As I grow older, I am realising that home is an essential concept for me. I care deeply about the people, things, and places I call home. The idea of belonging, really belonging somewhere, means more to me than I once realised. And this says more about who I am than the sum of the things I care about.
I am calling this Home | Part II because I have written about it before. I have a feeling this will not be the last time. Home evolves. It expands. Some of the ideas I wrote about then are still true. I still believe in them. But I now understand that home is more than people, place, things, or feelings.
In 2023, I wrote:
“Home means different things to different people. For some, it is a place, a feeling, or a person. Home is anything, and anywhere you want it to be.”
This is still true. But I now believe that sometimes, where you want home to be, you may not want you back. People may not want to be part of your home. Places may refuse to hold you.
Because in life, we do not get everything we want. Life challenges us in ways that are meant to shape us. It gives us discomfort, loss, and moments that force us to pause, to grow, and to become more appreciative of what we do have.
I came home this holiday. The anticipation this time was intense. Like many of us, I had some growing up to do. I was on the edge of losing my job. I had lost some things and drawn clearer boundaries, which often means losing people. I lost some, and I gained some. All this to say, I needed to come home.
This home is welcoming. Laughter comes easily here, even alongside tears. We have inside jokes that will never die. In this home, I express my fears without worrying about how they will be received. Here, I am allowed to feel everything. To process it all. And to be grateful.
“Mungu ni mwema.”
In this home, those words feel genuine because they are lived. God is good, not as an idea, but as something we have witnessed again and again.
I keep saying that home, for me, is anywhere there are mountains and forests. My home is exactly that. Landing at Songwe Airport feels therapeutic. Mountains and lush greenery welcome you. It feels like an arrival.
The drive from the airport to home takes about two hours. Two hours of mountains, farms, forests, endless green. It is my favourite stretch of road. Along the way, nostalgia settles in. Memories of previous visits, of what I left behind, and of what still lies ahead. This is the time of year I feel most grateful. It reminds me of how far I have come. How far we have come.
In this home, I drink more tea than coffee. In the house I have created for myself, I drink more coffee than tea. Will you believe me if I tell you we are coffee farmers? My mother is a coffee farmer, and by extension, so am I. That is why tea dominates here.
This is not accidental, nor is it unique. Many coffee farmers do not grow coffee to drink it. They grow it to earn a living. You will find coffee in abundance, but not necessarily in their cups.
It was different when I was growing up. We roasted coffee at home, and the aroma filled the house. We ground it at the maize mill. We drank coffee for its smell, for the ritual of it. Tea never stood a chance. I looked forward to those days.
This is a story for another time, but Tanzania’s coffee culture needs rethinking, especially for farmers. How they see coffee, and how they themselves are reduced to a commodity. These are people. They deserve to be treated as such.
Every time I come home, I am reminded of things I had forgotten I loved. In 2023, it was fresh milk. Fresh cow milk, without a drop of water added. Growing up, we had dairy cows. Milk tea in the mornings, fresh milk in the evenings, yoghurt on weekends. I stopped liking milk for a while because it never tasted like home.
This time, it was something else.
I now live in a small place I call home. I garden. I grow my own vegetables. My mother does this best. Her garden has everything one needs for a quick, healthy meal. You simply step outside and pick what you need.
She has always lived this way, even when she was still teaching. We always had gardens. Beyond that, she farms maize, groundnuts, beans, soya beans, sunflowers, and keeps plants too.
I may not do all that she does, but I will keep gardening. Balcony gardening counts. Growing vegetables in containers and filling my home with plants that allow me.
There is so much joy in growing things. Caring for them and watching them respond. Plants speak clearly. When they are well-loved, they show it. When they are not, they show that too. They are honest, without worrying about how that honesty might be received.
I wish humans were like that.
Honest with their feelings. Clear with their emotions. Offering them as they are, and allowing others the space to process them. Emotions, from ourselves and from others, are information. What we do with that information matters.
Human emotions are complicated. They rarely behave the way we want them to. Still, how we respond to them matters more than we often admit. But that is a conversation for another day.
Home will continue to change for me, depending on where I am. I will keep creating homes with people, places, and things.
But the house where I was born and raised will always remain constant. It carries safety. Belonging. Love. It is a place I can return to and begin again, right where I left off. That is my first home.
From that grounding, I am building a home of my own. One that is safe to return to. For family. For friends. For love. A home where no one has to shrink themselves to be accepted. A home where you are welcomed as you are, exactly as you are.
Always,
Jane 🙂