First lessons from a former privileged african kid living in North America
I believe I was born under a good sign. I never wanted for anything as a kid because my parents had made all the efforts and sacrifices so that I could just be born into a comfortable life. I was blessed with commodities and a quality of life that brought me closer to the world's 1% more comfortable rather than to the 99% of humanity struggling to make a living. However living in such an environment prevented me from realizing the extent of the benefits I was enjoying. That is until we made the move to Canada when I was 14. The context was different and so was the lifestyle because the cost of life was much higher and the environments sharply differ. Needless to say the quality of life dramatically decreased in the sense that we went from enjoying the comfort zone of the "more comfortable than most" to the struggling working class having a hard time making ends meet.
I like to think that this is when my real life started.
1) The value of space
About two hours after we had landed in Canada, the cab dropped us off in front of a lovely triplex in the heart of the distinguished Outremont neighborhood in Montréal. I took a second to pause and admire my new home, the beautiful green scenery, the clean parks and the refined red brickery of the building standing before me. I was ready for yet another chapter of nice and easy living.
After walking in and taking a quick tour of the five roomed apartment, which I found acceptable enough, I told my mom I was going to check out the second floor. To which she answered:
"Hey you can't go up there!"
I turned and looked at her surprised and replied:
"- Well why not?
- That's somebody else's apartment.
- I don't understand", I said confused. " Do you mean it's just these rooms for the four of us?
- Yes you will have to share your room with your brother, your sister gets hers since she's a girl and I'll have my own."
All of a sudden the apartment, which was relatively large and spacious enough by American standards, seemed incredibly tiny like it had suddenly shrunken. How could four of us live in a place so small where you could go from one wall to the other in less than ten steps? How could I possibly be sharing a room that was half the size of what all my previous rooms had been? That wasn't right. It had to be some sort of weird and not so funny prank my parents were pulling on us.
In a second, the image of the south African city villa I had left just 24 hours before came back to me. Our nine huge roomed mansion with two living rooms, a fireplace, three bathrooms a vast lawn garden and the full sized swimming pool, the two car space garage... Half the area of this apartment was about the same size as my own old room was.
It must have been some sort of mistake and obviously the two other top floors would be at our disposal as well.
They were not.
For the next 13 years of our daily lives, we would be forced into such proximity for better and worse.
That's when I realized how many hours of space, latitude, comfort and intimacy I had wasted for the first half of my life. That's when I realized the importance and privilege of living space.
2) The experience of commuting
Growing up all around Africa I was always driven everywhere. Whether we had to go to school, sometimes less than a mile away, or to the market or to visit friends, I was always riding comfortably in the backseat of a car. As a result, by the time I was 14 I had hardly ever walked to get anywhere, let alone taken the local public transit. Well except for “fun”.
Now mind you, African sub-Saharan countries do possess public transport systems, buses or mini buses, taxis or Moto taxis. However since we had our private vehicles, we were either driven by our parents or by a driver. That was our only transport reality and we had never experienced anything otherwise.
Within the first week in Canada after exploring on foot our immediate surroundings, we set out to expand our radius. We had to find grocery stores, clothing stores and other resources needed for everyday life. In order to get to these places, we resorted to the only mode we knew : the car. And since we did not own one, the only option in our mind was the taxi.
As you can imagine, it quickly became obvious that commuting everywhere by cab was not going to be a financially sustainable method.
To our chagrin we came to the conclusion that we would have to mix with the commoners by resorting to public transit. While we were used to the privacy of our own vehicular bubble, we gave in to walking to a station, standing in line, purchasing tickets from a disagreeable vendor who did not have the minimum courtesy of greeting, thanking us and showing us the respect we were due, hopping onto a crowded bus and trying to make our place among countless individuals.
While it is easy to smile at these memories today, it felt like, and actually was, a psychological fracture. Our downgrade from a privileged elite world into a collective anonymous mass was complete. Swallowed into an invisible collective, even though we felt apart, we had become nobodys.
Nobody knew who we were, where we were from, how "special" we were, and nobody cared. I wasn't the son of an important man or woman anymore, I was just a black kid carrying two oversized plastic grocery bags seated in the back of a bus between a retired sneezing old woman and a middle-aged factory worker.
For the next 20 years I was going to walk, fight the crowded subway and wait out for the bus in the scorching summer sun and in the -30 wind chills.
In less than a month, my new reality had hit hard. That was however still only the beginning of my social reprograming as most of us immigrants go through.
