Dreams And Duty: How Speaking Different Languages Keeps Me In Touch With My Past
Finding a way through sentiment and vocabulary.
For 12 years of my life, I awoke to the same routine. A gentle knock on my door, followed by a more urgent one, quickly followed by the hinges creaking open and my mother exclaiming in harried frustration, “Bo Shami! Reveille-toi!”
I would wipe the crust off my eyes, step into my slippers, and sleepily reply, “Bonjour, maman” with an obligatory kiss on the cheek. If a guest was visiting from our homeland of Comoros, I would then step into my living room, with my right palm over my left extended in their direction, and demurely state “Kwezi,” dutifully waiting for the obligatory placement on top of my hand and subsequent “m’Bona.” Then I would shower, get dressed, and step out into the courtyard of Colonial (now known as Ralph Rangel) Houses in Harlem, where my friend Ashley was waiting to walk to the train with me, chattering away in English about what we had watched on TV or heard on the radio the day before.
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