#JJC[Johnny-Just-Come]
The moment you first arrive-overseas.
“Johnny, Johnny welcome. Welcome abroad. Welcome to the land you thought was your “paradise on earth.”…Welcome… I see you’ve been walking up and down St.Catherine. Bouncing and enjoying your view… Even though your mind is clearly troubled and overwhelmed. I can tell you’ve been thinking about something-serious. Something like the words your parents,constantly repeated to you before you left-for greener pastures.I bet it was something like:“We’ve put all [our]hopes in you-by sending you abroad to study”.
Jeeze‘ big words aye? Well, I do understand your pressure…” continues the voice. “… because I know of a few other J-J-Cs like you,who had it worse…
Johnny-Just-come; pidgin English for a very fresh foreigner.
I mean, they left behind their childhood friends and family,without saying bye. All because back-Home, parents-usually treated the idea of moving abroad as a <family>secret”, that didn’t require public-good byes to be exchanged. So even though you feel scared and unsure, looking on the bright side, you’re now in the place you had always wanted to be in.The supposed “Land Of Opportunity”. A.K.A, greener pastures.
Whispers your voice of reason… Talking from somewhere in your head.
So you went on to roam the streets of this new[yet to be discovered]world,in a joyful but lost way. You walked around in the same swagger-deprived-primitive-and-amazed-culture-shocked way, I had when I was the “Johny-Just-Come”. Your demeanor was full of a lost in time gestation, that only went to remind you how culturally and socially different you were.
So, you decided to quickly fix-it,by blending in. You excitedly waited for the first day of school. You-then, went shopping.Got a new clothes for your “new-look”. After,you started trying to act like the people you met. You even spoke,dressed and walked like them.(Maybe cause’ you were probably ashamed of your accent and looks… IDK) To you, I’m guessing,every thing was-just, a dream. Yet, there you had been interacting with people from different cultures,and ethnicities.There you had been trying all these new things you had never seen-before.
There you had been always going out and having fun, until-when reality eventually caught up with you,and knocked you in the head.
It presented you with a-new-system, you’d<now> become part of. The system, of School, Work and More School… Bills, Bills and More Bills. The system that rapped its roots tight around your neck like a bow-tie, and then forced you to go out and hustle for a couple extra bucks.
…And so you did… But in so doing, you nailed the final piece of your entrenchment into your-new-society.
Now time has passed, and you’ve gotten used to the system. Yet, you <always>low-key wish you can go Home-sometimes. Its soon graduation, and now your mind is set on answering the age old question:”Do you go home,<after> or do you stay-here and work?.”
You start weighing your options.
“There’s wars back home.Plus the lack of jobs-there only frightens me,” you [eventually]whisper to yourself. And just like that, your decision has been made. You have decided to stay like the other Johnnies who had come before you. In your mind, you’ll stay just for a little-while but before you know it,you end up staying a while-longer. The comfort/stress of your job, slowly-erodes hopes of going back Home-soon.You get settled.Get a house,and start paying mortgages and other bills. Your life becomes work-oriented and busy till the point that everything you do only seems to be reminding you that your calls and vacations-to the motherland, have been shortened…
Now, the only way you can keep up with events at home, is by checking social media for little bits of “online-Home-related-jist.“. Now, you’ve become a new member of the diaspora(or the-other J-J-c’s who stayed) who questions the causes-of-problems in the motherland, by using the social-media. Yet, can’t go home to help-fix these problems, by practicing what they preach-each time they talk about what need to be done back Home. Now you’ve become another member that, chose to stay behind and make the other side greener-while yours is still rotting.
An old-Johnny-Just-Come, who has gotten trapped in the system.
And I don’t blame you. ‘Cause many of Us, grow up brainwashed into thinking,that pastures are always greener on the other side.
But in truth, it isn’t.It’s greener wherever you water it.
Meaning, it could be where you want it to be. Even our-Home countries.
So to many of Us that come here for a better future and end up staying and getting trapped in the system, how about we take our knowledge and go back invest in our own countries. Because, Rome wasn’t built in one day. It took hard-work and determination to make America become what it is-now.
How about we stop showing empathy on social media and be the nextKelvin-Does,Akons,Nteff-Alains,Esther-mbabzis,Dayo-Israels,Ndukong-nfors.(Other-examples)I think it’s time to go out and be leaders on the field-back Home. You see, the motherland is calling Her sons/daughters back. She is hurting from all the brain-drain, and non-stop problems.
Will you decline/accept the call … my dear ‘Johnny-just-come.’
A Vërberile re-write of a post by Frank Gyres
r
Verberile 