Halala Mama

Niamey, Niger: Is this summer vacation 2010?

Eli Lilly offers 120 Teacher Creativity Grants each year.  This $8,000 grant is meant to provide an opportunity for Indiana’s teachers and administrators to design and carry out a six week project for personal renewal.  A smaller number of $25,000 grants are available for teachers or administrators who undertake larger projects.

Previous winners have studied at Oxford, immersed themselves in the study of Native American history and culture, and studied East African’s wildlife and its affect on the region’s art and culture.

Africa.

There it is.

I learned about these grants about 6 years ago. Though I have always wanted, maybe even needed, to go to Africa, I have never even filled out the grant application.

Oh, I’ve thought about it.  I’ve considered it.  I’ve talked about it.  I have never done it.

Part of me is afraid of international travel.  I barely get to partake of domestic travel, let alone get on an enormous plane and fly to an area where I do not speak the language and everything is strange to me.

I teach about the entire world.  Yet, I’ve only ever been to Canada.  Once.

I teach about Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America without ever stepping foot on the soil.  I have former students who are far more traveled than I am.  They have been to Siberia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Great Britain, and France, and those are only thew few I know of.

My own knowledge comes from books and fascinating people, mostly Africans, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and learning from, all while firmly planted in the states.  I know about the charcoal mafia in the Congo, how language is such a political issue in Nigeria, and the funeral practices of the Kisii in Kenya.

I have seen none of it for myself.

My son has an entire family in Africa whom he will never meet if we do not go to visit.  Ismael’s sister tried to come visit with her children and was repeatedly denied a visa at the US Embassy.  Of course the denial came after weeks of waiting, hundreds of dollars in fees paid, and many pages of paperwork from us.  For all this effort? A simple no, without explanation.  She was told that if her sister in law wanted to meet her, then she should come to Africa.

Her sister in law.  That’s me.

Though I really do want to meet her, it wasn’t enough to get me there. It was enough to make me extremely angry at our fractured immigration system.  I felt that as a natural born American citizen, I should be able to invite anyone I want to visit me in my home country.

However, when my mother in law visited a few months ago and returned to Africa with pictures of Adam, she emailed me: “Big chief is a star in Niamey,” and I felt a tug on my heart.

Even though Adam won’t remember the trip, Ismael’s family will remember meeting Adam.

Somehow, even though he is still so young, it finally feels like the right time to apply for this grant.

We will have to wait and see what the future holds.

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I’m afraid that Adam might just be an only child.

My sister’s baby sitter is on vacation this week.  Our mom and I have been filling in the gap.  After an all day onslaught yesterday with a four year old nephew, a 17 month old niece, and my 9 month old at my too small apartment, I got smart and told my sister, “that’s okay – Adam and I will come to your house tomorrow.”

You see, she has a fenced in back yard.  Three kids + outside = blissful exercise and fun. And yes, I had all three kids outside by 8:15 AM!  Now I know why our mother used to throw open the back door, shoo us out, and threaten our lives if we came back inside.

My favorite moment though was morning snack with Adam and my niece.

I sat them together and doled out the little veggie puffs bit by bit.  It reminded me of the little critters at petting zoos who come eat out of your hand – small, sweet, hungry!

And then, one turned on me and got all aggressive.

Hunting veggie puffs is hard work – she topped it off, by crawling into the dining room, finding Adam’s abandoned bottle, and helping herself.  She’s no dummy, this one.

My second favorite moment? Gosh, I’m so glad you asked.

Day one – my niece demonstrated her future man-getting-skills.  She hooked Adam like a fish and threw him down to the floor.  She’s is going to be a heart breaker.  Lock up your toddlers.

…

This morning I read Big Mama’s post about Michael Jackson.

I wasn’t going to write about him.  I really wasn’t.  I was going to avoid it in the same way that I have kept my mouth shut about what I really think about Jon and Kate.  Ahh…but I just can’t.

When I was in Jr. High, I was in love with Michael Jackson.  My walls were literally covered with posters of the gloved wonder.  Every square inch was filled.  I saw his face every night as I went to sleep and again every morning when I woke up.

In retrospect, I’m surprised that my father never said a word about it. To me, anyway.

We come from Michigan and my father was born and raised in a small, country farming town.  We always lived in white rural areas as I was growing up, even when we moved to Indiana.   My schools were all white country schools.  My grandfather was a good man, but also threw the N word around fairly freely.  My father didn’t use it often, but wasn’t adverse to it.  My mother grew up in a more racially diverse town near my father, went to an integrated school, and didn’t have the same attitudes as my father.

Despite this upbringing where race was a silent undercurrent in our lives, my sister and I remained outside of its influence.  Periodically he would say something that would remind me of his prejudices.

I forget much of what he has said to me over the years, but particular conversations become crystalized in my memory.   My parents came to visit me in college and during an unremarkable dinner at the local Ponderosa, we saw an interracial couple having dinner.  My father looked at me and said, “If you ever bring one of those home, you can forget coming home ever again.”

At the time, I didn’t have any black friends aside from Terrance.  He wasn’ t really a friend – just someone whom I shared a walk to class with on a regular basis.   My father’s comment didn’t apply to my life then.  I never forgot his warning though, because I knew that he meant it.

When I went to grad school, the first person I talked to was a Kenyan man who sat next to me in class.  We began dating and I never told my father.  After all, I didn’t know where the relationship was going and there was no point in getting him riled up over nothing. At that point, I would characterize our relationship as fairly broken anyway.  I really didn’t confide anything in him about my personal life, so not mentioning I had a boyfriend was of little consequence.

After the demise of that relationship, I began dating my current husband.  I was honest with Ismael about my father’s attitude.  It was a non-issue until he began asking me to marry him.  I had to consider what my marriage might do to my family.

At one point, Ismael came to see me in the middle of the night after work and said he had thought maybe we better not get married if it was going to cause my father to disown me.   In that instant, I had my decision.

I was a grown woman. I could not let someone’s approval or disapproval dictate my future happiness.

Ismael and I were married and only afterwards did I inform my father.

As predicted, he sent me word through my mother that I was no longer welcome in his home.

He has not spoken to me.

Has not met his son in law.

Has not met his grandson.

He is missing so much.

I don’t think of these things often, but as I have been watching the MJ news coverage and music video marathons, it seemed like the right time to talk about it.

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