4 Years in the Abroad
I wrote this piece 27.09, it has been sitting in my drafts, because I was supposed to add pictures. But I haven’t and decided to publish anyway.
Yesterday, 4 years ago, I boarded the Airfrance flight from Lagos to Paris. It was my first trip abroad. I landed in Paris roughly 6 hours later, late to resumption at my master’s program in what used to be known as UPMC and is now the Faculty of Sciences at Sorbonne University. It’s been a wild ride ever since. My favourite welcome to the abroad stories include:
1. Getting lost the first time I was supposed to go to Ecole Polytechnique for a lecture and ending up at the Orly airport and having to pay 50€ to get back to the school only for the classes to be cancelled and
2. Walking down Rue de Rivoli looking for a bank that would open an account for me and not finding one because I didn’t have an apartment but needing an apartment to open a bank account. Shout out to BNP Paribas. If you’re ever a student in Paris, the BNP Paribas around your school is your best bet to get an account. I think they’re the most student friendly.
In that time, I have gained two masters degrees, learned a new language (if you need someone to help you get around Germany, Austria and some parts of Switzerland, I speak German and have a B2 certificate to prove it. Why not french, you may ask. Valid question, reader), travelled to 13 countries and counting, tried to learn to swim and failed woefully, cried because I felt alone on new year’s eve, etc etc.
There’s a long list of people that were my support system in the early days. Some of whom I don’t talk to any more. And if I started listing names, I’ll likely leave out some important people but shout out to Lami and the Litter from TRC, Lanre, Krama, Demilade, and a host of other people. I won’t say it’s been fun. It’s been more interesting than fun. Interesting here covers everything. From feeling like I had been thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool without knowing how to swim and navigating the waters terribly, to finding my balance and losing it again and finding it again. It has been a series of character development lessons for me. I moved when I was 22, after 6 years of boarding school, 5 years of university (in covenant, so boarding school too) and just under 2 years living with my mum, so most of my self discovery, growth and adulting has been under these "harsh" conditions of learning to constantly adapt and learn and evolve. For the first time in a while, I can say I’m grateful for the growth I have experienced.
I am grateful for the new people I’ve met along the way. Particularly Ncamz my South African friend who made my second masters seamless, and Cathy the pleasant frenchwoman in whose house I spent a transition period in 2018. I should pay her a visit again.
I am still nervous about the future. Anything can change any time and I fit find myself back in Nigeria (by choice or by force. Life can screw you over any time), and I am certainly not where I want to be, but today (and only today, since this is a severely rare occurrence), I feel positive and optimistic about the future and what it holds. I should throw a party if I make it to 5 years.
Yours in the abroad,
Uche A.
(p.s: I have to dig my archives for pictures from when I first arrived)
