Wasted Days in Foreign Places

An analysis of home

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

The first words I often find myself uttering to people are, “Can we please speak in English? I don’t understand that language”. Regardless of where I go, regardless of who I am around it seems like I am always surrounded by a cacophony of people willing and eager to change me. To make me not just adapt to their culture, but assimilate completely, leaving no traces of my former self behind.

The thing is: I’m an immigrant. Since I was born I’ve lived in 7 different cities and towns across 3 different countries in Southern Africa. And it has been both pleasure and pain. It has been something that both broadens your mind and lessens its vastness.

In one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a foreigner, a 10-year-old me saw someone being burnt alive on the news because they weren’t from here and so, supposedly, a job stealer. I’ve watched protests filled with masses of people urging immigrants to “go back where they came from”.

I have been called and witnessed family members being called xenophobic slurs.

I have had both friends and family refused help from the police because of where they were from or where they weren’t from.

And so, it’s hard to regard this place as home but at the same time, it’s hard to regard any place as home. You could say I was ripped out by roots when I was a baby, from what should have been my home and planted in places where it was impossible to grow — the soil was too foreign, too harsh. And so, no matter how long I stayed in a place it was impossible to blossom there. It was obvious to them that I was different, I spoke with a funny accent and looked different to the way they did. They didn’t want me there but what they didn’t realise is I didn’t want to be there either. I wanted to be somewhere where I felt like I belonged. But where was that place?

It took years and years of searching to realise that I had a home. It just could be found in the bossom of things and people rather than an actual place.

For me, home can be found in the smile of my mother.

In the muddy paws of my dog.

In the laugh of my father.

In the squeaky couch, we’ve had since we were five years old but refuse to get rid of for some reason. This is all home to me.

Home can be found anywhere. And when you do find it, that magic place where your roots can spread and your flowers can blossom, that magic place where you belong — you do your best to never let it go.

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Wasted Days in Foreign Places was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.