Chigozie Obioma’s experiences as a Nigerian student in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus left him with a knowledge he wished he’d never gained.  

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, image from Wikimedia Commons

As a Nigerian young adult traveling abroad for the first time, the thrill I experienced was, at first, intoxicating. I’d dropped out of the university I had been attending in Nigeria, and was desperate to return to school, this time to study English instead of economics. My visa application to the UK had been rejected, and so I found my new destination, a university in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It was a nation few people seemed to know much about. It was, and still is, without international recognition.

After days of celebrations, prayers, and phone calls from relatives far and wide, I took off—my first plane ride—and was immediately overwhelmed. I had expected a warm welcome from the few Nigerians and Africans—about ten or so, mostly young men, along with four young women—who were already there. But they treated my arrival with discomfort and wondered why I had chosen to come. Seeing that their question didn’t make logical sense, since they were in Cyprus as well, they’d always end the discussion by telling me I’d soon discover why they had asked.

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Some places call us back. This past summer, my daughter and I returned to Canton, New York, where we lived five years ago, approximately twenty miles south of the Canadian border. It was her choice—her favorite of all the places we’ve lived. And while she deserved to go where she wanted after our devastating year and a half, I worried how we would feel when we saw the house again, and how I might experience those spots I now associate with absence, with loss. But I knew we needed to get away before another year began, a year neither one of us was ready to face.

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Years come and go, regardless. This much we had learned quickly.

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We flew from Dallas to Syracuse and drove the hours north through memory—those two lanes bordered by trees—a green tunnel, a secret path, a shadow. After thirty miles on I-81, I pointed out the Pulaski exit and pulled into the parking lot of the motel we had stayed in five years ago. It had been our last stop on a cross-country move from Oklahoma to New York, during which we spent nights in large hotels in Indiana, Ohio, and Buffalo—but up here the motels spread rather than rise. They are quaint and quiet, small, with one car parked in front of a door over here, another over there. We were not here to stay, only to revisit.

It was early August 2013 when I checked us into the one-story motel in Pulaski, a bell on the counter in the lobby (ring once!). We had been living in Oklahoma for four years, the longest we had lived anywhere. I was trading one visiting professor position for another, but instead of teaching four sections of composition at a state university, I would be teaching only three classes each semester, and all of them creative writing workshops at a private liberal arts institution.

I remember how my parents, having both lived in Texas their whole lives, feared they’d never see us again when I told them where we were moving.

Before checkout the next afternoon, my daughter and I swam in the pool out front, the one with a floor of tiny tiles, a bright-blue mosaic. I knew I wasn’t ready to get back on the road and drive us to our new life. I wanted to linger, to stare into the sunny sky, to stay between, so when my daughter noticed a pizza place across the highway before jumping into the water, I pulled a T-shirt over my suit and headed across the parking lot toward the lobby. I rang the bell. Paid for another night.  Read More