My Story Told // Diane&Nadia

 Diane and Nadia are not ordinary sisters. They are identical twins. Just in case you were starting to wonder, yes, they do fight and argue like normal siblings (I mean who doesn’t fight with their siblings). However, these two share something that not all the twins usually do (keep reading)

Diane and Nadia were the first friends I made when I got in Canada. Being the only French speaker and East Africans in our program (back then), didn’t help but making us closer.Yaay!! Seeing them every day and getting to know them made me wanna be a twin for at least a day. I asked them if they would like to share some of their stories on the blog and they were ecstatic about the idea.

Here’s a transcript of our interview:

Three words to describe your twin sister and why?
Nadia: There are so many words I could use to describe Diane, but if I have to pick only three, I will use animals to describe her. First, a cat because she is very sensitive and fragile (Diane totally disagrees and claims to be strong, LOL). Second, she is like a dog because she is ready to fight for me. I remember when we were little, and someone would come to fight with me, and Diane would jump in from nowhere and start looking for the person who dared to frighten me. She is always there for me. Diane is also like a dove because she is such a peaceful person. She doesn’t hold grudges.

Diane: Generosity. Nadia always thinks of others before herself. She is very caring. Anytime I feel sad; she will feel bad too. She is very courageous too, excessively brave. She never gives up on something she wants to achieve.

Two ways in which you think you are different from each other.
Nadia: I am not patient at all. (Laughs) Diane is way too patient and sometimes it even pisses me off, and I feel like shaking her. The second thing that I think we differ from each other is tolerance. Diane can tolerate any BS and I just can’t.

Diane: Can I add something to the first question? (Humm… no Diane, there is no way back to what you said).Okay, but I agree 100% with what Nadia just said.

One funny story of how you got in trouble because you were twins
N: Back home, there is this one guy who approached me and thought I was Diane. Because I didn’t know him, I looked at him in a certain way, and he got angry and thought I was playing games and pretending not to know him. He started yelling at me and got so angry. (Laughs) 

D: No, I got a funnier story. Back in high school, Nadia was a more disturbing student, and I was very calm. It was in a history class, and the teacher called me for making noise when it was my twin and not me. Teachers would always get so confused, and would just choose to punish both of us. I swear, even our dad always gets confused.

N: I remember one day, we had visitors at home, and he kept calling Diane, and it was me instead. He got so angry because he thought I was ignoring him and when the visitors left, he said: “From now on, if we have visitors, and I call you, I don’t care if it is you or your twin I am calling, you just have to come.” But now, he can easily differentiate us because we no longer look alike.

How do you take advantage of the fact that you are twins:
Both: Now it is a little harder because we’ve changed. We don’t look alike that much. But back then, we used to pretend to be the other twin in front of someone we don’t want to speak to (Laughs).
N:For example, someone would come and talk to me, and I would pretend to be Diane and say that Nadia is not in school that day to avoid a conversation.

One thing that your twin has that you wish you had too.
N: Diane’s hair and patient. I really wish I had her hair!

D: I would like to have Nadia’s generosity. That does not mean I am not generous, though. It is just not to the extent that Nadia is.

Why do you call each other Tom and Jerry?
Both: See? The only way you can understand the story correctly is if you tell it in Swahili. That’s how bana Goma are like; we talk in Swahili morning and night. (Laughs)

N: I think we are a fake version of Tom and Jerry because we don’t hate each other like they do. Mind you; we never liked the cartoon when we were kids. It all started with the game: Talking Tom. Diane was so addicted to it, and she would do nothing but playing and ‘cleaning’ Tom. And that’s how I started to call her Tom.

D: Then one day, I told her that if I am Tom, she is, therefore, Jerry.

Tell me the story of how you discovered you were identical twins
D: It was in 2011. We were doing our fingerprints for our Canadian Visa, and the officer told us that we have the same fingerprints. We thought she was drunk, and we were making fun of her. Faster forward in 2012, we were already in Canada, and we were applying for the US visa. For some reasons, my application got denied. After a while, Nadia went to apply for her US visa and hers got approved. When she went to do her fingerprints at the border, the officer put her in a separate room and told her: “Do you know that you don’t have the right to go and renew your visa?”

N: And I was surprised and lost at the same time. The officer got so mad and thought I was playing him and that I was trying to enter the US illegally. The lady that I was with then explained to him that I have a twin. After several minutes, he checked my passport and Diane’s file on his computer and he saw that we have the same date of birth and then he told me that it is super rare to have two people with the same fingerprints.He smiled and let me go!

I’ve got to say, this was by far the funniest but yet hard interview I’ve ever done. These two didn’t stop to laugh and interrupt each other for the entire time. The bond between them is (sur)real. And do I need to mention the number of times they talked to me in Swahili? No girls, I do not speak Swahili!

‘Til next time

Love and love

-Dee-

---

Thank you beautiful twins for allowing me to share your story!

Diane is also a YouTuber. So please be kind and check her channel here !