FLOATING IN A MOST PECULIAR WAY
By Louis Chude-Sokei

NY Times– I was about 10 when I found out that my whole life I’d been saying my name wrong. A friend of my father’s — an “uncle” — had come to town, and my white mom had dressed us up for the occasion in traditional Nigerian dress. My top and wrap skirt were of a gorgeous orange- and red-printed fabric, hand-sewn by a woman from my father’s village in Rivers State. But when this uncle asked me my name, I embarrassed myself and my family by mispronouncing it “Joma.”

“That is not your name,” he replied. “Your name is Ijeoma. You have to know how to say your name. It is a very good Nigerian name.” Suddenly my clothing felt tight and uncomfortable, as if my uncle could see that none of this — the clothing or the name — fit me.

To this day, when people ask me how to pronounce my name, part of me knows that no matter how much I’ve practiced, I still don’t say it right. It is a good Nigerian name, and my father was a good Nigerian, while I am floating in this space just outside.

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In his debut memoir, “Floating in a Most Peculiar Way,” Louis Chude-Sokei writes from that space outside, detailing with unflinching directness the confusion, isolation, horror and bizarre humor of his life as a child born to a high-ranking Biafran major father and a Jamaican mother in the midst of civil war in Nigeria.

Born the day that war was declared in 1967 — “Family legend had it that while she was in labor she could hear the first fruits of the federal government’s bombing campaign against Biafra” — Chude-Sokei, the director of the African-American studies program at Boston University, doesn’t remember being carried away by his mother to Jamaica. By 6 he was living in a “home for left-behind children” in Montego Bay while his mother tried to find work in the United States. “America was a place where people disappeared all the time,” Chude-Sokei writes, “mothers in particular.”

But eventually, after years in this austere and often abusive environment, he joined his mother as an adolescent in Inglewood, Calif.

Chude-Sokei’s prose is both direct and poetic, describing horrific trauma with such flat immediacy that at times I had to set the book down for a moment, just to process what I was reading.

This is a story of a young Black man trying to find himself in a world where he never quite seems to belong. Too African for Jamaica, too Jamaican for America, too American for Nigeria, Chude-Sokei grows up grasping at these various identities in the hopes of finding a Blackness that fits him, as each of these realms places its own, often contradictory, expectations upon him.

I cringed with recognition as Chude-Sokei attempts and fails to escape American racism by embracing his African forebears’ prejudice against Black Americans. But Chude-Sokei resists editorializing. There are no life lessons, no rationalizations of the bigotry and violence that exist in a diaspora so ravaged by white colonialism.

We must look at the author’s story, see how messy it is, and try to figure out why alongside him. Reading this book I wondered if white readers would get its complexity, if they’d be able to reserve judgment. As I reached the end I was anxious for a satisfying resolution, a clear takeaway, to soothe the pain of this uncomfortable journey.

But as I sat with that discomfort I began to laugh at the absurdity of my expectations. How very American to expect a story so wide, so vast, so nuanced to be tied up in a bow. This is not a Hollywood movie; this is a man’s life, and a life like those of so many of us who make up the African diaspora. Herein lies the beauty of “Floating in a Most Peculiar Way”: It reveals how we carry trauma with us, how that trauma can cause us to hurt one another, and how we still love and carry one another with wounds unhealed. I finished this book wanting to know more — about Chude-Sokei’s mother’s story, about my own father’s. There were times when I enjoyed this book and times when I felt like I survived it, but there was never a time when I did not find myself within it. These are words in which those of us who have floated outside for so long can touch down for a bit, and connect.

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HYThe deadliest month of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. ended with some encouraging signs of progress: new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were plummeting, while vaccinations were picking up speed.

The critical question remains whether America can stay ahead of the fast-spreading mutations of the virus, report Michael Kunzelman and Michelle Smith.

The U.S. death toll has climbed past 443,000, with over 95,000 lives lost in January alone. Deaths are running at about 3,150 per day on average, down slightly, by about 200, from their peak in mid-January.

U.S. Teachers: The pandemic has cut instruction time in America’s schools by as much as half, and many middle school and high school teachers have given up on covering all the material they normally do. Instead, they are cutting lessons. English teachers are deciding which books to skip. History teachers are condensing units. Science teachers are often doing without experiments. Certain topics must be taught because they will appear on important exams. But teachers are largely on their own to make difficult choices on what to prioritize and what to sacrifice, Michael Melia reports.

Italy Reopening: Much of Italy is gingerly reopening from pre-Christmas closures. The Vatican Museums welcomed a trickle of visitors to the Sistine Chapel and locals ordered their cappuccinos at outdoor tables for the first time in weeks. While many European countries remain in hard lockdowns amid surging infections and virus variants, most Italian regions graduated to the coveted “yellow” category of risk.

But Italy is by no means out of the woods. The country is averaging around 12,000-15,000 new confirmed cases and 300-600 COVID-19 deaths each day. But it appears to have avoided the severe post-Christmas surges in Britain and elsewhere thanks to tightened restrictions over the holidays. Trisha Thomas and Elisa Colella report from Rome.

• Tanzania’s health ministry says it has no plans to accept COVID-19 vaccines, just days after the president of the country of 60 million people expressed doubts about the vaccines without offering evidence. The East African government has been widely criticized for its approach to the pandemic.
• World Health Organization experts have visited an animal disease center in the Chinese city of Wuhan as part of their investigation into the origins of the virus.

Does wearing two masks provide more protection?

It depends, but it’s possible that doubling up could help in some situations.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing a cloth mask made with two or more layers, and ensuring it covers your nose and mouth. The agency says it should fit snugly so there aren’t any gaps at the sides of your face.

Wearing just one mask should be enough for most situations, as long as it fits well and isn’t loose, said Dr. David Hamer, an infectious disease expert at Boston University.

“Starting out with a good mask to begin with is going to be key,” Hamer said.

Still, some people might want extra protection if they’re at risk for severe illness if infected or will be in situations where they expect to be around others for extended periods, such as on a plane.

One option in scenarios when you want extra protection is to wear a cloth mask as well as a regular surgical mask, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

Gandhi said that combination — with either mask on top — could help achieve a similar effect as the N95 mask. She recommended the added protection for people who will be indoors in areas where transmission rates are high — which could reflect the circulation of more contagious variants.

Another option Gandhi and a colleague recommend for situations where you want “maximum” protection: A two-layer cloth mask that has a filter material in between.

With single cloth masks for everyday use, Gandhi noted it’s important that they’re made of tightly woven material and have at least two layers, which creates “an obstacle course” that makes it harder for virus-carrying particles to break through.

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Hundreds of lawmakers from Myanmar’s Parliament are still confined inside government housing in the country’s capital, a day after the military staged a coup and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate and de facto government leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The takeover came the morning that lawmakers from all of the country had gathered in the capital for the opening of the new parliamentary session and followed days of worry that a coup was coming.

One lawmakers told the AP that he and about 400 parliament members were able to speak with each another inside the compound and communicate with their constituencies by phone, but were not allowed to leave. The lawmaker spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

Military Junta Back in Charge: The man installed by army leaders as Myanmar’s new president is best known for his role in the crackdown on 2007 pro-democracy protests. Myint Swe was the army-appointed vice president who was elevated after the military arrested civilian leaders and declared a one-year state of emergency. But while Myint Swe is president, the real power lies with the country’s top military commander, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. He has been commander of the armed forces since 2011 and is due to retire soon, clearing the way for him to take a civilian leadership role if the junta holds an election as promised, Elaine Kurtenbach and Victoria Milko report.

U.S. Sanctions: President Joe Biden threatened new sanctions on Myanmar, calling the coup a “direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and rule of law.” Myanmar has been a Western democracy promotion project for decades and had been a symbol of some success. But over the past several years, there have been growing concerns about its backsliding into authoritarianism. Global opprobrium toward Suu Kyi has been acute over her resistance to rein in or condemn brutal massacres and the forced exodus of Rohingya Muslims by the Burmese army. Matthew Lee reports.

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Drive-in Covid testing outside Twickenham stadium. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/REX/Shutterstock

They emerged from routine genomic screening of around 5% of positive PCR test results dating back to 18 December. Consequently they are likely to be just a fraction of the actual community transmission. Some 94 cases of the virus linked to travel from South Africa have also been identified.

Hopkins said that with the R value now under 1 “we can reduce these cases of the new variant”. But other scientists warned it may be too late to eliminate it. Prof Rowland Kao, chair of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, said: “It is probable that it’s quite widespread if [we are] already seeing community cases across eight authorities. The surge testing will be more about slowing it down, than any absolute expectation that it will get rid of it.”

Success partially depends on the public complying with test requests and Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol, said: “This process is extraordinarily intensive and probably won’t succeed.”

The shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, described the developments as “deeply worrying”. “It shows the UK government’s quarantine system is not working with the country being exposed to dangerous strains of the virus and new cases now appearing,” he said. “While door-to-door testing is welcome … how can the home secretary justify keeping our borders open to Covid, allowing around 21,000 people to arrive every day?”

Direct flights from South Africa to the UK were banned from Christmas Eve but a plan for forced hotel quarantine, announced in January, has yet to be launched.

The briefing document on the “surge-testing” plan states: “There is now no evidence that this variant causes more severe illness, or that the regulated vaccine would not protect against it. Virus variation and mutation occurs naturally. The more we suppress new variants the more we will avoid variants which cause problems for treatment or vaccination.”

But one public health official questioned the approach of using postcode areas “because it assumes infected people don’t have contact with others outside the postcode”. They described the approach as “experimental” but said it could help develop a template for responding to future mutations of the virus.

Ruth Hutchinson, director of public health for Surrey, said door-to-door testing was “a precautionary measure – the more cases of the variant we find, the better chance we have at stopping it from spreading further”. “It’s really important to say that there is now no evidence that this variant causes more severe illness, so you don’t need to worry,” she said.

Door-to-door testing is set to start in Hertfordshire on Thursday. It has previously been used by authorities in high-infection areas such as the London borough of Redbridge, Leicester and Oldham.

Dr Alison Barnett, a regional director at PHE South East, said: “The most important thing is that people continue to follow the guidance that is in place: limit your number of contacts, wash your hands regularly and thoroughly, keep your distance and cover your face. If you test positive by any method, you must isolate to stop the spread of the virus.”

• This article was amended on 2 February 2021. Sefton is in Merseyside, not Lancashire as stated in an earlier version.

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