"Kini Sauce"

We’ve been back in West Africa for 3 weeks now. “Kini Sauce” I hear chanted almost every day from my daughter and her African friends as they pretend to cook with small buckets and sand outside. “Kini” is our local word for rice, with rice & sauce being the staple dish here. So this mixed language phrase is a fitting metaphor for Jubilee’s TCK experience, a blend of English and an African language, of America and West Africa.

French is the official language of our host country but there are over 30 ethnic language spoken here as well. Most of the kids, and adults too even, don’t speak much French and so we’ll encourage Jubilee to learn some of the local language too. At 3.5 yrs old this is already her 3rd time here. Although she has forgotten the few phrases of local language she had picked up last time, she’ll quickly relearn them by playing with her friends.

So with English, French, and a West African language we’re really aiming for some trilingualism. I used to feel guilty that I couldn’t consistently speak French to Jubilee but when we’re in West Africa we’re her only English exposure. And English is still my heart language so although I know French, English is what comes most naturally to me. 

So I’ve learned to readjust my expectations and define my own trilingual goals for our family. I share all this to explain some of our context and to encourage you that if you too find your language learning situation “unique” you can still work towards bilingual goals!