origin story

my sister was born in ghana. she moved to the states with my mom just before turning one year old. when my dad went to pick them up at jfk airport in new york, he and my sister saw each other for the first time. up until then, for the entire eleven and a half months of her life, he had already been living in america.

my mom and dad were first-time parents in a country that was not their own. at their two-bedroom apartment in new jersey, they spoke to each other and to their first daughter in twi. she picked up what little english she could from them and from their neighbors in the building. “mommy, mommy,” she used to say, “me pe cereal.” but when she got to preschool, that wasn’t enough. she came home the first day crying, and every day after that. she couldn’t talk to the teachers to tell them what she wanted, and they couldn’t figure out how to talk to her either.

my mom and dad saw this to be their first failure as parents and as americans. they started speaking to their daughter only in english.

when i was growing up, my parents had begun to speak twi at home again, but they mixed in so much ghanaian-accented english, it was years before i could tell the difference. by then wise to what happened in american preschools to little girls who couldn’t talk to their teachers, my parents didn’t try to teach me to speak twi. and so when they would ask their first american-born daughter, in the language of their homeland, what it was that she wanted, i always understood, but i could only ever answer them in english.

for much of my young life, this was a relatively comfortable equilibrium. i got embarrassed whenever my parents spoke their odd language in the presence of americans, so it suited me just fine that i couldn’t speak it myself. still, when they told me in twi to brush my teeth or shut my mouth, i knew what they meant, and i did what they said.

the system worked.

by the time i got to middle school in michigan, though, speaking only english was nothing special. in fact, learning a second language was strongly recommended by the district, even if french, german, and spanish were the only options. regretful of the opportunity i had missed at home, i took on language learning as a passion. i studied my spanish flashcards and vocabulary lists like a person possessed. i copied obsessively the exact pronunciation, emphasis, and inflection of every native speaker who would let me hear their voice. i practiced until my speech was fluent and my accent undetectable. when i spent a semester studying abroad in oaxaca, méxico, everyone there was sure i was cuban.

here in ghana, whenever i try to call up a phrase that’s not in english, the spanish words are the first ones that come to mind. and as i interact with other ghanaians, i’m realizing my own linguistic peculiarities. the twi i learned growing up was conversational, not grammatical. the phrases i can recall are well enough constructed, but i speak as you would to a child: are you sick? do you need to pee? i’ve told you again and again, but you never seem to listen... and then some that don’t quite translate to english: “fa fri me so!” and, “mo, mo, mo. wo aye adee!”

at kotoka international airport in accra last thursday, my dad introduced me to the lady at customs who was checking our bags. “this is my daughter, afia amankwaa,” he said. “it’s her first time back to ghana in seventeen years.” “eeii!” said the woman to me, “woye maame somo, ampa!”

as we walked away, i turned to my dad and asked him in english, “what is it that she called me? what’s ‘maame somo’?”

“oh,” laughed my dad, “maame somo is someone who travels and travels and travels. she stays away for a long time before she comes back.”

maame somo, ampa. i’m only hoping now i haven’t stayed away too long.

Friday, January 25, 2008