Thursday, May 19, 2011

This Lady Tried to Play Me!!: My Nigerian Accent 5.14.2011-5.18.2011

Guys, I'm Nigerian. If you didn't know that, you don't know me. I'm pretty sure it comes up all the time somehow. But with that being said, I'm really Nigerian-American. Second generation. I haven't spent a majority or a even a significant minority of my life in Nigeria nor do I speak Igbo fluently. BUT, what I do have is a Nigerian accent. Nigerians who do in fact have a Nigerian accent based on the fact that they grew up in Nigeria may disagree with me, but I KNOW that I have a pretty good accent that I can pass with. So, what better place to use this skill than in Ghana? Where I'm close enough that they would actually believe I'm from Nigeria [and therefore not try to play me because I'm American] but not too close that I just see Nigerians all over the place who can refute my accent.

So anyway, this accent helped perfectly when I went to braid my hair. I had planned to get my hair braided but this girl who lives nearby me agreed to go with me to avoid my paying an inflated price. However, due to some miscommunications I ended up sitting alone at a cab station waiting for the girl for thirty minutes (and having some old man hit on me and ask for my number) before I just asked a nearby shop owner where the hair place was and walking there alone. So I get to to Queen's Hair Salon and I'm sitting waiting when I remember that I don't have enough Ghana cedis and that I need to exchange some dollars. So I go to the old lady at front who was apparently the Queen Pin of this little hair shop (with literally 20 girls and women braiding hair; they had 5-6 people braiding one head!) and asked her [in my superb Nigerian accent] where I could exchange money. She told me it was kind of far but she'd have one of her girls go exchange it for me. She saw my twenty though and her look changed; she knew right then was her opportunity to PLAY. ME. So to ensure no one got smart, I told her that exchanging my twenty dollar bill should give me 30 Ghana cedis, which is true, and that's what I expected to get back. Seeing that she couldn't play me in that way, she told me fine, she'd exchange it later, that I should just give her the twenty and she'd give me my change in cedis: 1 Ghana cedi, meaning that my hair would cost me about 29 Ghana cedis. While that's cheap in America, why should I pay more if I don't have to? My friend had told me ahead of time that it should cost around 15 cedis and this lady was going to have me pay 29?! Heeckkk no. So I put a little more power into my Naija accent and told her that I'd heard a different price. She was like o was it 12 cedis? I said, yea something around there, she was like eheh ok that's the price plus the hair, I'll give you 9 cedis back. oooo! So now you suddenly have nearly 10 cedis more to give lady?! Plus at the end she gave me two more cedis back to show that she really, really was cheating me and that she'd changed her mind about mistreating a fellow African lol at least that's my interpretation of how it all went down.

8 comments:

  1. LMAO. NONYEREM, i actually can't with you. but way not to get played player!

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  2. Nony!! Flashing 20s anywhere will get you labeled naive American. Next time my friend, be careful! But I am proud of you for forcing (chale you force!). Stop trying to make my people look bad when the same thing, if not worse, would happen to you in Lagos!!

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  3. I guarantee you worse will happen in Lagos. You dont even have to flash dollar bills, just come looking like you got money, and the hairdresser will try and squeeze some tips for themselves. lol

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  4. bahaha right cindy? but yeah im glad you asserted yourself with your makeshift accent lol please keep postinggg

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  5. P.S dont go to Nigeria alone

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  6. Lol I wasn't "flashing 20s" my friend! I had to exchange money and she asked me to bring out what I needed to exchange. But I've also been learning either Twi or Fanti, I'm not positive. Perooo medassi for the comments!!! lol

    And Jr, why would I do that? Didn't you say you'd be my tour guide? Or will you leave me stranded like this other girl?

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  7. I was just saying in case you start thinking you r too cool for me...

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