Never Visited the Country I Claim

BurundiJoelle Kanyana,
TN.

When people ask me where I’m from, my answer is always, “I’m Burundian.”
However, there is often an identity crisis in my mind because I was born in Ghana and have spent most of my life in the United States. Furthermore, I never learned Kirundi, Burundi’s native language.
But Burundi is the country of my parents, it’s in my mother’s cooking, it’s in the weddings I attend each summer – Burundi is in me, somehow.
(The picture attached is of me in ’09, wearing the traditional Burundian outfit).

 

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