee parted to rest my head on her lap gently. Baba-mi had disappeared to change out of his work suit and reappeared, still joyful, in a matching native set. The song had transitioned from being sung acapella to being played quietly on Ayo’s old blue radio, a treasure he usually kept in his room.

Mami-mi firmly placed the cutting comb on my scalp once again.

“Ouch, Mama-mi… that is paining me.” I scrunched my eyes shut as the comb cut through the kinky terrains of my hair. The carving of my hair into evenly spaced parts transformed the rhythmic drumming of the song from a caressing melody to a pounding one. Mama-mi’s hands gently reached down to comfort me.

***

I felt the heavy soothing pat land on my cornrows and looked up.

“My head is still tender,” I complained. I removed my father’s hand and folded my palms in his while we walked hand in hand into the school. I clutched my book, which contained a reluctantly signed note, in my left hand as we marched through the front doors of Riverside Middle School. It had been almost two years since that moment on our kitchen floor back in Oyo State, but like every day since I first encountered the maze that is my school, I began to sing quietly as I walked. 

“Yay-e - yay-e Africa…Yay Yay Yay Africa…”

My father chuckled at this ritual, previously unknown to him, before belting down the quiet hallway, “Africaa is my hooommeeee!”

I shushed him, laughing. I nervously looked around, even though I knew we were alone. Everyone else was enjoying their lunch break.

My father disliked the feeling of being summoned. He never explicitly said so, but I could tell. From his furrowed brow when he read the note, to the tremor in his hands as he picked up his blue—never red—pen, to his stiff march as I guided him towards my classroom: Mrs. Collins, Grade 8A.

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Adebayo,

I kindly invite you to join me tomorrow at noon in my classroom to discuss Arike’s challenges in my English class. She is currently performing below the class average due to communication issues. I believe a discussion among all of us will help decide the best way to support Arike moving forward. Please bring this signed note to our meeting tomorrow.

With the warmest regards,

Mrs. Collins.

“Communication difficulties…”, my father had read aloud at dinner time, deadpanned. The note was written in red.

My mother had scoffed from behind him as her body shook with the vigour of what she stirred in the pot. Amala for dinner again, I thought. Not my first choice.

I buried my nose in my book and shrugged. “They do not understand when I speak. I do not know why. Plus, Mrs. Collins speaks…” I hesitated, reluctant to speak poorly of an elder. “... very fast. Almost as if someone is chasing her.” I murmured, peering around my book, nervously meeting my father’s eyes. His eyes twinkled as he caught my gaze before flickering to the title of my book—Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

He smiled, “You are re-reading my favourite.” He said that about every book. My father stood, folded the note in half, and slipped it between the two open pages, placing it as an awkward, largely shaped bookmark.

Mrs. Collins eyed the note between the pages of the book resting on my lap, nose scrunched disapprovingly. The book bobbed occasionally in time with my knee jerk. My father’s firm but soothing hand rested on my knee. I stopped bouncing.

“Arike has been a wonderful addition to my class,” Mrs. Collins began. “She is attentive, listens well, and is very... inquisitive.” She paused as her last remarks hung uneasily in the air. The word could be seen as positive, yet her tone seemed to suggest otherwise. "However, we appear to be facing some sort of language barrier ... May I ask what language is spoken at home?”

Silence filled the air as my father scratched his beard. A once full, luscious beard now resembled a broom straw held together by a string, unused to the harsh and ever-changing climate here. My gaze fell on his forearms, marked with three distinct, severe scars jagged and crossing over each other, mimicking a French braid. It looked as if someone had lightly traced them with a pencil before carving over the lines with a knife to ensure their imprint was permanent.

“Ahh- ree- keh,” my father responded.

My eyes snapped back to Mrs. Collins, whose eyebrows lifted in confusion as her cheeks slowly flushed. I tilted my head and watched the familiar red hue spread gradually across her face. I still do not understand why that happens. I once asked her why, at times, her cheeks looked like two ripe cherries ready to burst. I had lost ten minutes during break for my “inconsiderate question” and never dared ask again.

“Her name is Ahh-ree-keh, not Aye-ri-key. It means the one that is cared for on sight.” He paused, a veiled threat seemingly hanging in the air.

“Regarding the language we speak at home, we speak, like you do in your home, our language.”

My father's fist that had once rested calmly under his chin began to shake. The scars across his forearm seemed alive, like snakes fighting to crawl over each other beneath his skin.

It had been over a year since I had last asked him about it. He had shared a long-winded response, narrating the latent story of how his scars guided him to become Muslim, and ended with “Did you understand what I said?”

I had shrugged, a clear sign that I had not understood but was too stubborn to admit it. He sighed heavily—I had inherited my stubbornness from him, after all—and repeated just one sentence. This time in English.

“I forgot to speak the devil’s language one day, and he sent down a reminder, one from each of the trinity.” He had traced the scars as he spoke, as if easing the sting from the indelible memory.

It would be much later in life that I realized the devil was the white man, the reminder was his religion, and the imposition of his alien tongue was a calculated maneuver to erode the cultural bedrock of the subjugated peoples.

To me, my father’s English had always rivalled that of the white man, like the Oyinbo man from work he hesitantly invited to dinner a week ago at mother’s insistence. Yet, as she opened her mouth, I knew Mrs. Collins would disagree with my sentiments. My English sounded foreign to her, and I had learned my English from my father — “Dr. English Literature,” my mother called him in jest whenever she saw his degree hanging above his desk — so that must mean my father’s English sounded foreign to her too.

Why can she say she does not understand me, but I cannot share that I do not understand her? At all. Her cadence, her idioms—so confusing. Not my circus, not my monkeys? I am not sure if I used that right, but I overheard Mrs. Collins use it once when she saw Brian from the year above shove Kareem. A boy from a different class, I did not know, yet everyone was convinced he was also my brother. Ayo was my only brother.

“It seems the language barrier between Aye ri Kay…” she said it wrong again. My father winced.

Mrs. Collins balked, and I watched her flush, captivated.

“The increasing language barrier,” she continued, “is due to the lack of practice of English at home. I suggest ... at least for a few months… to refrain from speaking your ah beautiful language at home, just until Arike's English language skills improve.”

She smiled, proud that after months of being my teacher, she finally pronounced my name correctly. For an English teacher, the irony that we were speaking the same language was lost on her. My father stroked his beard and stayed silent. His scarred hand continued to shake. The school bell rang, saving Mrs. Collins from my father’s dead-eyed stare.

I have been reprimanded many times for being late to class, so I looked over to Mrs. Collins, who tilted her chin slightly, dismissing me. The conversation would go on without me. I hurried to my feet, excited. It was time for math, the only class in which I was not behind. Math transcends language, as my mother, the mathematician, usually says. I suppose it must be my favourite subject.

“Bye, Baba-mi— sorry, my father,” catching the mistake Mrs. Collins had advised to work on.

“Thank you, Mrs. Collins!” I rushed, yanking my backpack and dashing off to math class, leaving them both behind. 

“Do not run!” My father’s voice carried down the hall.

***

My feet hit the pavement; the steady pounding of my steps echoed in my ears. With Ayo’s hoodie pulled over my head, I set a deliberate target on myself every time I go for a run. Through my headphones, sharp dissonant chords emerge, a jarring, chaotic beat that reflects my state of mind since—

“I told you not to run, " Father’s hollow voice cut through my music. He eyed Ayo’s hoodie dejectedly. I pulled it off, instinctively apologizing.

“Sorry.” My empty response was met with silence, the recurring normative state in our home.

I went through the kitchen where my mother was making lasagna for dinner. Again. Ayo’s favourite.

She nodded silently in greeting, her eyes flickering reproachfully over my hair. The years had not been kind to my once voluminous hair. Now, at 18, my hair has endured the trials and tribulations of my teenage whims alongside me. Gone were the days of hair-braiding with my mother. I now preferred hours alone in my room — straightening, bleaching, dyeing. My hair hung straight, brownish in certain lights, flat against my scalp. Lifeless. It looked like all the other girls at my school.

From the dining table, Ayo’s broken radio started its daily ritual of trilling. Always at different times, always beginning from a different part of the same song, yet consistently trilling every day, nonetheless. 

“I’m black and proud... I’m black and proud.”

I thought back to a few weeks ago, when I had tried to throw out the radio. I came down the next morning, welcoming the feeling that the day would not be interrupted by the grim reminder. It was only noon when my father noticed.

“Where is Ayo’s radio?” His voice no longer carried a comforting lilt but rather resembled an unintentionally harsh screeching, as if the grating of his pain had travelled through his body and uncomfortably settled within his vocal cords.

I had explained my decision to discard it. My father had bellowed, my mother had wailed, and I stood still—indistinguishable reactions from when we had first learned of Ayo’s murder.

Could we call it murder? In the two months since the police killed my brother, it has been described in many ways. A tragic accident. A terrible mishap. An untimely death. God’s will. That last one. It enraged me. Was it God’s will that a Black boy running in his neighbourhood would be shot dead because the police could not tell the difference between someone on a jog and someone who is a threat to others?

“He had his hood up and was unresponsive to calls to stop running.” That had been the defence of the officer who took Ayo away from us.

Ayo had been in his loc’ed hair phase, a rising trend among him and his college friends. He had worn hats or hoods when he needed a re-tie but had been procrastinating setting up a hair appointment. My mother did not love the look of locs and had sometimes jokingly refused to help him with his re-tie. Sometimes he could convince her; other times, he would book an appointment. His appointment had been scheduled for the upcoming week.

I knew Ayo would have stopped had he heard the officer. Responsible Ayo. Life of the party Ayo. Ayo who would have been a doctor; he had always been the smart one. He was training for a half-marathon, hence those big headphones over his ears. I had seen his running playlist once during our usual late-night drives. At the top, our unofficial family song. I had laughed when I saw it.

“This song is so off-beat for running,” I had criticized as I tapped for the song to play through the car.

“Bless-ed to be my name oh Lord…. I am proud to be a... Nigerian…”

Ayo had smiled silently until after this lyric. “We have got to stay connected to our roots,” was all he said. 

 It sounded like an oxymoron to me. Connected to our roots? We were approaching equal time we had lived in Nigeria and equal time we had not. Here had felt like home to me, until the place I called home took one look at Ayo and reminded us that we were indeed foreigners.

We had all grieved differently, father, mother and me. But my father took it hardest. He felt responsible. It was his ambition, as he said, to give us a better life that had led him to travel us across the seas, ignoring his childhood doubt of the white man’s land. I had witnessed his struggle when he had to break the news to our family back in Nigeria. How do you explain to those waiting to join us here that the land indoctrinated to us since birth as the land of prosperity and opportunity, had violently cut short the life of a boy who had embodied those principles to perfection?

“Dinner is ready,” my mother called out over Ayo’s radio.

Despite the deep silence in our house, once filled by Ayo’s presence, dinner at the dining table, however taciturn, would always take place.

I pushed the lasagna around, my third plate this week. The taste of it had long ago faded from a meal I enjoyed to a bitter flavour tantamount to eating Ayo’s flesh to keep his memory alive for my mother.

“Food tastes great, thank you, Mama-mi.” The neglected term of endearment slips out as I smiled around my fork to comfort my mother.

A slow tear rolled down Mama-mi’s cheek as she looked up from her untouched plate and smiled. A rare occasion.

At the head of the table, Baba-mi looked solemnly at the chair across from me, seemingly unhearing the familiar language around him. Ayo’s radio shrilled from its place in front of his chair.

“I will never forget my home….”

Ganiyat Sadiq is an emerging writer passionate about sharing stories that explore diasporic identity, culture, and history. She is currently pursuing a certification in creative writing at the University of Toronto and is a PhD student studying Global Governance at the University of Waterloo. She holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Carleton University, with a focus on International Development Policy and African Studies. She also earned a BA in Honours Political Science and a BA in International Relations, along with an Embedded Certificate in Pluralism and Global Citizenship from the University of Calgary.