My name is....

When I moved here I was told that my name would be Kristina. Swahili speakers have trouble pronouncing words that end in consonants. Usually they will just add an 'i' to the end of the word. My friend Ben became Beni. Robert is Roberti. I guess they decided that Kristeni was a weird name so they changed my name instead of adding an i. My first day of class I introduced myself and my teacher, Chuma, interrupted and made me start over using Kristina. After class I had to explain to the other American students that I really did know my name and that he was correcting me so that the teachers would know what to call me! Overall it was an easy adjustment to answering to Kristina. Maybe all the years of answering to the name Kerry helped! The biggest adjustment came when people started calling me Tina. For weeks I wouldn't even turn around. I tried explaining that Tina was so different from Kristen that it sounded like they were talking to someone else. Overall I've resisted answering to Tina because I prefer my own name. Yesterday I was in the common room with my friend Emma, who works at the language school. She was in a different part and called Tina. I responded immediately...