Ghana, America, England, Italy, Ethiopia, Uganda—I could not lay claim to any of those places in an incontestable way. It has always been difficult for me to say the word home with any conviction. When I was a child, I often felt like an outsider among my own family. Between me and them were borders—geographic, spiritual, cultural, linguistic. And no sooner had we arrived in a place than we had to prepare to leave it.

And as for what my father said about Africa, as much as I wanted to belong to Africa or to any place for that matter, I knew that I didn’t. Not really. Not completely. In countless ways and for countless reasons, I loved growing up in many countries, among many cultures. It made it impossible for me to believe in the concept of supremacy. It deepened my ability to hold multiple truths at once, to practice and nurture empathy. But it has also meant that I have no resting place. I have perpetually been a them rather than an us. I have struggled with how to place myself in my family histories.

The House at 6001 - Lebo Diseko

“Frankly, I was overwhelmed. I recorded a voice note to myself to help process and store an unedited version of my feelings. Months later I listened back to it and heard my voice break as I said, ‘They were just babies.

I asked her to expand, explaining that I was trying to understand what led us to having to leave. ‘I can’t go into those things, Kealeboga, because they belong in the domain of the African National Congress!’ she snapped. And so we continued, me trying to open the door, her letting me a tiny way in and then closing it. We ended the conversation saying ‘I love you’, but our nerves were frayed.

But from where I stood, it didn’t seem that my dad really enjoyed having me around. Like most children, I assumed the behaviour of the adults in my life was motivated by how they felt about me, rather than their own despair or distress. I know now that the pain of the breakdown of the family he had made sat on top of the wound of being torn from the family of his birth. And to that the brutal aloneness of exile, and it all felt unbearable.