College — my first exposure to real live blacks! — came as quite a shock. When, on New Year's Eve, my uncle threw me out of the house, and a coup ended democracy in Nigeria for the next 16 years, I pulled the covers over my head and proceeded to flunk out of Harvard. When I awoke from my daze months later, I found myself in the Thai forest — head and eyebrows shaved, about to ordain as a Buddhist nun.

After my return to the USA and successful graduation, I dreamed about meeting my first Nigerian, a security guard who taught me how to pronounce my surname correctly. Suddenly, wherever I went, I encountered Nigerians, all of whom spoke reverently of my father. When, unexpectedly, I was offered a yearlong fellowship to the University of Nigeria, I scurried home to consult my mother. Handing over my father's love letters and instructive messages to me as a child, she cheered: Go!

Enthralled by the optimistic young Turk recounting the lived history of African nationalism and 60's race relations on the page, I left for Nigeria, determined to retrace his own return home after a decade spent schooling abroad. I found a country straining beneath harsh military rule and the corrupt legacy of colonialism. Narrowly escaping clashes between soldiers and university students sparked by worldwide IMF and World Bank protests, I discovered to my surprise that by African standards, I'm considered white.

As news of my arrival spread, I met my father — whose chest is home to both a pacemaker and a bullet — for the first time. Cultural misunderstanding and mutual suspicion plagued our attempts to reconcile. Once I learned that I — an only child for 26 years — had three teenage siblings, I redoubled my efforts and was rewarded by my father the chief's pronouncement upon introducing us: "This is your sister from America. You love her." My sister resembled me so much that villagers mistook me for her spirit double, a pale ghost returned from the netherworld. Together we traveled to our ancestral village, where I visited war sites and tried to uncover what had happened during my father's 14-year silence. On New Year's Eve, I was crowned princess of our clan.