If all went well I would’ve been preparing to leave for Berlin, starting a new life at a university so rarefied that Reddit users call it the Harvard of International Relations in Europe. Small and perfectly elite, the university was the physical manifestation of a dream come true. A bastion of Western neoliberalism, the school represented everything I wanted to be. This university recently hosted Francis Fukuyama, Mark Rutte, and Friedrich Merz for some sort of seminar. It is the type of school everyone congratulates you for getting into – and I had done so.
But all did not go well. There is no Berlin to leave for. Whilst in the liminal space between the decision to go or stay, I imagined myself posting a photo dump six months after I had moved, surprising everyone. I imagined going to see Harry Styles in a bouncy disco dress, dancing to ‘Aperture’ and ‘American Girls’ till my feet hurt. I imagined going to church, joining a new book club, taking the train, giving matcha another try. I imagined traipsing across Europe, seeking adventure. I imagined having a crush on a handsome, furtive neighbour or schoolmate. I imagined meeting my dear friend Tere for the first time. I imagined our squeals of joy, our hugs, our merry selfies. I imagined writing essays about this new place, this new world, exploring with my words what it all meant to me. I imagined making new, exciting friends, perhaps even meeting my future husband. As it was wont to do, my imagination leapt, swirled and pirouetted. The fierce excitement of a new beginning spurred me on.
When it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to attend (I could not afford the fees and plane tickets), I came crashing down to reality. I sank into deep despair, mourning the life I may never get to live. But my despair was not only that I couldn’t, at the time, attend a university that sits beside the Reichstag and hosts leading political figures. Deep down, my despair was the realisation that I would have to stay put. There was no moving for me.
What am I if not a being in constant motion, never in a place for too long? Six years of high school in a different country, four years of university in yet another. Surely, the next thing to do is to move. My body, soul, and spirit do not know how to sit still.
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I’m half-Gambian, half-Nigerian. I spent my childhood in Gambia and my adolescence in Nigeria. Away in Nigeria, all I wanted was to go back to Gambia. I had missed my idyllic, sticky-sweet childhood and had resented the bitterness and grit of Nigerian society.
Being “Gambian” was an identity I wore heavily, reminding everyone that I was not of this place. People would hear my surname and immediately ask, much to my delight, “What country are you from?” This was funny because my name is Nigerian. As Head Girl, I made the school authorities raise a Gambian flag in the school courtyard alongside the Nigerian one. When I was graduating, the orchestra played the Gambian national anthem as I went on stage to receive my valedictorian award. I was insistent on my Gambian identity.
In Gambia, no one recognises me as Gambian. My accent is distinctively Nigerian, so is my name and my bearing. Before I even get a word in, people speak to me in English. Just from looking at me, they assume I am foreign. They are always proven right; I couldn’t converse fluently in Wolof if I tried. To speak Wolof feels like untying a tangled rope from my tongue. I cannot string two grammatically correct Krio sentences together, which is remarkable, as Krio is literally pidgin English. I hear my mother and aunt switch between Wolof and Krio in conversation and immediately feel left out. It is remarkable how not knowing a language limits your world, your ambitions, and your sense of belonging.
How strange it is to belong to two cultures. As Jhumpa Lahiri so beautifully put it in her essay ‘The Indian-American Experience’, you fall “short at both ends, shuttling between two dimensions that have nothing to do with one another.” You don’t know where exactly you belong, because in a way, you belong nowhere. You are a nowhere person.
Perhaps this is the reason I love moving. Maybe I am looking for a place to which I would truly belong. Maybe if I start a new life in a faraway land, my pulse will be put to rest. Maybe I will become a somewhere person. That may be it. But I know deep down that even that would be unsatisfying. The bottom line is that I will always exist in the middle. I’ll always be a person of two halves.
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The biggest source of cultural alienation for me is not knowing how to speak my parents’ languages. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, feeling acutely the limits English has imposed on my mind. I have been wondering how lusher my life would’ve been if I could dip in and out of Igbo, Wolof, and Krio. I regret not learning them, and resent my parents for not prioritising that aspect of my life. I have more agency now though, so I can work on that. My mind has held on to what the linguist Kato Lomb wrote of languages: “We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people.”
Reading that made me realise that it didn’t matter that my Wolof was laughably bad. It didn’t matter that I struggled with Igbo consonants. What mattered was that I was resolute and shameless in my pursuit of linguistic knowledge. I am determined now to fist-fight my way into learning, speaking, and living my cultures. As Kato Lomb said, to learn languages best, one has to be motivated. “We are motivated to do something when we accept what is necessary to achieve it.” I feel the necessity. I have realised how close it would make me feel if I knew them.
What exactly does it mean to be of a culture? I see this tension everywhere with people belonging to two tribes, countries, and races. I see it with children of immigrants. What unifies my experience with theirs is that of early movement, this sort of rupture that seems to linger forever. A crisis of identity, if you will. I have tried to find an answer to this very existential question. Truth is, I am still looking. But here is the little I know.
I am me. I am two halves made into one being, pulsating with life. I am everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. Truth is, it is discombobulating trying to belong fully to a culture when it is just a part of you. There has to be a way to have your hands in two pies, to oscillate and float between states of being. I have realised that I must do this.
My angsty body cannot sit still, but it has to learn. It is time for me to stay in a place for too long. I will shuttle between my two dimensions. And I will be okay.
*Photo by Declan Sun on Unsplash