North south or west Home is sweet home

You never really belong when you leave your home, do you? It doesn't matter if you are wealthy or famous or you have your picture on billboards. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are or how many years you have spent pursuing education successfully. When you leave your home you are a nobody. A feather duster. It's even worse if you are black, and you leave the continent. Your colour always remains the monkey on your back. 

You step out and you are likely to be reduced to your colour. Even a fruits vendor asks you if you can speak English! English for crying out loud. All my nightmares are in English!!

And so you never quite realise how beautiful home is, how familiar it is, how warm and welcoming your own country is until you walk through the arrival and see this sign. Kenyan Citizens Only.

It says you have been recognized and you have been prioritized. It says you BELONG.  It asks you to queue here because you are one of us and we want to treat you as one of us. Nothing beats that feeling. You can travel the world, pick foreign cultures, languages, and mannerism but you will never belong completely until you stand before this queue and feel that finally you have reached your true north.

And you really know that you belong when you step out of the International Arrival and a cab tells you, "Taxi, blo?"

#bangkokDiaries #bikozulu #HomeIsBest