Me and My Mom

A lot of people asked me “How old are you?” and that’s annoying sometimes, even today.

For example, One day a few weeks ago I was in a store with my mom on 52nd street.

As soon as we walked in the cashier stared at us.

“Is that your daughter or a sister?” He asked.

“Why?” The question made me feel shy.

My mom answered, “What you think?”

The cashier didn't say anything.

Mom said, “ It’s my daughter.”

That’s why I don’t want to be in the store with my mom or dad because I'm too tall and they look young.

I just looked at people sometimes, if they asked me random questions we don't even answer their question sometimes. Some people will just be like

"What! That's not your daughter because you look young for having her.” I just stared at them without saying anything. Anytime me and my mom when to the store they keep asking the same exact question.

One day when me and my mom went to a store on 69th street. This man stared at me so hard and I was looking at him like what happened! he asked my mom in

"Is that your daughter?" he asked my mom in Madingo.

My mom [laughs.]

She said, "Why?"

"Because of y'all look alike and have the same reactions.” He answered.

She [laughed]

"No is a sister."

"Are you sure about it." He asked.

"Yes ma'am." She answered.

whenever Malinen people saw me outside they be thinking about getting married to them. They thought like I'm 18-20 years old. Like I’m only 14 years old, I'm just tall. When they try to talk to me I just ignore them. Some of the people even went to see my mom about me.

My mom [laughs.] anytime they want to talk to her about me because they wanted to marry me.

I was going to my aunt's wedding. When I went there in the afternoon one of my aunt asked me to passed the food to the guy waiting outside in the car. I took the food and passed it to him.

"What is your name?" He asked

I looked at him [laughs]

"My name is Koule." I answered.

He responded, "Okay"

When I walked away, knew why he asked me that.

In a few days after the wedding, my aunt told me that someone said they like me for marriage and I was like “What! So I just ignored her because that was going to make me think about something I don't want to be interested in.

My mom feels bad about me for taking her personality because I copied everything from her. She was so confused about how people come to house wanted to marry me. They called my mom from Africa asking for marriage and  I was like, “I’m just 14 years old, leave me alone and I'm not getting married to nobody until I finished school!”

Sometimes I feel like going to the hospital to cut my legs off because of people. I don't want to be with my mom because we look like sister next to each other.

That's not the only thing people were asking me about. Some people judging me about how tall I’ am in general. Whenever I heard people talking about me I said,

"You are just jealous of me because I'm taller than you."

I learned about people think about "When you are tall, you are old." That makes me feel bad about myself. It also makes me feel different with others around me, anytime I looked at them I look at myself.