Yankee Diaries: My Sister. And then My Brother.

Me, my Brother and my Sister

Nothing ever prepares you for the first time you travel to America; not the movies you watched or the tales from well-traveled friends and relatives, not even your travels to other countries. There is just something about the first time to Yankee.

I didn’t know what to expect, and frankly, I hadn’t been thinking about it too much. So much else was going on in my life that I was just hoping the devil won’t succeed in giving me something to distract me on my travel date and make me miss my flight. It was already bad enough that I had spent so much on a ticket…I wasn’t about to miss the flight. Now that I think of it, is there a right thinking Nigerian who decides to go to yankee for the first time ever, during winter? When it’s not like the person is running away from some kind of catastrophic debt or village curse. Oh well, I guess this decision puts paid on all the times my best friend, Eromo, said “Tobe, you are not well sha”.

Two days to travel time, I got wind of the Naira Card restriction and being a sharp babe, I made plan B. Truth be told, I had been procrastinating moving the funds for this trip to my expense account so I was grateful to have to create a plan B that involved my sister doing the bank runaround while I chilled. 

Fast forward to travel day. My sister and I decided to brave Lagos traffic to visit with my cousins. It was a long overdue visit and it was much needed ‘family jonzing’ therapy but damn, was the timing awful. We got carried away and got stuck in manic traffic to make it back home in time. 

My sister has a Yoruba surname (please don’t humor me by not figuring out that she married into a Yoruba family) and I was aware she had become impressive with the language. But I had never seen or imagined that she could spew so many tightly woven Yoruba curse words, mixed with a plethora of Igbo ones I had gotten accustomed to from my time living in Enugu. Even more astonishing was how she managed to throw them all, bully other road users (despite the fact that we were two small framed women in an SUV) and still maneuver the car through tight spots and hair’s breath moments. Looking back, she should have been cast in the fast and furious franchise. At that moment though, I was torn between begging for a saner chauffer or just swallowing saliva and hoping for the best…I held on to my seat belt and turned up the volume on Adele’s album.

We made it home in time for a shower, last minute packing, several snaps and ‘here-is-a-big-hug-in-case-I-do-not-see-you-for-a-few-years’ moments with my brothers and sister. Heaven smiled on us and the traffic to the airport wasn’t as bad as we expected. But my sister, with all the love she has for me in her heart, really just wanted to get me checked-in quick enough so she could make it to the Mavin Concert with her husband. So, while we were in traffic and she had her only precious sister on board her car, she proceeded to fill in and highlight her brows, apply base and eye-shadow and lipstick. And then she put the icing on the cake by setting in very nicely winged eye liner…all the while, randomly gisting and telling stories to keep the conversation going. I was just there, praying different prayers…”Please Lord, let LASTMA not catch us”; “Lord, clear the road of drivers that notice other drivers’ misdemeanors”; “Lord, let this traffic be slow enough for her to do this make up without wahala”; “Lord please bring the airport entrance closer to us, I need to get out of this car soon”. 

90 minutes and several bag reshuffles later, my sister was on her way to her concert and I was crossing over to the boarding gates. 

That’s when I saw him…a delicious yummy looking chocolate tower of a man with a face that made me think of perfectly sculpted pottery. I gulped. I smiled. Our eyes met. I smiled. He smiled. I paused to catch my breath and flip my hair. Then I remembered I had not had the time to wear make up and I still had my head wrap on. Damn. I should have taken a cue from my sister and made do with a mobile makeup session. Just as I was going to find my ‘I-am-still-fine-with-no-makeup’ confidence and look back at the handsome hotness and try to let him see the beauty in my soul, beyond my acne beaten face and awkward head wrap, I heard my elder brother from behind me say “Tobe move na. You no wan travel again”.

Mchew. How does one find airport romance with an older brother standing by you?