Becoming an Anthropologist

This past week I celebrated another year on Earth. My mind began to wander. Wondering when exactly it was that I started to consider my life as an anthropological adventure. Was it the day we were in the car on the way back to Mamaroneck that I was told I was moving to West Africa? Or was it the day that I cried my eyes out and not so silently wished I had failed the entrance exam to Loyola Jesuit College? Or was it at the Southernmost tip of Africa where I learnt about anthropology and realized that I was a living anthropologist?

I want to believe that it is the latter. If I had known more about anthropology in 1997 I would have savoured each moment spent in West Africa. I think that my sojourn in West Africa was a pivotal point in my life. I attribute my love for anthropology, my interest in the food-culture dialectic to Nigeria as well as my supposed academic prowess.

Not only do I celebrate another year on Earth but this year marks ten years since I was in West Africa. Ten years ago I left behind memories, friends, classmates and my deep American accent which was replaced by a knowledge of Nigerian pidgin English, a desire to learn and hope that one day I would reunite with people who changed my perspective of life and who helped to shape the person I am.

For the past ten years I have shared my experiences in Nigeria with people I have met. I have left out so much detail though as it is a country where you have to go to and live in to experience it to the fullest. The hardest part of my explanations has always been the three years spent at a Local Jail for Children- the codename for the prestigious Loyola Jesuit College-LJC. I have tried to explain all the moments, the highs and the lows. I doubt that my explanations have done any justice to the school. I have always wanted to recall my days spent there and the only people who would understand were my former classmates and other alumni. How do you begin to explain to an outsider who was not in jail with you about: eating five times a day, trading half plates of spaghetti, going on ‘report’, Saturday lunch, hostel inspections, exams, feast days, socials, assembly, study hall, mangos, honour and merit roll?

Living in Southern Africa meant that the chances of meeting up with any LJC alumni was quite slim. In the turn of events that characterises my life I moved to Europe, but not the United Kingdom where many alumni reside. But I got another surprize when my former classmate got in touch and let me know that they were in Italy. Needless to say a reunion was necessary. So that is what we did. To celebrate my twenty-fourth year of life and my tenth year away from my other homeland I met up with my fellow Connelly House classmate.

My former classmate photographing the sites in Milano

I have not laughed till I cried in a very long time. But I can now tell you that I have done so recently. It felt good to know that you are not the only one in the world that will forever have the motto “Service of God and Others” deeply embedded in them. That there are others who remember the first line of their school notes of Introductory Technology, “Technology is not a new thing in Nigeria….”. There are others who have tried everything to forget the opening lines of the play the Wives Revolt by JP Clark but to no avail. There are others who will always remember the impact and dedication of our teachers:  their punishments of “sitting on the wall”, or frog jumping; their strict marking; their desire for the best education possible for us; their smiles and laughter that you shared with them at your dining hall table.

When laughing with my classmate in Milano, Italia, I realized that those were three years that I would not exchange. Three years that I learnt about a country by being fully immersed in it, even if I was in jail. As one of the very few foreigners in our school in Gidan Mangoro, I unknowingly became an anthropologist. Everything was participant observation. I learnt of the customs, the traditions and the rich heritage of the vibrant oil rich nation. I can almost say that I became a native of the nation-a daughter of the soil. I can only hope to one day return to the vibrant nation.

So as I continue in the adventure that is my life I will always remember Nigeria and LJC. The people I met (some of the brightest minds I have ever encountered), the food I tasted and my dislike of black eyed beans (thanks to the mass cooked beans and garri as well as the deep fried bean fritters-akara twice a week for three years). I will always remember the educational impact and the community that is LJC. I believe that my time there laid the foundations of many of the adventures that I have already had, and mostly the point at which I began to be an anthropologist- even if it was done unconsciously. 

Who would have thought that I would meet a fellow LJC "in-mate" 10 years later in the middle of Italy