I decided to take a break from that stressful experience by mailing off some financial stuff. As i'm walking i see a group of four girls. Then i hear one of them shout out "Bawoni?"(How's it going) and without even thinking about it i answer "Dada, Adupe"(God, we give thanks). Of course she wasn't talking to me so all 6 of us are surprised. They were probably thinking who is she. And i was thinking, i can't believe there's a group of people under age 25 speaking Yoruba. I've never heard it spoken at school before. it shocked me. So i tried to join in their conversation. i quickly discovered they were hard cores. They kinda dissed me cuz they were like you speak well for an American. So i invited them to bible study. I'm like if you come we'll sing a yoruba praise song. And one of them is like "you can't sing." In response i start singing Ose o Jesu (common song- thank you Jesus) and she's like, not bad.
As i stood i felt extremely strange. I had this awful rerealization that i'm not American and i'm not really Yoruba. I'm somewhere undefined floating between them. And that was hard. Cuz sometimes i'll be happy that i'm not completely American, that i have roots elsewhere also. And i've always dreamed about going back to Nigeria. But standing there i just understood how hard it'll be to adjust, and how much of the language and culture i have yet to learn. All i can say is it was simultaneously disorientating and exciting.
Love and i went to go eat. She had to pay for me cuz all i had was a nickel. We sat outside of Domino's on white plastic chairs, sipping tap water from Subway. We got to talking about our faith, our culture, future husbands etc. But then these nice cars started pulling up to the parking lot. We were astounded that the employees of Domino's had these nice cars. So we started to question them. "Marco how did you get this car working for them?" He replies "oh, i have connections and another job". But we really interrogated the employees as they came in and out. We just sat there for 3 hours talking and laughing. When we went our seperate ways i felt giddy. High on joy. All day i was happy. I talked to everyone on the bus. My 10 min. walk from the bus stop took an hour cuz i stopped and talked to almost everyone i saw. even the 1 year old baby.
Of course one person i talked to was a guy. Since i was feeling so happy i gave him my phone number. but i warned him. I go if you call me we're going to talk about two things. God and church. He's like alright. we'll see what happens. none of the guys i've told that to have ever called. Well maybe they called but they talked to my dad first and never made it to me. i'll never know.