"I came into teaching...to work with a young person to help them understand that the world is a social construction, and can therefore be deconstructed and reconstructed into something new; that the world as it exists is not an inevitability, but in fact was built this way."
- Dr. Clint Smith
After diving into my ancestry and the history of Barbados, Latin America, and West Africa, I chose these names for myself. Somehow I don't think my given names were indigenous to any of those places 👀
Áhari is Garifuna for "recently departed spirits" or something akin to that. The Garifuna are descendants of the Kalinago, though there are small populations of Kalinago in places like Dominica, where they are still protectors of the land.
Maduka is Igbo for "We prevail with the help of other people" or "people are better than riches". Igbo people were enslaved and forced to toil in Barbados during the Atlantic Slave Trade.
OH HEY, FOR BEST VIEWING, YOU'LL NEED TO TURN YOUR PHONE