Edafe Okporo - Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto

Asylum

A Memoir & Manifesto

Edafe Okporo

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

To the women in my life: my mother, Mrs. Igho Akanusi; my grandmother, Mrs. Alice Akanusi; and my aunt, Mrs. Grace Erhimona.

Thank you for raising me.

M arket day, as its popularly known, happened once a year in my part of Nigeria.

Market day had been a tradition long before the invention of paper currency. My parents told me that trade by bartering was the only form of exchange. Most families in Southern Nigeria had a small farm where they grew fruits and vegetables to sustain their families. The small farm in their backyard sometimes sustained themotherwise, families would have to manage their harvests and bring them to the market to barter for the food and wares they could not grow or make themselves.

On market day, there would be a mixture of regular local market shops and farmers with rice or cassava, who would exchange with fishermen or livestock farmers. Palm oil producers could exchange with those who had yams. Women might trade clothes and clay pots for food. Many did not have shops or storefronts, but instead sold their produce on the floor, which they covered with a cloth sack, or from plates balanced atop their heads.

If you had woken up next to me as a child on market day, you would have been annoyed by my excitement. I always looked forward to going with my mother to the popular Igbudu Market. The sights and sounds were like stepping into an amusement park. Though usually market day was not meant for boys to attendin Warri, where I was raised, mostly mothers and their young girls would go. The boys had no patience for their mothers, going over each items price, hopping from shop to shop, sharing in conversation with the other women at days end. For Warri boys, going to the market meant acting like a womanthey would brag about refusing to help their mothers. But not meI was the only child living in my parents home at the time, so my mother always took me to the market with her, which I secretly delighted in.

Spring ushers in the rainy season to Warri, bringing with it looming clouds and almost daily precipitation that turned the sand beneath our feet mushy and claylike. Nevertheless, this was my favorite time of year, for it meant the beginning of crab season. I loved to watch the live crabs in their baskets as the traders tried to tame and settle them. But this season also meant my mum would get us some crab at the market for stew.

We would walk around the market for about three hours on a good day, and when my mother was in her element, we spent the whole day in the market picking up raw foods or new clothes. When we were done shopping, I could see her face grow tired and weary, but she would always flash me a smile, as if to say its okay. The bounty was typically too much for my mother to carry, and I was still a small child then. Though boys wouldnt go to the market with their own mothers, some of the older ones would linger on the outskirts, trying to make a hustle by helping the women carry their goods to a taxi for a small reward.

I remember one day, after we had spent hours going line by line picking items, my mother said it was time to go home to prepare the crab stew before my dad got too hungry. We waited for the boys to come pick up our goods and bring them to the taxi line. Two bald boys with muscular chests, one shirtless and the other in a wifebeater, approached us with sun-slick foreheads, sweat mingling with the foul stench of labor. When they got to us, they began arguing about who would help us in order to secure a tip. Quickly, they turned aggressive, beginning to push each other, and I could feel the muddy floor beneath us thumping. Despite their fighting, no one tried to break them upthis was quite normal, apparently, to everyone except me.

One of them shouted at the other, You know me? I be Jaguda! in pidgin English. He smacked his chest, and it sounded like a clap of thunder striking his torso. Im a troublemaker, he stressed.

They held each other tightly as they struggled, sweat dripping around them into the mud. I found myself sweating suddenly too, from unease. What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to get involved? Protect my small mother? Instead, I crumpled to the floor of the market and shielded myself from them. I felt my mothers sweeping, printed dress glide down next to me as she took me between her legs, held me safe and close. She tapped my head slowly, hoping to calm me.

It is okay, my son, she said. This is how Warri boys are supposed to behave.

Their fight was triggering, but my mothers acceptance of it was even more troubling. In my mothers soothing, I found calm and terror at the same time. This was just one of many times I found myself stuck in the parade of masculinity and intimidation that was so common for Warri boys, but that I could not bring myself to be a part of. Beyond this market, my inability to act like a real Warri boy would become a constant struggle. Over the years, it would lead to disapproval from my family, my close friends, and the community in which I was raised. At times, I would find it not only difficult, but life-threatening. I would be mocked for carrying unisex bags to class. I would be ostracized by my father and other men in Warri, and at school. Ultimately, I would be attacked by a violent mobnot just for being an untrue Warri boy, but for being a gay man.

This battle with masculinitywith accepting myself and who I amwould eventually lead me to flee the only home and family I had ever known and ever loved. But what waited for me on the other side were challenges I could have never imaginedalong with the promise of freedom.

W hen I was nine years old, my teacher asked me to join the debate team. Why me? I asked. I knew being the only boy on our classs debate team would put a target on my backthat it would only uphold my classmates belief that I was too feminine. So I continued to refuse my teachers proposition to join, while my teacher continued to enumerate reasons why I should: Edafe, you argue with your classmates all the time. She saw in me, early on, a quality I would not come to recognize in myself for many years: a conviction in my beliefs.

My closest friend in primary school was a girl named Gloriawe sat close to each other in class and tried to answer most of our teachers questions. Gloria and Edafe, our teacher sometimes remarked when surveying the room, this question is not for you.

Gloria and I would walk home from school together, along with my elder sister Anita. My mum and dad sometimes sat in front of our veranda when Gloria and I passed by. Once, my mum pronounced to us, Edafe, Gloria will be a good wife for you! while I tried to hide the embarrassment coloring my face.

My father, on the other hand, is what you might consider a traditionalist. He believed that men were the heads of households, and he viewed marriage as an arrangement between parents for the children rather than something you did for love. He never understood why I was so close to Gloria; instead, he suggested I should concentrate on my education and spend time with the boys at school. Yet Gloria and some of the other girls in my class were the only people I could relate to. And Gloria was the only one of my friends who had the courage to stand up to our classmates when they would call me a mamas boy or when the other boys accused me of behaving like a woman. In Nigeria, gender stereotypes and roles were strongly adhered toa boy who was close to girls in the classroom and spent a lot of time with his mother was an atypical picture of masculinity. I wasnt brave enough to tell my dad or anyone else that I was being bullied by the boys in my class. I worried he would only see this as a weakness, a flawthat I wouldnt grow up to be a true African man who could accept responsibilities and care for his family.