The Motherland
The last time I visited the motherland, the sun was the first to welcome me home. The abundance of high cheekbones felt like an invitation to answer the call for belonging and abandon performance at the door.
The motherland is the sound of yam being pounded in your grandmother’s backyard as your family reminisces on their collective remembrance of yesterday. It’s the sharing of childhood pictures and memories.
The last time I visited the motherland, my tastebuds danced to tender goat spiced with love and hope. They twirled to the promise of homemade plantain chips on a long-trafficked road.
The motherland is a story of resilience. It is the strength of the ancestors that lives within the land. The motherland is resistance in the face of extraction. It is the power of creating your own language out of colonial imposition.
The motherland is inheritance. It’s the village that raises the child. It is the long-awaited blessing of the Oba. It is a memory of advanced Empires and bronze statues anointed with crowns to commemorate the king.
The motherland is an invitation to be free. The motherland is a reminder of what is to come. The motherland is tonal languages and a tongue that refuses to be defined.
The motherland is a daily appointment with the spiritual. Its devotion. It’s knowing that today is yesterday and yesterday is tomorrow.
The motherland is collective confidence, unbreakable spirit, reawakened souls.
The motherland is art. It’s detailed traditions coated in honour. It’s gifted hands sewing together bright prints. The motherland is ceremony. Weddings anointed with sugar and honey with brides dressed in red and decorated with orange coral beads.
The motherland rejects the imposition of borders and rigid definitions.
The motherland is the beginning and the end, and she calls you home. So today, answer her call.