Lekan from Lagos

One of the things I have been doing here, which I have not mentioned until now is some volunteering. It's nothing too exciting and my main project that I have been working on is a Forest Restoration project on Staten Island. But that is another story for another time. I want to tell you about what I did today in a real bad 'hood deep in the heart of Brooklyn. Me and 20 other volunteers were asked by New York Cares to help revitalize the school by painting murals in its classrooms and canteen. They were partnered by Walt Disney who did an excellent job of glamming things up "Hollywood Style" and provided TV cameras, excellent grub and hundreds of pairs of these ridiculous Mickey Mouse Ears which they expected every volunteer to wear. (I won't tell you whether or not I wore mine)


Despite looking like a group of defunct rodents, spirits were high and in no time everyone had found a partner and was deciding on what colours to use for their paintings. Everyone, except me that was.( even volunteers are snobs! HA!) I stood around waiting (casually) to see where I could help and was approached by a very friendly Lekan Lawanson, whose teeth were as white as his skin was black. "You can paint with me. " he said and in an instant I knew he was no Yankee pure blood. (Great- the only other African illegal immigrant in the room and I get to be his partner for the day) Deflecting my annoyance and the saying "like attracts like" from my mind with an even bigger smile, I accepted his invitation.


Lekan and I got busy fetching our various paint cans and after agreeing on who was doing what, got down to the business of brightening underprivileged children's lives. After the initial pleasantries were exchanged, I realised that Lekan and I had more in common than I had originally thought (illegal African immigrants remember) We had both left our motherland in search of safer more stable lives. We were both volunteering because neither of us was working. BUT I was in New York, on holiday with my boyfriend and would be going back to my community in London. He would never leave New York, was struggling to get a job without papers and had last seen his family 17 years ago.


In the few hours I spent with Lekan, I learned about his life. I was quite grateful he never asked me about mine, it would have been embarrassing to recount how easy and full of opportunity it has been. He has been living in Brooklyn by himself for 17 years. He left Nigeria as it was riddled with corruption and crime (sound familiar?) and sought refuge and The American Dream across the Atlantic. He risked everything (and still does) to earn an honest wage and sought simply to uplift the condition of his dreary existence. Initially, the Americas were kind to him, work on the black market was easy to get after a number of years he had managed to secure an Accounting role in the hotel industry. But after 9/11 security's fist tightened and work without papers was hard to come by. After a botched marriage (for a greencard) and $10,000's in expenses- he is no closer to being recognised here than he was when the Boeings' wheels touched down at JFK, 17 years ago. He can't go home, life there has passed too-long without him, so instead he exists like a ghost, taking whatever New York will give him. ( just to note- I find it a huge irony that he is doing volunteer work. i.e giving back to a country who does not even aknowledge him) All he has now is hope, hope that Obama and his fellow Democrats will look kindly upon his case and the cases of the other 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the USA.


How bad are things in Africa that Lekan chooses this life of desperate solitude over legalised citizenship? Lekan, is one of millions that have left, prepared to give up everything they have for nothing but uncertainty. We have walked, swum, flown from our nests to seek shelter while the bloody wars, rivalries and injustices rage unabated. The governments do not govern, they line their pockets and sew jewels into their cloth while their people are crushed by suffering.


We are both migrants, though the glaring disparity in the quality of our lives is quite tragic. I constantly find it tough, this "starting your life again" business and I have had bolstering support and love to ease it all. I don't belive anyone who leaves their homeland seeking amnesty wants to willfully. If life was that good on nascent soil, we would have no reason to leave. My heart is heavy today for all those tangled in these journeys far across the globe, so little yet so much left behind, so much yet so little to hope for.