The Payoff

In the next week or so, I will hopefully make the last payment toward my student loans. It’s hard to believe; I’ve had them for what seems like forever.

I made up my mind 9 months ago to actually pay attention to that area of my life in order to address it and put it behind me once and for all. At the time, I had an 8-month goal for paying it off, but life happened (I mean, REALLY happened) and I had a disappointing setback. My 8-month goal was ambitious, but doable. In paying more attention to things, I realized I really could pay more than the monthly minimum if I simply made up my mind to. And so I began to pay about 5 times the monthly minimum almost feverishly, suddenly having this strong urge to get this repulsive, creepy, crawly creature off me.

The interesting thing about my student loans is that I didn’t take them because I needed financial aid as a grad student. Thankfully, I got tuition remission from the program I was enrolled in, so there was no justification for racking up debt. I took the loans in my second or third year of marriage. My ‘dirty little secret’ is that I applied for them in order to plough them into different ventures my husband at the time was involved in. I took three of them, one after the other. Sometimes because he asked, and other times because, well, I just did.  

I took a whopping total of USD 24,000 in student loans. Whopping for pretty much any student, and whopping for me, even now, many years after graduation.

The reality of all this is hard to overlook when you’re actually making an effort to pay down the bill – the weight of what this means is hard ignore. But after I transferred the last payment, realizing I had only one more left to go, I paused for a minute and really thought about it. Then I emailed my sister with the words ‘almost done …’ as the subject heading.

Some excerpts from the email conversation:

Me:        … So explain to me, B: What possessed me to borrow $24,000 as a student – money I didn’t need

to borrow, just in order to give it to a man? …

Her:       That was your path to walk and you have learned the lessons from that journey. … Congrats on

                getting this loan paid off; so proud of you!

To say that my actions were not wise is an understatement (as a matter of fact, I briefly thought about using the title ‘Dumb and Dumber’ for this post). But there’s got to be much more to it than that because I think very few people on earth can actually be categorized as truly ‘dumb.’  And so, this week, I’ve been wondering what was in it for me. What was the payoff for doing this? What sort of emotional capital did I believe that this action would afford, and why did I feel the need to invest in it?

I have not completely answered these questions and I’m not sure if it still matters a whole lot because I feel like I’m in a very different place now from where I was back then.

Being transparent about it all has been a big help, I must say. I never would’ve come this far in making a huge dent in the debt had I not announced to the blogosphere that I was going to do it. Had I not felt like a million eyes were watching and waiting to see if I really meant business.

My sister is right. I’ve learned my lessons.  I’ve paid the price – a very high price. I’ve paid every penny (almost). And I can hardly wait to post the words ‘PAID IN FULL!’ in a week or so.

Hopefully.

No place like home

Chinua Achebe’s death at age 82 reminded me that my father would’ve been exactly the same age today, were he still alive, and that my mother-in-law is now the same age, too.

Like many other people all over the world, I read the news of Achebe’s demise with disbelief and tears in my eyes. Someone sent me a text, saying she had just heard the news, and asking me to verify if it was true. I got on Google and found out for sure a few seconds later. I might have mentioned before that I didn’t come to appreciate Achebe’s work until much later in life. I read several of his books earlier in life because I had to, whether I really understood his work or not. And then as an adult, I began to read him because I really wanted to, because I finally got it.

This post is not a tribute to Achebe. I am far too intimidated by the idea of writing about this man that meant so much to my country and to the world to even begin to do that. I am also aware that many tributes have been written since Friday and many more will continue to pour in over the next week or so by those that we really expect this sort of thing from. I, personally, will read and savor which ever ones I come across in the coming days.

Apart from the fact that we have lost a great and courageous writer, thinker, and patriot, I was particularly saddened, in those first few moments of hearing the news, by where he died. Away from home.  

My father was of the generation of those that returned home in the 80s after receiving an education and building their careers elsewhere. It was literally a mass exodus back to Nigeria in those days, as I remember it. And even when things took a turn for the worse in Nigeria, about a decade later, people that had the option would generally send their children out of the country for a better education, while remaining at home themselves. My father really impressed upon us (and not in so many words, but through his actions) the importance of knowing where we came from and of returning home some day. He did such a ‘good’ job at it that for a long time, I could not imagine living anywhere else. My father eventually got really worried about my education because I refused to leave Nigeria. I was keen on gaining admission into a particular program which was only offered in two universities in Nigeria back them. Both universities happened to be on strike for at least a year. I waited the whole year while my father worried that I might get frustrated and change my mind about going to grad school. So he and my mother began to urge me to leave the country, saying I could always come back. I dug my heels in for the whole year, patiently waiting, while the two universities comfortably remained on strike. At the end of the year, my parents asked some close family friends of ours to intervene and try to get into my head to understand why I would pass up this opportunity. As much as I wanted to live in Nigeria, I wanted to go to school more. A year of waiting after Youth Service turned out to be all I could take, and so I left several months later.

In a tribute to Achebe published today by Onyeka Onwenu, she speaks of a time when she interviewed the author as part of a BBC film: “When I asked him if he would ever consider leaving Nigeria for another country, his answer was categorically, ‘no.’ ‘This is where God in His infinite wisdom has placed me. Why should I live in a place that someone else has cleaned up.’” (http://www.codewit.com/nigeria-news/6520-achebe-was-the-igbo-nigerian-african-conscience-and-consciousness)

But after a ghastly accident in Nigeria in which he nearly lost his life, and which resulted in his being paralyzed from the waist down, he was forced to revise his convictions and relocate to the U.S. for care. As unfortunate as the reality is (and not to excuse the precariousness of driving on some of our African roads), accidents do happen everywhere in the world. But it would’ve been nice if we would have at least had the quality of medical care he required so that he could have taken his last breath on Nigerian soil. I’m putting words in Achebe’s mouth now, assuming that this was his wish even after the accident, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. In my mind, Achebe was supposed to belong to the generation of those that returned home.

I actually started writing about the (changing) meanings of ‘home’ last year, but have not felt inspired before now to develop it into a blogpost. When I was married, the location of my home was more cut and dried. My home was my husband’s home, and I was okay with my ‘original’ home taking a back seat for the most part. With the divorce, deciding where home is, is a process that I’m currently working my way through.

When I moved to this country, it was because I got a job here. My actual ambition was to get a job in Nigeria, though. But I decided that as long as I was in Africa, I could eventually find my way back to Nigeria. One of my goals was to secure employment with an organization that had a branch in Nigeria, and to find a way to get transferred there eventually. Well, I finally did secure such a job almost 4 years ago. In the last year or two, I have had several offers to move to the Nigeria office (at least four). I have turned down every one of them. I have been forced to revise my convictions, and I’m still working through what my new set of convictions are.  It’s hard to believe that just six years ago or so, I would’ve absolutely jumped at the chance.

For the last month, I’ve been trying to decide whether to spend my annual leave this year in Nigeria or not. This would be the first time as a divorced woman. It has been a difficult decision to make. I would love to show my children the Nigeria I know or knew, and to give them a sense of where they come from beyond Nigerian movies. I would love for my mother-in-law to see her grandchildren again. (I might have mentioned that my daughter is named after her, yet they have never met.) But with none of my sisters based in Nigeria, accommodation and everything else would cost me an arm and a leg just for a couple weeks’ stay. I think I finally came to the decision last night that I will make this trip with my children some day, and I will do it several times, but this year does not seem to be the year. I’ll do it when I can do it with less stress.

In the meantime, perhaps where I live now is home. This is where my children and I have our beds and bedrooms. This is where my kitchen is and my pantry is. This is where all our stuff is, and where we know our way around. This is where my children call ‘home’, and maybe I should begin to, too. Maybe ‘home’ can be a more amorphous concept. Maybe it’s even okay for me to be of the generation of those that did not return home, but that made their home where they were. Maybe sometimes, there really is no one place that one can call home; rather, ‘home’ can be several places at the same time.

As an outsider looking in, I might conclude that Achebe died away from his ‘home’ – a kind of death he did not desire. But who knows? Maybe his last home as a living being was good to him, was safe for him, was home to him even, in a way. My father firmly believed in the importance of home and could hardly wait to relocate to the village after retirement. But my father was murdered right in his country home, right after dinner, right in his compound, by ‘home’ people.  

Where is ‘home,’ then? I wonder.

While I try to figure that out, I remain where I am. In a place that someone else has cleaned up.

I started by mentioning that, much as I would have liked to write one, this is not a tribute to Achebe. Achebe’s death brought certain thoughts I’d buried to the fore and I thought that now would be the best time to finally write about them. But I do want to end this with a tribute that Prof. Biko Agozino wrote on his blog (http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/2013/03/immortal-achebe-live.html).  It’s a beautiful dirge that touched me deeply and that I hope you’ll enjoy. Well, I suppose you can only really enjoy it if you understand Igbo, but you still might find it haunting even if you don’t understand all the words. Maybe Biko can do a translation (:

Rest in peace, Daddy. Rest in peace, Achebe.

Immortal Achebe Lives Forever

Enyi o
Enyi o-o
Enyi o
Enyi o

Remember our papa Achebe
Our papa Achebe bu Enyi Afrika Enyi (Elephant)
Let him go and change and return
Agaracha must come back
Meanwhile, let us feast on
the inexhaustible harvest of wisdom
that he saved for us in his barn.

Things Fall Apart
Eriwe agu-agu
Arrow of God
Aguwa agu-agu
No Longer at Ease
Eriwe agu-agu
A man of the People
Eriwe agu-agu
Girls At War
Aguwa agu-agu
Chike and the River
Akowa agu-agu
Anthills of the Savannah
Aguwa-agu-agu
There was a country
Eriwe agu-agu
Chinua Achebe
Dike anwu-anwu
Chris Okigbo
Dike anwu-anwu

Chetakwanu Chris Okigbo
Chris Okigbo bu enyi Afrika enyi
Chetakwanu nna anyi Achebe
Nna anyi Achebe bu enyi Afrika enyi
Chetakwanu nna anyi Aziki
Nna anyi Aziki bu enyi Afrika enyi
Chetakwanu ochiagha Ojukwu
Ochiagha Ojukwu bu enyi Biafra enyi

Nna o! Ewuuu!

Du Bois nna anyi
Kparanama
Garvey Nna anyi
Kparanma
Aziki Nna Anyi
Kparanbama
Chinua nna anyi
Kparanama
Ojukwu nna anyi
Kparanama
Okigbo nna anyi
Kparanama
Fela bu nwane m
Kparanama
Marley bu nwane m
Kparanama
Chris Hani
Kparanama
Tosh bu Nwanne m
Kparanama
Malcolm bu nwane m
Kparanma
Martin bu nwanne m
Kparanama
Nkrumah Nwanne m
Kparanama
Gaddafi bu nwanne m
Kparanama
Hugo Chavez nwanne m
Kparanama
Steve Biko nwanne m
Kparanama
Aminu Kano nwanne m
Kpranama
Tubman bu nneanyi
Kparanama
Sojourner bu nneanyi
Kparanama

Onye na-ero unu iro
Kparanama
Onye ahu nolu onwu
Kparanama
Onye ga-ako unu nsi
Kparanama
Ruth First bu nwanne m
Kparanama
Onye ahu nolu nsi
Ma unu nolu ndu
Kparanama
Ndu bu ihe uto
Kparanama
Onwu bu ihe aru
Kparanama
Onye bu nwanne m?
Kparanama
Onye a bu nwanne m.

Enyi Afrika alaala
Enyi Afrika alatala
Obiakwa, welu ya gawa!
Agaba! Ogbamgbadike!

Nna o-o!

Just say no

This woman was clearly not the greedy type, but she had another human weakness. She was caring.

                                                           

                                                Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come to You By Chance, pg. 206

I read I Do Not Come to You By Chance over the Christmas holiday. I first heard about it from an Indian colleague of mine based in New York, and then later from another non-Nigerian colleague based here with me. This must have been about two years ago, but I only bought my copy in the last quarter of 2012. And then I left it by my bedside, ignoring it for about three months. I could’ve kicked myself when I finally did begin to read it as I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. So much so that I ordered my sister a copy so I could laugh about it, grieve over it, and discuss it to death with someone else who would really ‘get’ it. And we did exactly that.

I underlined a few sentences in the book that really struck me, such as the ones cited above. Several times during my reading of the book, I said to myself: I really need to become more street smart. I do feel like I tend to get taken advantage of far too much. In the past, I’ve wondered why I tend to get approached with all kinds of strange requests while my friends don’t. I’ve wondered what I need to do to remedy this. Should I just start ‘boning’ all the time? I tend to smile a lot and greet a lot. But that’s not something I can change easily as it’s just a part of my cultural background and upbringing. I’d really have to work extra hard to shed this natural inclination.

I have decided to simply start saying ‘no’ more often in order to balance out the ‘yes-es.’  I feel like I get such a large volume of requests because people can tell I’ll say ‘yes’ – and so they end up overlooking everyone else that they easily could’ve made the same request of. One of my friends laughs at me when I get yet another one and says: ‘How come no  one ever approaches me to ask for such things?’ How come, indeed. My sister loves to remind me that I’m a single parent of two children and need to keep that in mind when trying to ‘save the world.’

And so I have said ‘no’ at least six times this month. Not mean ‘no-s’, though. Polite ones. Like telling two people (neither of whom I know well) that I simply won’t have the time to review their grad school theses, but also reminding them that this is the role of their supervisors. Like telling someone I honestly didn’t have the funds to lend – and I didn’t. This person had never approached me for money before, though, so I felt really bad about not being able to help. But rather than consider any funds I might have had in my bank account that day (like I was tempted to), I reminded myself of the student loans I’m trying to pay off for good by the end of March. Like sending out two polite emails a minute ago to turn down invitations to do stuff (work-related, but external to my own organization) that I wasn’t interested in doing and don’t really have a whole lot of extra time for. Like not calling back the two people that ‘flashed’ me yesterday on my way home. I thought I’d call them back once I got home, but cramps got the better of me and I dozed off before I knew it, getting myself a good night’s sleep instead. Today when I remembered it, I figured if it’s really that important, they’ll send me a text message or call me. Like letting someone else know I didn't have enough space in my home for them to temporarily move into my home with their child. 

And finally, like saying ‘no’ to my children’s father a few months ago. I got a rare phone call from him and we exchanged pleasantries in a guarded fashion, with me wondering when he was going to get round to telling me what he was really calling about, and with him seeming hesitant on the other end.  

He finally explained that he was going to be receiving some sort of community service award in a few weeks.

‘Normally,’ he began carefully, ‘for these kinds of award ceremonies, the awardee is expected to attend with his umm … uh … woman.’

Okay, so this is what this is really about, I thought to myself. It was clearly difficult for him to make this request and I felt sort of bad as I formed my response in my head.

‘But I’m not your ‘woman’,’ I reminded him out loud, even though I knew he only used the term because it would’ve been out of place to say ‘wife’ instead.

‘I know. It’s just that the normal thing would be for one to come along with a woman.’

I did feel a bit bad and almost wished I could have been more ‘evolved’ not to have denied him this one thing. But I really am working hard not to allow myself to be ‘used’ by others anymore. And so I found a polite way to say no, and to remind him that we really are divorced.

Sometimes, you just need to draw the line. And people can generally tell when you haven’t. 

As Nwaubani would say, people's needs have a way of 'sharpening the sense of smell.' You'll be sniffed out and targeted before you know it. So I'm working overtime to change my scent. 

Healing

I have not written a single word in over a month and, strangely enough, I have not felt compelled to.

It certainly hasn’t been for a lack of things to write about. Admittedly, there are fewer things now to get out of my system than there were a year ago. But there are still ‘things,’ nonetheless. I still maintain my list of bullet points (http://remembering-my-journey.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-i-write.html) – phrases, sentences, or partial sentences just waiting to be elaborated upon and written up into a post. Today, there are 6 bullet points on the list, to be exact, drawn up over the past several months.

But I find that I am bored by my own list. Events that have occurred recently, which at one time would’ve been ‘juicy’ fodder for a blog post, now appear ‘stale’ somehow. The silence is not a reflection of the fact that nothing has transpired, but rather of the fact that I no longer find some of these events remarkable.

I thought to myself the other day: This must be what healing feels like.

Not the instant-miracle-type healing. But the conventional kind – the kind where you feel every bit of the pain … until you don’t. The kind that is by the every day, banal sort of faith. You know: the sort of faith that gets you up every morning and makes you keep moving, get through the day, and prepare for the next – not knowing exactly what tomorrow holds, but figuring that as long as you’re alive and breathing without medical assistance (and even if you aren't), you are operating in a context of possibilities – anything can happen. Convinced that as long as you have a precious, precious life, you might as well live it and use it.

It hasn’t been the ‘sudden healing’ type of experience. I have felt everything I needed to feel. I have been busy raising and trying to organize the lives of two children – each at very different stages of development, and both growing in every way at an incredible pace; busy surviving in an NGO-world with less funding than ever and more responsibilities and pressure as a result; busy trying to contribute in my own little way to ensuring that my church home thrives and is a refuge for others while remaining meaningful for me, too; busy trying to identify and invest in things that will help take care of me when I’m no longer young enough and strong enough to work as hard as I do now.

As I thought about writing this section of this post, I was prompted to go back and re-read a couple of pages from Jessica Bram’s Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of aJoyful Journey. I share an excerpt from this book below (pp. 181-182). It is lengthy but worth sharing and drives home the point:

The lawyer held his pen over a yellow pad. “When it comes to custody decisions, the court always considers the degree of each parent’s prior involvement with the children. Let me ask you a few questions. Which of you schedules pediatrician visits and takes them to appointments?”

“I do, of course,” I answered.

“What about play dates with other children?” I did that, too.

“Buys them their clothes? Shoes? Vitamins?” Yes, also me.

“I want you to make two lists and bring them to me next time we meet,” said the lawyer. “On one page I want you to list all the items you do related to the children – every last thing – everything you arrange or buy or do for them. On the other list, write down all the things your husband does for them.”

I started on my list on the train home that afternoon. One page quickly filled, followed by another. First came the major responsibilities, which I admitted were mine: researching preschools and then enrolling them; furnishing their rooms; planning and preparing meals; scheduling pediatric appointments for checkups, immunizations, and illnesses. These were followed by the less obvious: planning birthday parties; buying school supplies; signing them up for swim lessons, gymnastics, and art programs; keeping their toys organized and battery-stocked; monitoring and replacing outgrown clothes; packing backpacks. Then I got down to a staggering amount of minutiae: clipping fingernails; sewing on Boy Scout patches; buying gifts for other children’s birthday parties; filling out permission slips and absence notes; taking them for haircuts.

By the third page, I was flabbergasted by the volume of work that caring for three children entailed. I had never stopped to look at it that way.

Then I began the list of my husband’s responsibilities. Baths. Putting them to bed with bedtime stories. Boy Scouts. The fun stuff. Oh, yes, and he attended Open School nights and parent teacher conferences.

There were four items on his list. There had to be more, I thought. He was the real parent, wasn’t he? But that was it. Four items, to my seventy-nine.

I held the lists up side by side and began to cry. I hadn’t really been sure that I was all that important to my sons.

My point is that I deeply relate to this level of activity in my life as a mother and I’m sure many other women reading this will, too. Frighteningly, this is only one component of my life. With all this activity and more, it’s understandable that I’m sometimes caught off guard when I’m hit by a sudden pang of grief, provoked for a minute by some random memory. I do not live my life wallowing in grief and so I’m usually unprepared for this unexpected visitor. I’m surprised that this tiny pang is powerful enough to penetrate the many layers of my life and make me actually notice.

But feeling a pang or two now and then is part of the healing process, I think – a sign of some serious progress, even. (It’s a pang now and then, as opposed to a full-blown wave.) Sort of like when a scab begins to form over an open wound. The tightness of the scab causes twinges of pain initially, but the pain is no less a sign that some major healing processes have occurred. And that the end is in sight. The scab will eventually give way to nature, loosen up, and then disappear. There might always be reminders of the wound, though, just like an indelible mark from a wound that has healed will always serve as a reminder. I suppose it’s a lot like the kind of healing I have gradually experienced in regard to my father’s death. It is still deeply painful to think about it, but thinking about it does not practically incapacitate me like it would have six years ago. I have not ‘forgotten’ and I do not want to forget. But I can say that I am as ‘healed’ from that experience as I will ever be. Despite this healing, I will always carry a considerable amount of the pain with me. And I welcome this pain because I always unabashedly treasured and always will unabashedly treasure my father.

In the same way, I welcome these unexpected pangs of pain now and then. They remind me that I was once part of something that was meant to be really special – a deep, deep covenant. Before I got married, I always treasured the idea of marriage, having no inkling of what it could potentially involve. During my marriage, I treasured the reality of (my own particular) marriage, believing that two people on the same page could conquer the world, even if my then spouse and I were not. Post-marriage, I still treasure the notion of a real marriage. I do so unabashedly.

I look back now and I am proud of the 26 year-old me who – ignorant and naïve as she was – dared to dream and enter into marriage with all her heart. I am proud of the 36 year-old me who found the courage to face some hard truths about her life, and to make a distinction between a dream and a nightmare.  I am proud of the lessons I have gleaned – the soon-to-be-forty-one-year-old me – older, wiser, and more alive now than I have ever been in my adult life.

If this is what healing feels like, then it isn’t half bad.

rmj on Since My Divorce

Mandy Walker of the Since My Divorce website collects divorce stories and somehow pulls out nuggets of wisdom from these stories that we can all learn something from. She did an interview with me at the end of October to learn more about my own divorce story. It was an enjoyable, hour-long interview. At the time, she planned to feature pieces of this interview on her website in February next year, but I learned over Christmas that she had decided to do so this week instead. Strangely, even though I know we had a really great conversation, I can now only remember bits and pieces of exactly what we talked about. All the more reason why I’ll be checking in to see what it was we discussed and what she managed to pull out from whatever was said.

I do remember she ended the interview with a warning that when her interviewees read their individual stories as told by someone else, they're always a bit taken aback by the sound of their 'voice.' What she meant was that when her interviewees read about themselves or about what they've said, they usually feel it sounds nothing like them at all. I have no idea what I'll think. I'll just have to wait and see.

She typically shares portions of the interviews in a series of about 3 different blog posts or so. If you’d like to check in, too, you may do so at sincemydivorce.com. The first rmj-related blog post, though, can be accessed right here: http://www.sincemydivorce.com/deciding-to-divorce-takes-time/

Happy Holidays

If You Were Mine

No, no, no – not what you’re thinking (let’s get our minds outta the gutter, people!!).  

What I really meant was ‘If you were Myne.’ If you were Myne Whitman and you had an amazing website devoted to the convergences and collisions between romance and life, which rmj blog post would you choose to feature on your website?

(J)

Well, to find out, you’ll have to click here: http://www.mynewhitmanwrites.com/2012/12/the-magic-of-marriage-by-nena-ndioma.html

And once you do find out, let me know: What d’you think of her choice? Same thing you would've chosen? Or would you have chosen something different? How come?

Happy reading (or re-reading).

The Benefits of Regret

I should’ve played basketball when I was ten.

Not attempting to do so is one of my lingering regrets, even though I realize that holding on to this sentiment thirty years later makes little sense. It’s just that I can’t count the number of times I was asked back then if I played basketball for my secondary school, with everyone that asked just assuming that I did.

I was tall and lanky and looked like I played a sport. I also had a history of being a die-hard tomboy who played soccer with my brothers and their friends just as roughly as they did. When it came to baseball, I was a ‘feared’ pitcher as the only girl on our informal basketball teams. My brother had groomed me well, teaching me how to pitch a deadly curveball, corkscrew, and fastball.

Then I spent my tenth year of life at a girls-only, Catholic secondary school and moved on to a mixed boarding school the year after that. Both schooling experiences cured me of my tomboyishness. I learned what it meant to be ‘a girl’ at one, and these lessons were reinforced at the other where girls and boys largely lived in two separate worlds within the same school compound.

With the realization that I was ‘a girl’ and an enhanced understanding of what this meant, my natural shyness grew exponentially and, for the first time, I became shy about participating in sports. Painfully shy. And not just about sports, but about pretty much everything else, too. This is not a complaint about the schools I went to, though (I look back and I’m convinced they were both great schools at that time). It’s merely an observation.

I still wish I had played basketball, though, because I really did want to at the time, and I believe I would’ve been good at it. Plus, playing a sport comes with many benefits that I would’ve been happy to carry into my old age.

One of the reasons why I hold on to the memory of this regret is because it reminds me to push myself. I have this fear of not living up to my potential, of not making a difference. Of ending up like the proverbial wicked servant who, instead of putting the ‘little’ he had to use, buried it out of fear and low self-esteem.

Over the years, God has REALLY helped me with my crippling shyness. I’ve come a long, long way, but I have by no means overcome it. I have done many things afraid, with my stomach churning, trembling on the inside, doubting myself, unsure and far too worried about how I would be received.

My work has been an excellent training ground for managing this annoying trait of mine. Its very nature demands that I stretch and step into the unfamiliar all the time, that I multi-task and juggle far more than I think is humanly possible. It has created a situation where I have so little time to focus on the fact that I’m terribly shy. I’m forever meeting deadlines by the skin of my teeth, and once I’m done with one task, it’s time to get up there and speak (for instance), and as the waves of shyness hit me and try to bowl me over, it’s too late. I’m up there already and I have to say what I came to say within a limited amount of time and move on to the next thing.

I consider it as one of my greatest achievements that few people I meet today believe me when I say I really struggle with this. They’re shocked to learn this and I’m shocked that they’re shocked. It proves to me just how much I’ve worked on ignoring it and just how much I’ve been helped.

When I finally decided to take the plunge and contact a publisher, I did it afraid.

For my 40^th birthday, among the presents I got were two copies of the same book (from different people) – a book by a Nigerian author based in the UK who published her novel (which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize) in East Africa. When I started examining different books to figure out which publishers would be best for my sort of writing, my eyes were drawn to these two birthday presents. I looked at the back of the books and wondered: Why would a Nigerian woman based in the UK choose to publish her book all the way out here?

I looked up the address of the publisher online and found out they were practically in my neighborhood. This was really strange. I could literally get in my car and be there in 10 minutes or less. Not wanting to deal with a possible rejection letter, I called instead. The people I needed to speak to were out of the office, so I was asked to send an email. I sent a link to the blog on October 4^th and waited. And waited. I waited impatiently for a couple of weeks before finally getting a nice (if non-commital) response, asking that we set up a time to meet. That meant more waiting because of our busy schedules and because I suddenly had all these trips to make. And then I didn’t hear from them for a while. We had agreed to set up a meeting, but hadn’t actually selected any dates.

Should I wait for them to follow up on this? I wondered.

I swallowed my fear of putting myself out there and of ‘bothering’ people and contacted them again, letting them know my availability. We set a date, but then there was some hitch that required our postponing the meeting. Needless to say, I was on edge the whole time.

I finally met with the publisher on November 20^th. We had an amazing, hour-long conversation which easily could’ve gone on longer if not that we both had to get back to work. He was fine with my using a pseudonym and asked me what name I had in mind, with his pen ready to write it down.

‘Nnenna Ndioma,’ I said.

‘Nena Ndioma,’ he said, trying it out for himself. And he proceeded to write it down (as ‘Nena,’ I later discovered). I explained the meaning of each name to him. ‘Ndi oma’ means 'good people.'  ‘Nnenna,’ on the other hand, literally means ‘father’s mother.’ It’s a common name among the Igbo, who traditionally believe in reincarnation, and who often feel honored that their mother, for instance, has come back into the world as their child. My father firmly believed that I was his mother and I always came up with counter arguments demonstrating why I couldn’t possibly be. He chose not to give me a name reflecting his belief, but when a reader on the blog referred to me as ‘Nne Nna,’ it occurred to me that this was actually the perfect pen name.

‘That’s the perfect name, actually,’ the publisher said pensively, after I told him what it meant.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, Nena [he said, mispronouncing it again] in Kiswahili means Talk or Speak it out. And from your blog, I can see that this is essentially what you’re trying to do. And Ndioma [mispronounced, too] could easily be a name anywhere in East and Southern Africa.’

He pronounced ‘Nnenna Ndioma’ as one would pronounce it if speaking Kiswahili (a language widely spoken in East Africa). Delicately. It gave the name a nice ring, but totally messed up the meaning. In Igbo, it is pronounced with much more emphasis on the syllables and with a certain kind of deep tonality that’s hard to describe – you just have to hear it.

But I was extremely pleased with the name, however it was pronounced. I was even more convinced that this was the perfect pseudonym for me. I was totally enamoured with the idea that this Nigerian name could pass for an East African one and I saw it as a way of paying tribute to my father, but at the same time, of paying tribute to a region that has been so good to me professionally. I packed up and moved to East Africa 8 years ago and it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life. This region has given me an extremely rewarding career, and now it has given me another great opportunity.

I am grateful for it all – even for the shyness. Yes, it makes me ‘over-think’ things unnecessarily (really exhausting, trust me), and although I don’t recommend analyzing things to death the way I tend to, it does seem to leave someone like me better prepared to confront whatever I need to.