The Weight of Water

The first time someone asked me "What are you?", I was seven years old. Not "Who are you?" or "What's your name?" Just... "What are you?" I'm seventeen now, and I still don't have a good answer. My name is Adanna, which means "her father's daughter" in Igbo. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, raised in London from age five, and moved to Atlanta three years ago when my father got a job at the CDC. My mother is Nigerian. My father is Nigerian. I am... complicated. "You're so pretty! What's your mix?" white girls at my Atlanta school ask, assuming I must be mixed race to explain my lighter brown skin and loose curls. "You talk so white," Black American classmates say, commenting on my British-Nigerian accent. "You're African? But you're so modern!" someone said once, genuinely shocked that I owned a smartphone and didn't live in a hut. I carry water for all of them. Their expectations, their confusion, their assumptions. I've become an expert at shape-shifting, at being whoever people need me to be in the moment. British Adanna for my London friends on WhatsApp. Nigerian Adanna for family gatherings. American Adanna at school. Each version slightly different, none of them completely me. But this year, for my senior thesis in AP Literature, I decided to write about something real: water carriers in Nigeria. Women and girls who walk miles each day balancing heavy buckets on their heads, bringing life to their communities. My teacher, Mrs. Patterson, a kind white woman who went to Ghana once and considers herself an Africa expert, was thrilled. "This is so exotic!" she gushed. "So authentic! You must have so many stories from your village!" Village. She assumed I was from a village. I was from Lagos, a city of 20 million people, bigger than New York. But I didn't correct her. I just smiled and carried her expectations like water on my head. For my research, I video-called my grandmother in Nigeria. She lives in Enugu now, but she grew up in a small community where water-carrying was part of daily life. "Adanna, why do you want to know about this?" she asked in Igbo. "You have always lived in cities with taps and pipes." "For school, Grandma." "Hmm." Her eyes studied me through the screen. "You are carrying something heavy, child. I can see it on your shoulders." I started to cry. I don't know why. Maybe because she saw me - not British-me or American-me or even Nigerian-me. Just... me. "Tell me," she said gently. So I did. I told her about the constant questions. About never feeling fully Nigerian because I left so young. About not feeling British because of my skin. About not feeling American because of my accent. About code-switching so often I didn't know which code was really mine. "I feel like I'm carrying water for everyone," I said. "Trying to be what they need, trying not to spill, trying not to disappoint anyone. And I'm so tired, Grandma." She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said: "When I was a girl, I carried water every day. Twenty liters on my head, five kilometers each way. You know what I learned?" I shook my head. "The water I carried wasn't for other people to drink. It was for my family. For myself. I chose what was in my bucket and where it went. Yes, it was heavy. Yes, I was tired. But it was mine to carry, mine to pour, mine to choose." "But everyone has expectations—" "Let them be thirsty," she said firmly. "You cannot carry water for everyone, Adanna. You will break your neck trying. Carry only the water that nourishes your own soul." Her words hit me like a revelation. I rewrote my entire thesis. Instead of writing about water-carrying as some exotic cultural practice to satisfy Mrs. Patterson's expectations, I wrote about it as a metaphor for diaspora identity. About carrying multiple cultures, multiple languages, multiple versions of yourself. About the weight of other people's assumptions and the freedom of choosing what to carry. I interviewed other diaspora students - a Korean adoptee raised in Sweden, a Palestinian student born in Kuwait, a Dominican girl who'd never been to the DR. We all carried water. We all shape-shifted. We all felt the weight. I called my essay "The Weight of Water: Identity, Diaspora, and the Burden of Belonging." Mrs. Patterson didn't love it. "It's very... political," she said carefully. "I thought it would be more about your culture." "This is my culture," I said. "The in-between. The carrying. The choosing." My classmates had mixed reactions. Some didn't get it. But Mei, whose parents moved from Shanghai to Atlanta before she was born, found me after class. "I felt this," she said, holding her copy of my essay. "The shape-shifting thing. I do it too. My parents think I'm too American. Americans think I'm too Chinese. I'm just... tired." "Me too," I admitted. "Maybe we can be tired together?" she suggested. We started a club called "Third Culture Kids." Students from immigrant families, international students, anyone who felt between worlds. We met weekly, shared our experiences, helped each other figure out what water was ours to carry and what we could put down. It wasn't about rejecting any part of our identity. It was about choosing actively instead of reactively. About saying: this is mine, this matters to me, I carry this willingly. I learned to correct people. "Actually, I'm from Lagos, it's a huge city." "My accent is British-Nigerian, not 'white'." "I'm not exotic, I'm just from somewhere different than you." I stopped code-switching so much. I let my British vowels mix with American slang mix with Igbo phrases. People could deal with it or not. Their comfort wasn't my water to carry. For my graduation speech, I talked about water-carrying. I thanked my grandmother. I acknowledged every student who'd ever felt between worlds, never fully belonging anywhere. "We are not incomplete," I said. "We are not confused. We are bridges. We are the synthesis of multiple worlds. And yes, it's heavy sometimes. But it's also powerful. We get to choose what we carry and where we pour it." After graduation, Grandma visited from Nigeria. I took her to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta. We stood at the reflecting pool, looking at our faces in the water. "You look lighter now," she observed. "Lighter skin?" I asked, confused. "Lighter soul," she corrected. "You have put down some of the weight." She was right. I was still Nigerian, still British, still American, still navigating between worlds. But I was no longer carrying everyone else's expectations. I was choosing my own water. I start at college next month - Spelman, a historically Black women's college in Atlanta. I chose it deliberately. A place where I can explore my Blackness, my womanhood, my identity without having to explain or justify constantly. But I'm also keeping my WhatsApp groups with London friends, my family ties to Nigeria, my Third Culture Kids club. I'm keeping all the parts that nourish me. Because that's the thing about being the daughter of diaspora: you don't have to choose. You're not half-this or half-that. You're not incomplete. You're whole. Complex. Multiple. True. And the only water you have to carry is the water that quenches your own thirst and helps your community grow. Everything else? Let it spill. Let it evaporate. Let it return to the earth. You don't owe anyone your water. Your strength. Your shape-shifting. You only owe yourself the truth of who you are - all of it, nothing less. That's what Adanna means. "Her father's daughter." But I'm also my mother's daughter. My grandmother's granddaughter. Nigeria's child. Britain's student. America's new citizen. And most importantly, I'm my own person. The water I carry now is lighter. Not because there's less of it, but because I chose it. I own it. I pour it where I choose. And that makes all the difference.