Enweying - Our Sound Podcast
As an Anishinaabe household of 5 (including the dog), join us as we share our experiences raising our children speaking to them in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) as Second Language Learners ourselves. Anishinaabemowin is the language of the Anishinaabe people - also known as Ojibwe. It is an Indigenous language that has been targeted by genocide since settlers arrived on Turtle Island (North America). This is our commitment to helping fight and reclaim OUR SOUND- ENWEYING.
Enweying - Our Sound Podcast
S1 Bonus Track : Full CBC Interview
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linktr.ee/enweying.oursound
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Welcome to Nweigne, our sound podcast. This is our podcast about raising children in Anishinaoban as second language learners.
SPEAKER_05I'm Mashko Gabokwe, and this is my husband, Ozao Gigoganu. Here we will be talking about stories, challenges, triumphs, and tips as we share our experiences about our household of life. Beat it again!
SPEAKER_04Honey bojo. Um I realize that this is not a normal season one episode. We've decided to include this as a bonus track. This is the uh almost full-length interview between Kate Adag from CBC and I. Um just interviewing more in depth the background to Ozawa and I are beginning a little bit of a look into our learning journeys, and um she explores some questions about what family life has been like for us. So I hope you enjoy this.
SPEAKER_02You're you're very impressive, by the way, because you've got so much on the go and you're you're there's so much like ambition, and there's even another post on Facebook, and like you've got the Essex episode, and you got four hours sleep, like the whole thing is so much on the go.
SPEAKER_05I just don't wanna l let people down.
SPEAKER_03Um what what's your your background with Anishinaabe Moen? Did you have language, the language when you were growing up?
SPEAKER_05Um, so my my background in regards to Anishinaabe Moin um was like zero exposure. Um until the age of 19 did I really have an opportunity to venture and open up that door. I grew up on the east coast in Halifax, um, well outside of Halifax, and that is Mi'k Mi'kmaq. So that's uh Mi'kmaq territory and land, and um my first uh babysitter was Mi'kmaq, but I that was the only person who was ever around me who was indigenous until I moved to Ontario when I was seven. Um so it wasn't until 2013 that I realized that I wanted to start learning my own language. I was uh out learning German and Spanish and traveling the world and acquiring language, and I still was realizing like there was still something missing. I was out trying to find myself, and there was still that hole missing. And so when I came home, my mom had found this program, Nishna Bemoen language programming program um at Georgian College, and it was the first time they had ever run this immersion program. We were the first cohort through, and that was the first time I'd ever um heard the word Nishna Bemoen spoken. That was other than Miguetch, which my dad has used. I I had I had never heard anything, I didn't know what anything meant. So jump to now. It's been quite a journey.
SPEAKER_03Your background, I I mean, mainly the focus of this is language, is the language teaching with the kids, but it's interesting to hear where your passion comes from too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so um I grew up with my mother's family mostly. My mom and my dad split when I was um when I was three. My dad never passed the language on because his parents uh never shared the language with him. They only spoke English to him, but it was in the home. It wasn't a part of um my child rearing. So Enter, like we m I moved to Ontario, my mom remarried, and my dad was now remarried to someone living in Six Nations, which is um Moha, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Seneca, Anadaga, Oneida. And those languages are completely different, completely from German to Chinese to Hebrew to you know English, it's completely separate. So it wasn't like I was getting exposure when I had my first experience visiting and um regularly visiting my father on reserve.
SPEAKER_04Dan who became her her second husband, and he was a pilot.
SPEAKER_05And at the time we um ro relocated to Ontario, and I was given um was given a lot of opportunity and privilege to be able to travel the world and experience um all these different cultures and languages, and through that my mom noticed, wow, my daughter picks up these languages really quickly. She has an ear, she she wants to use it, she's interested, and and being supported by that, I was like, oh, like maybe I am, and so I was you know downloading Encarta as an eight-year-old, you know, looking up German and Spanish, and just really interested in in language in general and sound and communication and in getting to know one another in relationship. And so when my mom had just, you know, go to Quebec, go to somewhere, we need to, and finally in university, I um uh was not getting the grades I needed to head in the direction I wanted to move in in psychology. Um, I knew I wanted to help people, I knew I wanted to help people heal, I wanted to help people do better or help support them do better in life. Um and so that that came to like a dead end, and my mom said, you know, go go across seas and and go and learn. So that was what I did. I went to Austria and began learning German, but while I was there, I realized that I had this tug at my heart, and it wasn't a tug. I wasn't homesick for my host or my bed or my family or you know, the town I was from, or even Canada, or like air quotations, Canada, Turtle Island. Uh well, I don't want to say Turtle Island because it was Turtle Island. It was my roots, it was my heritage, it was my sound, my language, um, that I felt like I was missing. And the best way I could describe it was it felt like someone was holding silly putty from here, and I was all the way over in Austria, and I could just feel like that tiny, tiny little strand was was still there, and I needed to go back and and kindle that fire. So um that's what brought me to this place where I began learning, and once I began learning my own language, I flipped my entire identity, changed. Um, any ask anybody who knew me before and after, um I it was what I was looking for. I had always wanted that and sought that out and wanted to know how to say everything in my own language or to say it in my own sound, and I didn't ever feel good enough, and this was the opportunity to finally begin to create a relationship with others and build community and to learn what it was like to be in a shinabe in a community. And um yeah, so that's when my passion really grew, and as I began seeing this lens and seeing this way of looking at the world, and our language is so descriptive, everything is a is a description of what's happening through our five or six senses. Um that's all we have when we enter this world, so that's all we have to interpret it. And when I began learning the language and the breakdowns and the roots of who we are and what that meant, and how we talk to one another and how relationship happens within those words and those sounds, I felt at peace. I felt like that that hole was that missing piece was was filled in and I could kind of move forward in life and and move in a direction finally. I wasn't wandering around trying to find that anymore. And that passion just grew so strong with the love of every bit and part of our language and the way it works, I knew that I was needed to find someone who had the same goals and missions as me, and that I wanted to give that to my language, or sorry, to my children.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so just before we get to Monty if that's what you mean, right? Finding someone? Because we're talking about language and you're talking about the silly putty and there you were in Austria, and you're surrounded by German, right? Like the the was that of was that one of the factors that that the the dislocation included like the can you tell me about sort of being surrounded by a different language, if if that's even sort of means something?
SPEAKER_05I took a lot of pride in in the fact that I was able to pick up language quickly and while I was over there, um the first three months when there wasn't a lot of language learning, me learning German. They there was a contractual uh agreement that you know I would be teaching them English and they would be teaching me German. And we realized that like there was such a barrier with instructions that they just spoke in English with me and focused on teaching their children English.
SPEAKER_03And all you were speaking was English with German in the background.
SPEAKER_05For the first three months, yep. And then by three months we kind of realized, yeah, like none of my German has gotten any better because I'm not like using it or anything, right? And um so that's when I had to begin learning how to socialize with other people, and at that point I just literally went got thrown into a situation, had to say, hi, do you want to be my friend? Um, but it was within those social interactions, which I find very similar to Nishnaabimwen, that I began learning German. Um it was because I had to keep up and I had to laugh. If I wanted to laugh with everybody, I had to understand what was happening, and it forced my brain to like stop and and re remake connections and rebuild connections in order to quickly survive in that situation. And so within three months, that was really what uh what I noticed. Um I didn't learn much in the first three, but the second three, yes. And also I was uh encouraged to take a grammar class, and that took me from like basic to intermediate very quickly because I I kind of knew how to, and that was something that we also speak about on on our podcast. Um I know that's deteering a bit a little bit. I'll try and um go back to your original question.
SPEAKER_03Um, that was great. That answered it, that answered it.
SPEAKER_05Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_03Um I'm happy to go back to Anishnabe Molen. You were describing like you sounded it like you've you've you've fallen in love with the language.
SPEAKER_05I I I can't I thought I was connecting with English, but when I I I and then I learned German, so I began understanding languages for the way that they work and the way that they move and the way that they the way you can compare them. And English and and German are in the same family, in the same language group, so I found it very easy to learn. Um moving into Nishnaabemwin, uh I I do speak on the fact that like it helped me very much separate what was language learning in an immersion setting and the difference between what is emotional baggage that you bring learning your own language and reclaiming that. Um But when I began learning a Nishnaabemwin, um it's it's an al it's a language that is alive, it's a spirit in itself, and I don't really know how else to describe that other than um you can have a relationship with it, and in a relationship there's a two-way street, and I'm trying not to get emotional because it's just so beautiful to me because like um you're right, like I fell in love with it. It gives me a chance to connect with those that are have gone like long before but still walk with me because they don't speak English. Sorry, they can't Google translate and talk to me. I I have to speak to them in the language that they know, and these are their ways, and they held it and carried it and protected it for so long for me and for my children to have. I just feel like it's the it's the most beautiful gift you could ever give somebody, and I want to honor that by sharing it. So I can't even, you know, describe the the amount or the measure that I have for the love of just the sound of my people. Yeah. Are you there?
SPEAKER_03That's yeah, it's so beautiful and so exciting um that you're gifting that to your kids. And I guess chronologically, sorta. I mean, I I'm curious. I think you even mentioned in the podcast, it sounds like you were going there now, kind of talking about seeking out a partner. So tell me if I'm wrong, but um sort of deciding like I'm gonna want this in my future with my future family. And so um it would I'd like to find somebody who shares that passion. Is is that right? And and can you tell me about finding Monty and how you how you two see this as being something that you both care about?
SPEAKER_05Sure. Um moving forward in my language learning journey and knowing that this was something I took really seriously and that I wanted someone who shared this with me um to join me in this, I knew that I needed to be looking for someone who was compatible with me in that sense and who was healthy for me in that sense. So, like I said, when I had come home from Europe, I was um previously in a relationship with someone else who was from Europe. And through learning my language, I realized that it wasn't in my best interest to be with that person because we didn't share those same ideologies. I wanted to raise my child solely in an inishna bam one. And I knew that that was gonna take a lot of work on my end because I was such a beginner. Finding someone who is revitalizing their language, who has done it well, who seems to be in a good spot in their life, like that's that's not an easy task. So I really do believe Creator in the Universe really put Ozawa, Gishigogenu, and I together for a reason, and that we've we've been meant to be together for a long time, and we found that through the language. So for me, it was like the language found us and brought us together. The language itself was like your children are going to need you to be able to pass this down, and you guys are meant to do that together as a team. And my husband and I, um, when we initially met, he was my teacher. He was um for the first semester that he was working at Georgian College, he was not teaching me, but I had seen him on the premise. And when he began teaching me in semester two, I was actually too nervous to talk to him or to be around him. I from the first day I saw him, I saw his braid and his build, and I was just, you know, head over heels. I'd never really felt like that before. Um and uh I so I avoided him at all costs, and at that time we were both in other relationships. So to for the record, um, we never we never saw each other when uh he was in a professional setting and I was in an academic setting. Um it wasn't until afterwards when we both ended up being um available and single that we kept bumping into each other in the same language um events. So the immersion weekend here, immersion weekend there, come meet up for Nishinaab in one, and we just kept bumping into each other. And being the only the only two people from the south, southern Ontario, um we would drive in the same direction, and I just said, you know what? When are you gonna ask me out? And yeah, so um I just think that creator really just scooped us together, and you know, I I am so grateful every day because I really hit the lottery um with my partner. I had the privilege of being able to make those decisions before entering that relationship, and yeah, I am super grateful and and am aware of that privilege.
SPEAKER_02I'm grinning from ear to ear. Um that's so freaking great. Oh my gosh, I love it.
SPEAKER_03Um what tell me about like an early conversation, or maybe it's by the time you're you're pregnant or something, and you're going, okay, like we want to to try to like how does that go? But you're thinking, okay, we want to try to immerse our little one as much as possible. Um were you thinking, were you having those kind of conversations? And or were you thinking through the logistics of what that would mean, or was it kind of like upon arrival, you were like, oh wait, this is actually gonna take some, you know, consideration around how we do this.
SPEAKER_05It's actually really funny how we stumbled upon deciding on an immersion household um the two of us and how we actually put that into practice. I had been working in Toronto um and driving, I had been living in Brantford and commuting to Toronto daily, and um was feeling the burnout and decided to just quit and move down, and I would find work near my husband since he was working in language. So um, being that we didn't want to live with uh either one of our parents, we decided, okay, we need to get a place. And so when we got a place, we decided, hey, why don't we decide as soon as we walk through these doors, we don't speak English to each other. We make this the beginning of our immersion journey. And before we could, you know, sign the papers, get the key, we got a puppy, and our dog's name is Bazan Nagamasin. And he was our original baby, our original guinea pig. Um, he was the one who we began to kind of test these theories out. Are is this gonna work? Or like, do we is this even possible? And so we purposely gave him a really long name in a nishnabemwen, um, so that when we went to the dog park, we were getting stopped and people were saying, What language is that? And what are you saying? And it gave us uh a time to make more awareness and create more awareness about our own language and create conversations in good ways, in positive spaces. Um for the first you know year he didn't know any English, and that was a little annoying to people on the street or people coming to visit. But after you know, doggy daycare and whatnot, he began being a bilingual dog as well. And so, of course, first comes the dog, second comes the baby. Um we were not expecting at all. We were we had no plans at that point to have um a child. Uh it sort of just happened, and we were really thrilled. Um we knew we had a lot of work to do, and this is where um often I will share. I couldn't wait until I was perfect at the language in order to apply it with my child. Um, I knew that I'm pregnant, I have nine months, ten months, I until she arrives, and we know that womb time is very important for listening to language, so we had to get working and get moving very fast, and being that I'm had only been in one program in two immersion camps, um, I was really self-teaching at that point.
SPEAKER_03And it sounds like that was challenging for you. Like you're emphasizing this. It sounds like because maybe part of you and your preference had been that you wanted to to you'd had some expectation that you would be more fluent by the time she arrived. And is that was that part of the stress that you like, or is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_05Exactly. It was the urgency that I was feeling. Oh no, I urgently need to be fluent because how am I gonna speak to my daughter? I thought I would have, you know, a couple years to get better, and in my head that meant, oh, I have a couple years to become perfect, but that's not life and that's not reality. And so often people will stop and say, You, you're teaching, like you're the one doing immersion, you don't, you know, you don't you're not a fluent speaker yet, or that's so shocking. And my response to that is my daughter decided to come when she decided to come, and I was gonna gift that to her no matter what, and the the best thing I could do was try my hardest, and if I stumble, I'm sure she will forgive me one day when she looks back as an adult to see what I tried to do and what I tried to gift her. So I know I'm not perfect, um, but there was there is never going to be a perfect time or a perfect fluency to begin doing this journey. So I had to jump and just hope that the net was going to be there. And um sometimes it feels like it's not.
SPEAKER_03In some ways it sounds like also like she's her arrival, um, is like a teacher for you. Like she's being a teacher to you in a way, because now you have to you're you're finding yourself studying even harder.
SPEAKER_05Well, precisely. Our our daughter, because she's obviously older than our son, forces us to learn every day. Every day we're experiencing new adventures and exploring new things, and when that happens, you're coming up with a thousand new words that you didn't realize you were gonna need in your vocabulary. And it can be very tough to try and get your phone out and um Google translate or go on to an Ishnabiwand dictionary and translate or find your word list when you're discovering a worm for the first time, or you're you're piecing Lego together. Um, so it really does force us to learn because we're learning how much we don't know, and so we're constantly writing that down, and then that night we look up those words, and the next day we try and apply them and bank them. Um because from here on end there's only going to be more and more words. So she definitely challenges us. Um I think that any child challenges their parent in that sense. I think any child and and parent relationship is uh, you know, why, why, why? And sometimes those conversations um for me, if I don't have an answer, I will either say I don't have an answer or I'll tell a story. And I hope that she can pick out what she needs from the story. Um, because I can piece to together a story a lot better than I could find a word out of thin air that I don't know yet. So that's kind of how I we've kind of overcome some of those challenges. We we do tons of things like labeling the house and turning all of the gadgets from English to Spanish so there's no s English influence in the house and you know the the YouTube playlists and whatnot. But um generally uh our daughter definitely keeps us on our toes and is showing us what we need to learn the next day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I I speak Spanish and or studied it um like in my adulthood quite a lot and have been fluent. Um my partner's Spanish, whatever. Um I know what you mean about like talking around like the storytelling, sort of like if I don't know the word, I can describe around it, you know? Like the condiment that is white and rather than being like salt.
SPEAKER_05So well it's funny because that's how our language works, anyways. We describe everything, right? Uh so when if luckily if you don't know a word, sometimes you can get away with creating your own word or describing it, and you know, elders will say, Oh yes, I know what you I know what you mean, that'll do. One one benefit.
SPEAKER_03So another sort of realm of of of this that I'm curious about is the decision to not um to limit her exposure to English. That when it's not gonna be Anishinaabe Malen, it's gonna be something that's not English. Can you tell me more about that choice and how that plays out?
SPEAKER_05Oh, you mean within the home and keeping it kind of English free?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like it's not just yeah, yeah, the English-free part.
SPEAKER_05Um the the decision and yeah, and um okay, well, this is great actually for us to to cover because I did want to touch on how lockdown and pandemic and being in Ontario and doing all this has like really been hard on us and our mental health, um, not being able to have help or breaks. Um anybody who's attended any Ojibwe immersion camps knows the headaches and the fatigue and the frustration and the being locked in your mind um part. So it's it's been a struggle. So I'll just I want to acknowledge that so that anybody out there who is feeling the same knows that that's okay, that that I'm here and I'm feeling the same as you. Um and that that is definitely something that's kind of unavoidable. But in regards to um English in the home and making that decision and keeping English out, being in a pandemic has forced English into our home because I can no longer go to work or my husband can no longer go to work to have those English conversations. We um have Zoom calls with our families and our friends, which would have been in person where we could keep it out of the the physical home. I was I've just started doing um I've just gone back to college and started retaking uh early childhood education in Anishinaabemwin. Um and the those half physician uh is in Anishinaabemuin and half is in English because a lot of the UCE courses are are from a Western um perspective. So now I have English again coming back into the home through me. And this was something that we didn't have before the lockdown or before the pandemic. We didn't speak any English in the home. It was very strange for me to have English words come out of my mouth in the home unless we were in private, you know, going to bed and and just having free time and downtime or whatnot. Um so it's it's changed the dynamics within the home, and we've noticed um it being a lot more challenging to get our daughter to stay in English because she's seen us communicate in English more. Um ways of combating that is uh, like I said, we we limit TV because there's only a limited amount of Nishina Bemwen uh stimulating, engaging content out there. After a while, kids like want to throw on something from Disney or whatnot, and it's easier for us to cut out the English influence because it's already coming in no matter what, because our world is immersed in English. So one way we combat that is by you know, all of her toys get set to Spanish. Um, I speak German, so or I I know I can read German and I speak basic German, so if there's only German, we set it to that, and I do a lot of repeating because um children don't just learn from TV, they learn from TV and how they can relate that to real life through through role models. So if I can repeat what's happening, she's going to take that in more, and we are so pro as many languages as possible, multilingual. Um, I wish I could give her more languages. Um, we would be doing that, but this is kind of our way of doing that. So Moana goes on in Hawaiian. Um we uh we have recordings that are we constantly listen to around the house that we have when I'm cooking and whatnot. Um, and then those that are our friends that speak the language, we encourage them to call and leave messages for our kids in the language. So that's just one way that we try and eliminate the Pandora's box opening because once it starts, it's very hard to get back to that place because it's so much easier to speak in a language that is accessible and easy is your native is your native uh tongue and to role model what we expect it's easier for us to remain in the language. Every child out there pretty well knows Frozen, uh the Disney movie Frozen, and she was trying to explain it to me. You know, she wanted to watch this movie and I just was not understanding, and uh so she was saying in English, she said slippery kwe. So an English word slippery and then one kwe for a woman. And I'm going, slippery kway, what are you what are you talking about? And I realized the word for ice or skating or frozen is not frozen, but joshqua day. Josh, joshqua de tage, like hockey, skating, sliding, jush kaboos, sliding, that that motion. And so when we refer to this um Elsa or Elsa, I guess her name is on frozen, we would call her oh uh Josh Joshqua Day Kwe or Josh Gwamagut or you know makume kwe. And so when she heard that, she didn't she couldn't remember exactly how to say it, but she knew the translation, and so her way of uh telling me was to try and translate it the best she could, which turned to slippery. So instead of saying ice, she ended up saying slippery because that's how she associated that word. Um so that was kind of cute because I was like, oh, okay, and Sustam, I understand now. This is you want to watch, you know, this thing. Um I can try and think uh of another example further down when you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was great. That's super cool because her brain is toggling back and forth, right? Like that's that's awesome to see. Um, you you and your husband in the podcast were talking about um this thing struck me. Because I hadn't really thought about it, how when we learn language, it can help to have this emotional component, especially for kids and or maybe even for adults. But the idea of like the one-on-one kind of cuddling moments in affection, or when someone's angry and is like, you know, get off the couch, like that kind of stuff. How can you what are your thoughts on that? Like how true it is and and how it plays in?
SPEAKER_05Um, okay, I totally understand your question. Can you just ask me one more time? Uh just no problem.
SPEAKER_03I just kind of am curious what comes up to you what comes to mind when you're thinking about that. Because um, I guess it speaks to that it's one of the reasons we need to that humans need like are that one of the benefits of learning at a young age is that it can often come with emotion, like part of the home environment. Yeah, yeah, okay. I guess is is that we don't get that in a classroom. But yeah. Also, I imagine, like, on a separate hand, I think it might be hard challenging as a parent to muster the proper words sometimes, like you might default to your first language to the English or whatever's more you know prominent.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so um but like there's a lot. This this all opens up two conversations for me, which is great. Um, one is this idea of uh a lot of speakers or people who are learning the language or revitalizing the language, like to say that we learn as babies, um, and so we should, if we just listen to the language, we'll acquire it. Um and so a part of that is what do we do with our babies? We hold them, we rock them, we sing to them. And that's not something that me as a language learning parent is gonna get from an elder. I'm not gonna have an elder, you know, scoop me up and sing me a lullaby and hold me. And so it very much is a part of the process. Um, and part of I think why it's a struggle as an adult to learn, um, because I don't I don't get to go back to those moments of a child when my mom held me and my mom talked to me and the words that she used because they were in English. So when I foresaw myself parenting, I saw it in a completely different light. Um and even though that's not the dream that I want to have now, that's not the vision I want now, it was, you know, kind of me saying goodbye to something that I had expectations for for a very long time and to put it away and start in a world fresh, brand new, not knowing how to navigate. Being someone who has worked with children and loved being around children her entire life, I knew that I wanted to um child rear as a career, I don't want to say career, but I knew I wanted to have a very big involvement in my in the early years of my children. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and really just give them everything I I can give them at um in life. Anishina beimwen um is not how my my parenting mind thinks because that's not where I learned how to parent, and it can be very, very difficult for me to travel from my heart to my mind and back so many times in a day because I speak Nishina Baimwen from my heart, and I parent from a western place I or I I I gained all my parenting knowledge from a western place or in in my head, and I've had to kind of um let that go and go back to my heart. Um that can be the challenge of trying to sum up the words or muster up the words when you're having a lot of big feelings, even if they're good feelings. Um I had always imagined singing, you know, an English lullaby and saying, I love you, and even though it means just as it means more in the language gazogan, um, I didn't I don't have those memories of my mom saying it to me. So a part of me grieves like being able to know what it might feel like for my daughter, even though I do know because it's it's an emotional journey for me as well as a mother to have to just you know trust this new identity I've gained and just trust the fact that I have what I need and I and I am enough. Um the second part of that that I wanted to touch on yeah, when things become like dangerous or I'm concerned for safety, um, I revert to English because language learning is our forefront and our our goal. But my children's lives obviously their their well-being is way more important to me. Um if they're not safe, there's no point in them learning the language. So if there's a moment where I know I can't translate fast enough to get them to listen and to back up or you know, not touch or whatever, um, I go to English for their safety and I'm okay with that. Um in regards to when I'm having really big feelings, we've learned that um I've I've always remained in the language and I I have discipl, not discipline, but have had to have those conversations about you know consequences or um feelings or why someone is angry in the language. When I because of the lockdown and the pandemic and the emotional toll it's taken on my mental health, the way we've moved around it until we can find a more functional way of living right now in society, um, is I say what I need to say because I can access my parenting skills much easier through my English mind, and my husband will translate, and then I get to learn at the same time as my daughter, at the same time as him. Um while it may not be moving forward in my head, at least it's neutral because we're not losing a language moment. So that's kind of how we've navigated.
SPEAKER_03But it sounds like i i you feel like the pandemic is is thwarting your efforts to have an English only or an English-free household.
SPEAKER_05100%. It's just uh we're under kind of impossible um circumstances at the moment, you know. It takes a community to raise a child, and parents are having to do three jobs and one, um, going to work, being a teacher, being a parent, no social time, no time to fill up your cup with things that help you, no time to leave and take a break, no time to have English only. Um it's been really, really tough on my mental health. It ceremony is what helped me through, and we're not able to really do a lot of our ceremonies anymore because you need to gather in a space. And that was what always helped me when I got really frustrated. When I get frustrated now, I end up just feeling those feelings and letting the water flow, smudging and doing what I can in the home. And I um also let myself um I'm also just gentle on us and on our family and let allow ourselves to rest um when things are feeling really tense. Um I don't want this to be something we're doing that creates negativity, and so if anything, the the pandemic and the lockdowns being uh a mother with two small ones um with her own mental health and her own baggage and whatnot, um it's it's really shown me how to slow down how to be with my children and how to parent from my heart, which is the whole point of Nishina Binwood anyways. So it's not the best way to get those results, but that is a gift in itself, and I'm trying to focus on that that beautiful aspect.
SPEAKER_01Lovely. How many other families do you know who have similar goals as you or trying to teach their kids at home?
SPEAKER_05Um a handful. There may be more that maybe I don't know about because we do see resurgence happening and people really wanting to take that back through sharing. Um, hence why we've we've uh started this journey. But three maybe it was me, I could say maybe four, and then three that I know of for sure in in the United States, um, where some of our friends from who speak a different dialect but the same language, um, we know of three to four families there who are making an active effort to do the same. So very small.
SPEAKER_03How does it feel that there's so few families and that your kids are gonna have so few kids to chat with in the language?
SPEAKER_05Um it's never a comforting feeling, but there's not there's there's really no point in me focusing on the big scary hole, dark hole of like what if. Um the if there's one thing social media has done, it's brought these communities together. It's making more platforms for us to share and and reach out to one another when we're not able to do it in person, which was very much a part of our lives pre pre-pandemic.
SPEAKER_03Um leads to your podcast.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you want to get away from the dark, scary stuff. I don't mean sorry. It's um yeah, I mean, that's that's ever present in conversations about indigenous languages, right? Which is but anyway, okay. So can you tell me about deciding to make a podcast with your hubs and who you're who you're trying to reach and and what you guys are doing or what your goals are? It sound it seems like it's it's intended to be inspirational and and and certainly has helpful kind of real home stories and real life experiences and advice and stuff.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm a person who loves to share. Um, I feel like I've lived seven different lives or more um up until this point. Bide a nickel for every time someone came up to me and said, if you wrote a book, I would read that book. Um that I felt like, okay, I do have a lot to share. I have lived several several lives and with many different experiences, and my husband being such a quiet, stoic um guy who keeps to himself, it kind of started off as him suggesting might this be a good way to get to know our families better. We can, you know, record ourselves and ask each other questions and send them to our family as a as a holiday gift. And wouldn't that be a great way for them to get to know me better and for them to get to know you, but in a less um face-to-face um environment. And when we did that, we had a lot of interest from people who weren't our necessarily family or very close friends. We had a lot of people asking us, oh, are you doing a podcast about language? Oh, are you doing it all in on when? And I'd love to hear about this, and I want to hear more about your guys' life. Like, we get a lot of questions about like what we're doing and why, and wanting to know what's on the inside. And so when we realized that not very many people in our family were really like interested or listening, we decided like maybe we should, and that's when we started kind of percolating with so many topics we could talk about, and why don't we take this seriously and really begin sharing our journey? We haven't really found our spotting, or I haven't found really my spotting or my place um within the Nishinaabeman uh language learning community. Um I felt like being um a woman and a mother with the responsibilities of bearing children, taking care of children, my language learning in a sense got held back in a way that those without children or those with that don't have to bear child, those that don't have to have babies, um don't won't hinder their learning. Um I had to like, you know, slow down and and change diapers and stuff, right? So for me, um I felt like I've sacrificed a lot and I had to remember, no, you didn't, because you're doing the work at home and you are just as valid and enough as everybody who's out there studying and recording elders because they have access. I have no access, there's no fluent speakers within three to four hours of us. Um we none of our family speaks. There's no there's no way for us to have access to a speaker face to face. So in in creating this podcast, we wanted to really tell the real story. Um we want it to be funny and authentic, but also nitty-gritty and like what's really happening and what's really going to happen. Maybe, maybe it may not happen to you, but it very well could because it's happened to us. And so, if we can share what experiences are happening, I I know that people probably noticed in our family, this is our experience because I know that not everyone has the same journey and the same experience. So we wanted to put it out there to show people we're not perfect, we're two humans who just want to share to show you that if we just all did something imperfectly, it would be a lot better than two people doing something perfectly, and that um it may seem like an impossible feat, but it's not going and learning for 10 hours on a Saturday. It's five minutes before you go to bed every day that you're gonna learn. It's taking those moments with your child and being like, you know what? Um, maybe I'll take this moment and and learn a new word with her. Maybe we'll we'll go and look up a new word and talk about it, or you're gonna put a new label down, or that you listened to your new recording and picked out a new word and wrote it down. It's creating a list every day on your calendar of new words that you've picked up and rewriting them once a day. It's just these little tiny moments that you find and pick out, these little wins that you you collect over time and bring in your bundle that help you learn. And sometimes we can think it's you know going to the library every day and just studying when we can be doing this in our practical lives, um, making the bed, talking in the mirror, talking to your cat, babies, cats, mirrors, they're not gonna judge you. It's a great way to begin working that mouth muscle, the facial muscles. That is one whole quadrant on the learning, on the learning wheel is speaking. We can learn as much as we do, but what do children begin to do? Blah blah blah blah blah blah. They sound really funny at first because they're learning how to warm up those muscles and warm that um the tongue around these really hard sounds and different sounds, and um we have to we have to honor that, and it can be silly sometimes, and that is also part of the process. So being able to use what you learn as you learn it is also like one of those ways, and sharing these little bits and tidbits of what we have found helps works for us is the whole point of the podcast, and we hope that um people take it with a grain of salt because we're not like you know, podcast makers, creators, radio like we're we're just you know, do people just trying to get the content out and get it out um in a good way. So we hope to only improve from here. Uh, but yeah, uh the podcast was just a way to help connect us to your community, create more of a platform for ourselves to show people um this is what we're doing, these are our efforts. It's happening within the family, and you don't have to go out and save the world. You can start within yourself and within your family.
SPEAKER_03That was so like inspiring. Um such a good summary. That's freaking awesome. Um, I kind of still just want to ask you, um, also, like, what's what's I don't know, excited you the most, or when you see your daughter now and she's speaking, like, can you tell me how how all this is has impacted her? You you have a three-year-old who understands and speaks, some Anishabe Molin, right? How what's that like?
SPEAKER_05It's the whole reward to the whole process. I was reflecting on this the other day, thinking about why I keep pushing forward to keep speaking to my child because she's three now and there's times I just want to give up and speak English and it's so it's just so easy. And for her, or not for her, but for me, uh to watch her uh it's cute when she speaks English. I I don't hear it, I don't expect to hear it, so when I do, it's kind of it's kind of a shock to the system. Oh, you're speaking English, and oh that's cute. I I didn't know that you would say it that way. But when she speaks Nishnab and when um like I'm speechless, it's it's it's an out of this world experience. It makes me very, very proud when I can hear the sounds that were always supposed to be hers coming out of her mouth. And um when I hear her really like pin together a string of of words or an explanation or a view into her world in anishnabim when um not only is it like just the most rewarding, special, beautiful sound that could could come back to me, that could that could reciprocate and and come back to me, but uh it's it's healing so many people um that have gone before us. And I can feel that from like the core of me, from my spirit. Um those that walk with us walk within our bloodlines and and we carry them. And when I get to watch my daughter laugh and and jump and you know, kid I'm saying I'm gonna speak Nishnabe one now, but say, you know, like oh Gasha Abajiko Ganajua or Genaju or oh Gasha Gazagin, you know, you are so beautiful, or I love you. Um I'm trying to gift her stuff, but um she's gifting it right back to so many people that that walk with with with us as a family. So that in itself I reflected on and thought, and no wonder you're doing it, because this is a very powerful, um hold on, this is a very powerful exchange of energy that's happening between us and um moving and shaking, uh, what do they call that? Earth shaken, earth shakers, it's an earth shaker. Yeah. It's very hard for me not to get really emotional about it just because it's uh it's um yeah, it's it's an emotional journey and and it's why we're doing it right.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, um I guess just in saying all of that, on the other side of things, the language has something about humor and the medicine of humor that we just don't get in English, even if um it's not coming from a fluent speaker. The other side of learning a language with my children is the humor that comes out of it. Sometimes when we're all forming words and explaining a situation or whatever, the spirit of Nishnabim one enters and the giggles and the belly laughs that we all have together, especially now that my children can joke back with me, um, is really incredible. So not only is it just a very strong, rewarding experience, and the fact that it's like it's very healing and it's very special, but there's so much fun that comes with with the language, and um it's very addictive to want to just constantly uh laugh that heart and laugh that laugh with that spirit and laugh with that language, and um, yeah, so the other side of it is that it's made life really fun and has given so much personality um to to the hosthold, and we've also had a lot of fun learning with our our children as well, and even though my my son is not verbal yet, anything that I say he understands, and it is so beautiful to know that even though he's not speaking yet, um he's learning like just as much in double um with the influence of my daughter now helping him as well. So I did just want to add that. Uh I never want to leave my son out. Sometimes it's a little bit harder when he's non-verbal, but uh I I did want to touch on the fact that he's just um he's got so much more exposure with the third person speaking and us speaking way more to our toddler, and so his comprehension is just flying, and uh there's been a lot of really good laughs learning that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_04That was Mushkogawitkwe and Kate Dag from CBC. You know where to hit us up. If you have any other questions, there's a QA in the highlights. You can click on it, and if you want to send us a DM, our Instagram handle is our sound.podcast, and that is for N Wing Our Sound Podcast for Mushko Gobwood Kwei and Ozawa Gijigoganyu. We really appreciate you stopping by tonight or whatever time of day it is where you are uh on Turtle Island, and we uh hope that this inspires you in some way. Chimmy Witch.
SPEAKER_05You can you can cut it out! Forgot, I was like, oh yeah, where we live, but yeah, you should be able to use the first part at least.
