It will have been five years this year since I made the decision to up sticks, pack in the life I had lived up till that time and head out in the great unknown that was grad school, and what it would ultimately lead to a hiatus from Nigeria.
On paper I had a good life. A job that left me squarely ensconced in the safe, settledness of middle class Nigerian life, the prospect of a final salary pension with the option of cashing out at age 45 if I so wished, and the almost cast iron guarantee of an average 20% pay rise every two years thanks to an aggressive union.
All was however not well. A couple of high profile equipment failures at the plant I worked left everyone’s teeth on edge - with quite a few unreasonable demands being placed on one’s time and energy. I regret to admit that I cracked under the pressure and in April began to actively seek the out ball that was grad school.
That would be the initiator of a new season of lostness, exacerbated by the intense politics around my proposed return after the degree following which I lost every modicum of loyalty I might still have had left.
Five years down the road, there is a sense of being caught between two worlds. One world for which the heart pines, and hopes against hope will get its act together soon; the other world for which the head pleads for the opportunities it provides both in the near and medium term.
Home is where the heart is after all, or isn’t it?