Translator: Brian Vuksanovich Reviewer: Huanna Tang
Where is home?
Where do you belong?
All my life I've been confronted with these questions,
Where do I belong?
For many of us, belonging means,
belonging to a family.
Well, I was born in Liberia, and I grew up in a family
that consisted of more than a hundred people.
It was a vibrant family.
My uncles and aunts functioned as my parents besides my real parents.
I had family members from neighboring countries
from Guinea and Sierra Leone.
I felt loved and appreciated.
But many a time I had this vague sense of belonging.
For some of us belonging means belonging to a place.
I've lived in many countries in the world,
I've lived in Kuwait, in Syria and in the Netherlands.
In Kuwait I encountered a culture
that was very different from mine in many ways.
And I thought, if I mastered the Arabic language,
if I integrated into the Kuwaiti society,
I thought I could belong.
I learned Arabic.
I integrated into the Kuwaiti society,
so much so, that at one point I dressed like a Kuwaiti.
I had this white gown on.
And I moved to Syria, because of war.
In Syria, I felt that if I read the Syrian history,
if I visited all the castles built by the crusaders and the Muslims,
during a pivotal period in human history, I thought I could belong.
It was the same in the Netherlands,
When I came to the Netherlands I learned Dutch,
and I built on my passion for literature,
in fact it was in the Netherlands that I felt that I could read
any book that I wanted.
But many a times, I felt that I did not belong
to all these new places.
And when I had this feeling, when I had this sense of not belonging
to all these places, memory gave me security.
As I reflected more and more on an idealized past picture of the past.
In fact, the pursuit of these idealized pictures of the past
led me to becoming a writer.
But as I grew up, and returned to these places,
that I'd remembered, I felt less and less connected.
I felt less and less a sense of even belonging to my past.
Being part of a group of people, a culture or living in a phisical place
isn't what creates a sense of home.
Belonging for me is a choice, a choice of you and me.
My sense of belonging is not complete without a feeling, without the conviction,
that you belong to me.
When you look around you, can you say truly
that you've contributed to others feeling at home?
To others feeling, a sense of belonging?
Where is home?
Thank you.
(Applause)