Expat Americanus | Life in Africa

Father, the very god of my world,
And I the apple of his eye,
Until replaced by birth of twins,
A daughter and son,
The former superfluous,
Our mother’s work was done.

His sun in ascendancy would reign supreme,
Through no consequence of action other than being born.
Father tried to teach him to disparage and rule,
Even the woman from who’s loins he emerged.
And I, his senior, of stronger will and audacity,
Must to his every need, subjugate my destiny,
A consequence of my sexes’ diminishment.

In Yoruba land, where fallen from grace,
I, a child of Islam, grasped the reality of
An American desperate to reclaim
That which was despoiled by the slavery.
His stridency had found its’ pitch,
As with most converts, his fervency roiled
And morphed into an orthodoxy more stringent
Than the indigenous African Mohammedans.

Now properly illuminated, he shone forth,
Into the world a vision of perfected reverence,
Achieved through the obfuscated violence that,
Often echoed through our home’s halls and walls.
Heard by all, none bothered; it was a
Private family matter, that he meted out the
Lashings and beatings Sharia accorded him.

I was but ten, and not yet acquainted
With monthly blood and issuance,
When a sexagenarian approached my uncle,
Not my uncle, but another expatriate,
Who came to the Continent,
To get down with “The People”!

Negotiations began, while I stood there,
My mother previously engaged, with horror
Turned to apprise a transaction nearly complete.
She tried to intervene, only to be violently rebuffed.
Twelve cows were struck upon as a worthy sum.

Already with wives, and children, this sexagenarian
Thought, I, a child from America, a fine
Prize, and perhaps even good breeding stock.
My uncle with knowledge and foresight,
Knew my father’s desires, and though couched
In jest, it was presumed that I would best be broken
In a marriage bed.

My father later laughed and claimed,
To have only considered the offer so as not to offend.
But my mother knew what was destined,
And tried her best to protect her daughters,
From fate to which she had befallen.
She determined that we would not perish
Meekly nor in excruciating silence.

From that day until six years later,
My mother braved a chance to escape the land.
As my father’s religious desires satiated,
Went on a quest for the perfect society,
Which he found in a Socialist East African nation.

Here he became drunk on despotic power,
Imposed no limits on his anger or violence.
We had in truth, become surrogates,
Reminders of Mississippi burnings,
And other Segregationist injustices.
He wielded insanity against his flesh,
And had in hubris thought us forever his
Captives.

He let us slip from him one day,
With money meticulously saved.
The main currency of sway, it was enough to tempt
A Muslim man to depart from the brotherhood.
Mother purchased at risk to life and limb
Passage for her and her children to London.

He arrived moments too late,
Plane pushed back from gate,
Engines idling hot on Tanzanian tarmac,
It seemed like eternity as he argued with customs.
He raged at a system thought impervious,
His humiliation further exacerbated because,
He was outwitted by a woman.

In shame, he departed Dar es Salaam,
Fled into the Continent’s interior, then down
South to the cradle of man. Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
There he took possession of something he could
Without protest, completely bend to his will.
From farmland in Mississippi, to acres of fecund soil
Ceded to him by his compatriot Mugabe,
He successfully wrestled with mother earth,
Each season coaxing from her girth,
Envious yields of abundance.

He had found a place in the world.
He had become the prototypical African.
Less strident with the years, he reached
An accord with Islam, his life, and the
Repercussions of his choices, wherein
He lost the prized son, because he could not
Value the moon and diamonds in his midst.

This is the nature of life.
A series of choices that reflect the circumstances of the
Times we inhabit at that moment, no future, no past.
Perfectly logical when we make them, I am no different.
He had his issues, as I child, I knew not his drivers.
Now as a chronicler, I know there are as many
Perspectives as participants in any given dynamic.

Now his girl child is parent, and she too suffers
The predicaments of myopia born of present choices.
My father changed our paradigm, reestablished our line,
Rebirthed his lineage, though violently, in Africa.
Always the adventurer, I too have embarked upon the quest,
To heal the fissures of the past. To establish and pass on
What I hope will be of seminal value to the generation
Who has sprung from my loins.

One might see the similarities,
Since I became rooted in another Abrahamic religion.
My journey to reclamation led me to Orthodox Judaism,
And my son too young to protest is in accompaniment.
Will he one day think the same of me, as I once did of my dad?
Will he resent or celebrate choices I have made on his behalf?
Only time will answer these questions,
And from his perspective.