Life History Interview Paper: Faith Oladele
I was a little nervous when I heard about this project; I had no idea who I was going to interview. I was at my senate meeting one Thursday afternoon when our pro temp position Faith Oladele was speaking and I noticed how at times it was hard to understand her. I and Faith had become good friends through the past two semesters on student life and leadership and I realized I knew nothing of her culture or exactly what part of Africa she was from. I decided that she was the perfect candidate to interview. Faith Oladele is from Nigeria she is 22 years old and has been in Utah for four years now. We met a total of two times, once for two hours, and the other for three hours, the interview went very smooth and since we already knew each other and trusted each other it was fun and exciting. Faith’s culture is very respectful and shows hospitality to everyone, they are also very superstitious about different things then we are.
A little history about Nigeria, the main religions are Muslim and Christianity, the main language is English but its different from ours its more what we would consider broken English, and they gained their freedom from the British on October 1st 1960. There are 36 states in Nigeria, and the three main ethnic groups are Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba which was Faith’s tribe. Some general things that I discussed with Faith were what her culture was superstitious about, things like don’t jump over peoples legs because your future baby will have health issues, or don’t spit on the ground because if someone steps on it your throat will become dry. They value respect towards elders, every time you greet your elders the girls must curtsy and the guys must “prostrate” which basically means lying on the ground. Some aspects of her culture that have been changed since she has lived in America are she now wears pants instead of dresses or skirts every day, she has a job and goes to school usually her parents no matter what would support her through school and she wouldn’t need to work. Also she describes when she greets people in the streets she calls it giving them the fake “American smile” usually in Nigeria you ask everyone, even if there strangers, how their day is going. The more information I learned about faith’s culture the more I wanted to go to Nigeria and experience it. A lot of things we talked about were hard to explain so she showed me a lot of YouTube videos or Google images to clarify, which I thought this was a great tool.
I think everyone thinks that people who grow up in Africa live in a shack and are starving and this is a stereotype that I overcame when listening to Faith’s family structure. Faith grew up in a nice neighborhood, went to a private school, and it was because her father worked for the federal government in a steel/iron company. A lot of the time there were lots of different people living in Faith’s house, most of them strangers but became family, her mother liked to take in families and help them get back on their feet. She would help them with their children’s schooling, feed them, and even look for jobs for them. I thought that this was so cool and made me think of a great community, team, working together and helping others. Faith’s chores every morning were to wash the toilet, do the dishes, and sweep the front yard. I struggled to understand what sweeping the front yard was, I asked is it like the front porch? She said no it’s not like a porch or mowing the grasses there are no grasses, its sweeping mother earth and making it look nice. It took several different explanations for me to finally understand that they were raking up garbage or branches that blew into their yard. In Nigeria 18 means you’re still a minor, in America when we turn 18 we are considered an adult and have certain privileges. The age your adult officially in Nigeria is 21 and that is also the legal drinking age, they don’t take the law so serious it’s not like their checking Id’s when you go to clubs and there’s not a lot of cops busting underage drinking. A big moment in your life is when you graduate college and finds a good job that can support you, this is when you’re officially an adult and can move out of the house. Faith’s culture highly values education there are no questions asked you must go to college and finish your education. I saw a lot of similarities in Faith’s values and American values, the belief that you can chase your dreams and get an education.
As far as communication and language, in Faith’s tribe the Yoruba there are 6 different dialects so she can understand most of them but she can only speak her own language. All people need to hear is your accent and they know exactly what region you’re from and where your hometown is. When speaking Faith’s language the lips hardly move, life for example “go foot it over there” means go put it over there. When it comes to respect don’t look at your elders in their eyes when you’re in trouble, this shows that you have no remorse for what you did, also show good posture when you’re talking to your elders. Another interesting thing is when your passing something across the dinner table or anything always pass with your right hand not you’re left this also shows respect. Faith explained something she does on a regular basis and it’s called “hissing” this shows how disgusted you are or stressed out. When it comes to dating you absolutely show no pda in public settings, and if you are dating you don’t tell your parents unless it’s the guy you think you’re going to marry. Faith has 3 brothers and they are very protective over her and any guy she dates. Brothers can be so protective that her friend’s brothers hit her friend because she was dating a guy, which I thought was out of line and maybe a freedom that women don’t get there but get here. There is also a fear in fathers; you never want to upset your fathers. Some of the certain foods Faith culture eats a lot of are rice, dried fish, smoked fish, crawfish grounded, different kinds of soup, mangos, dried plantains, and lots of plant roots. One food that really stood out was yams and she explained very carefully that they weren’t like the ones at our thanksgiving, their pounded and made into a dough and then cooked and you eat it separate or in soup. If your skinny it means your not healthy and eating with your hands makes everything taste better, ladies must always close their legs when eating, and chew with your mouth closed. Some of the foods she described were very interesting, I made a deal with her and she is going to make me some Nigerian fried rice.
Faith is fashion queen and she values looking nice, she says that she probably spends more time then Americans planning her outfit coming up with a matching purse and doing her hair. Their culture is all about standing out, being flashy, and out there. She described a term called “& co” which means dressing the same as your family or a group of people for celebrations or just because this was very popular tradition. Faith was very excited to show me what the girls wear for weddings it like silk robes and “head gear” or “gille” this is like a head dress and the boys wear similar colors and robes with a cap. Faith wanted to show me what she wore for her brother’s wedding and she actually tied it around my head at first I was like okay its not going to look good on me but then it did and it was a fun experience. Celebrations in this culture sound like they happen every day. The day they got their freedom is definitely a celebration, naming ceremonies that happen after the 8th day a child is born, thanksgiving happens every Sunday night, jubilee which is turning 50 yrs. old your over the hill, and chieftaincy when a leader was elected into power. Weddings usually are a weekend long they consist of two weddings one is a like a traditional American wedding, and one is a traditional African wedding and a big celebration takes place after. If you’re walking down the street and you smell food from a wedding come on in you don’t need an invitation to be invited to this party. As far of a sense of time there isn’t, its called “African time” you can be two three hours late and your just on time, the only things they aren’t late for is church, school, and work.
Dancing is another highly valued aspect of this culture; some of the instruments used are trumpets, drums, and tambourines’. The dance is always performed by a group of people usually in a circle, or in a line making its way from the back to the front, but watch out families at times gets called up and have to do their dance. They can dance to anything usually and a lot of the styles today have been influenced by western style dancing and modern. This comes from watching music videos, but Faith explains that it hasn’t changed too much. Since Faith has moved to Utah she stills feel out of her comfort zone, she explained how she got asked out on a date by a white guy and she didn’t want to go to Texas Road House because she felt like it was a white persons restaurant and that everyone would stare at her date and her. Faith also described how that conversations here weren’t meaningful, one day you would talk to that person and the next they wouldn’t talk to you, she thought that was very disrespectful. Lots of people would come up to her and tell her “Oh you’re so lucky you don’t have to live in Africa anymore how are your brothers doing, do they have enough to eat”? People here felt like Faith had been living under a rock and that she had no freedoms in her country, she also said that here was so stressful because you had work and school and Nigeria was so relaxed.
Doing this interview
and writing this paper has showed that I was one of those people that thought
all the wrong things about Africa and Nigeria and the culture there. It has
given me a better relationship with my friend Faith Oladele and I found out we
make an awesome team. When Faith described why she might have felt
uncomfortable at Texas Roadhouse I said to myself what things I am taking
advantage of, that I never could even comprehend what feeling uncomfortable in
your own skin feels like. I think a lot of things go unnoticed in our society
and we don’t take the time to get to know people they are just part of our
peers. All this information was new to me and that’s why I think this was such
a positive experience, it really opened my eyes.
Authentic Nigerian “head gear” that
Faith Oladele tied for me.
