“Excuse me, I’m lost. Can you please help me find 69th street?” What would you do if someone handed you a note with this message on it in a subway station? How would you feel if you were the person approaching people with this note in your hand?
Kadiatou Kida was scared. Not to mention frustrated. “I don’t know how to speak English,” was one of the only phrases Kadiatuo, or Kadi (pronounced Katie), knew how to say while struggling to learn English when she came to America from Mali, Africa in December of 2010. She is now a Public Relations graduate student at Rowan University.
Her journey from being frightened to confident was not an easy one.
Kadi was living in Philly on Chester Avenue when she first came to America because she was attending Temple University. Her apartment was not in the best area and there were mice. One of her Malian friends, also studying English at Temple, decided to go to the park one night because it was too hot in his non-air conditioned apartment. He still did not know how to speak English very well. Some men approached him asking about drugs. He did not know how to respond. He couldn’t respond. The men shot him and he died.
Kadi was horrified. They shot him because he couldn’t speak English, and neither could she. Would she be next? Kadi decided to go home to Mali for two weeks to visit her family, whom she is very close with. They made her realize that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and she can’t pass it up. “Destiny is destiny,” says Kadi who decided to return to America despite her fear.
“Everything here is different than from Africa. The Language, the weather, the way people dress, everything was different so it was really tough in the beginning. Also like the way people interact with others because sometimes when you want to talk to people here it looks like they are kind of afraid of you.”
Mali, the third poorest country in the world, is not as technologically advanced as America and certainly not as rich. Providing people with food is the primary concern, according to Kadi. Highways do not exist, it’s rare for families to have more than one car and people have to pay to use computer labs.
Kadi’s first time driving on the highway was when she was behind the wheel in America. Going 60 mph was something she had never done before. Staying in one lane was a new concept to her. Her friend was in the passenger’s seat yelling, “Stay in your lane! You have to stay in your lane! You have to go faster! If you don’t go faster, the police are going to give a ticket! This is the United States nobody has time!”
That’s not the only thing that was new to Kadi. The first time she saw snow with her eyes instead of just on tv was in America. In Africa there are no sewers and when it rains it is flooded everywhere until the sun dries it up. Kadi didn’t understand where the water went when it rained in America. She also didn’t know how to use an escalator. She had to observe people before stepping on one. In Africa cooking takes all day. People have to light a fire while in America you just turn the oven on. Kadi had to learn all of these new cultural things while trying to learn English.
On the 16 hour plane ride from Africa to America, Kadi experienced true solitude. She didn’t know anyone and was going to a completely foreign place without knowing how to communicate in their language. She learned English by watching movies and television shows. She is a big fan of Netflix. She loves Twilight, Breaking Bad, and Desperate Housewives just to name a few. She is a huge Eva Longoria fan and she especially loves her in her role as Gabby in Desperate Housewives.
Kadi came to America to study so she could get the best education and then take her experience and knowledge and spread it to the people in her country. She is not just here to help herself but hopefully aid Mali.
“We are so behind the world. We are poor and we are not advancing because the level of uneducated people is maybe more than 50 percent. We really need education.”
Kadi is the perfect campus celebrity to feature this week because we just held our She’s the First tie dye cupcake bake sale which benefits women in developing nations to be the first in their family to graduate from secondary school.
Kadi is seen as intimidating by African guys now that she has an American education. She explains that in Africa, women are engaged by age 19 and the male has more dominance in the relationship. Kadi says, “If they are intimidated that means as least the wrong guy won’t get through. Only the good guys can come closer… I don’t just want to be a housewife staying at home with a little job, I want to be more powerful.”