Growing up, I often wondered why we couldn’t have a fixed family house like my childhood friend David. I yearned for that sort of stability, but we were always on the move. Anywhere David wandered to, he’d always return to his home, right where he last remembered it. Mine could be an entirely different state in the country by the next day. At age 5, my home was in Plateau State, at age 7 my home was Ungwan Makama, Saminaka. At Age 9 home was Kaduna. From age 10 to late adolescence, my homes oscillated between Kano, Abuja, and Kaduna. For as long as I can remember, home was never one place.
My ancestors migrated from Yemen, passing through Borno to settle in Kano. When Islam became accepted as a state religion in the 16th century, those who did not embrace the new religion migrated further south to Kudaru hills (a region bordered by Zazzau, Bauchi, Plateau and Nassarawa) from where they further decentralized to present-day Yarkasuwa, Saminaka, Garun Kurama, Mariri and Kaku. Other versions of the history say that my ancestors originated from Iraq and later migrated to Egypt, and Sudan, briefly settling in Chad before migrating further to Maiduguri. I didn’t learn about that history until my mid-20s. And when I did, it finally made perfect sense.
I always loved travelling and being on the road, but I hated having to move. Home for me was anywhere my mother’s job took us next, or anywhere I had to stay when she couldn’t carry me along with her.
When you move around a lot, you learn that home is where you make it and family isn’t just the one you’re born into. Like how I’d learned growing up about Kevin’s mother, an Ethiopian settling with her husband in Plateau state, and pregnant with Kevin at the time. She would volunteer to look after me every day, and even hesitate on some days to give me back to my mother. So, when Kevin was born, naturally, we were like brothers until we had to leave Jos. When I got old enough to use Facebook, Kevin was one of the people I searched for online.
However, because we had been separated as kids, I didn’t know his full name and I had no idea what he looked like anymore. So, I gave up searching for him. One of the difficult parts of moving was having to explain to friends and neighbours why we’d no longer be living ‘here’ next year. Saying goodbye and ending friendships you had forged. It was always sad to leave people behind.
Eventually, I accepted that moving places was a reality of my existence. I made peace with the fact that I won’t always be part of people’s lives for long. The consequence was a cool detachment from my formed relationships. Knowing that at any time I might up and leave and never return, I kept my relationships superficial.
Even though we’ve lived a nomadic existence, my family were not nomads. My late grandfather was a king in his village. He’d maybe lived his whole life in that village, and his palace still resides there. My late maternal grandparents also had their hometown and a fixed family home where my mother could visit and spend Christmas if she so pleased. My ancestors may have migrated from Yemen searching for arable land and fled Maiduguri and Kano to escape forceful conversions, but my grandparents didn’t have to, and neither did my parents. Being nomads was a choice we made, it was not a decision we had to make for survival.
Today, my tribe is distributed across the country from Kaduna to Plateau state, from Kano to Jigawa, and Maiduguri. My people are kingmakers, skilled farmers and blacksmiths. Occasionally when I think about my nomadic experiences, I think about the first settlers of Kudaru Hills. I think about the decision some of them had to make to split up and migrate further into other parts of the country as their families grew. I wonder about the women and children who did not have a say in those decisions, I wonder how they felt, having to leave Kudaru hills for somewhere uncharted and novel. Not only that, but I think about the culture shock they must have experienced encountering people from other tribes and traditions, like how the kids laughed at my Hausa when I moved to Janbulo in Kano state, into a predominantly shuwa Arab neighbourhood, how the kids teased and called me bature in school because of my diction.
Now as an adult, I have more relative stability. I sometimes take for granted that I don’t have to move as much as I used to growing up and complain that I don’t travel enough (because of work, security, and fuel costs).
When I reconnected with my childhood friend David, their family house was still where I remembered it albeit the neighbourhood looked much different than I remembered. I walked around and saw familiar faces I remembered from childhood. Likewise, I wondered if they had remained there all their lives or if, like me, they had moved a dozen times before returning ‘home’. I still don’t have a fixed family house but I carry home with me in my heart.
Being a nomad shaped me into the adult I am today. It taught me to adapt to many life situations, to assimilate different cultures. It taught me tolerance for other human beings, and, above all, it made me a better human being. If you ask me where I’m from, my truest response is to say that I’m a citizen of the world because my ancestors were roving bodies and I too, at some point, was a rover.
Edwin Mamman is a sonographer and writer. He has works published on KAFART’s The Revue, African Writers Space, Magpies Magazine, Punocracy, Eboquills, and forthcoming elsewhere. He blogs on WordPress under the pseudonym LareWrites and occasionally contributes to Life’s Essentials blog. Edwin writes from Kaduna, Nigeria. He tweets @edwinmamman.
