Ifemelu And Obinze Quotes

When Ifemelu met Obinze, she told Aunty Uju that she had met the love of her life, and Aunty Uju told her to let him kiss and touch but not to let him put it inside

I have told you what they told me. You are in a country that is not your own. You do what you have to do if you want to succeed.” There it was again, the strange naïveté with which Aunty Uju had covered herself like a blanket. Sometimes, while having a conversation, it would occur to Ifemelu that Aunty Uju had deliberately left behind something of herself, something essential, in a distant and forgotten place. Obinze said it was the exaggerated gratitude that came with immigrant insecurity.

TO GO TO NSUKKA was to finally see Obinze’s home, a bungalow resting in a compound filled with flowers. Ifemelu imagined him growing up, riding his bicycle down the sloping street, returning home from primary school with his bag and water bottle. Still, Nsukka disoriented her. She thought it too slow, the dust too red, the people too satisfied with the smallness of their lives. But she would come to love it, a hesitant love at first.

Obinze’s mother said, “And make sure you and Obinze have a plan. Have a plan.” Her words, so unexpected and so right, lifted Ifemelu’s spirits. Their plan became this: he would come to America the minute he graduated. He would find a way to get a visa. Perhaps, by then, she would be able to help with his visa. In the following years, even after she was no longer in touch with him, she would sometimes remember his mother’s words—make sure you and Obinze have a plan—and feel comforted

Ifemelu stood there mesmerized. Obinze’s mother, her beautiful face, her air of sophistication, her wearing a white apron in the kitchen, was not like any other mother Ifemelu knew. Here, her father would seem crass, with his unnecessary big words, and her mother provincial and small.

THEIR FLAT SMELLED of vanilla on weekends, when Obinze’s mother baked. Slices of mango glistening on a pie, small brown cakes swelling with raisins. Ifemelu stirred the batter and peeled the fruit; her own mother did not bake, their oven housed cockroaches.

Ifemelu was not sure when something happened, but in those moments, as Kayode talked, something strange happened. A quickening inside of her, a dawning. She realized, quite suddenly, that she wanted to breath the same air as Obinze.