Setting Sail for ‘Home’ Inheriting My Parents’ Longings for Freetown
Half a century ago, I inherited my parents’ longings for Freetown, Sierra Leone. Unknown to me then, a two-week voyage home would became a lifelong journey. Read more.
The Black Atlantic
A Quarter Nigerian, but Fully Plantain The Roots of My Plantain Obsession
When my son’s teachers asked parents to present important family traditions, I knew that ours should be about plantain. Read more.
Home, Or Not? Love, Like Jollof Rice, Is Better Homemade
I was in love with a man who felt like home. But what do you do when home no longer feels like it? Where do you run to? Where do you go? Read more.
Being My Own Anchor How Loss Renewed My Relationship With Home
After my dad’s death, home had seemed like a place I would drift further away from. But the loss renewed my relationship with home. Read more
Healing from Ghana Overcoming the Traumatic Years
I do not like asking for help because I’m afraid of getting the wrong kind. I do not like deceit because it reminds me of Ghana. Read more.
Returning to Myself When Beauty Becomes a Guide
There’s a perception that people use makeup to hide, but for me, it marked a return to my face. Read more.
Looking for God To Find God, I Had to Leave Religion Behind
I grew up wanting to get closer to God. But to find God I had to leave religion behind. Read more.
On Being Black and Other Lies Unravelling My Blackness in Post-Apartheid South Africa
I had always been anxious about returning to South Africa. Besides awkward puberty, an awakening awaited me in South Africa, sparked by a dizzying confrontation with the reality of race. Read more.
Upon Mount Zion, There Shall Be Deliverance The Church and My Political Awakening
The church was where I had my political awakening. For nearly five years, weekly sermons, prayer sessions and testimonies, gave me an education, about being African in the UK, that I couldn’t get in school. Read more.
Love and War The War That Stood Between My Ex and Me
Our ‘us’ dissolved into thin air because the trauma of war that haunted our fathers shaped our view of love and without a conscious awareness of it, led us to make impossible demands of each other. Read more.