Day 315: “Maman, Je vous aime.” ~ Mom, I love you.

It is my mom’s birthday today, but I wrote an entry back in October that I decided to save for Mother’s day/my mom’s birthday. Back then, I didn’t even know that I’d be heading back to the states to celebrate my brother’s wedding in May 2009, so this is interesting to read now. Anyway, happy birthday mom and see you really soon!

*** The following was written on 10.10.08 in my private journal ***

There was a flash flood today. I don’t normally get worried about things like rain or other natural disasters (that won’t immediately effect me), but today the rain that came down was as if the heavens parted and God decided to dump buckets of water out of his boat. The oddest part was that this morning was incredibly hot! As I performed my usual routine of salué-ing the mayor’s office, talking with Emile and Simone (his brother), and buying some stuff from my Marché Maman, I was sweating up a storm by the time I got home. I was going to do laundry due to the trés forte (very strong) sun, but my maman in my concession already was a step ahead of me. Relieved that I had an excuse not to do my overdue laundry, I went into my place to prepare lunch.

Over the next few hours I performed menial tasks that have been keeping me busy (sewing a curtain to separate my rooms, typing up recipes for the revamped PC cookbook, reading, and trying to figure out ways to torment Burrito). As I was preparing my rice and sauce I heard my mama talking to her baby girl. Her daughter is probably around 1.5 to 2 years old and so she doesn’t really talk yet, but does babble a lot. It is funny how you don’t even need to understand someone else’s language, yet you still can distinguish when someone is speaking in baby talk. This made me think about my own mom back in the States. When she had my brother AND me, it was about 3 years after she immigrated to the United States of America. This meant that she probably had very little exposure to the spoken language, didn’t know anyone besides immediate family members on my dad’s side, and to top it off, she had two annoying sons to look after.

To this day, I’m not entirely sure how she went about her life and got things done, including learning English and just learning enough to get by. Judging from my own experience, knowing even the basics of money, household items/food, and salutations can get you a long way. But the difference between someone who is starting to learn English in the States and a foreigner (who is put on a pedestal regardless if you are not Caucasian, they don’t know the difference) in Benin attempting to learn the local language, is incredibly vast. On one hand, America isn’t necessarily the most accepting of places for those who don’t speak English. I am guilty of this also, but I think it is part of our superiority complex engrained into our culture, something that we can’t necessarily turn on and off. We can be aware of it and be ‘sensitive’ to others, but again, I tend to think this is more relevant to those people who know (or who have themselves) immigrated to the US from a non-English speaking country.

At the same time, almost every country (with a government supported school system) has included English as a secondary/tertiary (wow, I had to stop and think of what the heck ‘3’ was) language. Thus, people who immigrate to the US aren’t in that bad of a place. Nevertheless, learning a new language after 20 years of living your life speaking only one language is rather daunting. So how’d she do it? From what I remember of my childhood (which is rather spotty since I have selective memory) my mom would go through flashcards with me before I went to pre-school. We would sit on the couch in the living room for an hour or so. She’d flip through cards and make me read what the words said. I usually didn’t know the meaning of the words, but I knew that it was imperative that I read the word correctly. Part of it was because I didn’t want to have to do this over and over again, but the other part of me was anxious to learn these words to make my mom proud. She would work hard with me so that: I would understand quicker and hopefully perform better in school, which would lead to more opportunities in higher education, thereby giving me the ability to compete against some of the ‘best and brightest’ in the job market, and ultimately to become a successful, well-educated, (and happy) man.

Could she see all these things back then? Did she really have that kind of foresight? I suppose that is what all parents think about. Maybe that is what gave her the drive to wake up each morning and take care of her two sons in a land that was so alien and unrelenting. Or maybe she really is a super-mom and is able to do whatever it takes, not for herself, but for the good of her children.

Thanks umma. Happy birthday and Happy mother’s day. Thanks for letting me be me and for giving me the freedom to do what I’d like to do! I hope I can make you proud even though I am thousands of miles away from home!

My mom and me at Paul and Tammy’s wedding. [08.10.07]