I'll never take for granted the honor and priviledge of understanding and speaking our ancestral tongues. I love hearing relatives from all over the americas speak creole/criollo, kimbundu, fon/ewe, yoruba, qechua, and being able to understand each other regardless of sometimes gigantic distances because we're all related.
More than anything I love the deep joy, teary eyed laughter kind of joy, in our Elders faces when you hit them with their own native tongue instead of spanish, french, portuguese or english. When they realize that they can be fully themselves with you, not through the colonizer's strained words, fully ourselves. That it's safe. That you understand them. That you're carrying the culture forward with them. "Sometimes all we need is to be heard" but oh, it's not just that is it? to be understood in full depth?
