Two Cities, One Home

I’m running late and standing on the corner, waiting impatiently to cross the busy street. Yellow taxi cabs pass me, maneuvering slowly around each other like a herd of Technicolor wildebeests. The occasional motorcyclist darts unexpectedly through the swarm of vehicles, halted every now and again by a massive truck or two rumbling painfully down the road. The sidewalk is just as packed: wave upon wave of people—business suit, infant, iPod—brush past me, heads full of appointments and lunches and commutes home. And the heat—hot air blasts me from every direction, the sun blazes mercilessly on my poor neck and sweat trickles down, tickling the backs of my knees. Just as I think I can finally cross and take a step forward, my bag rips open and my belongings scatter away from me as if making a desperate bid for freedom. As I bend resignedly to start picking up my things, a lone figure in the crowd turns to me, shakes her head sympathetically and says, “E kpele oh!” Welcome to Lagos, Nigeria.

I am, without a doubt, a city girl. I couldn’t be anything else: I was raised in one of Africa’s biggest metropolises, a narrow strip of land by the Atlantic teeming with life and shimmering with vitality. Whenever I speak to Westerners about Africa, it interests me that the images that come to their heads are of majestically empty savannahs, dust and exotic safari animals. When I close my eyes and imagine Africa I see vibrantly patterned fabrics, the ocean, tall buildings crowding the marina skyline. I smell the garbage rotting on the sides of the street and the sharp aroma of roasting corn. I hear the bus conductors shouting, “Obalende! Obalende!” For me, there really is no place like home.

So you can imagine the shock I had when, at the age of nine, I moved with my family to the middle of the English countryside. No more traffic, or street-side suya stalls, or lagoon breezes to cool my sweaty face: just green. Everywhere I turned there were trees, fields and drizzle, with the occasional deer or fox brightening up my back garden with a flash of reddish brown. In retrospect, I realize that I loved my nine years in England: being raised in Britain has had a huge impact on my life and the way that I see the world. But three years ago, all I cared about was escaping the confines of my boarding school for the bright lights of New York City.

I first heard about Columbia from a friend of mine when I was twelve. His middle school was in the neighborhood, and as soon as I heard the words “college” and “Manhattan,” my pre-teen self decided that Columbia University was where I would be in six years. I visited with my father five years later, as a high school junior, on a bracingly cold February day (the polar opposite of the weather in my tropical hometown). As we emerged from the 116th subway stop and I looked up at the wrought iron gates, a strange feeling of home descended on me. Somehow, I knew that this was where I would spend the next stage of my life.

But finding a new home has changed my relationship with my old one. Now that I’m only home twice a year at most, I find that people notice my accent has changed. And I forget familiar landmarks on car journeys I’ve made a hundred times. And as much as I look forward to coming home at the end of every semester, I also can’t wait to return to my new city at the end of every break. Life in New York is very unlike life in Lagos. There are marked differences between my life in the world’s most advanced country and in Nigeria, a developing nation. For example, there is constant electricity in New York City. Nigerians have become accustomed to power shortages—or, as we call it, The Nigerian Electric Power Authority “taking light”—as everyday occurrences. The subway system here is a fast and relatively simple way to travel across the city. At home, rickety danfos (minibuses) and dangerous okadas (motorcycles) are the main forms of public transport, hurtling over badly potholed roads and bridges that you can feel swaying beneath you. No one in Lagos really understands how the city continues to function with an infrastructural system first built during the colonial era and barely upgraded since. The fact that I’ve had the opportunity to live elsewhere only makes it more painful to see the wasted potential of my home.

But part of the reason that I feel so at home in New York City is how much it really does remind me of Lagos. Both places are bustling with activity, full of people from all over the world—Thailand, Lebanon, Brazil—whose different cultures (and cuisines) I have been fortunate enough to discover. They are also loud, dirty and prone to obnoxious traffic jams. But no matter what, I wouldn’t trade either of my two homes for anywhere else in the world—and especially not the silence of Surrey, England. They may be the places where I lose my belongings down a gutter, but they are also the places where I know there will be someone to help me pick them up again.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in English and minoring in political science. She is the production manager for Idaya Magazine.