"The American Embassy"
Pages 1 and 2
A lady stands outside of the American embassy where there is a big crowd of people and a line of 200 people (she is the 48th person in line). There is much commotion as it is busy at the embassy with people trying to get their visas. A man behind her asks her for change and she says no. She has a blank mind because she does not have horse tranquilizers and she has flashbacks of her son Ugonna being killed and she compares it to palm oil. The man behind her points to the soldiers whipping a man who is pleading with them. She explains how her life changed so quickly because she drover her husband in the trunk of the toyota to smuggle him out of the country, and she buried her son.
Pages 3 and 4
Four nights ago men had broken her back door and barged in. They tore up her house looking for her husband. They held a gun to her head and asked where he was. One of the men grabbed her and held her at gunpoint on his lap on the couch. He released her and slapped her butt and Ugonna started to scream and cry. And then the man shot him. She jumped from the balcony as the men argued about if they will get in trouble for shooting a kid or not. The man behind her in line gives her some advice and explains that he is visiting his brother in Texas. The narrator explains some advice she had been told including that she should cry but not too much about Ugonna during her interview. Her husband was a journalist who wrote bad things about the Nigerian government.
The story takes place in
Lagos Nigeria
Ending
The interviewer asked her about Ugonna and she says she would have rather died at the hands of the three men than say a word about him to the American ebassy in order to get a visa. She explains the identity of being a mother that was the new life she was given and it was better than the new life she would be given in America. She concludes that she would rather go back to the grave and plant ixora flowers. She realized that was the life she wanted and that the interviewer would never understand her.
Pages 5 and 6
The smuggling of her husband is explained in detail as he has received a phone call that he was going to be arrested so he left in the trunk and made his way to New York where he would apply for asylum. The narrator had let her son stay up and play with a toy car as she read her book. That was the night when the three men came. The embassy only allowed the first 50 into the doors.
This story is written in
Third person limited
Character list
Ugonna- Narrators four year old son
Summary
the story of an unnamed narrator who visits the American embassy in Nigeria in hopes of receiving an asylum visa. The narrator is still reeling from the death of her four-year-old son, Ugonna, who was killed by government officials earlier in the week. The narrator's husband, a reporter, published a controversial article that angered the government. As a result, her husband fled the country and the officials killed their son instead. People advise the narrator to speak about the brutality of Ugonna's death so that she can be granted the asylum visa. However, during her embassy interview, the narrator realizes that she would rather stay in Nigeria and plant flowers on Ugonna's grave. She decides not to "use" his death to flee the country.