What Happened to Kainene?
I was sitting in the bus when a thought came into my head. ‘What happened to Kainene?’ For those who may think me crazy, let me explain who Kainene is and possibly, why she came into my head today. One of my all-time favorite persons in the world is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. From the moment a friend walked up to me and said I needed to watch a TedX Talk titled, We Should All Be Feminists, I have been enamored of her. Prior to this time, I had never heard her name and I didn’t know that she authored books. Or if I am more truthful, I didn’t read African authors at that point in my life, so I didn’t know who was in the scene. When I heard that great (GREAT) speech, I was blown away by the very essence of who she was and, I wanted to guzzle everything she had ever put out. Thankfully, not long after that, I heard one of her books – Half of a Yellow Sun – was going to be adapted into a film. I was excited! At that point, I had not read the book, and though I usually prefer books to their film adaptations, for some reason, I wanted to see the film first. So when it got out, I immersed myself in the film. I was introduced to Olanna and Kainene, twin sisters who had returned to Nigeria after studying in the United Kingdom. Through the story, we see how the lives of five people – Ugwu, Odenigbo, Olanna, Kainene and Richard – are changed as a result of the Nigerian Civil war which happened from 1967 to 1970. This brings me to what happened to Kainene. At first, it seemed that Kainene was ‘unfazed’ with the war that was leaving a trail of death and carnage all around her. Then, seeing first hand just how brutal the war was, she put on a more humanitarian persona; which was translated in her running a refugee camp. Due to the lack of food and drugs, she decided to go into ‘enemy’ territory and trade with them for the basic necessities which her people desired. That was when she disappeared. No one knows what happened to Kainene; till today. Kainene is a reminder that so many people who lost loved ones during and after the war do not have closure. Let me explain this. If someone you love dies during a war or a crisis or an accident or anything bad that you can think of, you may possibly have a body to grieve over, or a gravesite to put in that person and the memories you shared. You can begin to heal every day and in time, their memories become less painful. Your mind tells you that you can only grieve so much before you have to stop. That is the finality that comes with death. But if they just disappear, with no hint of whether they are alive or not, you remain in a state of perpetual grief. You continuously wonder if today will be the day they walk in the door; if they would reach out; if they are held against their will; if they have eaten; what they have eaten; how they look; if they had children; if they were doing well; and every other thing that your mind can possibly fathom. If you take a cup of water, you wonder if they have water where they are. If you laugh, your mind wonders if they can laugh and torments you for daring to. Every day, every hour, every second of every year that they remain ‘unfound’, you lose a bit of yourself and your sanity because there is no closure. I once read of a story of an old woman who sat a certain couch everyday staring at the streets in front of her house. When her children asked her what she was doing, she said she was waiting to see if her brother would return home. He had been in the soldier in the civil war. She did this until her children had their own children; until her grandchildren wondered if grandma was losing her mind; until she could barely see the road in front of her house. Still…her brother never returned and the day she believed he was not going to come back, she died of a broken heart. So why did I think of what happened to Kainene? It was more about a group of other girls far, far away from Kainene’s Nsukka. I was thinking of the Chibok girls and every other person that has been kidnapped by the insurgent group, Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, or as they are commonly called, Boko Haram. Beyond that, I was thinking of family members who had been separated by the insurgency; families who didn’t have phone numbers and couldn’t contact themselves. I thought also of internally displaced people whose loved ones were scattered about in different IDP camps, with no hope of reaching them. It made me ask myself, ‘how were these people doing?’ Kainene is a fictional character. Yet, I am constantly wondering what happened to her. Imagine the people with the real Kainenes in their lives; people searching for answers about their loved ones; people wondering what horrors said loved ones are going through; people holding hope up that one day, they would return home; and people who will die with that hope never becoming a reality. These people cannot heal because their loved ones have been separated from them without the necessary closure they need to move past the pain. Where is this all heading to? For starters, the security situation in Nigeria is becoming more severe, with daredevil abductors taking up citizens at their whim. Many of these victims will return home. Many will not. And for people like the Chibok Girls, or Leah Sharibu, or any number of women, girls and children who may have been abducted,
Keeping up Appearances
A memory came to my head a few days ago and stayed with me. It was sometime in early 2013. I was serving Nigeria as a corps member in Yola, Adamawa State, under the mandatory National Youth Service Corps program for fresh graduates. I had been deployed to the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) and a lodge was made available for corps members like me. There were just two girls (from my batch) who were assigned to the school. We joined two other girls who were a batch ahead of us, bringing our total to four. Technically, there were two lodges; one for men and the other for women. Ours was a four bedroom flat that used to be the Principal’s quarters. As years went by and the building began to crumble because of lack of use, it was converted into an abode for female corps members. Since there were four of us at that point, each of us had our own room. Now let us go to the memory. That year, I had become deeply religious and immersed in learning more about the Christian God. I was carefully cutting out things from my life that I felt didn’t glorify Him. This meant that I was trying to do right, speak right and generally, live right. It was so bad that I even cut out songs that weren’t gospel music from my life. Anyone who knows me knows that it was one of the hardest things I had to do. Anyway, I didn’t just want to do right. I wanted to be seen to do right. I didn’t join conversations that tore people down or promoted what I termed vulgar. I stopped partying and began my descent into near reclusion. I continued to have male friends but I made sure it was knownthat it was just platonic. In the past, I would have given people the illusion that I was involved with all my male friends. It gave me a thrill to see people wonder what I was about. But my new way of life meant that I didn’t want to be perceived as that person anymore. It was at this point that I met another corps member. He was a young man who was, for lack of a better phrase, a ‘bad boy’. Let me call him Wale. You see, among ‘believers’ then, if you smoked cigarettes and weed like Wale did, you were termed a bad boy. To make matters worse, Wale only listened to rap music with explicit lyrics, and was constantly downing bottles of codeine-laced cough syrup. If I had met him before my ‘journey to spirituality’, he would have been my type of person. We would have hit it off and being just peachy. At that point however, I didn’t want to be friends. And worse than that, I didn’t want to be seen as his friend. But he didn’t get the memo. When I stopped visiting or communicating as often, he decided to take up the responsibility. He would call, text and visit. He would be talking about the music I was tryingto remove from my life and wondering when we could go out to a club for drinks. Sometimes, I would try to avoid him and at other times, I would just go with the flow. It was during one of these visits that he told me he was having problems with his landlord and didn’t know what to do. I was worried because, as ‘gangsta’ as he showed he was, I knew he was from a privileged home and he didn’t have a lot of experience handling things by himself. I asked what he was going to do and he said he would figure it out. One night about a week later, he arrived at my door unannounced. I asked if all was well and he said he had been kicked out of the house where he had been staying. He had hopped from place to place and was at a loss as to where to stay. I went into panic mode and began to knock on doors at the male lodge asking if they could put him up for a couple of days. The male quarters were already cramped and many said they couldn’t. One guy however, who (incidentally) was one of the nastiest persons I had met in a while, said he would take him in; even though I had been loath to ask. The next day, I asked Wale what he was going to do about his situation. The fact that he didn’t serve in our school meant he couldn’t stay for long. Also, we were expecting new corps members. His problem had to be solved by his own place of primary assignment. It was while discussing this that I realized he had burned bridges at that place of assignment. A lot of it was hinged on his habits but the most part was because he was a bit of a loner and his people skills were almost nonexistent. In about a week, the guy helping him out decided he was done. He had assumed (correctly) that my friend was from a rich family and thought it was his opportunity to fleece him. When Wale had given away almost all he could without going under, the horrible corps member kicked him out of the house. This happened at about 9pm. Wale came to my door to let me know what was happening. I was worried. I knew no one else would take him in. And then it occurred to me that I had my room, which was big, had two mattresses and could be his abode for the night. However, as soon as the thought came to my head though, a part of me said no. Almost immediately, my brain went into overdrive. What would happen if he slept in my room? For one, I would
The 30th Chapter
I am 30 years old today! Whoot whoot! For the first time in a long, long time, I decided I was going to celebrate my birthday. Honestly, the last two years took its toll on me emotionally, financially and physically! Whewww! So, yes! I am in a celebratory mood this year. To give a glimpse into my mind and why this chapter is different, let us go down memory lane to the last couple of months in 2016. It was a really bad time for me. A misunderstanding with my mum began the start of an estranged relationship that lasted into 2018. Growing up, I learned not to speak back to adults; even when I felt they were wrong. It used to hurt me so bad when adults would do something that offended me and I couldn’t do or say anything because you know…adults. So while many people saw me as the girl who said her mind (usually in a shout), with older people, I was a girl who kept quiet. So when my mother and I were having a conversation and I felt something she said was wrong, I snapped. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t talk back to her. I just got up and left. And the silence began. You know how you keep saying you would fix things and pride keeps telling you to wait and then waiting become days and days become weeks and weeks become years? Well, our ‘fight’ lasted for nearly two years until something happened to force us into the same room. I will get to that soon. Also in 2016, I made a decision to walk away from the relationship with the people I considered my best friends at that time. A little context is necessary. My friends and I had been friends for nearly 15 years at that point. Well…15 with one and 10 with the other. We were peas in a pod. I loved those girls like I loved myself and I knew I could do just about anything for them. In fact, I considered them my sisters. Even though I didn’t keep in touch often, I hoped they knew that I was always there for them. A couple of events which happened from late 2014 to the time in question made me feel like our relationship was one sided. And at that time, I handled my anger and hurt by internalizing the problem. So rather than call anyone I have a problem with and have a proper conversation expressing my angst, I would begin to pull away from them. I would let silence become a chasm between us until coming back becomes almost impossible. And you know what happens in that time? All the offences become even more glaring; things that would normally not offend me begin to have double meanings; and worst all, the hurt and pain I feel rises to a crescendo that bursts at the top of it, leaving me quite unreasonable at the end. When I got to this point, I wrote a long note telling my friends I was done with the friendship and I wished them the best in life. Then I waited. Today, I can admit that I hoped they would try to fight for me. I can admit that I hoped I was wrong and they would set me aright and tell me how it was all in my head and they loved me as much as I loved them. But none of that happened. Instead, they really got into how I was a ‘horrible’ person and how they also had things they wanted to get off their chests. I was shocked! By the time the conversation was over and the friendship severed, I was left shaking. I was so hurt that for the first time, my first reaction to a problem was not anger; it was raw, unadulterated pain. I remember crying so much that day. You know how they say losing a friend is so much worse than losing a lover? Well, I had definitive proof of that. And even though I had felt great sadness before, I fell into a state of paralysis that was the start of what became a deep depression. But I will get into that in a bit. When my job search wasn’t yielding anything good in 2016, I became very antsy. I am my work and when I do not have work, I genuinely lose my mind. I already had a lot going on and what would have been my solace – burying myself in work – was no longer available to me. Oh! I had my blog and what not but I didn’t have a source of income, which meant that I needed to depend on people for my daily needs. Look! The worst feeling I can ever have is being dependent on anyone. It literally feels like my skin is being pulled out little by little with hot tweezers. I hate being broke and worse than that, I hated having to ask anyone for money for things like sanitary pads; which were about the only things I asked for when push came to shove. If jobs weren’t readily available, I knew I had to re-strategize. So I applied for an internship in different development organizations. I knew many organizations did not pay their interns well (if they paid them at all) but I was fine. If whatever I got could handle my transportation and feeding allowance, I would be fine. What was more important to me was that I learned structural advocacy so I could take my activism to a point where I could begin to get grants to execute projects. Towards the end of 2016, one of my applications came through and I was invited for an interview in Abuja. A week or so after that interview, I was told I had passed and I was to start in the new year. I was excited! It was a
