Being "Other"

Today I ran across an essay that I wrote some years ago, and I find that it resonates with the current state of the world.

Being "Other"

Armed Conflict through the Eyes of an Eight Year Old Child

As a child, I found myself in the rather peculiar position of living on a university campus in post-colonial Nigeria, in the mid-1960s. At the edge of my little girl consciousness, there was a military overthrow of the government, and sometime later the Eastern Province where I lived, seceded from Nigeria and became Biafra. I was eight years old at the time, and to say that the events that ensued left their mark on my life would be putting it mildly. It was in this setting that I first became aware of Others. This was not only due to the fact that I was very obviously Other to my peers at the small University elementary school. It was also the fine nuances of Others within the Nigerian population.

            From a sociologist’s point of view, some fifty years later, I find that I am still asking the same questions. What is the mechanism that allows people to justify the use of violence in order to maintain their rightness? Is being right more important than anything else? Does being right trump all the other characteristics of one’s humanity? And, how do people who engage in that kind of behavior manage to survive afterward? Do they simply believe that the Other is so undeserving that treating them in a violent manner is actually justified in their own minds?  I still do not understand.

            Nigeria, as we know it today, is comprised of three very different ethnic/religious/language groups; Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Ibo. There are natural physical territories created by the Niger and Benue rivers. These three groups of people were bound together by the European lines drawn on a map. In 1886 the British Royal Niger Company was chartered, and in 1900 the territory came under British control. The British remained in control until Nigeria gained its full independence in 1960.

When I moved to Nsukka in 1965 I met Susie. She was my best and only real friend in Africa. She was the other American girl on campus; seventeen days older, blond, fearless, and we were usually inseparable. On Saturdays I often asked our cook, Samuel, to make us some peanut butter sandwiches. He wrapped them carefully in wax paper and we packed them, some fruit and two cokes carefully into her green knapsack. We climbed to the top of the tallest hill overlooking the campus and had ourselves a picnic.

            As we walked up the well-trodden path towards the top of the hill we were talking, laughing and singing.

            “I love to go a wandering…” at the top of our lungs. “Across the mountain side…” watching our footing as we walked up the steep path. “Val-a-rie, Val-a-rah, Val-a-rie, Val-a-rah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…” Sometimes singing in rounds so that there could be a constant ha-ha-ha-ing as we sang and laughed.

            Susie always went first, she was braver then me. I watched the frayed ends of the straps on her knapsack sway like a metronome as she walked in time with our song. I could never tell if she was really singing along with me, or just half-heartedly saying the words to keep me happy.

            Ibo men worked the fields, planting cassava in neat rows that curled around the hillsides. The men were shirtless, wearing khaki shorts and sandals as they wielded sharp blades of metal tied to well-worn hand carved wooden handles. They looked up at us as we passed and smiling at us, nodded their heads in our direction. I wondered what they thought about these two crazy little white girls marching purposefully up the hillside. Did they resent our carefree lives as they toiled under the sun to dig their livelihoods from the red rocky soil? I wasn’t sure of anything except that I was Other.

            In 1956 oil had been discovered in the Niger River delta by Shell-British Petroleum. The first oil production began in 1958, two years before the country gained independence. Oil exploration continued and in 1965 the Eti/Asasa oil field was discovered off shore, south of Warri. Production from this oil field has been the foundation for Nigeria’s position as a major oil producer. The oil fields are located in the Niger River delta area, which has traditionally belonged to the Ibo people of the Eastern Province.

            Under colonialism the British had set up the seat of government in Lagos, which is located in the Western Province. The Hausa/Fulani in the Northern Province have traditionally had a strong governing system, and they were well loved by their British colonizers, who appreciated the Hausa sense of order. They also had the largest population. Unfortunately the British choice of Lagos as the capitol left the resources in one region, the population in another and the power structure in the third. Others forced to pretend they were not Others. When the British left, they were kind enough to have poured all the ingredients for a political and human disaster into the pot. When the dish was served, it had, as its main ingredient, the lives of between 150,000 and three million Biafran men, women and children.

            The story of this conflict has been told from many different views, usually connected with different ethnic affiliations. Except for the story from the view of an eight year old American girl caught in the middle. I heard about the military coup on January 15th of 1966 at the dinner table, my parents speaking in hushed and worried tones of the effects there would be on the fledgling University of Nigeria in Nsukka. An Ibo General had been appointed head of the government. The next day in school I once again became aware of my Otherness as the American girl in the school yard where the Nigerian boys boasted of great feats of war as they kicked the soccer ball across the red clay playground. Should I be afraid? The boys assured me that the Ibo were the mightiest of warriors with unfailing courage, it was only right that an Ibo be in power. In reality Otherness became a major factor in our lives, with any Other but Ibo becoming an enemy, one to be scorned, hated, and even killed. Again, I was reminded that I was the Other, not an Ibo.

            Unfortunately this was also the case for the Hausa in the North, only it was the Ibo who were the Other. In September of 1967, after a summer of rumors and reports of violence in the North against Ibo living there, matters came to a head. Some 30,000 Ibo were massacred, and over a million fled back to the East and to their ancestral homes. The story of the “Massacre Express” reached my schoolyard, as one of my classmates related the scene at the Enugu Train station where he had gone with his mother to meet relatives arriving from Kano. The train arrived ahead of schedule, packed with mutilated and tortured bodies, only the conductor left alive. Was this story true? It didn’t matter. It was true enough for the children in my third grade class. In the telling I witnessed my classmates’ transformation with that story from the innocence of childhood to the fear of an unknown future. The fear of being Other.

            Shortly after that incident, I began to see strange pictures in the doors of shops, on trees and in cars and lorries. The sign said, “Have you seen this face?” and had drawings of five men’s faces, each marked with the traditional marking of Nigerians who were not Ibo. Below the pictures the signs said, “Report them immediately”. The physical identification of Others. You have that mark on your face, you must be an Other, and an enemy; less than I am and evil.

            I have a vivid memory of a trip to Enugu being cut short by a soldier with a gun at one of the many check-points along the way. He demanded that my Mother, an American woman in her mid-thirties, put one of these signs up in our car. My mother refused, turned the car around and drove back to our house on campus. She was really angry, livid in fact. Feeling her mood, I sat quietly in the back seat of that old Peugeot all the way back. I didn’t understand. After she finished a heated conversation with my father where she related what had happened, I found the courage to ask why they wanted us to put that sign in our car. She explained to me that because of the problems, the government was looking for people they thought might be a threat. But that our faces were also different, and that no one should be persecuted on the basis of their face alone. We were a different kind of Other.

            On May 30^th, 1967 Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu announced the formal secession of the Eastern Province of Nigeria and the creation of the independent nation of Biafra. My parents had a short wave radio in their bedroom, hidden under a specially carved wooden box, and the conversation with the American Embassy in Lagos that day included both the news of the secession, and the order that we prepare to evacuate all women and children. That afternoon my mother supervised as we loaded up our smallest bags with essentials for the trip home. My father rode his little Honda 50cc motorcycle around to tell the staff personally, and ensure they understood the need for calm.  By July the Nigerian Federal Military Government sent troops into Biafra and full scale civil war ensued.

            The American, British, Indian and Dutch women and children were evacuated from our little campus in Nsukka. Our own household staff said good-bye to us as we left the house. With all the foreign families gathering at the University Continuing Education Center early in the morning, hundreds of students, staff, villagers, farmers, and their children came to witness our departure.  All along our long trip to the airport in Port Harcourt tear streaked faces came out of the bush and lined the roads. I will never forget as hour after hour our caravan of cars passed people who had heard we were leaving, many who walked for miles to wave good-bye, and be witness to the sign. This sign was the beginning of the end for many of the people who had stepped out of the bush to pay their respects to us as we fled back to the safety of America.

A Nigerian Federal blockade was used as the weapon of choice in a country where the population relied on food imports to survive. The Federal Military Government was supported diplomatically by the British and amply supplied weapons by the Russians, strange bedfellows during the cold war. The United States adopted a policy of non-involvement however continued to recognize the Nigerian government. Unfortunately for the Biafrans, the most powerful ally they had was the South African Apartheid government, who was not exactly popular with most of the other governments on the planet. Others recognizing Others.

 Outnumbered and outgunned, the Biafrans fought to hold on to their resources and eventually just to their lives. In a time before the word was popular, in this genocide, the Nigerians waged and won this war by starving their Biafran neighbors to death. As in any time of nutritional crisis, it was, naturally, the most frail who were the first victims of this act, young children and the elderly. The Biafran soldiers in this conflict were not the target of the Nigerian military, it was their parents, grandparents, nieces, nephews and infants. These children were targeted because they were Others, and would grow up to be Others. So in the end, while around 100,000 soldiers lost their lives, hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of civilians paid the ultimate price.

            The British Colonial system had combined three peoples and declared to them, “You are now one” when they all knew they were not. Were those who drew the lines on the map and put these people together aware of the differences when they made that fatal mistake? Could the British have remained ignorant of these differences after they had been there? Did they simply ignore the differences, or did they assume that the Others could work it out on their own when the British abandoned them? Or did the colonization of this part of Africa simply reinforce the Otherness that had been in place for centuries? What would the outcome have been had they drawn different lines on that map so many years ago, or would these Others have come to blows anyway?

            Oddly, even when we returned to America, I never got over feeling that I was Other. I had lived in Africa, where I most definitely was Other. And because I had lived in Africa I was the Other to my schoolmates in America. But unlike any of my classmates at the Nsukka campus elementary school, I had been spared because I was a particular Other.

One day, several years later on the television I saw pictures of sad-faced children with distended bellies and flies circling like vultures. I felt a strange sensation of unity with those children; they might have been my classmates, my friends, my peers. In that instant, I was suddenly transformed from the Other to membership in the group of people who had lived in Biafra.

I have long since accepted the notion that I am Other, and will always be Other. And in the same breath, I have membership, and am one with all the peoples of the earth. Since spending my formative years in Africa, when some one asks me where I am from, I remember being Other, and I always respond with, “Earth. You?” For we are all Other, and that itself is what makes us one.

 

For Memorial Day

As a special treat for Memorial Day I give you parts of the story of my Dad in the U.S. Navy. My favorite story from this period in his life was how he figured out a way to make ice cream.

My Dad, George, wanted to fly planes. So when he joined the Navy he signed up for the Naval Aviator Program. He and my mom, Nancy, eloped partially because Navy Pilots weren’t allowed to be married. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, the program ended before he got to train to fly. Instead of learning to fly he was shipped off to an island in the Pacific where he was a supply clerk (think Radar O’Reilly here) at an air strip. (I think this may have been Guam, but I am not sure.)

While he was away, Nancy lived on the family dairy farm in upstate New York, and worked as a soda jerk at the local drug store. She wrote George every day, and regaled him with details of her life – including explicit descriptions of the ice cream sundaes, milk shakes and other frozen treats she created behind the counter in downtown Horseheads, New York.

In the primitive conditions on an island in the South Pacific, they had very limited resources for refrigeration, and a treat like ice cream was unheard of. George would get Nancy’s letters, and read aloud to his comrades about the ice cream treats she had created. In the sweltering South Pacific heat they all longed for ice cream.

 Each day the pilots were required to get in so many hours of flying, and they would take off, fly around for a while, and then return. When they returned from their little trips, they would complain about how hot it was on the ground. It was then that George realized it just might be cold enough at those altitudes for cream to freeze. So he hatched a plan and set it into motion. He put the ingredients into a metal container and promised the pilots that they could have the first spoonfuls if they took it up with them during their flights.

George, and as much of the company as possible, would line up and be waiting on the runway when the plane landed. George would have two spoons, and would hand one to the pilot as soon as the container, which was almost too cold to hold in his hands, was removed from the plane. Then each of the men in the company would get a spoonful of the frozen treat.

For this Memorial Day, if you are lucky enough to have ice cream as part of your day, really taste that first spoonful, and think about those men on an island in the South Pacific, how my Dad managed to make ice cream, and smile. As I will.

The Bane of my Existence

     If you have ever been to my house you know that most of the first floor is covered with tile. Often, when someone comes over for the first time the first thing they will say is something along the line of, “Oh, I love these floors!” to which I usually respond, “Yes, the bane of my existence”. Then I have to explain to the quizzical looks that these floors are the one thing the builders did right when they built this house in 1965, as they are laid atop a 4” bed of cement. The tiles themselves are Mexican Saltillo, picket style, and there are about three of them in each square foot of floor space. They run from the front door of the house to the back door, from the eat-in kitchen all the way to the family room and the garage entrance. They are under every cabinet, appliance and wall on the first floor. (All in all, about 600 square feet of tiles.) Saltillo tiles are hand-made, no two are alike, and they are uneven and extremely porous. They are not sealed. So they soak up every and any liquid the come in contact with. And they have been the bane of my existence. 

                                                           Nick with Gambit back in 2005
                                                           Here you can see how the floors usually look

     When we bought this house 18 years ago, I thought the floors were red brick with black grout and I thought, “Great! The boys won’t be able to screw these floors up.” And I was right; nothing that the boys have ever done has made a dent in those floors. I have come to realize that nothing short of a large quantity of C-4 will ever make a dent in these floors. After a couple of years of cleaning and scrubbing the everyday messes created by an active family, black gobs started to come up from the grout revealing grey crumbly cement. This was a concern.

     Then one day I knocked a pot lid into the space beneath the stove and was shocked by what I discovered upon crawling in to the cupboard to reach under and retrieve it. (Yes, I probably should have sold tickets to that event.) As I reached under to pull out the lid my hand touched something that clearly was not the pot lid. So I grabbed a flashlight to get a better look before I stuck my hand back in there again. What I found was a perfect 9 by 11 glass baking dish and, much to my horror, rose and gold colored tiles with off white grout.

     And so began my quest to clean the tiles. This started a chain of events which just went from bad to worse, reminding me in many ways of the movie Money Pit. I spent hours on my hands and knees scrubbing with everything I could find, masked to protect myself from all the harsh chemicals, pulling up years and years worth of Mop-n-Glow encrusted grout and peeling layers from the tiles. We rented an industrial floor cleaning machine and tried everything we could think of. When I finally realized I needed professional help, the first contractor who came to the door looked down, said, “I won’t do this job” and walked away. (Not even a “Hi, it’s nice to meet you”.) We ended up needing to have all of the grout replaced, which meant that there were guys on their hands and knees, using a Dremel-like tool, digging out all of the old grout.
    
     Yesterday, for the second time in the past 18 years I have accomplished the goal of getting the floor cleaned. The first time, you ask? It was during the 30 seconds between a contractor completing the “two week” job which took more than three months and our walking out the door to head to Germany for two years. Unfortunately, by the time we got back, the floors (which need to be sealed every year) were already dirty again.

     My boyfriend did a lot of research on the internet and we bought a steam cleaning machine, in hopes that it would do the trick on the floors (along with other cleaning tasks like the grill, the fireplace doors, etc.). I was hopeful, but didn’t really know if it would work on these floors or not. Imagine my delight when he tried it on the floor for the first time and loads of dirt came right up! It is a slow process, but I don’t have to get on my hands and knees with a toothbrush, and it does the job! I started with the kitchen yesterday, and in about three hours the floor was clean. The only problem is that now the rest of the floor is clearly very dirty!

                                             Before, dirty, nasty floor!

                                             The Steamfast!

                                             SO much better!
     I am excited about bringing these floors back to their intended beauty, and even though it is going to take time, using the steam cleaner is not physically taxing, so it just means time and attention, not painful scrubbing. I figure that if I spend a few hours each weekend, I will have it done by the spring, when it will be time to start over and then I will be able to seal them once again. An accomplishment for 2014!

Welcome 2014

    
Welcome 2014. Usually on New Years I come up with a single word which is supposed to be my guiding concept for the coming year. I have been having difficulty finding my "word" for this year, but thought perhaps I could work it out by writing my way to the "word". It is another one of those times when I am in transition mode, something I have done pretty frequently, and with so much uncertainty, the "word" for this year has so far escaped me.
     Part of the reason I am in this strange place is that I have accepted a new kind of position that will start in a couple of weeks. I will be wading into the unfamiliar territory of a research assistant at the Social Research Center in Ann Arbor. This is a part-time gig that will allow me to both work a "real job" and continue to work from home on my writing and editing projects. I am hoping that this new job will open some doors and help me to focus on my field of study, Social Sciences.
      So now I am facing the dreaded hour long commute - which is daunting in the mitten in January and February (and sometimes March and April), but is still not as bad as the hour and a half to two hours my boyfriend faces each way every day. That fact brings me to another undertaking for 2014, getting our house projects completed so that we could put it on the market and move closer to his work, if that is what we decide to do. This is no small task for many reasons, and while I am looking forward to getting the house in order and updated, these kinds of things require a lot of time and effort - always. Handy-man type projects always take longer and cost more than I think when I start them, and often, we wait until things have to be done before we face them.
     There are more things in the house that need to be done than we can easily afford, and one thing almost always leads to something else. Here is an example: We need a new fridge. The one we have I bought in 1985 while pregnant with Nick. The ice maker is kaput, and for some reason, the paint has decided it is time to peel off and fall on my floors. It still runs very well, and things stay nice and cold inside, but I know it is simply a matter of time before it gives up. So my boyfriend and I went shopping and picked out the one that we want – really beautiful French door model. The problem is that no matter how we have measured it, it will not fit through the doorways so that we can get it into the kitchen. Well… we also need to replace all the windows in the house (and should have done so 15 years ago) and part of that project is that we want to put in a door-wall from the kitchen to the deck – which would also allow us to get the new fridge into the house. So now, in order to get a new fridge, we need to tear a huge hole in the back of the house and put in the sliding door so we have an opening large enough for the new fridge to fit in. Oh – and the whole kitchen needs to be painted since we have had a new chunk of ceiling since about 2008 which is naked above the table and the paint is beginning to wear off the cabinets, and… and… and… One thing leads to another.
     So I have been thinking about words like ‘projects’ or ‘completion’ or ‘execution’, but now I am thinking about "accomplishment" as my word for 2014. I am thinking that I should probably look at each small part of a project I get done as an accomplishment which will lead me toward the larger completion. In thinking about this I have also realized that I have often failed to acknowledge my accomplishments, no matter how big or how small. So this year, dear 2014, I will stop and acknowledge my accomplishments, no matter how small, in my quest for larger project completions. There. I just finished my first blog post for 2014. Well done, me.

A baby speaks...

A dear friend passed this on to me shortly after the birth of my first child... and today I share it with all of you. (If it doesn't bring tears to your eyes...)

A BABY SPEAKS

In Silence I lie and watch thy face, Sweet Mother mine.

And think how full thou art of grace, And, oh how kind!
And I almost laugh as I hear you say
“I think the baby has noticed today.”

To Thee I am “baby” – thou dost not know

How often I’ve lived – how long ago
A chieftain I was, and once a King –
Though now I appear such a little thing!

I’ve had my share of earthly joy;

Of woman’s love I’ve made a toy,
And once in martyrdom I died –
(To atone for my other sins I tried!)

But God, a seal upon my lips has set,

And twill not be lifted ‘till I forget,
For God is much wiser than thou or I -
I must not remember how it feels to die!

Dear little mother, with eyes so brown,

When I wanted rebirth I sought around
‘Till I found thee, with thy face divine,
And then I knew that thou wert mine –

That thou my mother in truth would be.
Sweetheart, I was wise in choosing thee!
So day by day into thy face
I’ll look until I lose all trace
Of other lives, and only know
That I am here and love thee so.

(Author Unknown)

(From Magazine “Woman’s Life”, March 7^th, 1896)

 

 

 

 

November 22, 1963

50 years ago today, when John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, I was 6 years old, a first grader at Marble Elementary School in East Lansing, Michigan, and everyone called me Meg. I didn’t really understand what that event meant, except that all the teachers were visibly upset and my teacher had been crying.  But my dad had travelled to London on his way back to Africa once again, something he did on a fairly regular basis during my early years. And, as he did every day, he wrote a letter to my Mom a few days later…
Dear Nance,
     The “tellie” in my hotel room is showing the funeral of President Kennedy live by telestar. It is a grim and somber moment. I think of the words of Lincoln – “it is for us, the living, to be here dedicated… that these honored dead shall not have died in vain… that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.” And perhaps this is some explanation of why you and I are today separated by an ocean - - and the dedication to service and the dignity of man comes again between my family and me.

I have come to understand that part of the reason that the grown-ups were so upset was the uncertainty that event brought to their lives. It was the end of optimism, and the beginning of doubt and insecurity. That single event led to so many changes in society and I have wondered more than once what might have been had Kennedy not been killed that November day. Would we have been so involved in Viet Nam? Would the protests demanding social change for African Americans and for women and for others have happened? There is, of course, no way to know… but I wonder.

For me personally, Kennedy’s funeral marks the day that I broke my left arm, severing the radial nerve and setting my own life on an unexpected path. Would my life have turned out much differently if I hadn’t been so restless and not decided to bother my sister and her boyfriend, falling and breaking my arm? Perhaps. But I do know that every experience we have is a vital part of who we are, and I would not be who I am today if those experiences hadn’t happened. And neither would we as a nation.

And so, in my own small ways, I strive for “the dedication to service and the dignity of man”, thinking every day, “if I can just make one person have a better day today, if I can serve (in the truest sense of the word) mankind in some way today, the world will be a better place tomorrow”.

How to Cook Fresh Pumpkin

It is almost Halloween so I went to our local pumpkin patch earlier this week and picked up some pumpkins for carving and one for pies. There is a HUGE difference between varieties of pumpkins and I thought perhaps it might be handy for you to have directions on how to roast one – fresh pumpkin is SO much better than canned. So here is the step by step.

1.       Find a pie pumpkin. The main differences are that usually a pie pumpkin has freckles on it and they are always much more dense than a carving pumpkin. You will be able to easily find them at your local market or pumpkin patch this time of year.

2.      Tools for the task: A sharp knife, rimmed baking pan, ice cream scoop, colander, spoon, mashing device (potato masher, food processer or blender)

3.      Turn your oven on to pre-heat. I use 375, but this process is very forgiving, so anywhere from 350 to 425 will do the trick, you will just need to adjust the time needed depending on how much heat.

4.      Using your sharp knife and some muscle, cut the pumpkin in half leaving the stem intact on one side.

5.      Then use your ice cream scoop to scrape the stringy center and seeds out of each half. Put the seeds and gooey parts into a colander.

6.      If you want easy clean-up, spray your baking pan with a thin coating of Pam.

7.      Place each half cut side down on the baking sheet.

8.     Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, until a fork slides in and out of the pumpkin easily.

9.      While the pumpkin is roasting, place your colander in the sink. Fill the sink with water just until the seeds start to float to the top.  It is really easy to then skim the seeds out of the colander and into a bowl, picking out any orange bits as you go. The stringy parts will hang on to the seeds, so squish them out, rinse them a little and put them in the bowl with their friends.

10.  DO NOT put the orange goo down your garbage disposal – unless you have a crush on your repairman and want to invite him over. Throw the goo in the trash or your compost pile.

11.   Put the seeds back in the colander and rinse them one more time, then pat dry with paper towels. They probably won’t get all the way dry, but that’s okay. Put them back in the bowl and toss them with a little bit of olive oil.

12.  Spread them out on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt. Here is where you get to be adventurous. Some people like to use garlic, pepper, cayenne pepper, pretty much any spice you really like. I am a purist about these things and only use salt.

13.  As soon as your pumpkins are fork-tender, put them on a rack to cool. As soon as you can, flip them over this hastens the cooling process.

14.  Make your oven 400 degrees and pop those seasoned seeds in for about 15 minutes total, flipping them over as best you can about half way through.

15.   Once the pumpkin halves are cool enough to handle, you can often just peel the skins right off. Use a spoon to scrape any of the meat which is stubbornly holding on and put the meat into a large bowl.

16.  Then use a mashing tool to mash the meat into a uniform consistency.

17.   Viola! Now you can proceed to make your favorite pumpkin, bread, pumpkin cookies or pumpkin pie!

18.  NOTE: I put two cup portions into quart-sized freezer bags, mush them flat, and pop them into the freezer. The trick with this is to get the pumpkin out of the bag before thawing it in a bowl. (Otherwise it is a pretty messy process.)