Pāhonoa te oro

When I moved to another country, when I was fourteen years old, I suddenly realised something important. A large part of my personality, depended on language. In my first weeks at school, even simple conversations felt exhausting. I needed extra time, to understand jokes, opinions, and small social signals. At first, I thought the problem was only vocabulary. Later, I understood something deeper. Language is connected, to identity, to culture, and to belonging. The more confid