A Grand Design?

Out of all the things that Christians believe, I think a divine plan is becoming one of the hardest to swallow. I suppose it's because of this growing trend in exalting the random. A trillion random sequences later and there was the universe, a billion random mutations later and there was man and out of a million random sperm, one fused with an egg to form me.

It's easy to buy into this theory of randomness, especially as we don't have the grand perspective. All we see is random acts, random meetings, random bangs but if only we could go a little higher.

Unfortunately, on this side of death, we can only see in part (1 Corinthians 13) because that's all we can handle but we trust the One who sees the whole picture.

I don't know why my Uncle died of cancer leaving a wife and two kids, I don't know why you missed your University offer by one mark, I don't know why your father left home but despite everything, the Master Planner hasn't lost His train of thought where you and I are concerned.

It's not wishful thinking or self delusion that makes me believe this. It's not an unfounded optimism or groundless hope. It's because once you've caught just a little glimpse of the plan, then you clutch tightly to the One who has the map.

I once heard a famous person say, "I believe in God but it's not like I have a direct line or anything." Well, we've all been offered a direct line, through Jesus, and its up to us to choose if we're going to take it.

So if you're worried about a lack of direction or focus in your life, ask God with humility and He'll show you His plan. Not all of it but a glimpse that will be enough to sustain you through this seemingly random journey that we call Life.

MTN Girls

I am a shade that most Nigerians would call yellow. Though I am as brown as the next African, my Igbo heritage has given me enough orangy yellow tints to be considered 'fair.' I put this word in quotation marks because how any black person like myself can be considered 'fair' is beyond me.

Anyways, I grew up surrounded by the mentality that a yellow shade of brown was better than a tan shade of brown which was in turn better than a dark brown shade of brown. Unluckily for me, I am on the cusp between yellow brown and tan brown and I was surrounded by an extended family who soared into the lighter shades of yellow. They would compare each others complexions with conversations like:

"Gosh you are so yellow!"
"No. You are really yallo!"
"No you."
"No! You."
"You."
"You."

Unfortunately I could not join in with these fun dialogues because it would have gone along the lines of this.

ME: Gosh you are so yellow!
YELLOW RELATIVE: I know.

The strange thing though, is that all this never made me want to become lighter. My complexion has never bothered me. I have never gone out of my way to preserve it or augment it like some of my 'fair' companions often do. There are many face washes, secret recipes and 'creams' that can make you lighter but I have scoffed at them all. Why would you want to regulate the colour of your skin so closely, I thought. Why?

Then a few years ago, someone I had not seen in a long while said something along the lines of, "You used to be so yellow. What happened to you?" There was shock in their voice, disgust that I could let myself go so, in other words, as a result of my complexion darkening, I was somehow worse looking.

The problem is, I took this comment as an insult, which was how it was intended but really, I should have known better. I had grown darker, it was a fact and even though it was meant as an insult, this didn't change the fact that it was only a fact and not an insult.

I know better now, thank God. Being lighter doesn't make you prettier. 'Fairer' skinned girls are only trying to make themselves feel good. Being darker doesn't make you prettier, darker skinned girls are only trying to make themselves feel good. Being pretty, makes you prettier.

And that, whether 'fair' skinned or darker skinned ladies and gentlemen, is the hard and inconvenient truth.

Going Natural And Taking A Thousand Heads With Me

Ever since my eyes were opened to the strangeness of permanently altering your hair with toxic chemicals, I've become a natural hair street preacher of some sorts. Repent, for the death of your follicles is near, is my new waking, sleeping and eating cry.

Not surprisingly, my friends have grown a little irate over my zealousness.

"It's my hair."
"I like it straight."
"Natural hair does not fit everybody."
"It's not that expensive.'
"I'm not trying to be white."
"My hair is too hard to go natural."
"Leave me alone."
"I'm glad to be enslaved by Western ideals of beauty."

Some of these are a few of the retorts that they have thrown in my well meaning face. Recently, these so called friends have left the defense and moved to the offense. Whenever I try to warn them of the dangers of the sodium hydroxide chemical found in relaxer, they assume attack position immediately. First, they start every sentence with "Since you are going natural," then they launch into the demolition.

Since you are going natural:

"Why don't you wash your hair with juices and berries?"
"Why don't you make your coat from ankara?"
"Why are you wearing trainers? Let us buy you leather sandals from the North?."
"Why don't you brush your teeth with chewing stick?"
"Why do you wear a bra?"
"Why do you speak English?"
"Why do you go to school in England? There are good Universities in Nigeria."
"Why do you go to the cinema?"

On and on the barrage continues.

I don't understand the antagonism. It's not that I want them to stop perming their hair. I just want them to start thinking about what they're doing. If you were going to permanently alter your nose, you would think about it. If you were going to permanently alter your mouth, you would think about it, but most people I know don't even think about what they're doing before they permanently straighten their hair with dangerous chemicals.

So you see my dear friends, it's not just that I want to convert you to the 'fro brigade. I just want you to think about the social and cultural reasons that make you feel the need to permanently alter your hair.

There Comes A Time

Back in the day, Panam Percy Paul, or P to the power of 3, (as I sometimes called him in my head) was the stuvs. I danced to his androgynous high pitched voice, I sang to it, I washed plates to it. It''s not surprising that a lot of his lyrics have stuck in my head over the years. A few days ago, I found myself singing this one:

There comes a time in everybody's life,

There comes a time in everybody's life,

When you've got to make up your mind,

When you've got to make a decision,

You've got to choose who you will follow,

You've got to say who you believe in,

This past year, I've spent a lot of time questioning what I believe, weighing it, measuring it, going back on myself, sifting through the minutiae of the doctrines I follow and I'm glad I went through this period. However, as P to the power of 3 crooned, there comes a time that you have to make up your mind. At some point after you've fully confused yourself, and fully unravelled your thoughts and fully tied yourself into knots to untie them again, you have to say this is the way and I will walk in it.

I've chosen now and I'm glad.

I will follow Jesus, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

I couldn't find the video for this song so I put the link to another one of the vintage Panams.

P.S

I don't understand the dancing baby either.

All Is Revealed

My name is Chibundu Onuzo. It's actually Imachibundu but everyone calls me Chibundu. Imachibundu is never used, not even when I am with trouble with my parents.

I'm the youngest of four. My parents are doctors, my oldest sister is a barrister, my oldest and only brother is a financier, my sister is an engineering student and I'm a History student at Kings College London.

I'm a Christian. I believe in God; I believe in John 3:16. I also believe that belief without actions is dead.

I sing. I play the piano. I write a blog in my spare time.

I'm 19 though not for long. A few months ago, the thought that this was my last teenage year filled me with dread. Now, I find it absurd that society has grouped thirteen year olds and nineteen year olds into the same category. I mean really. ;)

My novel, The Spider King's Daughter, is coming out Summer 2011, by God's grace. It will be published by Faber and Faber. I am agented by a very nice lady called Georgina Capel and my wonderful editor is Sarah Savitt.

So there. You now know everything.

Check out my announcement on The Bookseller if you want to.

N.B Photo courtesy Jonathan Ring.

I'm An Aunty :)

An entire person has been added to our family and given us all new titles. My sister is now Mother as well as Barrister. My brother in-law has added Baba T to Pharmacist K. My Doctor parents (the only ones with a real title) can now put grandparents on their CVs; my brother can add Uncle to his resumé but it is my sister and I who are most blessed because we have been bestowed with the most venerable of all appellations: Aunty.

I promise to be a good Aunty and buy T-Baby sweets and give her money to buy sweets and tell her how much she's grown since the last time I saw her, even though 'last time' was only last week. This is all I ever wanted from my Aunties so hopefully T-baby will be as easily pleased.

Congrats to my sister for pushing T-Baby out. Ko easy. Congrats to my brother in-law for surviving the labour ward. Congrats to T-baby for recovering from the trauma of being brutally evicted from her home of 9 months and here's to long life, prosperity and good stories to tell T-Baby when she's a teenager and much embarassed by the fact she was once a baby.

My Cousins in Texas: A Study

My cousins E-girl, E-boy and C-boy have become very American. They are very open with their feelings, they hug a lot and they dispense encouragement and good cheer as freely as a Lagos policeman collects bribes.

E-girl is a little neurotic. She cleans stains as they appear ever on the ready with her anti-bacterial sprays and wet wipes. The middle compartment of her bag is stuffed with medicine from Bonjela to Tylenol to a small resuscitating machine that she has thankfully never had occasion to use. E-girl is also very generous. When shopping with her, quietly sneak off to the till or after the cashier has scanned your goods and just as you are about to pay, she will barge past, push her card into the machine and sign before you get the chance to say Emeka Okeke.

I never really knew E-girl when I was growing up. She was that much taller and that much older than me. It was very nice to re-acquaint myself with this cousin who is now that much smaller and that much shorter than me. I am not surprised that she turned out well, she has good parents, but I'm glad.

Her brothers E-boy and C-boy could not be more different. When he was in Nigeria, E-boy used to be worryingly quiet but thanks to America and her out going ways, he would now be considered demonstrative in many parts of the world.

E-boy was the one who took us shopping and while perambulating through rows and rows of American discount clothing, my sister and I soon discovered that E-boy has an uncanny eye for fashion. We would be trawling through a rack discouraged and dispirited not finding anything but all E-boy had to do was walk past the same rack and he would find at least five fashionable outfits. It's funny because E-boy looks like a man's man's man who wouldn't know nail polish from eye shadow. He is built like an American football player who should be nicknamed The Wall yet he has such a good eye. It's uncanny.

C-boy, I think, is the most like me out of the Texas cousins. He's the last born; I'm the last born. His name starts with C, mine starts with C. He never puts things back where he finds them; I'm starting to learn. As you can see I'm one step ahead.

C-boy used to be very gregarious back in Nigeria. Out of his siblings, he is the only one that America has had a quietening effect on. His explanation for what seems like a sudden change as I haven't seen him in over seven years is that it's cool to be gregarious and loquacious and precocious when you're a teenager but once you hit your mid-twenties and have to become a MAN, then it becomes annoying. Me and E-girl joked that when I reach my early twenties and have to become a WOMAN, then I will suddenly wake up one morning introspective and reserved like C-boy. We'll see about that.

Anyways, I had a great time Texas with all three of them and as they won't accept cash, I wrote this paean to thank them.

I Was Not

I was not born to fulfil some man's fantasy of what the ideal woman should be.

I was not born to help him along to his destiny while mine languishes as I wait for him to glance at me.


I was not born to cook, to clean or wash the dishes.

I was not born to look, to be admired, or to grant him wishes.

I was not born to complete a man.

God made me whole.

I was not born to be thought for by a man.

God gave me a soul.


I was born to reach the destiny that God has set for me.

I was born to be the woman that God created me to be.

My Brother: Ying, Yang and Some Other Stuff

My brother has a thirst for obscure knowledge that is thoroughly unAfrican. He knows why Cleopatra was incestuous, he knows where the dead sea scrolls were found, he knows why 1066 is significant to the English, in short, he loves useless facts.

It's strange because my brother also works in a place where money is mystically doubled and trebled. There, he is all facts and stocks and bonds and APRs and ARMs and LEGs and money lingo. Every time I see him over an extended period of time, I wonder how one so esoteric can be that practical?

Yet, despite my brother's stock of high cultural references and his very pragmatic job, he is also a big fan of video games and fantasy books. Whenever I see him carrying the latest copy of the Dragon Elves series or the newest FIFA soccer, again I wonder how all these people can be the same person.

From a writing perspective, it's useful to have characters like my brother in a book. These kind of characters don't shift the plot or drive you to your conclusion but they make the narrative more interesting. They have Ying Yang layers and oddities that one can slowly unpeel and examine and ask why and come up with concrete reasons or no reason other than just because.

So to add a little flavour to my writing, I reach for the Y.Y.A.S.O.S characters.

Is it just me or is that acronym never going to catch on...

American Diary: The Sheltered Ones

Americans are very well mannered people. I've only been here one week yet the number of times I've heard the phrases - are you ok ma'am, can I help you ma'am, please ma'am, thank you ma'am, what would you like ma'am, yes ma'am, no ma'am - could fill the dialogue in a book. Everywhere I go, the people are nice, they are helpful, they smile and they make conversation with strangers on public transport, something that I find perturbing, fresh from London.

All this politeness got me thinking: why are Americans so nice? What special thing do they have in their water that makes the bon homie switch function in them. Then I realised. They have food, they have water and they have light. It's not only that they have these things, because there is steady electricity in England, its the abundance of it, the readiness, the convenience whose peak is the drive through cash machine.

I don't make light of the suffering that can happen in America, the trauma, the ugly side of first world poverty, but still, I feel it is the blunted edge of suffering, never its full impact. Even the poorest will not starve, the kwashiorked belly of a child will never be seen in the projects and water will always be found for those who are thirsty.

In America, more than any other first world country I can think of, here live the sheltered ones but I, scion of the backward world, bear no resentment. Perhaps something is lost when you live your whole life in a shelter, unaware and removed from the outside, perhaps knowing intimately the details of the shelter and nowhere else is stunting to the soul, perhaps some deep springs of personality are never unlocked because one never sees the need to leave the shelter.

Or perhaps the shelter just makes you polite.

Revival

Revival is something that is high on the prayer requests of most Christians, yet until recently, I had no idea what the word really meant. You see when I thought of revival, I thought of large tents filled with thousands of people and one man on stage, bellowing, "You must be born again!"

Yet, what I've just described is a sign that there might be revival not actually revival itself because without revival, twelve thousand people in a tent, raising their hands to a song, is just a concert and a gathering of twelve million is exactly what it sounds like: a really, really, really big crowd.

The proof of a revival is not in the numbers but in the change. In Nigeria, every Sunday the churches overflow into the streets yet corruption is high, crime is high, illiteracy is high, wickedness and evil are at an all time record. We have the numbers for s revival, just not the results.

So now, when I pray for revival, I pray for one individual:myself. If my relationship with God is renewed, if I'm becoming more like Christ version of Chi***du every day single day, if I am free from the compromises that I so easily make, then in my own little corner I will bring change. One big revival that changes a nation is made up of little revivals that changed their household, their streets, their neighbourhoods.

God is looking for a man.

American Diary Part 1: God Bless America

Last Tuesday was the first time I'd set foot in America in over two years. In this short space,the nine hours it took to cross the Atlantic and reach the prickly heat of Georgia had grown more difficult to fill, especially as I was flying BA.

At the end of the flight I was vaguely irritated: by the men who sat beside me and hurdled over my aisle seat when they needed to pee, by the tasteless chicken tikka masala that came in plastic containers hot enough to burn, by the antiquated BA entertainment system that gave me a choice of only 7 movies and by the men who sat beside me and needed to pee at least five times on that flight.

I knew there would be heavy security when I landed. I had steeled my mind for it but I did not expect 4 security checks, 2 baggage reclaims and one x-ray in which nobody explained that the machine I had just stepped into was an x-ray machine until after I had been zapped or whatever it is that happens when a full body x-ray machine is turned on with a human being inside.

This last really, really, really annoyed me. I was seething from this violation of my fundamental human right to be warned before x-rays are passed through my body. And what was most galling was their politeness. Step this way ma'am, please place your hands like this and before I knew what was happening, the doors shut with me trapped inside a clear plastic box, I heard a sucking sound and the doors were opening and the man in the dark blue uniform was saying, "Please step this way ma'am."

So seething was I, that I did not realise that I could take the transit instead of walking to the second baggage reclaim which was five terminals away. And so I walked, and I was walked I grew angrier, and as I grew angrier, I walked.

Who did these people think they were?

Terminal A.

To X ray me without my permission.

Terminal B.

And display me deshabille on their blue screen.

Terminal C.

And potentially murder some of my cells.

Terminal D.

And

I stopped walking. In front of me was a row of wood and stone sculptures. I moved closer to the first and read, Summer Time and the profile of the African sculptor who had created it. I read the next one and the the next one and the next one.

I have never seen anything like this in Nigeria but here in the middle of Atlanta's International Airport was an exhibition of African art, loving oiled and dusted. I stopped in front of each one and browsed the cards stuck to their bases. Here was a mother and child from Zimbabwe, a family from Cameroon but the one that struck with me most was a giant foot called: "Travelling Family."

From the back all I could see was the sole of a giant foot. I paused in front of this sculpture wondering what statement the artist was trying to make. Was it that travelling families got swollen feet after flying for nine hours? Or in travelling they all moulded together to form that prehistoric unit of travel: the foot.

I rolled my eyes as I walked off... modern art.

Then I saw Travelling Family from the other side. Each of the toes was a head and the heads were so close together that they looked like a sleeping family that took up the whole middle row in Economy.

As I left the exhibition, I was glad I had just spent half an hour getting to the baggage reclaim, I was still angry that I had been xrayed but as I left, I thought, only in an American airport would I have had the privilege to see such an exhibition, only in America.

And so for this, God bless America.

P.S
The picture doesn't do Travelling Family justice but I thought I'd show you anyway.

Sunday Throwback: The Early Days

For as long as I can remember, I have gone to church on Sundays. This roughly adds up to 912 Sundays, 672 of which I spent in a Church called Foursquare.

Back in the day, Foursquare was not a cool church. Cool churches had ACs, cool churches did not stipulate that women cover their hair and most importantly cool churches allowed you to colour with more than one crayon in Sunday school. Many a traumatic Sunday was spent colouring Jonah green, then colouring the whale green, then colouring the sky green, then drawing green tears on my green page.

I don't remember my first 336 Sundays in Foursquare. My memories of this time are blurry. A recurring image is that of many children squashed in a concrete room, chanting Bible verses to a tall thin woman who caned the unfortunates who forgot the words to John 3:16... but perhaps this is just a scene from a recent home video.

I moved to another branch of Foursquare when I turned seven or so, and this was where the memories really began. First of all this branch was cool and dare I say, it was cool not by Foursquare standards but by orthodox thermometer standards. There was Air Conditioning and that was cool (no pun intended), sometimes some daring women dared to wear trousers and only a few eyebrows were raised but most importantly, most, most importantly, in Sunday school there was a huge tin of crayons and if you so pleased, you could use all of them at once... which I did to disastrous effect.

I think it was in this branch of Foursquare that I discovered that you could be your idea of cool and still be a Christian. At seven, uncool was the knobbly berets that the women wore to cover their hair, the talking drums that the instrumentalists used to lead praise and worship (I wanted Kirk Franklin) and the enforced crayon monotony. Cool was my new branch, Air Conditioning, Kirk Franklin, Fanta after Church but we still believed what John 3:16 said; we still agreed Matt. 28:19-20 was necessary.

It was a useful lesson to learn. In important things like the Cross and the Resurrection, Christians should agree. In inessentials (like ACs and after service refreshments) there should be freedom to choose without fear of condemnation. So if you wear hats in your Church, don't judge those who let their hair out and if you sing the latest American gospel music in your place of worship, don't condescend or see as inferior, those who are happy with their traditional beats. As the saying goes, in essentials unity, in inessentials liberty.

It's funny. Now, my favourite album on my ipod is Wazobia African praise and I am beginning to appreciate the fashion merits of a well angled beret so maybe when I relocate to Nigeria, I'll be moving back to my first Foursquare.

As long as they give me more crayons.

The Nickname

"What's your name?"
"Chi***du"
"Sorry I can't pronounce that. Do you have any nicknames?"
"Chikachoo."
"I can't pronounce that either."

I looked at this Chinese girl who had just spurned the only nickname I had ever known. It was bestowed on me one summer holiday, by an English child who lacked the energy and dexterity to pronounce the long name that my parents were shortsighted enough to give me. Clearly, at my naming ceremony, they had forgotten that one day I would come in contact with foreigners who would have trouble pronouncing my three syllabled tongue twister of a name.

"Isn't there anything else I can call you?"

It was my first day of boarding school and I was eager to oblige but short of inventing a new name for myself I did not see what else I could possibly do.

"Tell her to call you Chibs," my oldest sister said from inside the room. She had been to the same school and she knew the drill. Foreign students renamed themselves when they arrived.
"Chibs? Nobody calls me that."
"Chibs is better than Chikachoo. Do you want to be called Chikachoo for the rest of your four years here."
"Yeah," the Chinese girl snorted from the doorway. "Chikachoo sounds like Pikachu."

We all laughed.

What was I thinking. Chikachoo did sound like Pikachu.

"Yeah, you can call me Chibs."
The girl remained in the doorway watching me unpack. She had been assigned to make me feel at home and this duty included watching me unpack though I had also brought my sister and my mother to do the same thing.

"So what's your name?" I said, standing my now empty box.

"Yao Min Xian Ho Min Tse Yung."

I later learnt how to call her properly but that first day, that was what her name sounded like.

"But everyone calls me Charlie."
I raised an eyebrow. "Charlie?"
How did one get to Charlie from Yao Min Xian Ho Min Tse Yung.
"Yeah Charlie."
I didn't ask.

As I arranged my things on my sink, I was suddenly glad that Chibs at least resembled the original.

Charlie and I became good friends but she never called me Chi***du and I never called her Yao Min. I wonder if we would have been different people if we'd used our real names.

On The Way: God is Not a Prude

Christians seem to shy away from all things sensual. The topic of sex is robed with synonyms like intercouse and 'cleaved to' until the very physical nature of the act is lost amidst all the frills and archaic King James language.

I don't know why the embarassment. God is not embarassed by sex. In fact He talks about sex a lot because sex, quite frankly, is a good metaphor for loads of stuff. Let me give an example.

In Ezekiel, God tells a story of how He tended Israel until she was old enough for love and then He entered into a covenant with her.

Ezekiel 16:7-8 (AMP)
⁷ I caused you [Israel] to multiply as the bud which grows in the field, and you increased and became tall and you came to full maidenhood and beauty; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.
⁸ Now I passed by you again and looked upon you; behold, you were maturing and at the time for love, and I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I plighted My troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became Mine.

But then Israel starts doing wayo.

Ezekiel 16:17 (AMP)
¹⁷ You did also take your fair jewels and beautiful vessels of My gold and My silver which I had given you and made for yourself images of men, and you played the harlot with them;

Adultery is grounds for divorce but in this case as always, God was merciful. Read Ezekiel if you're interested.

In conclusion, God is not a prude but God is holy and so you don't have to be a prude to be holy.