When You Cannot Fit In
Will I ever be free?
I asked myself this question this morning.
It's almost as if I have not fit into any place or setting at all.
When I was growing in Lagos, my classmates used to call me Omo Igbo.
When I spoke English, no matter how fluent it sounded, they will tell me , I spoke like an Igbo girl. (How does an Igbo girl sound???)
When I got to Uni, I experienced the worst possible prejudice of all sorts.
My neighbor in the first hostel I lived in told me that I was given admission because I am an Igbo girl and not because I merited the admission (as per admission officer that he is).
That they needed to add some Igbo persons to the admission list so I was fortunate to be part of the few from my state that made the mark.
When people find out I am Igbo, they will be fighting the urge to ask if I sleep around 😓 cos Igbo girls are regarded as loose. One day, when I complained about the stereotype, a friend said that it was true and that I am only different because I didn’t grow up in the East and possibly my religious beliefs to an extent 😓.
On this fateful day, I went to the girl’s hostel to visit a friend. After I was introduced, I don’t know how the story of Igbos and Yorubas became a thing in the room that fateful afternoon but tell me why this girl opened her mouth and said if she is given a knife and told to kill between an Hausa and an Igbo, she won’t hesitate to stab the Igbo person.
I was... in .. the... room.... 😓
These girls said a lot that day. I came to eat free food 😭😭, but my appetite did a turn. I had to leave.
My course mates had a personal vendetta or prejudice against Igbos too.
Any small thing, they will say:
‘I only know you people as rice sellers or garri sellers’
Sigh…
Fast forward to NYSC and I still got that Igbo girls are loose and like money remark.
Anyway, I relocated to the east (temporarily) and I didn’t know that it would never get any better.
It is crazy to think that all my life, I was called an Igbo girl but since I came here, people be doubting where I am from 😓
I speak Igbo, people say I don’t know how to speak it or that I speak it in a Yoruba accent.
I make efforts to learn, people laugh at me and say I can never be better.
People automatically believe I am rude and pompous because I have lived in Lagos.
My feelings are not valid because I am a fake Igbo girl that hasn’t suffered (they have suffering Olympics here too much 😭)
Cultural differences want to kill me here 😭😭😭.
People don’t like associating with you because you are not completely Igbo.
This is crazy cos you spend a huge part (years) of your life being prejudiced as something and when you are in a place where you think you wouldn’t be secluded, you are always reminded that you don’t belong.
You can't even complain so it doesn't look like you are playing victim mentality. So, yeah, your feelings are not valid. You don't belong anywhere.
You keep trying to fit but you are either undersize or oversized, no in-between.
So you just sit and wait and hope that you can miraculously fit but you never will.