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I meet Shondrella Avery-Kester and her husband, Ade, for the
first time on a Friday afternoon at the City Hall in Lagos. The second time is
two days later, at their hotel in Ikeja. We are the only guests in the
restaurant. The wall opposite me is lined with black-and-white images of
activist icons like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi. A sketching
of Che Guevara completes the parade.

The Kesters have just returned from a family outing on one of
Lagos’ many private beaches. This trip is Shondrella’s first to Nigeria. Ade is
Nigerian, his family is from Oluwole on Lagos Island; he grew up in Lagos before
relocating to the United States in the early 1990s.

At six feet, Shondrella is an imposing presence. She’s dressed
in a patterned African-print gown with fluffy sleeves, made for her by a
friend. Of it she declares: “This dress is going on the red carpet in America.”

Shondrella is in Lagos to prepare for the shooting of a
documentary series about life in Nigeria. Her ‘Shondrella’s Adventures’ has
been conceived to be like her marriage: America meets Africa. She is determined
to tackle the “stereotypes” and “negative connotations” that burden Africa’s
reputation in America.

“A lot of Americans have misconceptions of Africans, and
specifically Nigerians,” she says. “People don’t think you’re civilised, and
that pisses me off. You’re beyond civilized.”

She thinks the media should take much of the blame for the
dismal reputation of a “flourishing continent with great pride and character
and integrity and hustle.” Even her stay in Nigeria has provided fresh
evidence. “CNN in America is not the CNN I’ve seen here.”

Being married to a Nigerian man means that Shondrella knows a
lot more than many Americans. (“You guys know about the world. America doesn’t
know about the world, America knows about America.”). She can see the striking
sameness that exists between people from the two places. “You find, honestly,
that we’re all the same,” she says.

She sees very clearly all the differences as well; especially
“the wahalas” of life in Lagos. Like the commercial motorcyclists. “Ah, the
okadas! Those okadas – that is wild! The fact that they are happily running the
road, they’re the ogas on the road,” she says. She’s taken in by the immense
energy and bustle of Lagos: the “ridiculous” traffic, the masses of people
“running across the freeway” – all of these leave her astounded. But the
traffic jam hawkers take the prize: “I can get a dog, I can get tissue, I can
get shoes, I can get a dress – on the freeway! – you don’t have to even go to
the mall.”

The secret dream of
Shondrella

It all started with a dream, in far away America. “A bizarre
thing,” Shondrella recollects. There were camels in a desert; and she was
sitting on one of them, a tiara on her head. She interpreted it as a message
hinting at the distant past; before the transatlantic slave trade swept her
forebears off to the New World. Possibilities. “I could be the Queen of a Congo
tribe or something; I could be heir to a royal family in Nigeria…”

She knew instantly that it was time to turn her gaze to Africa.
Time to make the long trip to the land her husband called home, and not merely
as a visitor or in-law, but as someone determined to leave a lasting mark. Thus
was the idea of ‘Shondrella’s Adventures’ born, “to dispel the misconceptions
between Africans and African-Americans” with humour, purpose, and integrity.
The show will follow her around “my husband’s country and now my country. I
want to go North South East and West; I want to go everywhere.”

She says the series will be mostly “improvisational style”,
alongside re-enactments of the interesting experiences she’s had in Nigeria.
“It’s Curb Your Enthusiasm meets The Office” she says. She’s already shot a
pilot in the US focusing on the dream-origins of her inspiration.

The first of ten children, Shondrella attended the Performing
Arts High School in California, and then earned a Bachelor of Fine Art in
Theatre at California State University. Her desire to be a thespian, she says,
was influenced by Meryl Streep. “I was the black Meryl Streep,” she says. After
graduation, she worked for a few years at a corporate job, as a contract
negotiator with Hilton Hotels Corporation at its Beverly Hills headquarters.
Her nights were spent as actress and stand-up comedian. “As a stand-up, there’s
no prejudice. You can be anything as long as you make people laugh.”

Comedy, stop-gap as it appeared to be, would turn out to be one
of the best decisions of her burgeoning career. Those were the days when
talent-hunting studio executives were regular faces at comedy clubs. In 1999,
she got her break; her first feature films: ‘Cyberdorm’ and ‘Trippin”.
Following this was a television role, as part of the four-woman cast of reality
TV series, ‘Girls Behaving Badly’. In the years since she has built up an
impressive resume: feature film roles in ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (2004), ‘Domino’
(2005), ‘Déjà Vu’ (2006), ‘The Secret Lives of Bees’ (2008), and ‘Our Family
Wedding’ (2009); and roles in television series ‘One on One’, its spin-off,
‘Cuts’, and most recently, ‘Gillian in Georgia’ (2010).

She is proud of the talent she’s worked with: Alicia Keys, Queen
Latifah, Jennifer Hudson (“a really good friend of mine”), and Sophie Okonedo
(“ever since ‘Hotel Rwanda’ I’ve been chasing this lady”) in ‘The Secret Life
of Bees’; Denzel Washington (“the ‘Oga'”) in ‘Déjà Vu’; Monique in ‘Domino’;
Forest Whitaker (“He was my role model as a child”) in her latest film, ‘Our
Family Wedding’; and directors Tony Scott and Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Sisdrella

Shondrella married Ade Kester in 2005. She had known him for
about eight years. They met at a restaurant in America. “I thought he was very
handsome… he was tall, dark, and handsome, and that was what I wanted,” she
says, laughing. So “mesmerized” was she that she did not realise he had a
Nigerian accent until they spoke on the phone later. A first date followed a
few days later; they’ve “been together ever since”.

One of the things that continue to impress her about him is his
pride in being Nigerian. “I’m proud of him for being proud of where he’s from,”
she says. And she also acknowledges the very supportive role he’s played in her
life. “He’s gone through the journey with me.”

Being married to him has taught her a lot about Nigeria; the
cuisine for example. “If I love him, then I love everything that comes with
him,” she says. But coming to Nigeria with him for the first time (he has
travelled to Nigeria three to four times every year since 2006) has made her
realise that there are some things about Nigeria that can only be experienced,
not learnt second-hand. When I ask when she plans to start shooting, she says
she’s ready, but has come to respect Nigeria’s peculiar sense of timing, the
land’s knack for slowing things down to a preset pace.

The word ‘respect’ shows up quite regularly in our conversation.
She tells me she’s from the American South, so she’s no stranger to a
family-bound code of respect. “I don’t backtalk my mother; I don’t curse in
front of my siblings or my parents…I was raised properly.”

Marrying into a Nigerian family stretches the demands of respect
much further, so that her sisters call her husband “Bros Ade” and not “Ade”;
and greet her mother-in-law the Yoruba way. His own sisters also use the
obligatory “Sister” to prefix her name, but instead of the long “Sister
Shondrella”, they’ve transfigured it into the charming “Sisdrella”.

She believes that African-Americans ought to respect Africa. “I
can’t assume an identity without respecting the identity… Some people in
America don’t even know that Egypt is in Africa, but they want to say they’re
African-American.”

There’s a militancy to her views, which manifested in her
decision to not claim Africa until she visited. “Now, I can say I am African!”

After two weeks in Nigeria, it’s time to return to America,
where she works full-time as an actress, theatre and short film director, and
voice-over artist. She’s going back with record high enthusiasm. And with three
cameras full of photos (“the good, the bad, the indifferent, the in-between;
I’ve taken it all”). When she returns, which she assures me will be very soon,
it will be with the Australian cinematographer (and Africaphile) James
Costello, who will work with a Nigerian crew and Nigerian actors.

Costello won’t be the only person making the US-Nigeria trip on
account of ‘Shondrella’s Adventures’. “I’m bringing my mother, I’m bringing my
sisters,” she declares.

My guess is that there’ll never be too many ambassadors to spread uplifting
green-and-white news in the land of stars and stripes.