Life Abroad Is Not Always A Bed Of Roses For Ever...

Here’s Diaspora Life In A Nutshell: Commentary: This American Life
By Rudolph Ogoo Okonkwo

You come to America, young and dashing, on full scholarship, finish school, get a great job, marry a glamorous spouse, have cute children, and retire at a young age with a great pension, portfolio, and posture.
…And live happily ever after. Yes, champ; rub it in. For the rest of you, life abroad is a crest of trajectories.
You come into America, by air, by sea, or via a midnight sneak-in across the Mexican border; fooling the Minute Men and Lou Dobbs all at once. You come to school, to join your spouse, to work after winning the Green Card Lottery, or to raise your hand at the airport and claim persecution in your own country because you are a Mormon as well as a leader in MEND.

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You behold America the beautiful. The triple-decker burgers and the giant cup of coke and cars that are wider than your village road and you wonder what took you so long to get here. You get on with schooling. For now, any cheap school will do. You study the things people who came before you say bring money – the things Americans do not want to study- to prepare you for the job Americans do not want to do. You hear nursing, bloody, nursing. You say, bring it on. You get on with marriage – the convenience marriage- discovering that you married three persons at once; the person you thought you married, the person your spouse really is and the person your spouse becomes because you got married in this America. For work, you do anything for a dollar; fast food restaurant, drive a cab, guard the parking lot of company executives younger than you, even care for the disabled, breaking your back to pay the bills.

Then reality hits. The dollar is not adding up. There’s more going out than coming in. Time is running. Letters, emails, and phone calls are enveloping you from home. School is done; where is the job? Your accent is a problem. Racism is real. You’re finally squeezed in. Corporate job at last. Workplace politics really sucks. Meanwhile, the American spouse is gone but your residency is established. Now, where do you find someone to marry for real? A Blind date? Town conventions? What about picking up someone from your village? But these are all packages which content you cannot ascertain. Somehow, you settle with one. Honeymoon over, now what is the state of the marriage? First mission accomplished, now what next?

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You start a house in your village. A big house. You sink in any money you can get. Some of it goes to the house but most of it goes to your family member who is supervising the construction. It costs more than it will to buy a comparable house in America. You are afraid to calculate how many days you will sleep in this house in your lifetime. You say, Tufiakwa. It will not be your portion. You need to do it not just because everyone is doing it – your daddy is demanding it. He’s asking you to wipe away the shame on the family’s face.

Your daddy dies. Your dentist extracts a tooth.

Then America begins to reveal itself quietly. Oh, tribalism again; discrimination at the workplace. Your head touches the virtual ceiling for immigrants. You now understand affirmative action. Kids come but housemaids have tagged slavery, who will care for them? Now you have daycare, mortgage, after school sports activities, mid-life career crisis, more phone calls from home, and marital problems. If only some of these can wait. You can call marital problems by its real name- money problems entangled with control problems, decision-making disagreements, tasks and privileges, status problems, and in-law problems. Maybe you will stay home with the kids. Maybe your mother will come and help … and incense your spouse.

With caning banished, you raise teens with your hands tied to your back. Marital problems persist because as your fortune falls that of your spouse rises. You have done your calculation. Something has to give. You try selling real estate. You prepare taxes. You sell insurance. You run out of contacts. You buy cars from the auction and ship them home. You get duped by friends and family. Nothing is adding up. Fast insurance fraud deals? You try other businesses on the side, but total dedication is needed. You quit your job entirely and start a business. Cleaning business. Staffing business. Medical equipment. Home Health business. Escort service. Oh, these taxes, running costs, government paper works and lack of patronage by your own people.

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Marital problems persist. You wish you had married the lover you left in Nigeria to come to America. You take the divorce option. Half of your wealth is wiped out. Now rages the battle for visitation rights, alimony and child support. You’re estranged from the kids because of the stories your spouse made up against you to win custody. But you keep paying up. You have no option. You start afresh. A new apartment. Maybe a new spouse? No, that can wait. Your classmate at home becomes the CEO of a multinational company. A chieftaincy title follows and you wonder what happened to you.

You consider a fast 419 advance fee fraud deal. You remember those acquaintances still doing time in US prisons. You hold off. You dream of a contract from the government at home. You write a proposal. You get in touch with an old classmate who has done well.

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Home looks attractive. The people you left behind are doing better. You conveniently forget the majority who are not making ends meet. You are overwhelmed. High blood pressure is diagnosed. High cholesterol. Heart problems. Another tooth is extracted. You join the gym. You stay away from garri and farina. You join a church. You can be a pastor too, but you don’t like that lifestyle of pretending to be what you’re not. Life is no more fun. You go home, dabble in business, in politics, in entertainment.

You are burnt. You return. You start afresh.

No, you won’t take the divorce option. You will manage. You will live like roommates until the kids are grown and are out of the house. You will wait for retirement. You need just ten more years. At 56, with social security plus pension pay and 401K, you can go to the village, if kidnappers permit, and enjoy your old age. And start afresh. Maybe marry anew. Maybe teach at a college in Nigeria. Yeah! You register for a Ph.D. with an online college.

Your Mummy dies. Your dentist extracts another tooth. Your doctor suggests knee and hip replacement. Your shrink prescribes Prozac.

In spite of your wahala, the children grow. The girls do well in school. The boys go from four-year colleges to two- year colleges, in between gang membership and police troubles. The boys marry White girls. The girls marry African-Americans. You’re glad the girls did not get pregnant out of wedlock. You thank God the boys did not throw a coming-out party to announce that they are gay. One lives in Arizona and another in Hawaii. Your house is empty, calls come on holidays only.

It is now time to really go home. But what about managing diabetes? Do you trust the doctors at home to handle your dialysis? Your medication cocktail will be hard to find at home. Daddy and Mummy are dead. You have to make new friends again. The ones you used to have are now strangers to you. Your spouse refuses to go with you. The spouse cannot deal with the sound of electric generators, untreated well water, Afor Igwe meat without an FDA inspection tag.

You retire. You sell the big house and move into a small condo. When you cannot wipe your behind, you go from the condo to a nursing home. Your children are too busy to have you share their homes. They visit every presidential election year. Once again, you think of going home but no, it is rather too late for that. The twelfth tooth is gone. You now take more pills than the teeth in your mouth.

So you stay until your autopsy is ready. Your townsfolk contribute money to ship you home. As your coffin lands in Lagos, your relations who have gathered to receive you for the last time mutter in between breaths, Tufiakwa. Yes, the same tufiakwa that you said the time you read the article called ‘This American Life’.

Oh, about your kids, well, some of them went home with your body. Those few times you cleaned your bank account to take them home paid off. They watch as sand lands on your coffin. One even remembered how to say, ‘Kedu’. They leave soon after. They will come back one more time – when they accompany your ex on the final journey home.

-Sahara Reporters

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Summary please

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Not reading all this. Why start another Diaspora thread?

Wow…noma sana…in this life…tik tok…rat race…u win u still one

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That is the american dream in a nutshell.

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Some people wished they never pursued that elusive dream!

I HAVE read every word.Wha!

Thanks. Some of these guys like @Finest wine are just scared to read because it reflects badly on the gloom called REALITY they face. :wink:

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Hahahahahahaha Dude and you know I mean it. I am laughing loudest.:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Nice read!I like the ‘we all go thru the same mud’ meme.It is the reality of what we all face in life.

Scary but real.

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Someone said that States has 2 sides. what you see on the media and what you actually experience by actually living there.

Think about it!

Nice read buddy

[SIZE=7]US Based Kisii Fakes Parents Death to Get Money…Life Abroad’s Not Easy…[/SIZE]

A Kenyan man living in Texas, United States duped his friends into making contributions after he lied that his parents had passed on.

Kenfrey Ondabu is said to have printed fake funeral programs, death certificates as well as tasked his accomplices in Kisii into taking photos of a dug grave.

Coming together to support one of their own, Ondabu’s friends contributed money that would aid in the funeral arrangements.

https://www.kenyans.co.ke/files/styles/article_inner_mobile/public/images/media/mazishi.jpg?itok=uy-uh6zx
Fake burial brochures and photos of men digging his parent’s grave. TWITTER

However, Ondabu’s plan hit a snag when four of his friends came back to his rural home in Kisii and found his parents, alive and well.

Shocked by the revelation, the suspects’ father, Zacharia Ondabu, indicated that the family was not aware that his son was conning his friends.

The family is demanding answers as to who printed the death certificate, alleging that a government official might have been involved.

“We want justice to be served and if it means going to court, we are ready,” one of the family members stated.

Ondabu is said to have collided with a local chief for the death certificates to be produced.

According to lawyers, cases of fraudsters lying about their parent’s death are common, with the intent of them acquiring their property.

“With a fake death certificate, hundreds of property owners risk losing their treasures to crooks,” a lawyer was once quoted saying.

Lawyers believe that death certificates are mostly used by fraudsters to acquire or claim ownership of land belonging to people who are still alive.

nice read but majuu au nigerians mtu unajua akidedi unangoa meno ? @Finest wine ama mutaniambia niende nisome literature

Sikusoma post. Life in America is quite different from life in the UK.

soma post unijibu

Nimesoma grudgingly:mad:. I think what the author intended to mean by ‘you lose another tooth’ is gum disease comes along with the other medical conditions he mentioned which leads to loss of teeth. All major illnesses/stresses lead to loss of teeth one by one.
Does that answer your question?

Else I am not familiar with the Nigerian weirdo cultures so there could be another meaning…

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Hii nayo nimesoma whilst I am here. My fellow Wasapere conned us back in the day with fake mashakayas. Tulichota jameni…mpaka tusema no more no more nomore.:mad:
[SIZE=1]Alafu kuja hapa and answer Uncle Uwes. I stopped short of telling him asome literature, kuja umwambie…I took the medical high road…[/SIZE]

I have read it all and bruh what a great writer, what a sad story!!! And this why I choose to stay in Kenya, at least to spend as much time as possible with real family and friends… going to America/Europe is making a very painful sacrifice, the only people who enjoy fruits of your labour are your kids since they can grow up and fit in hopefully but you are always an outsider