Untitled
It’s very weird knowing influential people. When other people talk about these people, do you smile or comment or claim them as part of your geng? I still haven’t come to the conclusion regarding what is best.
When I was younger, we would wake up really early on some mornings and cuddle close to the radio or sit around the T.V. Those were mornings spent listening to my mom talk on NTA or Radio Nigeria about Consumer Protection in Nigeria.
My mom had a very weird system of training us. For starters, we had a library in our home. I was that child who spent the minutes or hours of traffic at Holy Ghost or Bisala reading words I could barely pronounce from pages of The Vanguard or Newswatch.
It’s weird, but when I think about it, I feel I knew more about Nigeria then than I do now. I knew what was happening in the stocks market, I knew which minister was misbehaving, I knew what projects were going on etc. I was in primary school, so I was a kid for real.
My mom did that.
A lot of times when I had to read as a layreader for instance, my mom sat in the crowd. On the way home or at home she’d tell me what I had done wrong or right. When I performed really well, she’d be beaming by the time I get to the car, high five me and say something like “akpuruka baby, sokwe wa nwa m.”
The night before these readings, we would spend some time practicing. We’d talk about my breath control, my pronunciations, my punctuations, my eye contact, my pace and how loud my voice was.
I wasn’t a shy child, but when I hit puberty, I became a bit more self-conscious and a little bit shy. But somehow, when I had to be in front of a group of people or make a presentation, I remembered these 6 things and kept them in check.
Yesterday I had my first meeting as one of the Global Youth Leaders for Consumers International. It’s one of these panels with people from all over the world. I’m talking professionals no be mai mai. I’m used to having zoom meetings with my classmates or people from other programs who I’ve come to communicate with since my grad program started, however for the first time in a while, I was in a zoom room where I didn’t know anyone. I remembered these six things my mom said and I was comfortable in my skin. I introduced myself and shared my ideas.
There was no ride home after the event when I’d get to ask my mom what I did wrong or not. But somehow, even from thousands of miles away, I hear her voice super strong.
Before I left Nigeria for grad school, my mom told me “any room you enter, you represent the whole Ubulu-uku. Your confidence must thus match all the people you represent.” I lowkey know she has to gas me up because she is my mom, but every time I have to make a presentation in my program, I remember her words and I always kill it.
