Pangea Drift (Random Post 2)
What Home Means to Me
1
Home is community, culture, and chaos.
2
Within the country is the tribe. Within the tribe is the city. Within the city is the village. Home flirts with blurred boundary lines.
3
When divergent plates move away from each other, it causes the rock to stretch because of the tension.
4
In my home, tension lives rent-free.
5
My parents never allowed me to settle in one place. They claimed that moving away would help grow a new crust. At the time, old seemed better than new. But I now know new crusts create space for a new village.
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The first tension I felt in America was a tension of culture. Trying to make this new crust my home, I realized each home has certain rules of assimilation.
7
My community, uprooted and forced into slavery, seemed to still abide by the hierarchy structure of domestic slaves and field hands. The hierarchy showed the tension between African-Americans and Africans. The fracture in the home was first inflicted and then embraced.
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The East African Rift is the geological splitting of the African plate that has been going on for millions of years. Before magma can rise to the surface, a breaking of the crust has to occur which can cause earthquakes and volcanoes.
9
Home was divided by cracks. Cracks filled with violence and war.
10
In 2007, I asked my mum if we could go to the election celebration. We lived in Nairobi, the capital city, so I figured it was accessible. The sudden look of horror gave me the answer I needed. “No, we are staying inside and watching the presidential election winner on the television.”
I didn’t understand politics. I just knew I wanted Raila to win. Most people in my tribe wanted Raila to win. He was “the people’s president.” However, during elections, he won the people but not the votes. The election was rigged.
As I watched the TV, I saw the violence begin.
The bombs.
The guns.
The fire.
I wasn’t allowed to go outside. Instead, I listened to whispered secrets from my sister about parents in panic while picking up their kids from school instead of letting them walk home alone. Everyone carried a panga (the Kenyan machete) for safety or violence. A celebration turned into a possible civil war.
I hid under the bed as the roads, homes, and people were set on fire. The capital city was in chaos. Fire erupted not from the ground but from the people.
11
I constantly wondered what would happen after the split.
The split of it.
The split of them.
The split of me.
12
Arlington, Texas was no stranger to separation. But this separation was not one I had seen before. Each direction of a compass was segregated by income. The North was the rich while the East was the poor, the crime, the minorities.
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It was the place where students protested for their rights by walking out of schools. The place where students worked full-time jobs to help support their families. The place where deportation would split families and leave children stranded. A place where chaos was silenced into passive-aggressive eruptions.
14
East Arlington was a dysfunctional home, filled with mourning and dancing. It loved so hard that it bled hot, red magma.
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Home taught me blood may be thicker than water, but a village is stronger than family.
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I was always interested in the chameleon on the nearby tree. I was warned not to go under the tree because the chameleons were known to fall on people. Whether this village tale was true, I never knew. But to me, the chameleon's ability to change colors showed me that you can find a place of belonging within yourself no matter your surroundings.
17
Break…Adapt…Expand…Adapt…Erupt…Adapt.
Lesley, this was powerful and profound. And seems to be just scratching the surface of some deeper truths and rifts and faults. Thank you for sharing it. -- Professor Hansen
ReplyDeleteP.S. I liked the detail about the chameleons falling from the tree. It reminded me of your first post, when you wrote about a loquat tree. The loquats on my backyard tree are just starting to ripen.