I speak Urdu,
language of poets and Mughal emperors,
where yesterday and tomorrow,
are both the same word,
layer upon layer like a saffron-hued Biryani
to dig under words with politeness and purpose
I speak German,
language of authority and order,
structured, reliable decisive,
der, die,das,
so many options,
why can’t I pick the right one?
I speak English,
language of Shakespeare and storytelling,
fun, flirty, flamboyant,
it’s pronunciation keeps you guessing,
so many accents to choose from,
so many ways to belong.
I speak Italian,
language of a lazy lover of philosophy and love itself,
melodic, emotional, empathetic,
smooth as a creamy risotto,
each word slides off your tongue,
Ottimofiore, my last name is my favorite sound.
I learnt Sindhi,
language of feudal lords and dry, parched lands,
I read poetry in Persian,
each word so beautiful and pure,
I learnt the Quran in Arabic,
those guttural sounds transforming strange words into comfort,
I learnt Danish,
an over-abundance of vowel sounds,
which words do you swallow?
must language be so minimal?
Eight languages,
Eight different worlds,
and yet,
people want to know,
where do you come from?
How can a mola* only show one story?
*Note from the author: In South America, a mola is a shirt made from intricately stitched layers of patterns and cloth. Worn with pride, it represents who you are – inside and out. I present a mola as the perfect metaphor for globally mobile families living between cultures, countries, languages, nationalities, identities and homes, who find their story hard to articulate.
Mariam Ottimofiore is an adult TCK and a Pakistani and Italian citizen, who has lived in The Kingdom of Bahrain, the US, Pakistan, UK, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, UAE, Ghana and Portugal. She is an economist, writer, researcher, and the author of two books on global living; This Messy Mobile Life; How a MOLA can help globally mobile families create a life by design (Summertime Publishing 2019) and The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye (Springtime Books 2024). Her writing and books focus on the themes of moving, migration, place and displacement, multicultural and multilingual identities and explore concepts of home and belonging. You can follow her work on her website www.mariamnavaidottimofiore.com.
