“If you come abroad but you never lock yourself inside cry beta cry, you never come,” my cousin in Europe told me when I was still in Nigeria. It didn’t make sense to me and he didn’t bother to explain. “Some things, them no de tell person. Na you go face am confirm by yourself,” he added.
I have cried many times since I got here, but this evening I just de vex. Abroad can be frustrating. Though my cousin didn’t explain this to me, my conscience won’t let me to keep it from others. Here is a list of seven things that can make you cry or feel awful overseas:
1. Whether you’re a banker or a big businessman, once you arrive abroad you’re nothing. You can’t easily transfer your skills and continue from where you stopped. You must start afresh, which is why some take years to stabilize. The problem is that you won’t even know where or how to start. If you’re an illegal immigrant, that means you don’t have work permit. Hunger will come, plus frustration and police fear. If you’re legal, you will still take a long time to determine which career path to follow. You will feel quite stupid working odd jobs to survive, taking orders from people far beneath you. And those yeye jobs can tie you down and keep you on the ground for years because you won’t have time to do anything else. And knowing that people back home are counting time for you, you will soon get depressed.
2. Communication: There’s no point hiding it, oyibo accent can be hard to grasp for a newcomer. You won’t understand much of what they are saying as you interact to find your way up. If you were not used to their accent in Nigeria, maybe through movies or direct communication, that can be a big challenge. You will be answering “hun” like olodo. It’s not your fault though, they hardly understand our accent too. This communication problem can affect your confidence, and hinder you from growing. It’s why some Nigerians stay within their home circles abroad.
3. Learning the system: Sometimes you get embarrassed at a supermarket, a vulcanizer’s shop, a filling station, or any of those places where a machine, not a human, attends to you. For the most part, people do things here by themselves. There are places with complex digital or mechanical processes which you never saw before, and it can be really embarrassing fiddling with the system as people watch wondering if you’re a caveman.
4. Loneliness: If not for social media, most people would die from boredom abroad. You work so hard, get home and it’s just you, except you live with family. Some live in cities where they hardly meet anyone like them, let alone a fellow Nigerian. But even phone and social media have their limits in providing company. You’re totally on your own here and it can be crazy when you’re sick or broke.
5. Cold: I remember my first day at work. A neighbor saw me walking in the cold that morning and dropped me off. There was no bus route to my workplace, so everyone drove or walked. After closing, I had to trek home. I had never felt such cold in my entire life. The streets were deserted, snow was falling, and my toes froze until they started hurting so badly; including my fingers, ears, nose, and forehead. I thought I was going to die—some homeless people die that way. I was praying to God to help me, crying on the streets like a child. Then a colleague who left the office late, drove past me and stopped. He took me home. Without him I don’t think I would have survived.
6. Homesickness: As Nigeria scatter so, you go still miss am die for abroad. Home is home, my people. Corn and pear, oha soup, efo-riro, mamaput, groundnut, gala—you don’t know how important these things are until all you have is strange foreign food full of sugar. You will miss your friends, your lover, everything. And when you’re lonely and homesick, it can really suck.
7. Konji: Being sexually starved when abroad is normal. It can take years sometimes, and many resort to masturbation. I remember one Naija guy my cousin hooked up with a girl in the UK, his first sex in three years. He couldn’t stop thanking his destiny helper. Even till tomorrow, once he sees my cousin, the next is “Bro, thank you very much for that day.” He don hear-am!