Dear Ina,
Remember our favourite poet? Warsan Shire? She once said, “Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself – what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.” Although I do not think I have entirely found myself yet, I see this letter to my old self as proof and reminder that a new journey has begun. A journey towards discovering who I truly am, and what it means for me.
It started in the autumn of 2018, when I bumped into Axel, my high school deskmate, in Portland, Maine at the famous 207 bar. It was my first time there. Weeks before, after a stupid truth or dare game, I was dared to spend two hours at an exclusively Burundian bar. They knew I never spoke highly of my fellow Burundians. The diaspora community is just draining. They party every day and they don’t aspire to anything in particular. My parents had always warned me that abroad, people generally succeed when they stay away from their communities. Anyway, here I was at the bar because of a stupid game. Well, except that it wasn’t that bad, actually. The music was extraordinary – I really didn’t know Burundians sang good songs.