{"id":861,"date":"2015-12-01T13:34:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T13:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=861"},"modified":"2015-12-01T16:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T16:45:09","slug":"made-in-nigeria-born-in-america-raised-in-kuwait-citizen-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2015\/12\/made-in-nigeria-born-in-america-raised-in-kuwait-citizen-of-the-world","title":{"rendered":"Made in Nigeria, Born in America, Raised in Kuwait, Citizen of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Enyinne Owunwanne<\/b><\/p>\n

Ask me to recite the alphabet backwards, and I won\u2019t skip a beat.\u00a0 However, ask me where I\u2019m from and I\u2019ll mince my words faster than any Iron Chef minces carrots.<\/p>\n

I was made in Nigeria, born in America, and raised in Kuwait until the first Persian Gulf War. Since then, I\u2019ve lived, studied, and worked in the US, Paris, Hong Kong, Swaziland, and now Nigeria.\u00a0 I like to think of myself as a Citizen of the World. Or as Buhari would say, \u201cI belong to everybody and I belong to nobody\u201d.\u00a0 Yet, after close to one year of living and working in Nigeria for the very first time in my life – throughout the good, the bad, and the ugly – I can truly say that it finally feels good to be home.<\/p>\n

\"Pic<\/a><\/p>\n

Now with that said, don\u2019t get me wrong, there was absolutely nothing that could prepare me for the \u201cVIM!<\/i><\/b>\u201d<\/i><\/b> I experience as I navigate my way through our beloved country. Absolutely nothing!<\/p>\n

Countless conversations with predecessor returnees before taking the plunge to relocate? Nope, not that.\u00a0 Euphoric, and sometimes not-so-euphoric, stories that my parents would fondly relay to my siblings and I as we were growing up? Nope, not that either. Studying Igbo for 4 semesters while attending the University of Pennsylvania for my first degree? Mbanu! Even summers spent between Port Harcourt and my parents\u2019 village as a child, and frequent jaunts to Lagos for business and leisure as an adult, could not prepare me for one of the most important moves of my life.<\/p>\n

\"Pic<\/p>\n

After accepting my job offer to join Avon HMO, I carefully picked out gifts for everyone whom I Interviewed with as a small token of my appreciation to say thank you for your time and for your support.\u00a0 I was later told this was perceived as an act of bribery.\u00a0 Ah ah!\u00a0 Who would have thought?!\u00a0 Once I touched down in Lagos, I began my apartment search.\u00a0 I\u2019ve enjoyed the freedom of living in my own home for more than the past decade and I was certainly looking forward to doing the same here in Lagos.\u00a0 I was soon, however, introduced to the term \u2018spinster\u2019, by real estate agents who not-so-surreptitiously mistook my independence, for a woman who enjoys illicit behaviours. Kai! I no sabi that one.\u00a0 Most recently, I\u2019ve started driving myself around Lagos.\u00a0 At first, I would wind down my window and stick out my arm to courteously indicate that I would like to switch lanes.\u00a0 After nearly becoming an amputee, I quickly realized that good ole suburban manners don\u2019t apply to these streets.\u00a0 Ah well, you win some, you lose some!<\/p>\n

\"Pic<\/p>\n

Amidst the commonalities and differences that I\u2019ve experienced here thus far, one thing remains glaringly evident – Nigeria is undoubtedly \u201cGod\u2019s Own Country\u201d.\u00a0 There\u2019s an interesting sense of irony that keeps our nation in flux.\u00a0 Nothing works here. Yet somehow, everything still works.\u00a0 Most people have just cause to be irritated well before hitting the snooze button, yet we, as Nigerians, are amongst the happiest people in the world [hyperlink to article].\u00a0 We are a boisterous people, to say the least.\u00a0 And it\u2019s that contagious sense of vigour, one that I\u2019m yet to experience with such magnitude anywhere else in the world, that keeps me clamouring for more VIM!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Enyinne Owunwanne Ask me to recite the alphabet backwards, and I won\u2019t skip a beat.\u00a0 However, ask me where I\u2019m from and I\u2019ll mince my words faster than any Iron Chef minces carrots. I was made in Nigeria, born in America, and raised in Kuwait until the first Persian Gulf War. Since then, I\u2019ve lived, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}