Our Children are growing --- away from our culture

Our Children are growing…away from our Culture
In the last two weeks, I’ve taken my kids to two marriages, one a church wedding and the other a traditional Igbo (African) marriage. I’ll return to this to dwell on how these two marriages present two different faces of culture that govern the lives of Africans in the Diaspora, such as me.
Two things happened this past Saturday, June 5, to warrant that I reflect on how our children are growing up, away from our culture, the Igbo culture. Please, note that I, deliberately, did not make reference to Africa’s culture, for Africa, even Nigeria, is a multicultural society. First, Uche, my five-year-old son, looked for every excuses to avoid wearing the traditional Igbo “jumper” shirt, as we prepared to attend a traditional marriage ceremony of a family friend’s daughter, in Bellmawr New Jersey. Penultimate Saturday, when we attended the church wedding in Philadelphia, PA of what is now Mr. & Mrs. Okechukwu Onyeizu, Uche and I wore ‘jumper” shirts. At that time, Uche did not complain and seemed to like it. Ordinarily, traditional Igbo attire would not be the most appropriate dressing for a church wedding but neither Uche nor I had any official role in the wedding. So, we chose to appear Igbo.
Yesterday, however, the event at hand is a traditional Igbo marriage, something rare to find on the shores of the United States. So, I put my feet down that Uche must put on Igbo attire, just like me. We did not only have to appear in traditional Igbo attire, it has to be Isi Agu, one that has the tiger’s head inscribed on it. I was to add a black cap to match. Interestingly, Uche liked my cap and pestered me to let him put it on. At some point I let him, temporarily. If I was a title holder in Igbo land, I’d be wearing a red cap on my Isi Agu outfit.
At a time that I had felt relieved that Uche was comfortable in his traditional Igbo attire, Nnenna, my seven-year-old daughter, made a statement that got me back worrying if I had Igbo kids with me or just typical American children. She called a monster what every seven-year-old traditional Igbo girl would readily tell you is a masquerade. Whether it is here or in the motherland, hardly is any Igbo ceremony concluded without a traditional Igbo dance. Yesterday’s traditional marriage ceremony for Chizorom Eke-Okoro and Uzoma Ebisike was not different. The organizers hired the Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble, which provided a spectacular entertainment extravaganza at the occasion; something that sent me back to Igbo land, emotionally. In many cases, an Igbo dance ensemble, just as the one in reference, would have a masked dancer, often referred to as a masquerade. In Igbo land, masquerades have their own myths associated with them. That, of course, is outside the scope of this article. But to call a masquerade a monster is almost a sacrilege. So, when Nnenna called the masquerade a monster, it presented a teachable moment for me and I went to work, right away. I can tell you, though, that it wasn’t that easy to get her out of her perception of what, in some Igbo communities, is considered sacred and revered. But isn’t she growing up in a different culture, away from ours? The whole thing reminded me of the attitude and perception of early European colonialists to whatever was African, something they didn’t even understand in the first place.
It is interesting that there is a lot about the two marital unions being discussed here that leaves some hope that Igbo culture is not about to go into extinction, even in America. The parties involved, like many other Igbo in America, heeded the Biblical injunction that people should marry from their culture, not out of ethnocentrism or any racial prejudice but to preserve what is left of their culture. All four people were born in Igbo land and three out of the four grew up in America. Eleven years ago when I met and became friends with Rev. (Dr.) Sunday Eke-Okoro and his family, Chizorom (the bride in yesterday’s traditional marriage) was just an 11-year-old girl. I believe that it is in the interest of Igbo culture that she chose to marry an Igbo man (Uzoma Ebisike) and that the family decided to give us a wonderful Igbo traditional marriage ceremony, with all the rites observed. No Igbo marriage is ever complete and legitimate without a traditional marriage ceremony. So, court or church marriage is not enough for the Igbo. The traditional ceremony is the one that gives the community a chance to have a say in and offer their blessing to the marriage. In fact, there are people who will argue that any Igbo traditional marriage done in the United States or anywhere outside Igbo land may still suffer a crisis of legitimacy.

Uche, my son, now plays Tee Ball

Right: YMCA Coach teaches Uche how to hit.

Uche, hitting the ball off a batting tee set on home plate. YMCA coach demonstrates proper positioning before hitting the ball. Right, Uche takes a break from it all, bat in hand.

“Specifically, the document established that wide disparities in enrolment still exist. It stated that in Early Childhood Care and Development Centres (ECCDE) only two million children find their way there, with a whooping 20 million others in the lurch. Under primary education, the document noted that while 24 million children were already enrolled, 11 million others were not. In junior secondary schools, six million children were still roaming the streets while only three million are in school. Under the Nomadic Education Scheme, according to the document, over three million nomadic children are still out of school.”

- Excerpts from a report by The Guardian (of Nigeria) published in its online edition of April 25, 2009. The report was based on a 150-page document, released by Dr. Sam Egwu, Nigeria’s Minister (secretary) of Education, on what he called the Road Map for Education for 2011.

Uche, my son, now plays T-Ball
By Azubike Aliche

The last time, on March 3, 2009, that I wrote about Uche, my four-year-old son, he was playing soccer. Today, he plays T-Ball. T-ball is the kids’ equivalent of baseball. More appropriately, for kids, it’s a get way to baseball for boys and softball for girls. It’s like base ball but without a pitcher. T-ball is meant to imbue kids with such baseball skills as hitting, running, fielding and throwing. Part of what kids do in T-Ball is to hit a ball off a batting tee set on a home plate.
This is not about announcing that Uche has joined the 2.2 million other kids playing T-Ball around the USA. It’s also not about a lecture on T-Ball, otherwise called Tee ball. It is about offering a perspective on why many an African Child has little or no opportunity to be involved in organized sports at an early age, today. It is pertinent to mention that the YMCA of Vineland was responsible to giving Uche access to learning to play soccer and, now, tee ball. It is instructive, too, that what I paid to the YMCA on both cases is, most probably, a small fraction of the commercial value of such training. The YMCA is able to less than the normal cost of training because it is a nonprofit organization. That status not only allows it to attract funding to run its programs, charging minimal fees, it allows the YMCA to attract volunteers who work at every level to make possible the kind of training that Uche and other kids receive.
Again, this is not about praising the YMCA. It is about stating that the absence of voluntary organizations such as the YMCA is responsible for the stagnated development of the typical African child, in the African continent. One major source of the crisis of development in Nigeria and many other African countries is the fact that while traditional institutions are giving way in the face of increasing Westernization and globalization, modern ones, particularly from the nonprofit sector, are not coming up to replace them. Indeed, at a time when it is obvious that government cannot meet all the needs of everyone in society, the place of viable and creative non-governmental organizations cannot be over-emphasized. Even as the richest country on the earth, the United States of America still has a lot of room for the voluntary and nonprofit organizations who cater to the needs of the needy and vulnerable in society such as children, the elderly, the disabled, ex-convicts and the sick. In fact, the importance of these agencies is underscored by the fact that governments at the federal, state and county levels often funnel funds meant for social services through them, in effort to reduce corruption, inefficiency and the red tape associated with bureaucracy.
When I wrote about Uche’s soccer training in March, I had indicated that when I was growing up in Nigeria, in the 1960s and early 1970s, the task of providing training in sports rested with teachers. Each school had a games master who also had a class to teach. I had, also, indicated that teachers, also, used to provide “continuation” classes in the evenings, after regular school hours. At that time, in Nigeria’s history, inflation was very low and the local currency had value. Consequently, teachers formed the bulk of the middle class. And, as I indicated, too, the schools were owned and run by the missionaries, who enforced a strict code of work ethic. A combination of these made it possible for teachers to combine teaching and extra-curricula activities and still achieved satisfactory results. Nowadays, however, inflation is in the double digits, the local currency is near worthless, the schools belong to the governments, and there is a race for crass materialism. What we find, therefore, is that the teacher is preoccupied with the thoughts of making ends meet such that he can barely put in the usual eight hours a day, much less return in the evening for any after-school lesson or sports. In this circumstance, does anyone still wonder why stands in education and sports have fallen? This makes the absence of such organizations as the YMCA that can mobilize money and volunteers to provide what the teacher cannot provide very poignant.
In the small town America where I live, there is a day care center where I’ve had my kids go in the last four years. At any one point in time, I’ve had two kids attend the center. The center, also, provides wrap-around care for my kid in preschool. With my modest income, if I was to pay the full cost of the quality of early childhood education that the center provides, it could break my back. But, because of its nonprofit status, the center is able to attract funding and volunteers to supplement what we pay, just as the YMCA. Besides, it is supported by the local chapter of United Way. Do we have organizations like the United Way in Nigeria and other African countries?
As we hope that African governments and peoples see the need and organize to provide voluntary and nonprofit charitable organizations to supplement what their governments provide in the area of social welfare services, relief can come from nonprofit organizations based outside the continent that are committed to raising and providing the funding needed to provide social services. The Power Education Foundation, PEF, can be one of these. With like-minded fellows, we founded the PEF, which has a tax exempt status in the United States. The PEF is committed to promoting access to free or affordable quality early childhood education in Nigeria and Africa, by making grants and other resources available to local early childhood centers, so they can develop their capacity to offer quality programs for the all-round development of Africa’s children. Please, visit our website at www.powereducationfoundation.com, for information on what the PEF is doing and how you can help.