The few weeks, months, even years before my family’s short three week trip to Burundi, my parents kept going on about how we were finally going to see our home, where we belong, where we come from. They never passed the chance to remind us that we were Burundians every single day in every single thing we did. “You’ll go to Burundi and finally see your people."
I could understand their excitement. We, despite being told we were Burundians and that we represented Burundians, had never stepped foot in the country. So, it was hard sometimes for us to say we were Burundians knowing that we literally knew nothing about the country nor could relate to the country in any way other than the language spoken at home and the food my mother always complained we never ate. “How will you survive in Burundi? This is the only food they eat.” “I’ll just bring a box of ramen noodles,” I would reply jokingly.
The fact that I did not know what to tell people about who I am did not hit me until two weeks into our trip. We were sitting in the living room, TV playing in the background, my brother and I engaged in a card game. My father came to the table, looked at us, and asked,
“Now, I want you to tell me honestly, now that you have stepped foot in Burundi and have seen it, what do you think? How does it make you feel?”
Everyone was quiet, but I was never the one to be quiet when faced with a question. I looked around at my sisters just smiling. We were thinking the same thing. So I spoke.
“I like it. I think it’s really good that we got to meet our grandmas and uncles and aunts and all the cousins, but I don’t feel such a strong connection to the country. I mean, it’s great, but I would have been much happier to be in Kenya.”
“What do you mean? This is your country?”
“This is technically not my country. We were all born in Kenya and all we know is Kenya. Being here doesn’t really create any deep connections, at least not like you and mom have when you drive down the road you used to when you were young.”
He looked at me, so I kept going. “I would have loved to be in Kenya more than here because all the memories I have from when I was young are all from Kenya. The feeling you and mom have when you drive past your old school, that’s what I would feel driving past Kihumbuini and seeing all the places I used to spend my time in. I just don’t feel that here. I mean, I’m happy to be here, but it doesn’t feel like home.”
“You’re not Kenyan! You were never Kenyan! Here you can go and do whatever you want, but in Kenya you were a refugee and could not have the freedom you have here.”
“But, I’m a Kenyan citizen.”
“Who lied to you?!”
I complained to my mother the next day about how he had asked us to be honest and then yelled at me for it, but I got the same response from my mother. “Who lied to you and told you you were Kenyan? You are Burundian because that is what your parents are.”
“But I’m not.”
Growing up in Kenya as refugees, I remember times when my parents told us not to tell people we were Burundian and to say we were Kenyan. Or, we'd be caught in situations and conflicts where they would tell us to say we were Burundians and not Kenyans. Who I was depended a lot on where I was and who my parents said I was. But then we came to America and for the first time, I got to choose what I wanted to tell people I was.
My introduction for so many years ran along something like this: I’m from Burundi and Kenya. I’m Burundian by blood, but I was actually born and raised in Kenya. My parents are from Burundi, but I was born in Kenya. I’ve never actually been to Burundi before. I always felt like I was lying when I said I was Kenyan but didn’t mention Burundi.
So I sat down and thought about it. A lot. I don’t know anything about Burundi but know so much about Kenya. I was raised in Kenya but hadn’t stepped foot in Burundi until a month ago. But saying one and not the other felt like rejecting a whole part of me and felt like rejecting my parents and the central part of who I was. But I don’t know that central part and three weeks in Burundi did not draw me any closer to it. If anything, it drew me further away, for seeing Burundi made me miss the only thing that I knew growing up.
If that confusion wasn’t enough, add in me becoming an American citizen and spending half of my life in this country. But I have never referred to myself as American. I’ve always either thought of myself as Kenyan and Burundian. When I people ask me where I'm from, I’ve developed a tendency to say Kenya. The truth is that right now, I live about twenty minutes away from my college campus, right outside Boston. Still, I wouldn’t call myself American. When I am outside this country, I tell people that I am American. When I was in Burundi, my parents referred to us as Americans.
I’ve come to a point where I don’t know what to tell people I am. For me, it’s not an issue of being mixed because I am not. I can’t say I’m half this and half that. It’s not an identity that has to do with my parents but something that I personally get to make. I can't say I'm Kenyan because I am also Burundian. I can't say that I'm Burundian because I am also Kenyan. But it also doesn't make sense to say I am Kenyan and Burundian because that implies that my parents are from two different places, which they are not. It raises this question: is your identity defined by where you are from or is it something much deeper than that? It's a question I am still trying to answer, but for now, I will continue saying what I am the way I have found to be the most true. I was born and raised in Kenya, but I am Burundian by blood.
