Breaking The Cycle of Abuse

Today I woke up to the sound of a child crying. It wasn't the whiny moan of an over-indulged child throwing a tantrum. This was genuine pain punctuated by the sound of flesh slapping flesh and the angry voice of an adult. If this were a once-in-a-while phenomenon I wouldn't be writing this post. But since I moved into my apartment almost two weeks ago, this is the sound that has woken me up nearly single every day. This is not right. No child is so badly-behaved that it needs to be beaten every single morning.  This is not a problem with the child it is a problem with the parent and it is abuse.

Now, I don’t know where this family lives – they are close enough for me to hear through my second-floor window, but a walk-through of my compound today told me they are not my immediate neighbours. I don’t know the circumstances they are going through – maybe there’s financial trouble or perhaps it’s a struggling single mother or maybe it’s a mixed family who haven’t learned each other’s rhythms yet – but whatever the reason there is no excuse for what they are doing to that child.

A lot of you may not see a problem with this scenario. After all, you may have had a similar childhood and come out no worse for it. You may even be doing the same (or intend to) to your children. Don’t. The legacy of abuse is a crippling one. And as Nigerians, we are all trapped in it.

The Trials and Tribulations of Making New Friends

My high school posse then.

Making new friends has always been difficult for me. I’ve long suffered from a crippling social anxiety that makes it difficult for me to enter into unfamiliar social situations. Close friends say that once I relax I’m bubbly and enthusiastic, but getting there is like pulling teeth – especially when it comes to meeting men. Going to parties can be hell for me. All that small talk is torture. I really want to launch into discussions of philosophy, art, literature and anthropology, but I am forced to feign interest in what you do or where you grew up. And I’m sure that people can see through the mask. I mean, no one is that enthusiastic about presidential airplane pilots, or Bavaria. That’s why I drink!

Over the last few years I’ve been through a series of personal misfortunes: I lost my job, moved to a new country, my income fell (drastically) and I went through a painful break-up. The resulting depression was awful, and I used it as an excuse to simply stay home. Not only was I socially awkward, I was socially awkward and mildly suicidal – not a good combination for lively conversation.

My high school posse now.

Recently I’ve been feeling good enough to try and get back in the game. Had some lunches, met for a few drinks and attended a few parties. I’ve met a couple of interesting people, but I haven’t really found the connection I’ve been looking for. Until recently I thought I had some sort of social deficiency – and don’t get me wrong I’m awkward as hell. I laugh inappropriately, I often drop the ball in conversations because I can never think of the next “small talk” topic quickly enough, and I often forget what’s just been said (partly because I’m too busy worrying about how awkward I am) – but thankfully, I’m not the only one having problems making friends.

An Inconvenient Prejudice

I’ll admit something I’m not proud to say: I have a prejudice against fat people. I’m a fattist. I have many excuses for my judgemental attitude. For a long time I felt that the obese were simply people who lacked my discipline. Why couldn’t they just get up every morning at 6 am and run several miles? Why couldn’t they just limit their breakfast to a single slice of buttered toast, lunch to one sandwich and dinner to water and a piece of chicken? I did.

It was many years before I realised that I struggled with disordered eating, but that never quite removed the taint of moral superiority that I had about my weight. Even in the times during my childhood when I lived in Nigeria and was derided for being too skinny (the traditional beauty ideal in many African countries is bigger and curvier than in the West) I could never quite shake the feeling that I was still better off.

But times they are a-changing. As looking well-fed is becoming easier to achieve in Nigeria, it’s becoming more socially desirable for women to be slim. The slang word Leppa, which used to be a derogatory term for a skinny woman when I was growing up, is now used positively. Women now talk of going on diets, and mornings in middle-class and affluent neighbourhoods are awash with potbellied residents marching about in jogging suits - exercising. And for the first time, I’m seeing obese children.

I have come to understand that obesity is not a lack of moral fibre. It’s an addiction. But unlike narcotics like cigarettes and heroin, its users don’t even know that they are junkies.

The Incomplete Revolution

As a woman of a certain age, I have started thinking about how I will navigate the delicate balance between family and career. I’m not married yet, nor do I have children, but I hope to soon. And the question of whether I can "do it  all" has been bothering me.

I have long been attracted to the bright side of academia – the lectures, the conferences, the prestige that comes with being called “Dr.” But I was always daunted by the amount of time getting a PhD required (5-7 years for a humanities degree) and the long tortuous road to tenure. Beyond personal fears of intellectual adequacy and sustainable interest in my chosen field of scholarship, there was also the problem of how I would balance having children.

Success: Redefined

Since I returned to Nigeria at the tail end of 2009, I’ve been preoccupied with the notion of success. How to get it, how to keep it and most importantly, how to grow it. For me, success was having a job that paid me lots of money, owning lots of nice things, living in a nice place and being in a relationship with someone who also had a lucrative job and lots of nice things. And, success was synonymous with happiness – once I was successful, I’d be happy and I could only be happy if I was successful. The problem was, I hadn’t taken much time to figure out what either “happiness” or “success” meant.

For most of us, success is synonymous with material wealth. You can tell a person is successful by their possessions – the kind of car they drive, the house they live in and the amount of money in their bank accounts. While happiness is usually measured by whether one has a significant other in their lives. And the assumption is that those who are successful and happy are superior to those who aren’t. That’s why there’s a billion-dollar industry in self-help literature that promises (usually in easy steps) to show people the paths to success and happiness.

But what if our definition of happiness and success is fundamentally distorted? What if, it is actually completely wrong?

In Japan, the Magical is Mundane

Japanese literature

I am fascinated by Japanese pop culture. Ever since I realised some of my favourite cartoons growing up were Japanese Anime, I was hooked. That fascination has since grown to encompass other parts of Japanese culture from movies to clothing, food and now literature.

I think the first work I read by a Japanese author was The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami in college. It drew me in with its haunting atmosphere and delicate tension. In it, we follow a man who is  looking for lost a cat, but at the same time considering questions of philosophy, religion and physics in an unpredictible world where anything can - and does - happen.

I recently read two more works by Murakami - Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood - and three novellas by Banana Yoshimoto compiled into a collection called Asleep. They were all wonderful. Though they were written by very different authors about very different subjects, they all contained the same elements of mystery amid the mundane that kept me compulsively turning each page. I came away with the sense of clean, spare spaces, uncluttered lines, haunting sadness and endearing weirdness that I have come to associate with Japan.

What I loved most about all these works, though, is that in them the the lines between fantasy and reality don't quite match up. There is a comfortable blurring between the here and there, the past and present, the living and dead. In each of the novels I read, characters confront alternate worlds, ghosts, spirits and all sorts of supernatural phenomena with superb aplomb. They don't make a big deal out of it; it happens and life goes on.

And that, to me, is absolutely refreshing. So often in Western writing characters are defined by their struggle to understand and accept their encounter with the supernatural. But in many cultures, including my own, the supernatural is a given. Magic is real. Witches, spells, spirits and ghosts exist.

To read works that treat the magical with as much gravity as buying a loaf of bread actually heightens my sense of wonder. It makes me feel that there might be more dimensions to my own quotidian existence as well - like I too might be able to open my front door and step into another world. 

Black Science Fiction Movie Script Contest