Hindatu Mohammed

Professor Perry

ENG 2100

10/29/23

I remember the last time I went to Ghana for a family vacation and heard the language of my culture properly spoken to me. I was 4 years old at the time. My aunts, uncles, and cousins were speaking to me in a  foreign language I’ve hardly known of before. I was being told “ya kike” “kina lafiya” ( those two phrases both mean “how are you” in Hausa) family members were having full conversations with me and I could only understand about 40 percent of what they were saying. In my early years of life my parents spoke to me in both English and Hausa but mainly English since they were both fluent in the language. I guess I can say I was lucky to have parents who can speak fluently in the language that I am surrounded by daily. But it also meant that I wasn’t really surrounded by the language of my culture daily enough to be able to speak it myself. Being around so many hausa spoken people during my vacation in Ghana led me to want to learn how to speak it. My reasoning because I was so immersed in this language everyday while in Ghana, but I also found it very unique, similarly to other languages out there. When my family and I came back to the U.S. I started to force myself to try and speak hausa more and more. With my parents, with my relatives, even with myself. My parents noticed that I’ve been trying to teach myself Hausa, so they started speaking to me in the language more and more. There were many times where they would laugh at me because of the mistakes I would make when speaking it, but I didn’t let that stop me from learning the language. As years went by I became a bit more fluent, considering I was still surrounded by so many English spoken people and I only really spoke hausa at home with my  family. I became the most fluent one amongst my brothers and I. They didn’t really know the language like that. They could understand it very well, but they didn’t know how to speak it , unlike me. Throughout the years, learning Hausa has also helped me learn a lot about my culture. For example if there was a word that I didn’t know how to say during a conversation I would ask my mom or dad and they would explain it to me. They would also give an example on the meaning of the word which helped me  learn things about my culture little by little. An example is the word “lelle” (le – lle) which means henna which we use on the bride’s hands and feet when she is getting married. Little things like that helped me memorize words even better. I also noticed that when it came to comparing how words said in Hausa compared to how they are said in English sounded so much better. For example in English we have “rabbit” but in Hausa it is called “zomo”. Another one is “hand” and in hausa it  is “annu” . Making little comparisons like that also made learning about my culture fun. Similar to when I would be cooking with my mom and she would explain to me about certain ingredients that aren’t typically used in american food but specifically in food of our culture. She would also tell me little stories of when she was younger if it was related to anything in that sense which was so much fun to hear. As I got older I started to watch videos with my dad of people traveling the world and learning about different cultures. My dad also traveled the world when he was my age so he always found these videos very nostalgic. I began to find them very interesting as well. Through these videos my dad and I would have some sort of a cultural exchange with knowledge that we knew about other countries. We would even do ones where my dad tells me more about our culture and I tell him things that he doesn’t already know about American culture.  Through this journey of mine I’ve noticed that I somewhat have 2 different personalities when speaking both languages. When I’m speaking Hausa, I’m usually talking to people in my family so majority of the time I’m speaking casually. But when I speak English, it honestly depends on who I’m speaking with only because my knowledge of the English language is more diverse than my knowledge of Hausa. Learning the language of my culture and the culture itself has helped me in many ways in becoming the person that I am today but there are other things such as experiences that I have encountered which helped me learn more about myself. When I was younger and even now I loved to dance and listen to music, and read. These were my forms of escaping reality and just enjoying time as a kid and not having to worry about other people in this world. I love to dance while listening to music. It helps me express myself in a way that I don’t think I can express myself in any other way. It brings out a side of me that I believe only shows when I’m dancing or when I’m listening to music. I used to be a part of dance teams and I loved the feeling of dancing with other people and having something in common, but I also love just dancing in my room and trying new moves whenever I listen to a new song. It’s something I don’t really want to do in public, so I do it at home where no one can see me. Same goes for reading, but I feel that I am more open to it, like reading out in public and whatnot. People usually tend to try to talk to me while i’m reading which bothers me which is why I prefer to read at home than in public. Usually doing all this at home made me realize that I’m an introvert and because of that I love to stay at home and do my own thing and I don’t really have to deal with people outside the four walls that seclude me from society. Due to that it made it a bit easier to somewhat ignore people and do what I want. Writing it down like this sounds rude, but I mean in a way where if someone calls me I won’t answer the phone only because they have another option to text me if they want. Or if they want me to do a favor for them, but I don’t really feel comfortable, I say no instead of trying to please them. There’s this YouTube channel that I watch called Phsyc2Go and they talk about case studies and how the human mind works and why we do this and that but in cartoon form which makes it so much fun to watch. The channel helped me learn things about not just myself but other things that people go through and do which are why they are the way they are. Somewhat like when a person does the astrology test to see what kind of person they are. I never really understood it because it’s not always accurate. I believe you’re born the way that God made you and that’s that. There are of course many videos and studies that show your behaviors as something that would be scientific like a personality disorder or social anxiety. Things like that sometimes confuse me a little. I say this because there could be one tiny symptom in any of these cases and then I end up thinking that I have the condition because I may have that one symptom. When it’s all really in head. Kind of like that meme of when someone searches up what’s wrong with them on google because they’re not feeling well, and they automatically assume that they’re gonna die. Which is funny since doctors say that you shouldn’t always believe what the internet tells you. I guess being curious is another one of my many traits. Another one is always being called the second mother or being mature for my age  around people older than me because of how I had to take care of my brothers from an early age. This wouldn’t be a literacy narrative if I don’t include my brothers in it. They have always been a part of my journey of growing into the person that I am today since the day they  decided to make me a big sister. I have three brothers, and they are a pain to deal with, but I do love them very dearly as their big sister and as their second mother. I don’t know what I would be without my brothers. They are the ones who helped me develop some of my personality traits that I have obtained throughout my years of growing with them. But one thing they all share is knowing how to make me annoyed and angry. This is a little introduction to each of them since this journey is about me. The 1st of the boys is my brother Sulley (we are a year apart and he is my person. He knows me like the back of my hand. Although there are many times where we’ve had arguments and haven’t spoken to each other for weeks, he is still my person, That’s what some siblings are like. I obtained a trait of learning to be defensive and know how to stand up for myself since I don’t really dont know how to do that and my brother is really good at it, just like our mom) the 2nd born is my brother Fareed (we are seven years apart. I get along with him the least of my brothers and we argue a lot. But I still think of him as my child and I do care for him like any older sibling would care for their younger sibling. I obtained a trait of always hiding my belongings and never losing them since he always takes my things without my permission every single time.) and the last born is my brother Taufiq. (we are nine years apart and he is kind of like my other half. We both look the exact same when we were babies and people tend to say he is my little twin. I love to listen to music and one of the genre’s that I like is Kpop. There are certain songs that I listen to occasionally and everytime I do he’s always singing the chorus to the song with me and I find it funny because it shows that he pays attention to what I do. I obtained a trait of using music as a way to communicate with people since it is a universal thing.) I always say that I wish I was given sisters instead of brothers, but I think there was a reason why I was given brothers instead of sisters, so I’m okay with it now. This little but long journey of mine showed all the things and people that lead me to be the person that I am today which I am eternally grateful for and I’m glad to be the person that I am and I wouldn’t change if for the world.