Sa Lone Krio

"You Put a Move on My Heart" by Tamia

...when the world seems a lonely place / I've got a dream that won't leave a trace / of the blues...

Language is miraculous and it is inadequate. It is so amazing that we developed this tool to communicate complex thoughts to one another. We have so many different languages with so many words and so many ways to express so many different thoughts.

But at the same time, there are so many things that are left uncommunicated or left communicated ineffectively. Language itself is beautiful. The efficacy of human communication is up for debate.

I speak a language called Krio. It is one of languages spoken at home in Sierra Leone and is under the umbrella of Creole languages of the world. It's a hybrid of English, Portugese, and an antiquated African language of Sierra Leone.

I love Krio. Of all the languages I have heard, it is the most fun, most alive, most versatile, most playful, and most far reaching (this is easily due to my personal bias). I love the language. She was my first.

When I moved to the United States, I forgot her for a little while but she was just dormant in my talents. When I grew up and had cousins coming from Sierra Leone, I wanted to be apart of their club. I had no memories of Sierra Leone, but I had her language. The stories that were told, the jokes that were made, the inside jokes that were maintained, the arguments/debates had were better in Krio. So, I listened very intently and I relearned to speak my first language in one summer at my Auntie Kadiatu's house surrounded by 5 cousins who spoke Krio and Temne better than English.

I spoke it exclusively, and I talk a lot. Eventually, I would slip up and think to say something in Krio, but would have to stop and switch to English mode for my friends.

Yesterday, a friend of mine and his girlfriend welcomed a baby girl. They too are from Sierra Leone. My older brother, his girlfriend, and I went to visit the family in the hospital. She explained to us what the pain was like. I have had people explain to me what childbirth is like and I have seen several myself, but the difference this time was that she spoke Krio.

The intentional hyperbolic stress on some words dancing with the raise in pitch of her voice in Krio made me almost feel what she felt. There is a tangibility about Krio to me. When some words are spoken, they have a life of their own. She used "heavy" to describe the contractions and heavy had a scent, and light, and a physical sensation to me. That is how I know I will need an epidural.

I listened to her say every word very intently (as I do when I listen to anyone talk). I hear the stresses, the pitches, the breathes in between. I hear everything. People would be creeped out if they knew the manner in which I listened to them speak.

And, I really liked the way she spoke. I do not like the way I speak Krio. I talk too fast so I eat the language rather than deliver it. I catch my tongue getting frustrated with the speed of my thoughts. At times she'll stop working all together in protest, as if to say she shouldn't be expected to keep up with the pace of my thoughts. There is time yet to communicate them. Chill.

But she also understands my excitement. I love to speak English but I love Krio more. I get to speak Krio to the people who love me most, who understand my history the best. Language is one of the few things that we could bring over from Sierra Leone and it connects us. We get to revert to our mother tongue and encourage fellowship after the American world has chewed us up, told us we are inadequate because we are foreign, alienated us because we are foreign.

Many foreigners, if not all, feel that way. You always feel some type of way, some type of closeness to a person you don't even know when you find out they speak your language while you walk along the streets with exclusive English speakers. This is the land of opporunity and the "melting pot/salad bowl," but sometimes, you miss home.

Sometimes, no matter how acclimated you have become, you feel that you can never be American. So when you run into some lady in the store, your ears perk up when you hear the syllables of your language and maybe you think of your mom and how she used to say to you in anger "Bo, pas na ya. La I no tel you 2 tem."

You know that lady knows your food, knows your music, has her flag hanging from her rearview mirror, yells at her children not to be "lek den American pikin den." And it's comforting.