About: warona
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Name:warona
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- uhm, let's see...born in botswana, lived in ethiopia til i was 8, repatriatede to botswana, hated it. moved to swaziland for high school (uwc! woohoo!) finished in 1995 (yes, i did IB), went back to botswana ofr about 8 months, then to the states (virginia) for the next 4 years of college, earned my BA in theatre arts, went on tour with the oldest classical touring company in the usa for 9 months, played in over 25 states, the lived in DC for about 6 months. went back to botswan (AGAIN!) was there for 5 years. half the time i was either in south africa or traveling. been to, i don't know, i lot of countries. so i am an actor/writer/director/all around thespian who just discovered she's also tck. awesome!
2007-11-15 20:02:02
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Posts by warona:
tck!mtl!meet up! tomorrow! hooray!
so, yeah. meet up is still on at parc jarry (decastelnau metro) i will be hanging out by the fountain whihc is close to the entrance near the metro.
please come. bring a freind. right now i am sitting on all of 4 responses! but of course i am happy to meet everyone who can make it.
so, yeah…tomorrow…parc jarry…the fountain…meet up…
see you there!
warona
how many countries have you watched the olympics in?
i find that everytime the olympics or world cup or some such huge world sports event rolls around, i am living in a different country.
2008- canada
2004 - botswana
2000 - u.s.a
1996 - u.s.a
1992 - swaziland
1988 - botswana
1984 - ethiopia
i just thought it’d be fun to see how many countries you have watched the olympics from and does that influence who you cheer for once your own (or adopted) country is out, or if they are not participating. i watched the opening ceremony and i definitely felt a weird swell of pride when the canadian team came in. i was like “huh, guess i have been living here a while!”
Montreal TCK Meet up August 30th 2008?
alright babes and dudes. let’s do this thing, yeah?
so i am proposing a potluck picnic at Parc Jarry on the 30th of August at 3p.m.
bring your spouse, or a friend, no worries, no hassle.
the best metro is decatelnau, the park is just a few hundred metres north. or if you are near the 55 st laurent bus, take it north and you should bump into the park at some time. ask the bus driver to let you know.
what else? just email me or hit me up on facebook for any questions. oh, we’ll set up around the fountain, so just look for the fountain and we should be close by.
hooray tck montreal meet up!
love and daisies
warona
tck rant
ok, this is just your basic tck rant. you know how it is, something stupid happens and you just want to tell someone who will get it immediately without any explanaition or defensive mechanisms kicking up. so i turn to you all. feel free to add your own. like i said, just an old fashioned bitch-fest (so wrong, but feels so right!)
ok, so i am from botswana as most of you know. i am sure you have also heard me tell a story or two of how a LOT of people have never heard of the country. which really does not bother me at all. i have lived in other countries (d’uh!) so i know there is not a lot of media coverage on botswana at all, probably because it is very peaceful (read: boring) and has a very stable economy. not very interesting as far as world news is concerned.
ok, so like i said, it does not bother me AT ALL when someone has never heard of bots, i mean there are plenty of countries (i am sure) that i have never heard of.
but why, oh WHY do people who have already openly admitted they have never heard of my country, raise an eyebrow in skepitsism when i tell them something about the country due to soem weird pre-concieved notions that they have about the african continent or just their intelligence in general??? how does that make sense? like ”i’m sorry i have NO IDEA what you are talking about but you must be wrong!”
e.g.
him: where are you from?
me: botswana
him: never heard of it
me: ever heard of the kalahari desert? (actually called the kgalagadi)
him: (delighted) yes!
me: it is, in almost all its entirity in botswana, it takes up a third of the country.
him: (raises eyebrow skeptically), are you sure?
me: (a little outraged but calm)uhm…yeah, i am pretty sure.
him: (still skeptical) but i have heard of that desert plenty of times, wouldn’t i have heard of the country too?
me: (shrugs and walks away)
or;
her: where are you from?
me: botswana
her: i have never heard of it!
me: its in southern africa
her, oh! must be dangerous around there
me: actually, botswana is one of the safest countries in the world. it has never had a war or any real strife save a bit of drought and has one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
her: it must have had a war
me: nope
her: (raises eyebrow skeptically) but its in africa!
me: (shrugs and walks away)
ugh!
rant over. thanks guys, i feel better now…
before i was tck…
so, what i have noticed is that before we discovered that there was a term for this hodge-podge of culture and language and personality, most of us made up a name for ourselves that best suited. i have heard mutt, diplomat brats, military brats and more.
this post is just a fun list of what you called yourself and others (you hoped) were like you before the ruths blessed us with the 3ck title?
mine? diaspora babies
what’s yours?
posh vs bush (no, this is not some victoria beckham vs G.W. weirdness…)
disclaimer: yes, i know, we don’t need any more boxes, this post is genrally for a laugh and a lark.
so i was telling a friend of mine about this whole tck thing. she is also tck haivng grown up in the states although she is originally from botswana like me. she was delighted with the idea and admitted that she’d been thinking a lot about her “difference” lately. she started listing all the things she had been thinking about, basically all the tck traits, so there i was on the other side of the phone (she was in shanghai at the time) going “yeah! yeah!” and then she said something to the effect of ” not being able to live somewhere where everything moves at snails pace, needing to be somewhere cosmopolitan!”
that’s when i stopped with the “yeahs”. after we got off the phone i started thinking about it, and the more i post and read posts and learn more about tcks, i realise that we are sort of divided into two groups; posh and bush. the great thing about being tck is that we can move between the two fluidly, but when our hearts cry for the familiar, it is usually one or the other of these two groups.
posh: usually grew up somewhere where it snows, in a big city. public transport is metro, buses that run on a schedule that can be found on the internet and cabs. the posh dress up to go out, they wear heels and shine their shoes. the men are often clean shaven and the women’s hair is styled. clubs and restaurants are what are considered a good night out. they are wine connoisseurs and consider some french bread, cheese and fruit a meal. life for the posh is often fast paced and organised, tardiness is considered rude to them.
bush: usually grew up somewhere where the sun shines 80% of the year. public transport is a kombi/matatu/mini bus type thingy or some contraption strapped to a bike that shows up wherever, whenever. the bush dress down, always. jeans (shorts) a tank top and flip flops are pretty much their uniform, if not then some sort of random cloth thing wrapped around the waist as a skirt (for the men too). the guys usually have full beards and the women often wear dangly earrings made from local flora. hanging out on the beach grilling fresh fish on an open fire is considered a good night out. they are beer connoisseurs and don’t consider anything a meal unless it has meat in it. the bush take a whole day off work if they have to deposit a cheque at the bank (because it is that slow) and understand that “on time” means at least an hour late.
i am a complete BUSHY, born and bred. i miss walking about barefoot, so much! (too much random glass here. not to mention all the SNOW!!)
what are you?
the good things
so, i know there is a post somewhere about what i love about being tck but this is a bit different, this is more what i love about moving. i have been in mtl for 9 months now and the other day i was marveling over a couple of things, so here is my list on what i love about moving.
1. the giddyness i feel when i finally manage to get whatever i need to move to a new country. usually i am sick to death of whatever country i am in at that time and just that knowledge that i will be somewhere different soon, its so…i don’t know, i could get drunk on that.
2. arriving. when everything is brand spanking new. and everytime you meet some one and they ask how long you’ve been there and you say ‘2 days’ or ‘2 weeks’ and they marvel at what a newbie you are, and you marvel at yourself.
3. when you’ve been there long enough to give directions, understand basic language, recommend restaurants and not have to look at a map everytime you want to go soemwhere. i LOVE this part. that is where i am right now, i am still relatively new here, but i love that i have been here long enough to know where stuff is, switch easily from english to french (albeit broken french) and just generally feel that sense of belonging.
4. making new friends and hearing new stories. i recently met a guy who was on the canadian olympic fencing team and is now an actor (we are in a show together) i love stuff like that! and i must say montréal is particularly good for that because it is so genuinely international.
5. new slang and quirks. while i can’t say that i yell ‘tabernac!’ when i stub my toe, i have picked up a lot of franglais and general québecois gestures. also my english is already slanted towards the québecois side and i pepper my speech with ‘oui, ce ça’ and ‘pointe finale!’
well, that’s my 5 for now. i must say this is my favourite part. end of year one and year two, when its all still relatively new, but i’ve been here long enough so that its not painfully new and i feel like a part of the community.
i tell you, i ADORE moving (maybe not the physical act, but the consequence!) its so exciting and everythign is so new and wonderful. and then its like a challege, seeing how you can fit yourself into this particular community, or letting the community settle around you. its moments likethese that i thank Jah i am tck, because i swear, that whole living in once place forever thing? i don’t know how those monos do it…
a tck thing happened on the way to the theatre…
so i am in rehearsal for this play. its sort of an idea that this guy had and now he’s sort of half writing half workshopping it together, its pretty cool project. anyway, so the other day in rehearsal we play a game called ’saying goodbye’.
basically the director builds this scenario of how you are getting up in the morning, late for work or an important meeting or something, when you suddenly remember a very very close friend or family member is getting on a ship and leaving that very day at that time and you will most likely never see them again. the person leaving is going somewhere for something fantastic.
the point of the excercise is to build up this sort of rush of conflicting emotions (happy for the person because they are going to do something they love, sad because they are leaving, angry because you didn’t get to hug them as the boat is pulling out when you get there). but as i got to the (imaginary) pier, where i was to wave goodbye to the person as they sailed away, i felt, well…not much.
when the director was explaining the game, i was thinking ‘uh-oh, guess who’s going to be the heartess wench who just waves, blows a kiss and then gets in her car and leaves?’ but then i decided not to preempt it and let myself get lost in the excercise. well, i was right, i felt a bit of sadness and such but nothing very hectic. everyone else were almost in tears, really emotional.
so after the game, we talked about it and i said that it may have been a bit lost on me. when i asked why, i explained. to me this makes sense; i have been moving about since i was 11 months old, i have left SO many people never to see them again, So many people have left me it has just become a norm, a part of my life. some say it s a coping mechnism, i think its because it’s all i know. who is to say i SHOULD be different just because society’s norms dictate that my heart should be ripped out eveytme someone leaves.
they didn’t get it. not at all. i was told i was probably avoiding my feelings, bottling them in. but its not like that. i may not get emotional when saying goodbye, i may not even miss people for like the first year i am gone, but i do eventually miss them. even if its in fits and starts. i remember them quite fondly and i do get sad that we can’t hang out. but its SO a part of my life, i mean i don’t know what else to say! its NOT a coping mechanism, its NOT me hiding my feelings, it is what it is.
anyway, i know not all tcks are like this, few in fact but i am. is there ANYONE else who may think (like me) that it is possible to be relatively emotionally healthy but just not all emo about goodbyes?
before i knew i was tck, i used to say it takes me a long time to ‘click’. meaning i could be in a place for about 2 years before the enormity of what i big move i made hits me. and then by then i already have friends, am familiar with the place etc. maybe it is a coping mechanism, but i just don’t like that term because it suggests that there is a better way to do it. like somehow crying at the airport will make me a more ‘normal’ more ‘whole’ human being. something i very much doubt.
anyway, this was more of a rant than anything.
ally? did you meet my boyfriend?
so i few weeks ago i started a post about how small the world is, you know, the stories of how while shopping duty free at gatwick, you bump into your kindergarten teacher from your time in abijan 20 years ago sort of thing. anyway, this story should go under that post, but i am not computer savvy enough (read: lazy) to find it, plus i want to find this woman, so i am calling out.
a few days ago, my fiancé, whom i love very much, left to go on tour in the states (check out jababliafrica.com for a concert near you (if you are in the states)) and as he often does, he looked for a rideshare on craigslist and on this facebok group for people who travel frequently between montréal and new york. anyway, he found one with this guy, and there was another girl also getting a ride from him, and my bf and her got to talking and she mentioned having lived all over and he said (my very clever fiancé) ‘oh, so you’re tck?’ and she was delighted he’d even heard of the term, and so he explained that his fiancée (moi) is tck. and went on to reccommend this site. well apparetnly she is already a member and had seen my name on the site.
so, i think its ally? my bf has the worst memory, but anyway, who rode with my man to ny? isn’t that a crazy, funny coincidence (there are NO coincidences!)? isn’t he just the cutest, nicest guy?
anyway, just thought it was a cool story…
there is just one moon and a golden sun….
and a smiling friendship to everyone
there’s so much that we share
that its time we’re aware
its a small world after all
ok, i know there is a post like this in fb, but a lot of folks here i don’t know from the fb group and i LOVE hearing stories like this. these are the stories that prove the world is pretty tiny and make folks like me happy.
here are some of mine
my aeroplane boyfriend (shhh, don’t tell my fiance)
so basically i was in college on a flight from DC to JHB or is it JNB, i can’t keep it straight and there was this guy on the plane with me. whatever, we didn’t talk or anything. on the way back (a month later) i am chilling in the airport and there is this guy again, he comes up to me and says “we were on the flight a month ago together.” i take little notice and he walks away. i then feel bad because he was just trying to make a 24 hr flight more bareable with some conversation. so on the plane i go up and talk to him and immediately fall in love (my poor little 20 year old heart! plus he was HOT!) we arrive in DC, i catch my connecting flight to virginia.
fast-forward 3 years, i have graduated and am on tour in the states, i am in DC staying with a friend for a few weeks. i am doing my christmas shopping, i stop for a second on the side walk to light a cigarette, happen to glance to my left and there, in a car, is my aeroplane boyfriend. so we chat, exchange numbers, but he is leaving to mozambique (where he is from and where he was on his way to and from the last time we met) for a month and i am leaving to botswana, for good, a week after he comes back. needless to say, we miss each other.
fast forward another 2 years. i am working the shittiest job ever in bots as a manager of a cafe. these 2 guys come in and proceed to drink and dink and drink. i am leaving on holiday the next day to mozambique to visit a friend, after closing up, these 2 guys who refused to leave til i kicked them out, beg me for a ride to the nearest pub, they are UNVs who have just arrived, one is american one is german. having a soft spot for internationals and the UN i take them. they insist on buying me a drink, we get to talking i tell them i am going to mozambique the next day, the american guy goes, hey! i am half mozambiquan. then for the sake fo conversation (and because i like the sound of my own voice) i tell him the story of my mozambiquan aeroplane boyfriend. turns out, its his cousin!
more stories to follow, please let us know yours!
its a world of laughter a world of tears
its a world of hope and a world of fears,
though the oceans are wide
and the mountains are high
its a small world after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!!!!
masala (are you biracial?)
so, i am not bi-racial or anything, unless you count my grandma’s grandma who was a little english lady called ms smith (kid you not). but i am cross cultural, as in my parents are some 2 different countries. my dad being from botswana and my mom from south africa (zulu). but i never felt that mad me stand out in any particualr way, in bots, in fact in africa a LOT of folks are cck because back in the day there would be like one university in a 4 country area hence kids went form different countries there and hey presto! peeps from e’rywhere was gettin’ hitched to other peeps from e’rywhere. but brice made me post this because…well, i don’t know why-because, because i talk a lot and he thought it would make me happy to have something to post about. sadly, he was right.
anyway, where was i?
right! seems a lot of folks in this group are also bi-racial, tri-racial, crazy weird mix ala brice the aisropean (did i get it right?) with his french/vietnamese dad and ethiopian mom.
so, point is, what’s your mix?
p.s. feel free to add how that mix even happened, like where did mr. france/vietnam meet ms ethiopia, anywho?
Funniest Cultural Names?
ok, so in setswana, and most bantu languages, names translate literally. take my name for instance. “warona” literaly translates to “ours” or its actually 3 words: “o” meaning “she/he/it”, “a” meaning “of” and “rona” meaning “us” so my name means “she who is of us” but the “o a” sound basically becomes “wa” some people in botswana write my name as “Oarona”.
other examples, names like “lorato” (my sister’s name) mean “love”. Motlalepula means “bringer of the rain” etc.
now when i say literally translated, i mean it. like i will hear people talking and they’ll say my name and sometimes i’ll turn, only to realise they were just saying “our..something” you get me? like the name “hope” in english, or “rose” or “grace”.
but of course now a lot of people want to give their children “english” names. and no, i don’t mean ones like “mary” or “alice” or “paul”. they want the names to have the meanings that the setswana ones would have but in english. so what ends up happening is people with names like “innocent” or “lucky” or “beauty”. those are some very common ones, and actually in english they don’t sound TOO bad. but some of the names come out all weird. like the name “staffnurse” is quite popular, basically the child was named in honor of the “staff nurse” who delivered him/her. and then some parents have just gone for names they felt “sound” nice, so you have people named “takesure” or “verynice” or “lovedom” my mom’s first boyfriend was called “lovington” we tease her about it all the time.
they get weirder, names like “elastic” or “broom” or “desk” or “chair”
and then, there is a tradition in botswana where if a woman has had a few miscarriages/still borns or her babies have died when very young, they say she should name the next one to be born an ugly name and thus it will survive. whether the superstition is true or not, SOME of the babies are bound to survive and grow up with said ugly name. i know a guy called “mathatha?” which mean “trouble” or “problems”. my sister went to school with 2 sisters named “gabanthatha” and “gabampatle” meaning “they don’t love me” and “they don’t want me” respectively. the name “matlakala” is quite popular. it literally translates to “garbage” or “rubbish”
ok, does this happen anywhere else?
what doesn’t fit me…
ok, so obviously even thought we can all thoroughly relate to being tck, some of the definitions or descriptions don’t fit. i mean everyone is different so not EVERYTHING is going to be exactly the same for everyone. i was just wondering what it is that you all feel does not fit you as far as the traits of a tck are concerned.
for me:
1. when i am asked where i am from, i say “botswana”. that is it. i never feel like i am hiding a piece of myself or that i need to explain more about my background or anything like that. the question does not bother me and i don’t usually elaborate, i just say “botswana” and that usually leads to a big conversation because 75% of the people i have met don’t know where it is. that said, when i am IN botswana and i am asked where i am from, i feel a need to explain more. especially since half the time i am being asked by other batswana where i am from, as in they don’t realise i am a motswana like them. probably because i am not. like them i mean. anyway…
2. the goodbye thing we;re discussing on another thread. i don;t have a problem with goodbyes. at all.
3. i do have a problem with “hellos” though. as in, i am not that person that just totally immerse themselves as soon as i get the place. it takes a bit for me to find my feet. i am a huge extrovert, except when i have just moved to a country, then i am quite introverted for a several months while i figure the place out.
guess that’s it for now. i have yet to read the book so i am just going on stuff i hear folks talking about.
oh, and am i the only one who struggles with finally being labeled? i mean as good as it feels to have a group of people who get this weird beast i have been wrestling all my life, i have also been the ring leader of the “i hate labels” club forever. because there were none for me. as in; i never fit in a box. that’s the thing with us tcks, we are never what people expect, we can’t be because each of our experiences are SO painfully unique. but now, i have a label (tck) and while i am so happy to have found it, i also am kind of conflicted about it…
hiya - Queen Warona
i know so many of you from facebook that i almost didn’t introduce myself. i suck at introducing myself anyway, mostly because a lot of people find my name hard to pronounce, which it isn’t but, i guess its the rolled r…and off i go on another tangent.
hi, my name is warona and i have the attention span of a gnat!
i have lived…ethiopia, botswana, swaziland, u.s.a, back to botswana now i am in quebec. i found i was tck thru facebook a few month ago and have been chatting folks’ ears off ever since, so i thought, why not bring my loud mouth over here?
i am an actor/writer and am actually wrtitng a play sort of about tcks, well about me so i guess, yes about tck. its hard. but fun and sometimes funny.
what else? guess that’s it. oh ya, vote for my story, i have already budgeted that $100, hahhahahahhahahahahahahhhahaha!! small joke.
no really, vote for me.
no i’m kidding
no really…
home
my home is a figment of my own creation it’s in my heart, my mind, my soul it’s the story of journeys coming to fruition on the wing of a plane in the car of a train in a bus travelling down thus un/familiar road
my home is a memory i can barely remember ice cream cones and toothless smiles cold julys and scorching decembers uniforms starched for school weekends spent in the pool then pack it all up to move a million miles
my home is in an airport saying goodbye it is at a new school saying hello before i could walk, i could already fly comfort for me in constant motion continent to continent, ocean over ocean just going with the flow
they say home is where the heart is so mine must beat inside of me i am a turtle with my shell on the inside i am a wanderer a child of the earth my home is a journey and i’m enjoying the ride
2 little girls
They sat facing each other; two little brown girls with chubby legs and kinky hair. Both, only two years old, each eying the other suspiciously while their mothers laughed easily with one another at their babies’ seriousness. One only understood English, the other; French and Creole in a country that spoke Amhara.
And that was the beginning. The beginning of the next five years braiding each other’s hair, singing together, laughing together, skipping together, running together, hiding from mama together. Trying the Mamite’s* patience, making mud pies, tormenting baby sisters, learning ABC’s, 1, 2, 3s, watching “The Sound of Music” 1000 times, I think we even tried to build a pool once…
And then, one day, one little girl had to leave. One little girl had to go back “home”. And the two little girls were awfully confused because as far as they knew, they were both “home”, what they didn’t know, is that neither of them were. Two little girls, with skinny legs, grazed knees and kinky hair, sitting side by side at the airport clutching each other. Fat tears rolling down their cheeks, two little girls, getting their first taste of heart break.
Ten years later, two brown women, with curved hips and kinky hair embrace in a bus terminal. So much to say, so many memories to conjure. They laugh, they talk, they stare, shaking their heads in disbelief. A lifetime of shared secrets, of inside jokes; a shared magical childhood of made up languages and imaginary friends come to life once more in a bus terminal in New York City.
They sit, facing each other; two brown women, crying, laughing, remembering. Each, seeing in the other, those two little brown girls with the chubby legs and kinky hair.
fin.
*Mamite - Housekeeper
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