Embarrassed to be half nigerian

I grew up in a town where being dark skin was beautiful but when I relocated it was a different kettle of fish. Living in the UK was where I began to hate myself. I was called dark fader and kanu. I had a strong jamaican accent in which kids found it hard to understand me. Everyone was so use to the commercial Jamaican accent that mine seemed like a pretence. Yes I was bullied, mocked and even pushed around.

In Jamaica where I grew up, I was the only half African in the entire school. At this point I had my father's surname.

Can you imagine having a name that did not meet society standards at that time?

Yes you guess it, I was called every name under the sun. I even had kids that clicked and asked is that how your dad communicates. I even had the question do they really eat with their hands. Do they live in huts? Made me even question if they were that primitive.

Before you judge me, I did not know anything about my father's home land. I grew up in an environment in which I was learning from my jamaican family which were very backwards. What made me not really get bullied at military school was the fact that my family was wealthy at the time.

So coming to the UK properly was a shock for me. For the first time in my life I saw my dad eating with his hands. I heard him speaking another language, there was no clicks but I was I'm awe. My grandma started to send traditional outfits which I started to wear but after a while was a bit embarrassed.

The first nigerian food I tried was stew and rice... yep you guessed it I was not a fan.

Going to school I realised that there was some nigerian kids I was excited because I wanted to gain some information about Nigeria. They were cold towards me and was speaking in their language. I was super disheartened 😔. Kids can be mean. They called me a half breed, is it somebody like you we want. They would laugh and mock me. They even said I don't look nigerian so why am I begging it.

The weirdest thing, the nigerian kids were pretending to be Caribbean. I was super confused, why would you not claim where you are from.

There was a massive rivalry between the Africans and the Caribbeans at school. I had so much information to educate the bristish Jamaicans that automatically I fit in with the Caribbean side. I was happy in a sense because this meant I was not an outsider. If I joined the african side where would I fit in. I knew nothing about the culture or them in general.

In addition, it was a taboo to be jamaican at that point, so I erased my African side just so I could fit in. If you were african at that time you would of been called an african bobo I refused to be that. I refused to be nigerian because at that point it would not be cool ....

Things changed when I got to university. Nigerians were running things and by then I had already educated myself with Google. In addition, I was building a relationship with my nigerian side. I started to learn the culture and even went to nigeria to see what it was like.

Coincidentally I met my cousin Toisin at university he taught me the dances, the culture and the food. I felt accepted and I felt I could embrace the mix ... I can now say I'm proud to be a nigerian. I nearly missed out on a beautiful culture.