Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: I Do Not Come to You by Chance
This book, the first novel from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, is hilarious, with moments of pathos, and a fresh point of view.
Amazon.com recommended it to me as I was busy buying books by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; I thought ‘OK, I’ll read a series of Nigerian books as part of my summer reading.
Young Kingsley Ibe is the family’s first born male, and with that status goes many privileges – and responsibilities. After graduating with a Masters in Chemical Engineering, he has no success in his search for a job with an oil company in Nigeria, and consequently loses the love of his life, Ola, to another who has secure employment.
Worse, his retired father has a stroke, and the family discovers that with all the fees required, they haven’t enough for his continued care, so Kingsley must approach his uncle, Boniface Mbamalu, more familiarly known as Cash Daddy, for funds to transfer his father to a long term care facility, and, later, for his father’s funeral.
Serious Kingsley’s eyes nearly pop as he sees the life his uncle is living, cars, women, designer watches, shoes, suits and all the trappings of new wealth. Soon, his uncle makes a convincing case for Kingsley coming to work for him, the better to help out his family of mother, brothers and sister, now that he is the senior male in the family.
Kingsley discovers he has a gift for the work – which is writing 419s, those scam letters which I frequently publish in this column. I loved being on the inside, learning how strong possibility e-mail addresses are netted, how response e-mails are massaged – not unlike fund raising techniques by charitable organizations in the US. Kingsley’s education helps him achieve enormous financial success in a very short time – but he finds that all the cash and designer goods in the word do not solve his problems nor make him happy.
I learned a lot about how successful many of these scammers are, and how the money made is spread throughout the Nigerian communities. The author takes a balanced view, balancing the way the cash makes life easier for people – a lot of people, because the rich man has many obligations to his community, balanced against the disgust, and sick fear felt by his religious mother and aunt, and his one time girlfriend, when they learn the work he is doing. They are disappointed that a man of such promise has sunk to making so much money in a dishonest way. The book also does not deal sympathetically with those who have given or lost money to the scammers, nor, in my opinion, does the ending satisfy.
This is one of the funniest parts of the book – a group of Nigerian scammers is about to meet with a representative of a major US investment firm. He thinks he will be meeting with the Nigerian Minister of Transportation to discuss building a new airport; the reality is that Cash Daddy, in disguise, will be pretending to be the minister. Kingsley protests that Cash Daddy looks nothing like the minister, and Cash Daddy responds:
“Let me tell you something . . . Me, I really like these oyibo people. They’re very very nice people. See how they came and showed us that the ground where we’ve been dancing Atilogwu has crude oil under it. If not for them, we might never have found out. But Kings,” he dragged in his dangling foot and sat up in the tub, “white man doesn’t understand black man’s face. Do you know tht I can give you my passport to travel with . . . Even if your nose is ten times bigger than my own, they won’t even notice?”
It was a fascinating book. I understand better now why 419 scams work. (419 is the section of the Nigerian criminal code making scam e-mails a crime; thus the crime is called ‘a 419’) There are some very funny and very insightful moments in the book. It is no where near the level of literature that you experience with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but there is more humor, and the book shows a more modern day Nigeria. Not a bad summer read, but not great literature.
Did you Tell Him We’re Going Dancing?
I was laughing as I heard AdventureMan talking with his Saudi friend, making a time when they could get together. I knew he had called about tonight.
“Did you tell him we were going dancing?” I laughed as I asked him.
“Uhhh . . . no,” he said.
This is new to us. We are taking dancing lessons, ballroom dancing, at the YMCA. We both had those lessons you take in eighth grade, but we’ve forgotten most of what we learned. I don’t care about going dancing, or fancy dresses, or competitions. I don’t even watch dance stuff on TV; I just don’t care that much. These classes are something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it really takes us out of our comfort zones.
We really are having fun. The first lesson – not so much. It is hard work! It doesn’t come naturally, it comes with PRACTICE! Lots of PRACTICE! It’s like fencing lessons, or horseback riding, or karate, or gymnastics – After a while, your body knows what to do, but at the beginning, it can be a little excruciating. As for AdventureMan and I, we mess up a lot, but we laugh a lot too. We are getting better, but best of all we are having a lot of fun. These kinds of things rewire your brains; it may not be easy, but it is good for us.
And I am still laughing, thinking of AdventureMan not telling his friend that he was going dancing with his wife, LOL!
The Minority Prayer
I listen to National Public Radio in my car and in my project room. I finally figured out how to stream WUWF, my local station. Until today, unless I wanted to use my wind-up radio, I had to stream KUOW in Seattle, or NPR which I like because it has so much BBC.
I am really delighted to figure out how to stream WUWF, because it has a lot of local news and events I might miss streaming one of the other stations, and I also like hearing who the sponsors are, so I can tell them how much I enjoy National Public Radio.
So today I am listening to Talk of the Nations, a segment on Pakistani-Americans, and this particularly articulate young lawyer mentions ‘the Minority Prayer.
Do you know what that is? I didn’t. But I laughed when he explained it, because we have prayed it so often living overseas . . .
He was talking about when attending a Muslim-American Lawyers National meeting, and how the buzz spread that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, and how they all sent up a quick minority prayer – “Please, Lord, don’t let it be Pakistan where he was found” – and of course, it was Pakistan. He was very wry, and I enjoyed listening to what he had to say. At the same time, I was grinning. I cannot count the number of times we have heard rumors – in Germany, in Kuwait, in Qatar, in Tunisia, in Jordan – and prayed . . . “Please Lord, don’t let it be the USA who did this . . . ”
It’s very much an expat’s prayer.
If you want to listen to the interview yourself, you can find it here.
Scamese
This was in my newest New Yorker magazine, originally given me by Little Diamond, now I can’t live without my subscription. 🙂 There is the kind of news you get on television, like what they have pictures of, maybe not the most important stuff but visual. Then there is National Public Radio news, and the New York Times, and The New Yorker. The New Yorker also has some of the greatest, funniest covers ever, and great cartoons. This one, as you might imagine, is near and dear to my heart:
The Royal Wedding
Where do you find these things??? I laughed myself silly! Thanks you, Hayfa!
Irish Jokes for St. Patrick’s Day
IRISH HUMOR
Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting
and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, ‘Lord take pity
on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the
rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!’
Miraculously, a parking place appeared.
Paddy looked up again and said, ‘Never mind, I found one.’
++++++
Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and asks the first man he meets, ‘Do
you want to go to heaven?’
The man said, ‘I do, Father.’
The priest said, ‘Then stand over there against the wall.’
Then the priest asked the second man, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’ ‘Certainly,
Father,’ the man replied.
‘Then stand over there against the wall,’ said the priest.
Then Father Murphy walked up to O’Toole and asked, ‘Do you want to go to
heaven?’
O’Toole said, ‘No, I don’t Father.’
The priest said, ‘I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die
you don’t want to go to heaven?’
O’Toole said, ‘Oh, when I die , yes. I thought you were getting a group together
to go right now.’
++++++
Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the
obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney.
‘Did you see the paper?’ asked Gallagher. ‘They say I died!!’
Yes, I saw it!’ replied Finney. ‘Where are ye callin’ from?’
+++++++
An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in
Connecticut . The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest’s breath and then
sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.
He says, ‘Sir, have you been drinking?’
‘Just water,’ says the priest.
The trooper says, ‘Then why do I smell wine?’
The priest looks at the bottle and says, ‘Good Lord! He’s done it again!’
+++++++++
Patton staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy,
Paddy. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Kathleen.
He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs
bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step. As he caught himself by grabbing the
banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey
bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.
Managing not to yell, Patton sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the
hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to
quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he
could on each place he saw blood.
He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way
to bed.
In the morning, Patton woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and
Kathleen staring at him from across the room.
She said, ‘You were drunk again last night weren’t you?’
Patton said, ‘Why you say such a mean thing?’
‘Well,’ Kathleen said, ‘it could be the open front door, it could be the broken
glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing
through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly ……. it’s all
those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.
A Very Dark Joke; not for the squeamish
Thank you, KitKat, for this very dark Alaska joke:
Tale form Alaska (where life is tough & humor is dark )
The day after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident, an Anchorage man
answered his door to find two grim-faced Alaska State Troopers…”We’re
sorry Mr. Wilkens, but we have some information about your wife,” said one
trooper. “Tell me! Did you find her?” Wilkens shouted.
The troopers looked at each other. One said, “We have some bad news, some
good news, & some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?”
Fearing the worst, an ashen Mr. Wilkens said, “Give me the bad news first.”
The trooper said, “I’m sorry to tell you, sir, but this morning we found
your wife’s body in Kachemak Bay .”
“Oh no!” exclaimed Wilkens. Swallowing hard, he asked, “What’s the good
news?”
The trooper continued, “When we pulled her up, she had a dozen 25 pound
king crabs & 6 good-size Dungeness crabs clinging to her, & we feel you are
entitled to a share in the catch.”
Stunned, Mr. Wilkens demanded, “If that’s the good news, what’s the great news?” The trooper said, “We’re going to pull her up again tomorrow.”
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