Home Away from Home with Abi Adeboyejo
Email: abi.adeboyejo@yahoo.com Twitter: @abihafh
I went to visit one of my female in-laws last weekend. It was her daughter’s 10th birthday and she invited my kids and eight others to their house for a house party. I didn’t want to go because I thought I would have to do some work at the party, you know, like helping blow up balloons, cleaning up or cooking. All I wanted to do was to stay at home and sleep.
However, the party was so well organised that I did not have to do anything apart from smile and make small talk with two strange-looking women. They both had unnatural green-tinged complexions. Obviously Nigerian, I knew they had been experimenting on skin- lightening creams. They did not help matters by applying very vividly coloured make up to their cheeks and lips. Let’s put it this way: If the party clown hadn’t turned up they would have filled in brilliantly. My in-law saved me from these ‘ladies from Mars’ when she decided that we should watch a Nollywood movie while the kids had fun outside with the party clown.
So we watched one film on YouTube, and then another. When my in-law started to play the third movie I asked if we could watch local TV. It was almost six o’clock and we could catch the BBC news. She laughed and said she didn’t watch the news and was not interested in politics and whatever else was on. If she wasn’t my in-law I would have had a full-blown debate with her about her views but I am still a realistic Nigerian woman who knows that it is always safer to defer to your in-laws (especially female ones) if you know what is good for you. So I smiled and settled in my chair and endured another two hours or so of poor acting (in this particular instance) with demons and witches battling to kill a greedy man who used his first child for ritualistic purposes.
I got home ready to fall asleep. However, I met my husband entertaining two of his close friends. The conversation was, of course, Nigerian politics. I noted with dismay that the kitchen was very neat, meaning they hadn’t eaten or ordered some Chinese food or pizza for supper. I was supposed to be flattered when one of them informed me that they had been waiting for me to come home so I could cook my now renowned ‘Spinach and Mushroom’ stew with ‘Gira’. With a fake smile on my face I reported for duty in my office, the kitchen.
The men ate with a lot of relish. They continued their discussion of all the woes facing Nigerians and suggested how they could solve them. The more I listened to them the sadder I began to feel. They watched the TVC news channel and commented on every news item. By the time our visitors left I was tired and felt strangely depressed. I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t feel happy until hubby decided that the best way to cheer me up was to continue to discuss Nigeria’s woes.
It was at that point that it occurred to me that all the news we’d listened to that evening focused on one disaster or the other. While I found it easy to judge my in-law as lazy and uninformed by not listening to our BBC local news, perhaps the poor lady didn’t just want to spoil her mood by listening to the latest report of murdered people, newly discovered diseases (with no cures) and sexually abused babies, and that’s just in the UK.
Nigerian news is generally no better. It even has the added irritation of being annoying at times, when you spend 45 minutes listening to reports about meetings and conferences that do not achieve anything for anyone, except perhaps the contractors who supplied the conference bags, stationery and refreshments. The fake accents some of the news readers put on can only be described as alien (not of this world) rather than foreign.
It seems one can’t forgo listening to news programmes in general because they are depressing because, to my mind, ignorance is worse than being sad. But here’s a thought: some of the most creative people in the world don’t watch TV or listen to the news.
I’ll end with this: we can’t shut ourselves away from what is happening around us or in the wider world but we can do something about how we feel. Rather than letting bad reports get to us and becoming sad and disillusioned we should try to keep our minds on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable or excellent or praiseworthy. Even the bible recommends it, and there were no TVs when it was written.
Have a happy and optimistic week.
