Childhood: And we were sent away

Parental Angst Versus Child Welfare

I observed two news stories from afar until I found myself commenting on a Facebook post, to which the author suggested my comment should be an essay.

Previously, I had written about my parents’ decision to send me to secondary boarding school after the cloistered bubble of an international primary school education. I will not dwell on that matter, but there are many facets to not being born and raised within the traditions, culture, and lands of one’s parents’ birth.

Blog - Childhood: When Parents Think They Know Best

For that, there was a term coined: Third-Culture Kids. This comes with many connotations, including the conflicts of environments, the anxiety and angst of our parents, the issues of not finding belonging in any place, and all the attendant psychological challenges that are somewhat ignored because our parents assume time will eventually resolve things and make everything work.

Send Them Home to Learn 

What bothers ethnic minority parents today is what might happen to their kids in the UK, where I am somewhat more familiar with the situation, and in the Americas. The tendency among parents who have the means is to extricate their kids from abroad and place them in the sometimes-harsh environments of their home countries, usually in West Africa, where they hope to address the lapses in discipline, educational attainment, purpose, and character that they have observed in or around their children.

Recently, a child took his parents to court to compel them to return him to the UK after he was apparently deceived into going to Ghana to see a sick relative. We all have variations of the same plot. He lost his case, the judge empathising but ultimately siding with the parents. [BBC News: Son Loses Case Against Parents Over Move to Africa]

Continuing with the narrative, some men have come forward to share their own stories about being sent home and how, in hindsight, it saved them. It probably did save all of us, one way or the other. However, it is never comfortable during that absence from what the kids call home. [BBC News: I Was Duped Into Leaving London for School in Ghana - But It Saved Me]

Before I share my comment, many kids have been brought up in the UK and the US and have thrived; this is great credit to their parents and communities that nurtured them. All these stories need to be told.

My Facebook Comment 

I suppose this is another aspect of split upbringing that is rarely discussed.

We returned to Nigeria when I was hardly six years old; however, because I was with my parents, I had the pleasure of attending primary schools filled with foreign-looking but Nigerian-born schoolmates, while many of us black kids were foreign-born.

It was the secondary boarding experience that was brutal, but I survived, despite the lasting scars of that environment.

You eventually become streetwise without losing the kind of daring that some people regularly said we Ajebotas [Kids who eat bread and butter rather than local fare; a pejorative term for lacking experience in local customs.] have.

The longstanding benefit of my early education and experiences in Nigeria meant building resilience, grit, and, mostly, self-esteem, while retaining the precocity I always had.

Upon my return to the UK, my blackness was always a part of me; no one could racially abuse me and get the upper hand, as I had a better retort, coupled with wit.

Escaping the race and deprivation politics of the inner cities and suburbs, which would have found me in Walsall and Birmingham in the 1970s and well into the 1980s, meant I never had the sometimes-invisible baggage or chip-on-the-shoulder that affected ethnic minority kids who never left.

I left Nigeria with just an OND and built an IT career that was earning top rates by the mid-1990s, before the extraordinary fortune of being invited to pursue a master’s degree after providing a character reference for a friend.

Moreover, unlike the scolding in Nigeria that implied one wouldn’t amount to anything and spurred you on, in England at that time, it was a limit on your horizons, pushing you towards low achievement and menial roles.

My parents left after qualifying in their respective professions; even though my dad placed third overall in his accountancy finals, his colleagues suggested that they never thought he was that bright, instead of congratulating him on his success.

I assume they both decided that the England of Enoch Powell, whom my father once challenged in a pub, was not a suitable place for them or for their boy—and the children that came after me.

Now, each experience is different; I cannot suggest that any of these actions are in the best interests of any child, but having the agency to intervene when you see things going awry is a privilege of opportunity that many do not have.

I even had my own personal intervention; after a relationship breakup in 1999 left me lost and listless, I packed my bags and started anew in the Netherlands, where I remained for almost 13 years.

Our parents mean well; whether they were right is another conversation altogether.

I cannot argue against being immersed in a totally different culture; it presents opportunities that we often fail to fully appreciate until later in life, as the men have suggested in the article.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXVI

Getting some perspective

You may wonder why I am writing about the Coronavirus, having written the last in my series of Coronavirus streets in Manchester way back in June 2024. Obviously, there was also the minor distraction of dealing with Men’s things, my prostate taking on an unregulated growth spurt that was trammelled with blasts of radiotherapy.

Then you consider I was out grocery shopping today and one of the passengers on a bus I boarded had a facemask on, you do not see that about quite often, though a lady who attends my church whose full face I have never seen dons a facemask almost as a fashion accessory, a shade of brown, but quite distinct from her South Asian skin tone.

Saying his prayers

The bus out of the city centre towards Salford, where I planned to board another to my intended destination, presented nothing of great significance apart from wheezing and many with coughs that might indicate something more serious than portends. On that sampling alone, we are easily a nation of the unfit, the infirm, the unwell, and qualitatively unhealthy.

However, it was the bus ride within Salford towards Cheetham Hill that offered much to amuse or intrigue. It was first an unkempt man sitting on one of the priority seats. In what seemed like a headbanging the bar in front of him, I soon realised it was an unconventional approach to Muslim prayer as he was muttering, clasping hands, and then bowing in obeisance to the Sallah edict.

The bus was driving eastward but I could not suggest his heading was facing Mecca, but who am I to intrude on the religiosity of an adherent faithfully saying his prayers before Goosey Goosey Gander takes umbrage?

The fiery Ijebu wars

At Ade’s Cash & Carry, of the many designations it has, at the checkout till, there were conversations going on in Yoruba, the tiller with facial scarification I would have mistaken for an Ogbomoso indigene, but with the brutal nose strike, so that might default to Ibadan.

Two tubers of water yam, quite different from Puna yam, were being weighed on the tiller scales, but they did not have the hairy fibres one would expect on that species I was accustomed to. As I voiced my misgivings, an engagement began about where I was from.

Answering Ijesha-Ijebu, the man interjected, Ijebu-Ijesha, a different place some 197 kilometres away. That confusion between my village and the other town, in entirely separate states and they do not remotely speak the same dialect. It so happened that the customer being served was also an Ijebu-man, he knew where Ijesha-Ijebu was and began to converse in Ijebu that I have never deigned to master.

My excuse is that I was born abroad, and I pleaded innocence by volunteering. One of my names is Adetokunbo, and the crown was brought from overseas. That was the beginning of our schism, he is from Ilishan-Remo and has been advocating the creation of an Ijebu State with Sagamu as the state capital. Let’s just say as the boundary between the real Ijebu-land headquartered at Ijebu-Ode and Ijebu-Remo, which is a few kilometres west of my village, the idea falls on its face with infeasibility.

It is totally unlikely that the Ijebus aligned to Ijebu-Ode and the expanse of the 16 Agemo masquerades of Ijebu-land would subsume themselves to the leadership of Ijebu-Remo that gained prominence out of the colonial chicanery of divide-and-rule. We would seethe with disdain and disparage any such advocacy to chop Ogun State into hamlet fiefdoms.

While I would rarely feel challenged with Yoruba expression, I was clearly found wanting facing a son of Ijebu soil. Other interesting banter ensued, and we shook hands, and I left.

The Yorubas have occupied

On the bus back to Salford City Centre from Cheetham Hill, I must have been transported to some place in Yorubaland, I half expected the only Caucasian on the bus to burst out in Yoruba song as literally every else on the bus was speaking in Yoruba.

One even had a playback of some Yoruba-speaking event on the speaker of his phone and some of the narrative did cause stifled giggles without anyone wanting to reveal they knew what was going on. I could see from my vantage point that everyone was straining to listen even as one or two mobile phone conversations cared nothing for the public space they were in.

I sometimes forget some parts of north Manchester have been colonised by Yorubas; I could be one of the exceptions that lives in the city centre. Now, that Ade’s Cash & Carry has stiff competition in Salford on range, quality, and price, apart from ready-made stews, it won’t be long before these interesting Yoruba engagements happen closer to home.

The Coronavirus is still out there, and I had my 7^th booster in November before jetting out to Cape Town. Nine vaccinations and boosters altogether mean we all must be careful, five years on.

Thought Picnic: More than hope in living

We are not hopeless

Our Lenten study began with the question, “Can the dead live again?” It centred on the story of Job, his suffering, and a narrative of man's mortality against the nature of trees that spring up from a seeming hopeless death into new life.

In Christian hope we have a place, a destination, and a promise; death is not the end of the story, but eternal life brings the life of God into our existence and present, not in the bye-and-bye, but from the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our personal lord and saviour, here on earth, in the now.

Hope is an anchor

Comparing optimism to hope, optimism is a feeling, and hope is an anchor; I am optimistic about something, but I hope to do, get, achieve, realise, sometime that has focus, borne of my imagination and what my faith can work on. "For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [Bible Hub: Hebrews 11:1]

Giving AI a look-in on my blog, this is an overview. “Hope is the belief that you can make things better, while optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is an active process that involves setting and working towards goals, while optimism is a passive thought pattern.”

Hope versus Optimism from a Generative AI perspective. (Click to enlarge.)

I can work towards extraordinary goals based on the promises of God from what God has said in His Word, that is why the Bible matters to me and listening to both the Word of God and sermon inspired by the Word of God give me the confidence that life is considerably more than existing like another living thing.

Hope lives for new life

However, as we discussed these topics, I found that certain personal experiences are quite difficult to articulate; with survival or the passage of time, the recounts are raw with deep emotion, that what we left behind still grabs us in ways that memory overwhelms the present as if we are still with that human experience.

Yet, that does not mean optimism is not meaningful, for in all the aspects of adversity I have encountered, I always had one saying in Yoruba that tells me this too will pass, “A ma fi pàtàn ni.” This translates loosely to, “These too will become stories.” I am thankful that my past does not choke me of the gratitude for having some experiences behind me.

Of cancer twice or of deaths of people and close to me, whilst amid the experience, none of it is pleasant, for the hope ahead that these would again become stories to be told in recognition of the amazing human spirit sustained by the mercy, grace, and love of God. We can be full of hope, and I am full of hope. Can the dead live again? Yes!

The Slave Bible - A Closer Look

Another look at the Slave Bible

In my original blog about the Slave Bible yesterday, I expressed muted outrage at the role of the Anglican Bishop of London and his involvement in commissioning the book. Beilby Porteus, the Bishop of London from 1787 to his death in 1809 was a rather different person than I portrayed in my first assessment of the situation.

Blog - The Slave Bible

History would suggest, the bishop was the first in authority to challenge the Anglican Church’s stance on slavery in a concerted campaign that lasted almost three decades. He was an abolitionist who stated his case in sermons and in the House of Lords, long before the cause became popular.

The bishop was an abolitionist

In his advocacy, he was concerned about the plight of about 300 slaves on the Codrington Plantations in Barbados that was bequeathed to the Church of England in the early 18^th Century and was overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a committee of Church of England bishops.

From the time he was Bishop of Chester through when he was translated to the bishopric of London, Bishop Porteus worked with slavery abolitionists, and much was made of the fact that disease and maltreatment led to the death of about 40% of the slaves within three years of their arrival that the slave cohort needed constant replenishment from West Africa.

Besides these myriad issues, the bishop was desirous of proselytising the slaves and this must have informed his decision to commission an abridged bible for the slaves of the British West-Indies, as one of the most passionate advocates for the cause of the slaves, he by default assumed responsibility for their spiritual welfare. I can conclude from this reading of history that Bishop Beilby Porteus was neither malevolent nor evil.

Between the marketing and the product

A careful reading of what pertains to the content of the Slave Bible requires nuance over the sensational reductive view that essential parts of bible history were expunged. We can attribute this view to the publicity machinery of The Museum of the Bible (MOTB), which has had its share of controversy and scandal in terms of the provenance and integrity of exhibit acquired for display at the museum.

An academic assessment of the assertion of the MOTB would suggest a variance from the reality. The writer purports an exaggeration by the MOTB when in fact the book does contain verses of liberation as much as some pertaining to slavery were left out. Though the compendium leaves out the book of Revelation, it is not bereft of eschatological hope expressed in other epistles of Apostle Paul. [The Revealer: The “Slave Bible” is Not What You Think]

It would appear Bishop Porteus is both misrepresented and vilified by the MOTB to whatever ends of widening the participation of visitors to the museum beyond its evangelical roots. As I can only offer commentary on the reported events and observations along with not having access to the said Slave Bible to verify any of the claims, my only shocking discovery is to learn that such a book existed, the circumstances around which the book was published are quite different and open to debate.

Where history leaves us

It is obvious from the onset that the bishop met with both deaf ears and opposition to his abolition quest, as Founder of the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro Slaves, “envisioned a collection that expanded beyond biblical texts and included liturgy for public worship.” It is questionable whether the result achieved that aim.

However, while certain abridged versions of the bible available today as excerpts of the Psalms, Proverbs, or mainly the New Testament of the Gideon bibles found in the bedroom drawers of international hotel chains have not suffered the manipulation and cannibalisation of the Slave Bible, the motive in its origin seems both honest and malign to our reading today.

What cannot be disputed is the Anglican Church of England was integral, participatory, and a beneficiary of the evils of the slave trade and slavery. 

The Slave Bible

A grandiose title

“Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands”, otherwise known as the Slave Bible, a heavily redacted version of the bible that removed about 90% of the Old Testament and 10% of the New Testament. [Wikipedia: Slave Bible]

It emphasised every need for the slave to know their place and removed references that gave any sense of emancipation or freedom to the slave reader. Imagine a book purporting to be a Christian bible without the Exodus story or the Psalms commissioned in the early nineteenth century by the Anglican Bishop of London, in the same year of the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 for the abolition of slavery.

I learnt of this malevolent piece of evil propaganda masquerading as religious text, reading the first chapter of the book we are sharing for Lenten studies in the Church of England this year. Wild Bright Hope: Reflections on Faith - The Big Church Read Lent Book 2025 has twelve voices and perspectives on hope, life, experiences and what a revelation the first two chapters were. [The Big Church Read]

It was very profitable

I realised how the transatlantic slave trade thrived visiting The Maritime Museum – Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, over twenty years ago. I saw the profit ledger, a human cargo of slaves with the loss of 10% after accounting for all costs, including the ship and voyage, yielded stupendous profits, and that was the value slave owners placed on acquiring cheap or free labour.

Even after multiple visits to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool (currently closed for renovation), I was not as moved as that other experience in Amsterdam. I have heard stories about how an interpretation and version of Christianity promoted, validated, and justified slavery, it was the bedrock of belief systems espoused by the American South acquiescing to man’s inhumanity to man.

Changing the Christian perspective

What I did not expect to find in my appreciation of slavery was a “Slave Bible”, and you can never know if other versions of this abridged work of the devil did not exist to keep the slave a slave and the slave master as a god.

What was perpetrated in the name of Christianity is unmentionable and you can only wonder what bible the missionaries gave in exchange for land and resources to the natives in the new world to the Europeans, from the sixteenth century onwards.

It would seem the Christian narrative of those times was to serve European commerce rather than God, a consummate love of money being the root of all evil, including the trading in slaves.

This is one striking question asked by a thirteen-year-old, “What do you do when your saviour and oppressor have the same face?” That gives pause for reflection, the depictions of Jesus are rarely of typical middle eastern features, you will think Jesus was Scandinavian from some artist’s impressions, long flowing blonde hair with blue eyes and much else that has seeded our imaginations of who the son of God is.

Acknowledgement is progress

Yet, I rarely think of Jesus Christ in terms of what he looks like, as no one knows, apart from having participated in our humanity and human race over two millennia ago. His presence confirmed by the new birth and the Holy Spirit given to dwell in us and be our helper, brings us to the inclusive sonship of God the Father and a recognition of such great grace that no man can offer.

Indeed, we study and understand history just as we should know who we follow and believe. The Gospel of Jesus Christ sets us free, any other gospel besides that left men in bondage and chains, physically, mentally, and spiritually. However, I want to believe even through the darkness of a rotten slave bible, some light shone on those who received Christianity with purity of heart, prayers would have been heard, though some might have taken much longer to be answered.

Certain Christian denominations need to acknowledge fully the parts they played in slavery and the slave trade; this should be documented for the historical record.

This is not to impute guilt or culpability, but to advance the knowledge of the truth and the positive changes to our common respect for each other’s humanity, as we strive to make the world a better place, and espouse more the human rights to dignity, life, and freedom.

Let us acknowledge the harm, and work to heal.

Please read: The Slave Bible - A Closer Look

Mending holes in my home

Now it was the pens

Here I was wanting to write down details as I began to give attention to my test lab, a neglected computer test lab because of the distractions of the year past. There were three pens on my desk, and none were ready to give their ink.

On one of my visits to a bookshop in Cape Town, I bought quirky pens with different writing widths like you would have with pencils and a wooden pencil case. I looked up on the shelf and retrieved the pencil case, there was only one pen left in the pencil case. There should be at least six pens in that pencil case.

What is so irksome is over two months of reclaiming full access to my place by taking the keys off my friend and I am the one at fault for first being a poor judge of character in making acquaintances with people who I thought valued friendship beyond benefits they gained from having access to me and my place, I am still finding vestiges of his carelessness and abuses of my things without remorse.

His mittens ruin all

Each time I have had him housesit on my visits to Cape Town, I have returned to a house that is not my home through the way he has rearranged things, misplaced things, or damaged things without a second thought to fix them. The last time, he bested himself, how I restrained myself from blurting out in apoplexy even when I asked for my keys escapes me.

Soon after, when I thought a phone charging unit or a power extension tower had been damaged, I painstakingly when through assessing each element of the connections, and can you believe it was the USB C cable that was damaged? Let us not get into when he thought the USB cables, because of their colours, could be adornments like neck chains, bullet chains, or belts that he wore about his person.

The number of times he invaded my privacy was innumerable, but I just worked on the assumption, I was not the only occupant of my home. I’ll be in bed and hear scurrying about the apartment, the keenest of my hearing would register the key in the lock as he entered, and the rest was left to my imagination, what he could be up to and that might include a litany of misdeeds and mishaps. I rarely let these bother me.

The translation of a wallet

On the eve of my penultimate visit to Cape Town just after the prostate cancer diagnosis and the one occasion he was able to attend the hospital with me, so he knew the seriousness of the condition, I emptied a brown wallet of things I needed for my travel and placed the wallet on my desk.

A week into my visit, I got a message from my neighbour, they found my wallet on a windowsill in the courtyard behind the apartment block. How it got there, no one could explain, the CCTV recording saw a resident runner pick it up and place it there, it had rained some days prior, and I know I had not been in the courtyard for more than a week before my travel. There was one other logical explanation.

I should have taken back my keys on my return, however, I am wont to forgive than to show resolve. My neighbour was of the good mind of kicking him out of my apartment, it would have served me well.

He just does not care

Even though I wrote a long email to him explaining why I had to take back my keys without accusing him of anything apart from remonstrating the unnecessary rearrangement of my apartment including finding my bathroom scale in the wine rack, his response acknowledged nothing, he just did not and could not care, that is fine.

Fundamentally, he had progressively taken away my enjoyment of my home by the things he had unwittingly done whether in thinking he was cleaning up the place by rearrangement or the simple things damaged that he had grown accustomed to me not saying anything about.

I have my place back to myself, I should just enjoy it despite the fact I still find rat droppings somewhere in the house, not so literally, but signs that my friend, if he still qualifies as one has been there, a tormenting daily reminder of associations I should have long abandoned before they hurt me much.

My Lenten vision beyond temptation to triumph

By the Spirit of God

As this Lenten season according to church tradition begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday, I have been thinking about what spiritual growth I seek to achieve. There are many struggles and situations I find myself in that challenge my discipline and resolve, understanding how to triumph is a walk of faith and “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the LORD Almighty. [Bible Hub: Zechariah 4:6]

Yet, we think that by mental capacity and fortitude, the force of determination and discipline, we can totally overcome the vagaries of humanity to which we are too susceptible in habits, desires, temptations, and tests. There is a reason why the phrase, “Lead us not into temptation,” exists in the Lord’s prayer. Temptation is more than a lure; it feeds on our natural instinct to yield and fall into it. There is always a way out, but we rarely find it.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. [Bible Hub: 1 Corinthians 10:13]

Bible Versions, so many

In view of how temptation seems to wield such influence over us, I have decided to revisit the temptation of Jesus Christ, not in what He was tempted of, but in how He responded to each temptation. Those red letters in the gospels have drawn my focus to a new understanding of what is possible.

While I have developed a preference for listening to and reading the New Living Translation (NLT), the traditions in which I was taught and how I remember verses are in the King James Version (KJV). However, when I share single verses, I offer links to over 30 English translations covering the modern, classic, literal and other versions, to give context and understanding in the different modes of English we use.

Temptations abound, but we can win

Apostle John talks of the ways in which temptations take hold of us, in each of which Jesus was tempted too. “For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses; but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.” [Bible Hub: Hebrew 4:15]

The apostle lists out the fundamentals of temptation and how they are all not of God.

“For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.” [NLT]

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” [KJV] [Bible Hub: 1 John 2:16]

The lust of the flesh

To the first temptation of turning stones to bread to feed his hunger after a 40 day fast, Jesus answered the devil and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” [Bible Hub: Matthew 4:4]

I find in this the need to immerse myself and feed on the Word of God for strength and sustenance. This always transforms my thought processes and guides me in places where I need inspiration, insight, peace, and resolution.

The lust of the eyes

When the devil took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and asked dared him to jump because angels will bare him up, lest he dash his foot against a stone, the devil was quoting from Psalm 91:11-12, though inaccurately, Jesus said unto him, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” [Bible Hub: Matthew 4:7]

Understanding God’s word better would give one an understanding of God’s will, what He would do, and what He does not do. God is not into the sensational or theatrical displays for entertainment, feeding our egos or lusts, but for bringing men into the kingdom of God.

The pride of life

Finally, the devil chose to tempt Jesus with giving him the world he came to die for by suspecting he could have the world just by falling and worshipping the devil. The same devil and the works of the devil; he came to earth to condemn and destroy. Then saith Jesus unto him, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” [Bible Hub: Matthew 4:10]

Temptation always offers a shortcut to pleasure and attainment, but never by the right and just means. We could be easily drawn away with pride and that sense we could do things alone without anyone’s help or the discovery of how we have achieved success by suspicious means.

Stoicism and strength in faith can only come from trusting in God, feeding on His word and seeking only to do His will with the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

This is my Lenten vision and my greatest desire to live and love this way. Have a wonderful Shrove Tuesday. Now to find a Lenten prayer group for study and devotion.