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Task A

1.
Outline what you learn about the three young women’s backgrounds and their current situations.
(Comprehension) (12 Punkte)
2.
Analyse how Maryam and her situation are presented. Focus on point of view and her relation to the other characters.
(Analysis) (16 Punkte)
3.
Choose one of the following tasks:
3.1
According to a survey conducted in 2018, 45% of Nigerian adults say they plan to move to another country within five years, 28% of them intending to move to the USA.
Comment on these figures and their implications. Refer to work done in class on Nigeria and on American myths and realities.
(Evaluation: comment) (14 Punkte)
The survey was conducted by Pew Research Center, an independent US-American opinion research institute. https://pewrsr.ch/2OsJI1z [27.06.2020]
Phillip Connor and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “Many Nigerians, Tunisians and Kenyans say they plan to leave their countries in the next five years”, 27 March 2019
https://pewrsr.ch/2OsJI1z [Zugriff: 27.06.2020]
or
3.2
On her last day at the Immigration Detention Centre, Maryam writes a letter to her childhood friend Abike back in Nigeria. Write this letter, focusing on her feelings about her return to Nigeria as well as on her hopes and fears for the future.
(Evaluation: re-creation of text) (14 Punkte)

Molara Wood
The Last Bus Stop

The short story is set in London, where the three young women Sade, Ronke and Maryam became friends. Now Sade, the narrator, is about to call Ronke, who has gone to New York. She wants to tell her what happened to their friend Maryam. Before picking up the phone, she thinks back to the day when Ronke told them about her plan to leave.
1
"I have model friends who aren´t doing badly in New York." You looked at the greying sky
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outside the window. "Yeah, I think that´s where I´m headed. America. Last Bus Stop."
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I turned to Maryam who had sunk into the sofa, holding her mug close as though for warmth.
4
We were thinking the same thing: we would soon be losing our friend to America. God´s
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own country. The Last Bus Stop for many of our generation who, once they got there, never
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seemed to think there was anywhere left to go – or return. […]
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That was the great thing about being around you, Ronke. The confidence that the world was
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wide, lush and inviting and you had your place in it, a sure footing that could not slip. Back
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in Lagos, Maryam and I would never move in the same circles as you. We’d probably never
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meet your kind – rich and privileged with the world yours for the taking, able to enjoy
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Beethoven if you chose. But in London we were your best friends. Remember how, when
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irritated by those Nigerians we considered beneath us, we’d smirk, “London is a leveler”?
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When it came to leveling Nigerians, London was indiscriminate. It leveled either way, up or
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down the social ladder. Maryam and I didn’t mind that London leveled us up with you, Ronke.
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Looking back, I see it was all that time in your company that got Maryam thinking about
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becoming a model. It also fueled her dreams of escape to America, The Last Bus Stop.
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Maryam was too short to be a model of course but carried herself like one. She was forced
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to take a break from university, unable to afford the fees. Money from home had dried up.
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Her widowed mother’s fabric retailing business in Lagos was badly hit by a ban on imported
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textiles; then armed robbers swept the shop clean of expensive laces, voiles and jacquards.
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Maryam’s student work permit ran out with her study visa, so she could not continue work
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as a part-time beauty consultant with her new, illegal immigrant status. She did the odd job
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where they were not too fussy about papers; and kept close to her beloved haunts by hanging
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with you. Now you are gone, and tomorrow I will not attend lectures. I must go to Maryam,
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you see.
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I remember the day you left for New York, Ronke. We saw you off to Gatwick Airport.
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When it was time to go through the passengers’ only gates, you wrapped us in what you
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liked to call “major hugs.”
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Maryam sobbed on the Gatwick Express back to Victoria Station and I pushed tissues into
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her hands, embarrassed at the sneaky glances from other passengers. I realized then that
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Maryam was crying more for herself than for you. She hadn’t found a way to escape her
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predicament as you had just done. When the sniffling stopped, Maryam slipped on the
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Gianfranco Ferré sunglasses you gave her. She looked a bit like the model she wanted to be
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then, but a monologue ensued.
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“I hate phoning home now, what’s the use? Mum can hardly feed my brothers, let alone find
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the foreign exchange to support me here.”
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I only listened, one arm round her shoulders.
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“No use calling for money... Mum just cries and cries till my credit runs out. Last time I
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phoned she begged me to come back home. But, go home to what, Sade, tell me; go home
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to what? Go back a failure, a university drop-out. Go back with my head bowed when my
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contemporaries in Lagos have done better with their lives? No. I can’t go back... I can’t go
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back. Not just now.” [...]
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Now on the lone sofa in my living room, I dial your US number. How to say it, Ronke?
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That Maryam was caught attempting to board a flight to America with a forged passport
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and is to be deported back to Nigeria? That the dodgy boyfriend took every penny she had
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left to facilitate her last dash for The Last Bus Stop? If Kate Moss could make it as a model
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without a great height, who was to say Maryam couldn’t? And if she couldn’t be a model in
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America, she could be other things, couldn’t she? Ronke was there, was she not? Maryam
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blurted it all out to me when I saw her at the Immigration Detention Centre today. Now,
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I must in turn blurt it all out to you. You, Ronke, who started Maryam’s dream rolling.
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I hear the phone ringing from across the waters. The receiver feels moist next to my cheek
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as I wait for an answer.
Source: Molara Wood, The Last Bus Stop, 2009 http://www.snreview.org/0308Wood.html (Zugriff: 15.04.2020)

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