In my Igbo classes that I took at MSU my teachers always told us that if we did not know a word for something in Igbo that we should describe it using the Igbo words we do know. This is because Igbo is a descriptive language. One word in English can become an entire sentence in Igbo. For example, love in Igbo is ifunanya, meaning “to see in/with one’s eye,” and I love you in Igbo is A fu m gi n’anya, meaning “I see you in/with my eye.” It goes beyond regular physiological sight to mean that if you truly see someone, take time to understand and appreciate a person’s inner beauty then you love that person. That may be reductive and there may be a more comprehensive explanation for the description that means love in Igbo, but that is how it was explained to me.
Because Igbo is a descriptive language, if you don’t know a word for something, it is best to describe what you want to say so that your audience can use context clues and understand what you are trying to say based on the description you give. There is no word for archive in Igbo. But of course, every time I left my hotel in Enugu to walk to the National Archive, everyone – from the receptionists to the gate guards to my friends selling vegetables on the street – wanted to know where I was going. The first several times were tricky because I had to describe what an archive was. I told them, “A cho m ije n’ulo akwukwo ochie,” meaning, “I want to go to the house of old papers and books.” Unfortunately, archives are not familiar among my friends who worked at the hotel or in the market, so my description – although accurate – was irrelevant. So I told them in Engligbo (English and Igbo), “A cho m iga na archive,” but that was met with blank stares. I repeated “archive” several times and still nothing. I explained that I needed to look at old documents that the British wrote when they were ruling Nigeria. I also wanted to look at transcripts of court cases that happened long ago, I told them as I snapped my fingers several times over my head to emphasize a time in the distant past. When I did that, my friends said, “unhhuuuuhh” in understanding. So now when they ask me where I am going or coming from, if I feel tired I just point in the direction of the archive and my friends will ask, “Ahh, I na-abata? I loghachi na archive?” (“You have come. You’re returning from the archive?”) and I just have to nod my head.
Everyone says I work too much because I go to the archive everyday, Monday to Friday, when I am in Enugu. They ask me why I am always doing work. I rub my thumb across my other fingers to indicate money and say, “A cho m ego,” (“I need money”), to which my friends always laugh indignantly and say, “No, you are rich. You are American. You should be giving us your money.” My response is, “First of all, I AM giving you money since I am staying in your hotel or buying the goods you are selling on the street. Second, as I have said many times I am not rich and I am only here because of research grants. I don’t have any money of my own to spend here.” At that point I am usually too exhausted from this routine to explain that I live below the poverty line in the U.S. Graduate student TAs are only slightly more costly to universities than slave labor.
Bear with me, I’m coming to the point. M na-abia. The point here is that Igbo is a descriptive language. I remember in one of my first Igbo classes I learned what hotel was in Igbo. The students in the class were supposed to tell a story about their weekend. When it was my turn I said that I went to a conference and that in the hotel I stayed in the bar was overrun by dozens of men who were gathered for an annual blacksmith’s convention (True story. You can ask James). In Igbo I described what a hotel was since I didn’t know the word for it. I called a hotel ulo ihi ura or ebe ihi ura, meaning a place to sleep or stay the night. My teacher stopped me and asked what I was trying to say. I said, “hotel,” but she said “Noooo, hotel is ulo oriri na nwkari” (a place of eating and merriment). I told her, “No, that sounds like a restaurant or banquet hall. You go to hotels to stay the night, not to just hang out and eat.” That was a moment of cultural difference that I didn’t fully understand until visiting Igboland a few times. Now I understand why Igbo people decided to call hotels places of eating and merriment instead of places to stay overnight. For my American readers, let me explain.
Hotels in Igboland, and probably across Nigeria, have only recently become common places to stay overnight in a city away from one’s home. This is because Igbo people historically did not travel to distant places if they did not know someone at that destination. In fact, many people did not travel through a certain territory if they did not know anyone from that area, even if they were just passing through. In eastern Nigeria most people even today don’t travel to other cities just to go see the city. They go to see people who live or work there. In the U.S. people often go on vacation to see a place, not the people. In eastern Nigeria, people go to see people, not the place. I think America’s obsession with place and indifference toward people explains America’s current humanitarian crisis of children being held in cages at our southern border. I don’t think I can say anything more on that because Fulbright might be displeased, and they did give me a lot of money to come here (which I greatly appreciate, Fulbright :) ).
Again, m na-abia. I promise there is a point. If Igbo people have generally only traveled to other towns or cities to visit people they know, then they can just stay with those friends or relatives that they are visiting. Simple. No need for a hotel then. But, hotels still became very popular in the east in the last half-century. Why? Not because people needed places to sleep but because they were nice establishments where friends and colleagues could gather to eat, drink, watch football (really, it’s soccer but “when in Rome”), and argue about politics and the “C” word that I won’t say (*nod to my friend Kemsy*). Every hotel I have seen in eastern Nigeria, from Nsukka to Calabar, has a large bar and restaurant where people (often wealthier people) from that city or community come regularly to hang out with their friends. Some hotels even have large outdoor bars with large stages where live bands perform on the weekends. This is clearly to attract people from that community more than it is to entertain the out-of-towners who are paying for rooms at the hotel. So, in light of my observations, I think that the Igbo term for hotel, ulo oriri na nkwari is apt. My Igbo teacher was right. I will admit that my first claim about the term for hotels was wrong, which is a rare occurrence. ;)
