In My Tongue

In terms of language, my mom hasn't been super influential with us. English isn't something that she had to make the conscious effort to teach us. I think she thought that, "Well, they're going to learn it anyways," you know? [laughs] So we learned just like that.

Same thing with Bemba, it's... It was harder for us to learn, or it's harder for me to learn Bemba because there are not many Zambians anywhere. Ever. At all. You know, wherever you go in Canada, you'll find maybe a few Zambians here and there, but there aren't many my age that I can speak with.

Whereas with Congolese culture, it's very flamboyant, it's very out there. And so, any school that I went to, there were at least, like, two or three other Congolese people who would make jokes in Lingala that nobody else would understand. [laughs] So with that, it's easier to learn like, you know, Bemba versus -- uh, to learn that Lingala, sorry, versus Bemba.

But in recent years, like, my mom's been trying more, like to speak with me in Bemba, because she knows that I want to learn. Grandparents? My grandmother speaks very good English, but she will also speak to me in Bemba, because she knows that I would like to learn, yes.

And then Lingala? I would say that dad's relatives mostly speak to me in French, depending on the person. Yeah.