I want to go home.
Back to the Yoruba land where my family is from, where my ancestors are from.
Back to where my pain is from. Back to where my so-called exotic roots were born.
Several times here I’ve mentioned the childhood sexual abuse in my past.
I’ve found it very freeing to be able to talk about the fact that it happened, to not be the one who feels like I should be ashamed anymore. That shame was almost worse than the pain itself and the emotional aftereffects.
Some people don’t see what a big deal it is.
And that’s okay with me, as long as they aren’t advocating that it happen to people, especially children. I’ve had male friends and lovers call me impure, or tainted, or damaged because of what happened to me, particularly after learning the horrifying extent.
The extent… the first three months after my family temporarily moved to West Africa, there was an incident almost every day.
I was 9. I can’t remember most of what happened to me before I was 9 years old without some drama. In some cases there are years blocked out.
And so, I haven’t been back to Nigeria since 1984. I was born here, there seemed to be mostly pain there, so even for my only female cousin’s wedding, who is practically like a sister to me, I could not go back.
But now that time has passed, now that I have spent more than 20 years processing and healing, even though I still have night terrors, I want to go back. The earth calls to me, the sky writes my name.
There’s an opportunity for me to visit in January. I’m seriously considering staying there a year, because even if the economy is bad here, in Nigeria I could live off $500 – $1000 a month quite comfortably, and put all of the rest of what I make each month away. My sister will be there with her husband, who is like a brother to me, and their two kids. My mother will be there. And I’ll see my grandmother again before she passes on.
I would like to see home again. Though I consider myself an American, and was born and mostly raised here, I was brought up in the culture of our homeland. I’m a little afraid to go, to be a foreigner, essentially, who knows the national language of English, but isn’t fluent in the local language.
Still. I’m hoping…
Tinu, wow, you had hinted at this but I did not know the extent of this. You are so NOT damaged. I have had the pleasure of knowing you and I know you to be whole in every sense of the world. When you body is sick, you embrace it and seek to soothe it – that is wholeness. That is not rejecting your body. Putting this out here on a blog post, that is wholeness. You have reclaimed your spirit back.
If I understood your blog post correctly, the abuse started and happened for three months when you moved back to Nigeria. This is something we do not talk about in Nigeria. I know so many women that were molested as young girls. The fact that you were “American” would have added to your exoticism and exacerbated the issue. At all of 9 years old!
Girl, I respect you for putting it all out here including all your adult romantic escapades – I am humbled as to how fully you are indeed living your life.
Iyabo
Sista Iyabo,
I’m once again surprised and honored by your ability to listen and remember things that I tell you. Thank you for helping to reinforce my feeling of wholeness. It’s always needed.
In re-reading I see that I haven’t been clear about the abuse… The three month period in question was just the harshest part. The earliest memory I have of something abusive, I must have been 3 or 4 based on where we lived at the time – the memory is not clear.
It happened again with one of the same people, I would say I was about 7, then again with another family friend when I was 9. Then we moved to Nigeria for two years, and the first 3 months we were there, I didn’t live with my parents. It was two of my aunt’s servants, the cook and the gardener who abused me, as well as the same original male, which I don’t feel comfortable referencing in public. If any of my family reads it, the vague way I would have to phrase it would cause confusion.
After that, it was on and off the entire two years I was in Nigeria. That three month period I spoke of was when there was an incident almost every day.
Oh, and my meeting is over if you need to call me back.
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