He just needed a job. I felt terrible as I looked at the frown on his long, thin face, his pleading eyes. I directed him to the Employment Help Desk next door, where Scalabrini staff helped refugees with job hunting, working with them on their CV’s and directing them to potential job opportunities. I told him not to give up.

Stereotypes about South Africa are subsequently articulated. A few students were warned to beware of lions in the streets of Cape Town, as well as baboons.� I’ll never forget my students in Canada years ago asking me if we rode elephants to school, not blinking an eye when I, managing to keep a straight face, confirmed it.

I hear it all the time, that African men and even black men in general are not romantic, and that even when they attempt to be, it doesn’t always come out right. Maybe the problem is with the definition of romance.

‘Igbos Need Not Apply’ was the headline of an investigative piece by its reporters that described how many landlords flouted the law based on ethnic perceptions.

Well, we not only survived potential suffocation, we also triumphed over verbal confrontations among siblings, parents stopping mid-way to enforce discipline, intense traffic or “go slow,” car sickness on top of more jingle bell lyrics. And not to omit the most important aspect, surviving the traffic check points that were so customary in Nigeria (and still are) where?police stopped cars to question drivers about their particulars when in fact, they only thing they cared for was a piece of Christmas bread in the form of cash.

I thought about how much I like the rhythm of the traditional dancing, and how the movements seem to come more instinctually than other kinds of dancing. It must be in my blood, I thought, the rhythm of Africa inside me.

Just the other day I was relaxing in my living room couch listening to an adamant girly voice belting, “you don’t own me, you cannot tell me what to do…” on the radio. As I listened to the song, I began to understand why I’ve always appreciated it. I am the quintessential free-spirit. Even though I love romance and relationships-at least the idea of it, I have been told by past partners that I am a commitment phobe.

Eyebrows have been raised and will continue to be raised over a saga that is turning out to be comedy of errors in a circus of the absurd despite lives which are at stake in a hostage scenario.

I take time off a personal quest to pursue what turns out to be an eye-opening evening out on the Mombasa beaches...

These are dangerous times to be an immigrant, legal or otherwise.

So I am now married.