Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Alone in BabelJune 14, 2013

Caine Prize: Foreign Aid, by Pede Hollist

Reviewed by Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Pede Hollist’s Foreign Aid is a story full of foreign skirmishes. Balogun, a twenty-something Sierra Leonean, arrives in America to become an economist and send his sister Ayo over to also partake of this new life. His physical appearance serves as a metaphor for his existence at the time: he arrives in America as “a wiry-thin young man in his mid-twenties, toting one small suitcase and brimful of hope of becoming an economist…” So certain is he that every physical and emotional need will be met in America, he comes with barely any luggage, travelling only with hope.

Logan’s twenty-year separation has created a huge rift in the physical and emotional landscapes…
His aspirations are doomed from the beginning when, twelve months after his cousin kindly takes him in, his cousin’s wife begins to complain of his excessive boozing and lust for women. This behavior would perhaps be acceptable for a man in Sierra Leone, but not in America. Hollist aptly introduces the foreign attributes in the story and displays how foreign and unwelcome Balogun’s behavior is in his new-found America.

His name is also changed to Logan, for the convenience of the American and once again, foreign, tongue. After being (literally) thrown to inner-city America after having been found in bed with the teenage sister of his cousin’s wife, ‘Logan’ learns more than his Economics degree would have ever taught him. Working all kinds of odd jobs, he emerges having ‘graduated’ as a documented citizen in his forties. “Documented, pot-bellied, and with an American twang”, he now has a full-time job and a somber and reliable young lady, Yamide, also from Sierra Leone, or Sloan. She is more suited to serving his masculinity than his previous wife of a failed marriage. In addition, her work as a maid relieves him somewhat of his financial constraints from three child support payments.

'Deeply moved by the emotional and physical realities of immigration': Pede Hollist

‘Deeply moved by the emotional and physical realities of immigration’: Pede Hollist

Here, it is important to note that it is a fellow Sierra Leonean that is able to support him financially and not an American. After twenty years, he has garnered a semblance of success and, this time with three heavy Samsonite suitcases and a mind full of life experiences, he heads back home, determined to return with his sister Ayo. Logan is a little too eager to display his wealth and status to his disheveled-looking father, stating that he could have paid for the spare parts of his car. On boarding a ferry, Logan dicovers the loss two of his Samsonite suitcases which he had bought for his parents: two symbols of a wildly successful return home have disappeared. He is able to make up for it by offering to pay for a complete medical checkup for his parents and buying the next round of drinks on arrival at home. The mosquito-filled house is an obvious contrast to America.

A similarly stark contrast in accents is apparent here:

Logan:             “Get us some drinks Bro.”

Tunde:              “Soda Wata Sir?”

Logan’s drawl is supposed to reflect his comfortable state of accomplishment compared to the people of ‘Sloan’. It is rather ironical that when he finally meets Ayo, his now pregnant sister, she is reluctant to return to America with him. The young cab driver at the ferry in whose cab his Samsonite suitcases got lost is also reluctant, preferring to go to Nigeria to realise his dreams. In essence, Logan’s efforts at trying to impress are thwarted by other peoples’ realities and choices. The person who is looking after Ayo is the parent to one of the Syrian children she tutors: his name is Ali and he is the father of her unborn child. When Logan confronts him, he claims that he is actually Sierra Leonean and not foreign at all. In this instance, the man could actually be considered more Sierra Leonean than Logan, whose twenty-year separation has created a huge rift in the physical and emotional landscapes.

Foreign Aid, a story in which the Americanized Logan buys beer and food for relatives and neighbours and also gives out a lot of money, is of course a reflection on the Aid that so many developing countries receive: the money is intermittent, sparsely-distributed and frequently mismanaged.

Hollist brings to us a reality rarely shared.

Ayo’s rejection of her brother’s foreign assistance could be a note to us as readers to find more suitable and workable ways of supporting ourselves. There is a sense of defeat at the end. Firstly, huge disappointment from his parents’ deceit after he found out they too had been receiving money from Ali, disappointment at his empty Fanny pack that was full of foreign currency and also disillusionment that his last attempt at reviving his masculinity has been foiled — the young target of his desire, Tima, failed to make the appointment in the hotel. Emmeline Bisiikwa perceptively states that Tima did not allow her body to be “battered” for mere foreign aid.

The story turns a full circle. Logan’s second return to America is the return of a hapless man, just like the first time. The only difference is that his mind is not brimming with hope, but with knowledge of life’s darker episodes.

It would be interesting to explore other avenues of Foreign Aid in more extracts and Hollist brings to us a reality rarely shared.

However, Hollist tends to overuse similes. For example, on being kicked out of the house:

“With the eagerness of an only child on his first day of boarding school, Balogun disappeared into the gray, half-boarded apartment complex…”

When Logan interacts with his father, the significance of the episode is lost amid a clutter of similes:

 “Logan returned the hug with the affection of a child instructed to greet an overweight uncle with bad breath.”

“Are those your bags?” Father rippled with the excitement of a refugee at the sight of a Red Cross vehicle.”

This is the kind of story I would like to read before a dinner of donors and people with skewed images of the West. From Hollist’s bio, we can tell he is deeply moved by the emotional and physical realities of immigration and it would be fascinating to know more about what he thinks of this subject.

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva is a Ugandan writer. She is the coordinator of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation, which conducts annual poetry competitions for poets from the continent.

Tags

African fictionbook reviewsCaine Prize

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleCaine Prize: Miracle, by Tope Folarin
Next articleCaine Prize: The Whispering Trees, by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

You may also like

Nobody Killed Her

Z213: Exit

Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Spotlight Artist: Numair Abbasi

The Missing Slate’s Creative Director sat with Indus Valley student and emerging artist Numair Abbasi to talk about the rapidly political world of Pakistani art, art lobbies, and the recurrent themes in his work.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
Hardening Off Process

Poem of the Week (June 11), by Sarah-Jean Krahn

Close