₦airaland Forum

I think you should just be yourself and stop worrying so much about his culture and what his family think. If they are nice people, and you are a nice person, you will get along, without trying to turn yourself into some sort of pretend Yoruba.

I've seen quite a few mixed relationships. Funnily enough the ones that work best that I've seen (and last longest) are where everyone is just relaxed, acknowledges each others culture, but still acts within their own. So both of the couple have to be flexible and open minded that 'their way' isn't the only way or the right way. I've also seen relationships where someone tries too hard and starts wearing Nigerian clothes, and learning the food, and so on and those people don't get any more respect, and the relationships are not more likely to work.

I've been with a Yoruba man for over 10 years now, I've never worn trad clothing, I've never knelt to anyone, I don't cook Yoruba food, I know about 5 words of Yoruba, but we are happy, and his family totally accept me. I think it may depend a bit on the family. If his family are quite old-fashioned or don't speak English maybe they may struggle with it a bit. My OHs family are all well educated modern people - their culture is important to them but they are open to other ways as well - if someone who wasn't Yoruba started bowing at them, they'd probably laugh.

Be true to yourself. Stop trying to find problems everywhere. Just get on with it. It'll either work or it won't.

sounds like it's a cultural tradition.

Most of the world has mum and baby out and about as soon as mum feels up to it, within a few days. You wouldn't jump straight back into everything, the woman needs a few weeks to recover her strength, but I've never heard before of them having to stay at home for 3 months.

Uncirced is much better for sex, for the man and the woman. Sure sex can still be great circ'd, but there's no denying it's even better when the penis is left as it was designed!

Don't do it!

Next time they ring, say 'I'm so glad you called. It's so hard being a student here, I can't find my rent money, can you send me some money please?'

Keep doing that and they'll stop asking

This is hilarious.

I reckon 5 minutes in a microwave should have me nicely cooked!

I'm always amazed at how good Nigerians are with languages - often speaking two, three, four or more! They may not be perfect in all of them, but there's a talent there! I only speak English so I would never criticise anyone who's made the effort to learn it even if it's still at a basic level.
I also don't think there's anything wrong with having an accent - everyone has an accent of one sort or other.

There are lots of varieties of English these days, all over the world, and none of them are exactly the same. I wouldn't worry too much about speaking 'Nigerian' English in Nigeria, why not? It only becomes a problem when you move to a place where they have a different form of English, and then it's wise to adapt to the local form. I know a lot of Nigerians have problems when they first come to the UK because most English people are not yet familiar with that accent or the mannerisms.

Anyway I have a question for you.

We have a new Nigerian lady at work. She keeps adding 's' to the end of people's names when she says them. Peter becomes Peters, for example. This is starting to irritate a couple of her collegues. I need to talk to her about it but I'm curious as to whether this is just an odd habit she has, or if it maybe comes from her language in some way (she is Yoruba)?

Just looking at the law in Medieval times is rather misleading. It's true that marriage was possible at a young age: that doesn't mean it happened all that often. If you do some research into age at marriage you see a different picture. Only the very rich/royal/noble families married so young. They were arraned marriages, for political, social or financial reasons, and there were advantages in doing them as soon as possible. This was only a tiny minority of people though.

The majority of people didn't marry until they were in their 20s. It simply wasn't possible or sensible until then.

OK, I got to ask: don't normal women go to nightclubs in Nigeria?

In UK men and women enjoy them. It's not where you find prostitutes.

Sorry to say but you can't do this legally.

There are us-pairs - but Nigeria isn't on the list of countries that au-pairs can come from.

You'll never get a standard work permit just to do childcare - unless you have enough qualifications etc for an HSMP, and if you did, why would you waste those doing childcare?

The info on childminders only applies to those who want to look after other people's children in their own home, not if you want to go and live with the family.

They are twins. They don't have to be identical. You get twins who are boy/girl.

It's not hard to do your own research on this.

1) In the UK, you cannot file for divorce until you have been married for 12 months.

2) You could get married in the UK with a certificate of approval - or if you marry in a C of E church, you don't even need that. (so church weddings are very popular, lol).

3) It then takes 2 years to get the ILR.

4) AND - there are rules (of course) about what happens if this marriage breaks down. If this is during the 2 year wait, she will lose any right to be here and have to leave the country.

so, if you do this, you'll have to be married to her for 2 years for her to get ILR. After that you could get divorced. Which takes at leAST 4 MONTHS EVEN IF A QUICK AND EASY CASE.

So, you are looking at a marriage of around 2.5years at least.
All this information is on the Home Office website if you could have bothered to look.




All

£3000 is impossible.

Even UK students have to pay more than that. Overseas students have to pay a lot more.

People do it but it's not a great option.

He can't work legally at all. So how is he going to live?

Very few firms will take the risk of employing an illegal worker these days. there are 1000s and 1000s of unemployed people who can work legally - why would a firm risk prosecution and large fines to take on your friend, when they can take their picks of legal workers? No respectable employer does that.

Any firm that does so, will only do it because they want an advantage - they'll take the risk in exchange for being able to pay low low money to people who are desperate. And it won't be a good job. We are not even talking about being able to work in a burger bar. we are talking maybe cleaning toilets, or working on a building site carrying bricks around all day. If you get a job like that as an illegal, and get paid £20 a day, you'd be lucky.

And you have to keep this up for years before you can try applying to regularise your status. Years of struggling, walking round with holes in your shoes because you can't buy new ones, eating once a day because you can't afford enough food, begging friends to sleep on their sofas, always worrying about the police and getting caught.

He is really adorable.

A lot of babies don't look like boys or girls, if you swapped their clothes then no-one would know. A 9 month old baby just has 'baby' features. So don't worry about it. It's just people being funny about his hair, but I love it!

A gift is a gift - the money is lost to him!

Anyway, mean old fool, how could he have thought of tying a 14 year old girl down to marriage to him - at any age man is bad enough but he was 80 for goodness sake. He is an old pervert!

I don't think it matters what any of us think about boys doing all types of chores.

What matters is that you, as parents, have told them to do a chore and they are defying you. It isn't up to them to pick and choose, or to be giving you reasons and excuses, or falling back on the bible. If you as parents want them to do something, they should do it. If they are so biblical remind them the bible tells them to honour their mother and father and be obedient!

If you mean bleed, yes, for a few days.

It's not menstruation though.

It's cultural, not religious.

It's not the tradition in the rest of the christian world.

My 'godless' parents have just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and are as happy as ever. They have 4 kids, 13 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren (so far!)

Would you say that is a successful marriage?

Loads of Africans in the areaUEL is ranked 99th of 113 British universities - food shops, restaurants, clubs etc. I don't know about specifically KEnyan though.

Quick query on your course - are you comitted to going there? It is a private college, not a university, and the programmes it offers are affilliated to the University of East London. I know the college is telling you this is a prestigious university - but it isn't. UEL is ranked 99th of 113 British universities so it's one of the worst in the country. It costs so much to do a masters degree; try and do one at an institution worth studying at. Employers are not impressed by UEL degrees,

Am I reading between the lines right? You got her pregnant (because you say there will be a 'product of the union', you are in a big rush, and say you'll have a shotgun wedding.) In a way it's good you want to take responsibility, but marriage should be a serious thing. Might be better to get a student visa and get to know each other before running blind into a wedding.

Don't generalise -it makes you look stupid.

I look after all our recruitment. Laast time we had 60 applicants for one job.

How to get your application thrown away:

1) Dont bother to check your CV for spelling mistakes and silly errors. You should always do a spell and grammar check. For some of our jobs we don't need perfect English, so we don't mind a little bit of mixed up grammar from someone who isn't English, but you can do basic checks. Another thing to check is your work history dates -so many people get these muddled up (2 full-time jobs with overlapping dates, for example).

2) think you are emailing one of your friends when you email your application. We want to see you can write a business email and that we can trust you to communicate properly with our client. Emailing 'Hi, pls see my CV, I want to work 4u' will get you nowhere.

3) think we are here to do you a favour. Don't tell me you want the job because 'it would be good experience for me and I can learn a lot at your firm for my career'. Who cares? We want to know how we will benefit from you, not the other way round. I am not your auntie who just wants to help you.

How to fail an interview with me:

1) Don't look smart and professional. We are a firm of accountants. We wear business suits. Turn up for an interview in an open necked shirt, no tie, lots of gold jewellery and a big grin - you are not trying to pick up a woman in a club here, we don't want you if you don't understand how to dress for work.

2) Be late.

3) Tell us you are expert in all computer programmes we need, then be unable to do the simple IT test we give you.

4) Misbehave on your way to the interview. You never know who will see you. At out last interviews, we ended up with 3 good people short-listed and would give the job to one of them. The best person was then discounted because I'd seen him spitting in a really disgusting way on the pavement outside our offices.

that church is scared someone might stop them torturing little children.

I'd take her back to the store, ask to see the manager, and make her give it back and apologise.

Then at home tell her the shame she felt doing that is only a tiny part of the shame she made you feel. That it was only a tiny part of the shame she will feel when she gets arrested, goes to court, and gets sent to a juvenile jail if she carries on this way.

she also needs a good talking to about right and wrong and what happens if you choose to go down the 'wrong' path.

I wish someone would teach me Yoruba I can only speak a few words.

Still, we are not Yorua and there's no point going too far trying to pretend. I don't think anyone cares that I don't kneel/bow or cook Nigerian food. Actually my other half (Yoruba) never bows and won't let anyone bow/kneel etc to him as he sees it as very old fashioned, and he is in his 50s.

The first time I met his mother she told him to hurry up and marry me. And his sisters like me - last time his older sister was here she embarrassed mr by singing my praises for about an hour and thanking God for sending me to him! So, i guess it depends on the family. My in-laws accept me for who I am - English.

huh? being abused as a child makes you believe in equality?

people do talk rubbish on here,

I don't even understand what you are trying to say.

what about oprah? yes, she seems to be a feminist to me. what does that have to do with the other things you mention about her? do you think feminists can't do good acts?

Plenty of feminists get married or are in relationships. what rubbish is that, saying they live sad lives alone? bizarre idea.

hmmm, I think that women can do anything a man can do, although peeing standing up is harder for us, lol.

women priests, yes that's a topic of debate isn't it. I see it as more a religious issue than a feminist one. I'm not religious so personally I don't care either way.

empowering women - does not mean making them angry. what makes women angry is being unempowered and second-class citizens.

I think a society without equality for all its members, whatever their gender, race, religious beliefs etc, is a society with a lot of problems.

I don't think you really understand what 'feminism' means. It means a belief that women are equal to men. It doesn't mean they are exactly the same as men, or hate men, or are angry, or bad people. men can be feminists too by the way.

If you don't agree with feminism then you don't agree that women should be allowed to vote, that women should have the same legal rights as men, that women should be paid the same money as men for the same job, that women should be able to follow any career they have the talent for, that women should be educated at higher levels, these are all important feminist issues. If you don't agree with feminism you don't like women, that's my view.