by Messan Foley
I stepped out of my own dear roots,
breaking the family chain of togetherness.
My dreams in a suitcase,
I flew to the unknown, with high optimism.
I faced the icy breeze for the first time,
the cold air that seemed not to care,
beating me harder than the natives
or those who had come before me.
In lands I had once compared to paradise,
in these cities full of fortunes,
I have broken my old dreams and built others,
gained new friends as well as enemies.
I still look back, poorer than before.
Divided between old and new traditions,
moving ahead against the wind of life,
now rich in that which I cannot buy for money.
I fight to keep alive unaffected parts of me,
badly missing our big family Baobab tree,
while each minute knocks home a past,
that exists only in my childhood memories